Khan

I'd forgotten about Ted Danson's work on "Damages." Of course, that's likely because I haven't seen much of the show (just an episode here or there). But I do think it was a fantastic opportunity for Close to reunite and work again with several of her former, on-screen co-stars, including Danson and (IIRC) William Hurt. Yeah, I'm still mad that "Mary and Rhoda" never made it to series, because I think the concept had "juice." I even had plotted out a spec script where Mary begins dating one of Rhoda's exes (specifically, restaurateur Mike Andretti, hopefully played again by Judd Hirsch) in the hopes that the series would get picked up. But as soon as I'd heard that Jeff Lowell and Tom Fontana (!) had written the script, I had a very bad feeling, lol. Not quite. Remember "New York News," the one-hour series that was so bad, MTM tried to get out of her contract before CBS decided to cancel the show anyway? After that, though, she was done with series television.

Love this, too!

LOVE. THIS.

I still can't believe how Samantha fooled everyone into thinking she was Marlena when she neither sounded like her nor looked much like her either.

I agree. He had several near-hit series - the original "S.W.A.T.," "Vega$," "Spenser: for Hire" - that diehard fans still recall fondly, yet never had real staying power. That's why I feel like he would've been much more successful on a daytime soap (working opposite Susan Lucci on AMC immediately comes to mind, lol).

The character of Marshal Dillon cast one of the biggest shadows on TV. There was no way Jim Arness was going to get out from under him after playing him for two decades. Andy Griffith really lucked out with "Matlock" after several, post-"Andy Griffith Show" misses, but it could be argued that Ben Matlock was really just an older, crankier version of Sheriff Andy Taylor. (Same went for Dick Van Dyke, who played Dr. Mark Sloan on "Diagnosis: Murder" more-or-less as Rob Petrie with a medical license). Similarly, you might argue that Carroll O'Connor's two characters, Archie Bunker and Chief Bill Gillespie, were two sides of the same coin, with the only difference being that "In the Heat of the Night" soft-pedaled Gillespie's bigotry in the early seasons until his interracial relationship with Harriet DeLong eliminated that entirely.

Ironically, just about every other cast member from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" managed to land on at least one other hit series EXCEPT Mary herself. There was Valerie Harper, of course, with "Rhoda." ("Valerie" would've been a hit, too, had she and her husband not fallen out with Team Miller/Boyett). And there was Betty White with "The Golden Girls" and "Hot in Cleveland." (I don't count "Mama's Family," since NBC cancelled it after two seasons and she never became a regular on the syndicated version. And speaking of GG and "Mama," isn't it ironic that Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan's two defining roles on TV were on the same two series? I'm talking, of course, about "Maude" and GG. Anyways.) But there also was Ed Asner ("Lou Grant"), Cloris Leachman ("The Facts of Life" - to a certain extent), Georgia Engel (recurring gigs on "Coach," "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Cleveland"), Gavin McLeod ("The Love Boat"), Ted Knight ("Too Close for Comfort") and even John Amos ("Good Times"). Mary, however, was just too strongly identified with Mary Richards and Laura Petrie to really break out on another show. (Totally off-subject, but why no one ever thought to reunite Mary and other "Dick Van Dyke Show" cast members on an episode of DVD's later series, "Diagnosis: Murder," is beyond me). Conversely, it seems like Bob Newhart was the only cast member from "The Bob Newhart Show" to land another, long-running gig (on "Newhart"). Well, Marcia Wallace, too, if you count her work on "The Simpsons," lol. Two other actors who kept plugging away until they landed another hit series: Tom Selleck ("Blue Bloods," which finally went off the air - and risked giving every 80-year-old who watched the show a coronary in the process) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (first, "The New Adventures of Old Christine;" then, "Veep"), who might not have broken the so-called "Seinfeld curse," but who's definitely been the most successful since that show ended. Finally, out of all the actors who appeared regularly on "Cheers" throughout its' 11-year run, it seems like Ted Danson has been the only one to land other, successful TV gigs that didn't involve reviving his "Cheers" character (the total opposite of Kelsey Grammer, who struggled even with the recent "Frasier" revival). Which is a miracle, because his first post-"Cheers" show, "Ink," did not look promising at all, lol. But he eventually landed "Becker," followed by his run on "C.S.I.," then "The Good Place," and now, "A Man on the Inside."

Unfortunately, I think that's what happened, lol. Say what you will about Douglas Marland, but his ATWT was never as off-the-rails as all that. Heck, even the lowest points of Mary-Ellis Bunim's run as EP were more watchable than most or all of Chris Goutman's regime.

I'll say this much: as insane as that material must have been to play, on the other hand, at least they committed to playing it 110%, lol.

Yes, please! Have her and Drew conspire to start up a new cult (or revive Dawn of Day, or whatever the frak it was called) as a money making/money laundering scheme!

Wow! Thank you, @P.J. , for filling in the blanks for me. Like I said, it's been years since that hot mess aired; and even when it WAS airing, I wasn't paying close enough attention, because I thought (and still think) the whole story was entirely too convoluted.

Translation: They've got some dirt on ol' Marj, so she's cut-and-running rather than risk her dirty laundry being aired out in public.

Oh, well. There's always B&B, lol.

To this day, the reveal feels very anticlimactic to me. Here, we have a whodunnit that literally had the entire nation - if not the entire globe - in its' grip, and she's the one who turns out to be the culprit?

Well, it's been a long time since the entire story unfolded, and I still can't recall or make sense of all the twists and turns...sigh...but I'll try, lol. Basically, Rosanna, who is married to Craig at this point, wants a baby. Craig, however, doesn't want a baby - I guess, because he had just lost Bryant? - but to appease his wife, he arranges for an adoption. Rosanna learns that the adoption (of their son, whom she names "Cabot") was illegal and that she has to give Cabot back to his biological mother, who lives, offscreen, in Canada. Rosanna dumps Craig and leaves Oakdale (and somewhere, in the middle of all this, Rosanna falls in love with Paul Ryan, too). In the meantime, Rosanna gets back in touch with Cabot's bio mom, who tells her that she could have Cabot back, but only if she convinces Jordan Sinclair to marry her. (Don't ask me why, lol). So, Rosanna does just that: she cons Jordan into marrying her. It's only AFTER they marry, however, that Jordan learns he is Cabot's biological father. (I think this is also when Jordan learns he, himself, is James Stenbeck's illegitimate son, but I'm not sure). Rosanna panics when she learns that James is Cabot's paternal grandfather and abducts the baby. James, in turn, abducts Cabot and Rosanna and leaves them to die in a burning building. Someone - Jordan? Paul? - rescues Rosanna, but the baby is presumed dead. Jordan annulls his and Rosanna's marriage and leaves town. Barbara, who had crossed over to the dark side with James, plots with him to implicate Emily in some bizarre scheme to drive Rosanna crazy with the suggestion that her baby was still alive (which he was, James had rescued Cabot from that fire). Rosanna agrees to dump Paul in exchange for getting Cabot back. Rosanna leaves Oakdale again. Some time later, though, Craig finds Rosanna (and Cabot) someplace out of the country. Rosanna is devoted to her son, but realizes that she has to give up baby Cabot for adoption again, or else he'll always be in danger of being taken by James Stenbeck... ...which, I think, led us straight into the Jennifer/Gwen baby switch, but whatever. I mean, all that drama over a child that ended up being given away anyway, and a baby drama that led us only to yet another baby drama. No wonder I ended up on antidepressants, lol.

That's always been my theory as well. However, I've always believed that any Alan recast (after Christopher Bernau) needed to be British and/or classically trained. Someone like Jeremy Brett, for example, or Edward Woodward (even though Woodward would've been too old and Brett passed away in '95). He didn't have to have dark features, but he needed an ability to project a quieter sort of menace than Raines was CLEARLY incapable of. And even if GL had to go the musical theatre actor route, for whatever reason, they still could've done a lot better than Raines, lol

Frankly, cottage cheese would trigger Laura.

Yep, Donald Trump in workout gear, lol.

When it comes to Ron Raines, I could look past the cartoonish bombast and utter inability to generate heat with any of his female co-stars, but you know what I couldn't look past? His stout-ness. Call me shallow, but he was entirely too fat to play Alan Spaulding.

True. But, you know, even if I were to look past the "baby fever" angle, the whole story just...lays there for some reason. There's no real suspense to grab you; no urgency or desperation (although, the actors are doing their very best); no real stakes. In a way, it's like the precursor to the unfortunate "baby Cabot saga" that seemed to eat the show alive during the Sheffer and/or Passanante era.

There's always Sweeps Week! ;)

Of course, the far-left didn't care too much about those red flags. They just wanted to "own the Libs" like everyone else. (Progressivists. You gotta love 'em.)

From said memoir: Unfettered is [...] 213 pages of what the country already knows about Fetterman: that he’s driven by interpersonal grievances, insecurities, and immaturity. IOW, John Fetterman is Donald Trump in track shorts. And speaking of his choice of attire: I realize that what one chooses to wear in the halls of government has absolutely nothing to do with how one actually governs, but refusing to wear a simple suit and tie to your job as a United States Senator doesn't make you an iconoclast or maverick. It just makes you look like a giant d*ck.

Amen.

And to think the original plan was for David and Lesley to have an affair. Not only would that have made no sense - Lesley wasn't THAT stupid, lol - but it also would've ruined her and GH.