Faulkner

@DRW50 @Vee Interesting stuff. Most people who responded don’t believe she’ll have her nomination suspended and certainly don’t support a suspension (in contrast to Variety’s clickbait header). One person suggests a black actress like Viola Davis wouldn’t have gotten away with such tactics.

Soaps overrate familial connections as plot points yet underrate it as a way of deepening character. I get in theory why a family connection would make the story more compelling, e.g. “They hate each other! Now let’s see them try to survive the family Thanksgiving dinner!” But they’ve lost the fact that it’s that character exploration that allows those insta-connections to actually land with the audience. Due to budgets/guarantees, etc., we barely have any family gatherings anymore.

That’s the thing too: IMO, one of the things that makes a successful family is a significant presence on the canvas as a unit. Some of these writers can’t think past their short-term story needs, grafting these randoms on to some family in order to gain audience acceptance, but not really thinking past that. These characters sometimes don’t even meet their siblings and other relatives, as those links don’t matter to the one-dimensional stories the writers want to tell. Family links have become devices for writers to play with in their stories, as opposed to real foundational connections that allows them to explore their characters and their psychology. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons why networks don’t want these characters to be too specific. They can’t suddenly do a “Surprise: Jeremy Stark is Sally Spectra’s dad” story on Y&R if we know too much about Sally. Then you have all of these weird retconned switched-at-birth stories that impact long-running characters. (Like Jill became a Fenmore on Y&R for what purpose even?)

Felix from Germany 🇩🇪

Most of the Hernandezes were failed characters IMO, which is mostly why I included them. They’re down to two siblings who could easily disappear without leaving much of a void, even though Gabi has a daughter who is a Horton. I guess when I think of a family that’s successful like the Quartermaines or the Buchanans, I think of families who managed to get into the DNA of the show and change it. I feel like characters like Tricia and Gabi are successful individually. Their families? Meh.

Thai from Los Angeles 🇺🇸

Black Zeus in Dallas 🇺🇸 @Gray Bunny

@Gray Bunny @Taoboi

I was just listening to Marquee Moon randomly the other day. What an incredible song and artist. R.I.P. A really beautiful tribute from the Sleater-Kinney account:

Lol didn’t they kinda do that when GT’s Phyllis dyed her hair blonde?

It’s funny that in the mid-90s everyone wanted to be bigger, younger, and more exciting, yet ATWT went from that epic theme of the Marland era down to this modest, plodding piano theme that screamed “old people’s show.”

Now that Audra actress knew she shouldn’t have been in that photo. 😂 Looks like Zuleyka Silver isn’t on Twitter, but it’s funny CLB didn’t even acknowledge her presence.

Well and also Ana was nominated in a few precursors, which makes her Oscar nod feel a bit more predestined. At least the objections to her are focused more on the merits of her performance. These awards have become so predictable that people do feel somewhat entitled to “slots,” as Frances Fisher’s message referenced. But this writer is right that the Academy could have easily gone for another Olivia Colman performance in Andrea’s place. The Academy does have a history of ignoring great work from black actresses, but the scapegoating from people who should know better (as well as a handful of grifters who like to pick at our country’s open wounds re: race by focusing on trivia like this) does no one any good. It sad that Andrea’s work would be tainted in this way. There’s of course this from Variety’s piece: Follow the money.

It really did sound like music you’d hear walking into a funeral. The ‘80s sci-fi theme was my jam. These shows really did sacrifice their identities with all these different themes (although ATWT kept the spinning globe as the focus, at least until the cheap-looking golden version in the 2000s). But they were desperately trying to avoid fixing the real problems with these superficial patch-ups.

BFTD stories have damaged soaps (particularly DAYS) for reasons we’ve discussed (like making death feel less significant, since you know it can be reversed on a whim), but I give them a pass when they’re used to undo a past regime’s mistakes. Like I’d totally have forgiven Y&R if they brought Hillary back from the dead (I know Mishael didn’t feel like playing her again). I didn’t love Dixie’s return on AMC, but I was glad the “death by poisoned peanut butter pancakes” debacle was undone. Same with Will on DAYS, even though his return ended up being lame.

Thirsty tangent: Ted Marcoux was so hot in those little shorts.

@AbcNbc247

I do think, in its weird way, that arrested development is one of the few ways these soaps reflect social trends. Aside from Maura West (whose acting style is sort of a throwback anyway), there aren’t really any performers on soaps in that 40s/50s age range with the kind of gravitas that Beverlee McKinsey and Liz Hubbard and the Y&R actresses you mentioned had when they were the same age. However, Y&R has essentially snuffed out any opportunities for a new generation, but I guess that’s a feature, not a bug. They’ve clearly given up on any succession plan and are content to be comfort food for their core demographic, riding out to the sunset with the few familiar faces they have and keeping their characters stagnant. At least we’re not seeing any new love interests for Victor anymore.

Successful GH: Quartermaines, Cassadines Unsuccessful DAYS: Hernandez family(even though Rafe/Gabi survived) OLTL: Rappaports Y&R: Dennisons

Gregg Avedon at 57 🇺🇸

Well, I’m happy for Sabalenka. Always great to see a player who struggled to close big matches finally come through at the highest level.