Faulkner

It’s a really fun show. Sweep-the-Emmys-level good? Eh. But it’s super charming, and I love David’s sweaters. I wasn’t familiar with Annie Murphy before this, but she’s a very pleasant surprise.

I’m finding DAYS (alongside the usual suspects, Y&R and B&B) hard to get through these days. The summer doldrums have arrived.

If these folks don’t see what they have in Trina/Spencer, I feel sorry for them (although I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t). Lightning in a bottle.

BH tea for those who watch:

That is very true! A little of a skater/metrosexual/late ‘90s boy-band hangover too. Although I give SC credit for getting his body right. (He’s annoying af on B&B, but he’s extremely attractive.)

Scott Clifton has aged really well. He looked like a zaftig young Ryan Reynolds clone with frosted tips in that old GH clip in the Stuart Damon thread.

She always wants to step on Andy’s toes and be a moderator. She tried that with Kenya on WWHL and got gathered for it.

Jason Brooks is walking sex (to this day) in a way that few actors can capture, so he’d be ideal, but that would absolutely burn that bridge with Missy Reeves. (I’d suspect that bringing him back, even as a recast, would be enough.)

Or Ted King maybe. Only if Missy is completely gone and Jason Brooks isn’t a no-no.

Roger Federer is the latest to skip the Olympics, as expected. Says he’s having a knee issue again. https://www.instagram.com/p/CRRhJdfFBgE/?utm_medium=copy_link I know Novak has always wanted to win Olympic gold, but I do wonder if he’ll prioritize the U.S. Open knowing how close he is to a CYGS. (Still, only Graf has done the Golden Slam—the four majors in a calendar year, plus Olympic gold.) Federer at least has a gold medal in doubles with Stan.

In today’s Emmy nominations, Pose was nominated for Drama Series and MJ Rodriguez was nominated for Lead Actress in a Drama, the first trans actress ever to do so. @Taoboi Billy Porter was also nominated for Lead Actor again. The series got nine nominations overall.

It’ll be interesting to see how things play out for the remainder of the season…

Speaking of that…

Ah sorry, is it just a photo size issue? We can do social-media embeds if that is ok and reduces the load…

From Miami 🇺🇸

Awww.

Sarah Felder getting canned as Siobhan for not being more conventionally attractive on Ryan’s Hope is the primary example of old. Emily also seemed so basic and dumbed-down with NL in the role. All of her rough edges had been sanded off. She had no connection to the thoughtful young woman we’d known for years. It was sad to see Labine’s vision for that character undermined in that way.

In a better world, I generally prefer hour-long shows too, as I love the big-canvas soaps (like Curlee’s GL) that networks can no longer afford. (GH is managing their larger cast relatively decently right now, but they’ve leaned down a bit.) I do wonder if Y&R would be better served creatively as a half-hour nowadays, as certainly the current content—which they’ve shown no interest in adjusting, despite wide dissatisfaction from viewers—doesn’t justify a full hour. But it could end up like its sister soap B&B, which hasn’t made good use of its trim runtime in years, as you say. (A 30-minute slot these days also has many more ads than the soaps we had years ago.) I’m genuinely curious whether or not scaling down could ever be a viable option. Is it just easier to cancel something outright? At least in this country, aside from AW going back from 90 to 60 minutes in 1980 or a show completely rebooting years later (like the online AMC), you just don’t hear of it happening much. I know some set-in-their-ways fans would balk, but if offered the choice of a shorter, 30-minute show vs. no show at all, I feel like people would grudgingly come around. I know some posters have envisioned, instead of launching potentially expensive new programming, padding out the gaps with classic soap episodes, but that could be problematic for several reasons (one being that it’ll make it clear to viewers how inferior the current, shallow, low-budget shows are compared to soaps of yore). Plus, I’m not sure how ad sales-friendly it is.

7 weeks! I’ve followed the charts since I was little, but part of me is happy that BTS fans have outsmarted the system, which has always been a load of BS. (Better that fans game the charts than the traditional collusion of radio stations and record companies.)

He would thread the needle pretty well between JJ and GV.

My question about taking a hour-long soap down to a half-hour soap, given that scaling down doesn’t always give you as much bang for your buck: is it that much more cost-effective to do it, considering that the networks would, in addition, have to develop new programming that would need to get picked up by local affiliates to fill in the gaps (which has its own set of unique upfront costs including marketing)? That is, if they don’t want to give back time to the affiliates. How much would it affect ad sales? Just curious… @Errol?

JJ was never going to win any pose-offs, but he’s dreamy and tortured in the Christian Slater/River Phoenix mold. He’s a great-looking guy to this day. He was so singular and idiosyncratic that it was harder to simply slot him (or an actor like him) into a generic B-list leading male role to fit whatever narrative the show wanted to sell at any given point. Jacob Young and especially Greg Vaughan are much easier to use as Play-Doh. Lucky *never* made sense as a cop to me based on his history. GV felt like an entirely different character. JJ, upon his return, was such a soulful actor that he almost made it work, but he returned to a very diminished show, which catered to a lot of his worst actorly instincts.