Khan

"Webster" in the Top 20!?!?! Jesus. We were doing entirely too much cocaine back then.

She's Marlena's alter ego, a trashy broad who works at a roadside diner in Fort Worth, TX.

You know that much is true when even a blizzard - a catastrophic event that Gloria Monty could've produced in her sleep - generates little to no suspense for the audience, lol. It's like what Shelley Curtis said on Maurice Benard's podcast about needing to find the emotional spine of a screen even under tight circumstances. Under Valentini, scenes don't have emotional spines. They start and then they stop. Nothing is illuminated. Nothing is shared with the audience other than plot - and as slowly as most plots have moved under his watch, that ain't saying much. Say what you will about Monty or JFP, but at least those two know how to edit scenes in such a way that it fools you into thinking the scenes have a spine or an arc when they otherwise don't. Does Valentini even EDIT his shows, or does he just compile them digitally and then email 'em to whoever needs 'em?

Exactly. I disagreed wholeheartedly with their point of view, but at least their GH looked and felt more "alive." It's as if Valentini and his team just point-and-shoot scenes without any regard for emotional arcs. (In fact, what I love overall about BTG, despite some minor reservations on my part, is the fact that someone there apparently gives a damn about putting on the best show possible everyday).

IA. It took Frank Valentini for me to (kinda) appreciate Bob Guza's work on this show. It was dark and ugly and nihilistic af, but it wasn't bland!

I think it was more than the fact that FOX spared MP from cancellation, though. Locklear's addition to the cast gave MP a creative shot in the arm. The stories had some energy for once; and if nothing else, her presence forced the rest of the cast - who had been very bland up to that point - to up their collective acting game. And I say all that as someone who never really enjoyed MP, lol.

IIRC, Carroll O'Connor was furious for two reasons: 1) CBS moved production of "Gloria" from CBS Television City to Universal Studios (which, to me, was a mistake, as it seems most of the Lear/Embassy shows suffered once they relocated to Universal with their cheap-ass lighting and canned-sounding laugh tracks); and 2) he, along with the rest of the "Archie Bunker's Place" staff, including Norman Lear, was shut out, in favor of Dan Guntzelman and Steve Marshall, who had worked previously on "WKRP in Cincinnati." All that, plus CBS' decision to cancel ABP without giving them an opportunity to tape a proper series finale, had O'Connor vowing never to work again for CBS (although, he would, years later, when CBS picked up "In the Heat of the Night"). In a way, Linda Lavin was right: "Alice" was aging and probably lasted a season or two longer than it should, but all those scheduling changes did weaken the show, too.

I wonder if both storylines were inspired by the real-life Heidi Fleiss scandal, lol. In any case, I feel like Cowen/Lipman told that story just because they wanted to, and not because they thought it was right for Reed (either incarnation).

ICAM. I, for one, am not in the business of saving folks from themselves. Not anymore.

I'm with @DRW50 : those rankings look pretty good to me, too. I think 1982's finale has to be very high on the list, because of its' importance to the show overall. The implosion of Gary and Val's remarriage is the first sign that KL is shifting gears from average family show or "straight" drama/soap hybrid to full-on soap opera. The transformation isn't complete yet - that won't happen 'til Ciji's body washes up on the beach - but we're getting there.

I will never understand how or why Cowen/Lipman believed they could get away with such a blatant change to one of their characters. It would've been more believable to say Reed returned to Winnetka with Halsey after she discovered Kirby was having an affair. Oops! Thanks, @janea4old , for the link!

True, lol. Ironically, I think "Three's Company" actually improved once Suzanne Somers (and Jenilee Harrison) left, even though, by all accounts, Priscilla Barnes was handed a very raw deal on that show. Of course, I'm also the only viewer on the planet - and certainly, the only African-American viewer - who thought "Good Times" actually got better once John Amos was fired, so I'm probably not the best judge here, lol.

David E. Kelley's departure (to his own series, "Picket Fences," on CBS) was a real blow. His successor, Patricia Green, had done incredible work on "Cagney & Lacey," but she - and later, John Masius & John Tinker ("St. Elsewhere") - couldn't fill Kelley's shoes.

This morning, I heard on NPR that Latino and Hispanic voters in TX feel they were played by the Trump administration and that the administration's tactics regarding the rounding up and detaining of "illegal immigrants with criminal records" was not at all what the voter base was promised. Me:

IA! I'm particularly surprised to see CBS' Sunday night lineup still landing among the Top 20, even though "Alice," "Archie Bunker's Place," "The Jeffersons" and "One Day at a Time" all were showing signs of age. (ODAAT, in particular, had changed so much by 1982, I'm not sure even the producers knew what the show was about anymore, lol). Of course, it wouldn't last, but the fact that none of the half-hours had fallen out of the Top 20 yet says a lot about how attached viewers can become to certain shows and actors/characters.

Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman were like Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick in that they wanted "Sisters" to be unpredictable, so that the average viewer wouldn't know what to expect from week to week. First of all, that isn't exactly how (primetime) television shows work. Most shows, no matter how well-written, are designed to be at least somewhat predictable for any number of reasons (episodes have to hold up to multiple viewings, they need to be produced as efficiently as possible in order to keep down costs, viewers' innate need for comfort and familiarity, you name it). Second, unless you're Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, and you maintain a very firm grip on all aspects of your shows, including the characters and storylines, your show will become too uneven for even hardcore viewers to keep up with.

Someday, someone's gonna make a horror film about a demented stamp collector...and when they do, I'll be among the first to see it.

Not only was it sickening, it also was irresponsible. I realize False Memory Syndrome is real (and really unfortunate) in the field of psychiatry, but that storyline made psychiatrists look, at best, like charlatans; and at worst, like sexual predators. Then, to make matters worse, once Dr. Caspian discards Georgie, she comes dangerously close to becoming Winnetka's answer to Jill Bennett, stalking the man and even pounding on the window outside of a restaurant as she begs him to take her back! Cowen/Lipman: "But we're not a soap!" Khan: "No, you're not a soap. You're a BAD soap." By the time Charley decides to run a sting operation in order to expose Caspian - right on the heels of Teddy and Lucky running their own sting to trap Falconer's killer - I was just ready for it all to be over.

nm

"Get me out of here!" Are you begging to be released from Faison's clutches, Anna, or are you begging to be released from this stupid story?

They all went upstairs to polish their skis.

Yeah, I miss the '80's, too. ;)

Thank God! Amanda Setton loosens up her wardrobe...as Steve Burton clamps down once again on love scenes. Supreme being giveth, and supreme being taketh away.

And that, I put on Ben's biological father, Kyle Sampson. Even though he didn't raise Ben, it was definitely in Ben's genes, lol.

OMG, I can't believe this girl outlasted Kelly Clarkson and Sherri Shepherd: