Faulkner

From South Carolina 🇺🇸

I just watched AOC’s Instagram Live where she spoke of her and her legislative director hiding in Katie Porter’s office the day of the Capitol riots (after being directed by a supremely unhelpful and rather hostile police officer to go to an unspecified location). Harrowing story. It’s unbelievable how unprepared they were for such an event, when even the local elementary school does active shooter drills.

I don’t even know what you would call the soaps these days. They aren’t particularly realistic. They aren’t really fantastical. They just don’t have much range at all. Part of it is budget. Part of it is just inertia—it’s so easy to take the path of least resistance when baby switches and endless shallow triangles have worked in the past. No need to frighten execs/advertisers with anything too out there or too potentially “depressing” like COVID. Patrick Mulcahey has talked about this stuff. But they’ve also chosen to cater to a subset of Middle American Facebook Karens solely—possibly out of mere necessity—as their other viewers simply have too options to get more “realism.” The current daytime audience has been trained to want a certain thing out of their soaps, and we see how vocal and entitled those viewers become when they don’t get it. Those viewers don’t appear to be interested in a deeper exploration of life or anything that doesn’t validate their insular view of the world. But I’m also one of those naysayers who doesn’t believe soaps could really gain much traction again. The world has evolved past them, and other genres have stolen their tricks.

The Times released their obit of Jamie Tarses, which a few people call mean-spirited (as it rehashes her fraught tenure at ABC):

From India 🇮🇳

2021 has seen so many celebrity passings just a month in. Larry King, Hank Aaron, Cloris Leachman, Cicely Tyson... and young people like Sophie and Dustin Diamond.

Sad news.

Oh god. So sad.

Gaston at least has sex appeal and can be in affectionate scenes with MO. That really made a lot of difference in their honeymoon scenes.

Which would make this whole Abby/Mariah surrogacy story even stupider if they continue with it.

Discuss.

The ending of today’s show: After talking with Abby about options for having a child (adoption, etc.), Chance is alone and answers his cell phone to an unseen caller: “This is Det. Chancellor. [a beat] I was wondering when you’d finally catch up with me.” Hmmm. Interestingly, Tricia Cast is supposed to return in the next few days.

Third week at No. 1 for “Drivers License.” Plus Dua Lipa gets her second Top 5.

Daniel Goddard seems to be the only former or current cast member who has responded to his IG post.

The much-cited NYT profile of her from 1997: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/13/magazine/jamie-tarses-fall-as-scheduled.html

Snowstorm coverage will likely preempt everything in the NYC viewing area and other affected places in the Northeast. Edit: I was wrong. CBS2 is airing Y&R. This Chelsea “story” is stupid af, with Sharon “treating” her. It’s almost as if they are intentionally making the show unwatchable.

From Düsseldorf, Germany 🇩🇪

I think he was so sexy back then. Everything came together for him lookswise.

ATL had been a snooze this season, but this is fun.

It was always weird, even though Y&R is slow at updating it, that he never got a shot in the opening... I wonder how much of that is true and/or how much he really knows. It does seem weird he’d get a pink slip so abruptly in the middle of a big story.

Posted at the same time! Damn. Lol! I wonder if Justin Gaston will just take over.

He looks like Jude Law’s Gigolo Joe in AI.