Faulkner

Steven Moffat has lined up his next gig: adapting The Time Traveler’s Wife as a series for HBO. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/time-travelers-wife-drama-steven-moffat-scores-hbo-green-light-1131042

A very good article about what’s at stake for CBS and Moonves right now: https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/leslie-moonves-future-cbs-viacom-sexual-misconduct-1202889777/

That’s cute. They’re an attractive couple.

At least Colbert addressed things a touch more forcefully. But, again, expected for his brand.

Yeah, JFP really disillusioned me with OLTL. I stopped watching after a while as well. I came back for Tomlin’s version, which was fun, and the first few months of Carlivati’s, but her disdain for anything that happened before her tenure was palpable, and it really killed any love I had for the show. Not dissimilar to what she did to GL ultimately. Yeah, Grant is just... Philip to me, and I only first saw him after his post-AMC return. There is zero buddy chemistry between Bolger and MOL.

Sykes was a smug, sanctimonious jerk and like all of JFP creations (the gazillion Rappaports), he completely took over the show. Just a very smarmy, unlikable presence.

I had such a crush on Bolger on AW, and I saw Parting Glances in college, which gave me a whole new respect for him, but Sykes just killed it for me. Just hated that guy. Somehow it makes it harder to appreciate him here, even though he’s gorgeous and his voice was incredible.

Who were the Swedish players you thought were hot? Borg (both then and now) is the gold standard, I know. Enqvist was pretty attractive. I guess Edberg might have looked better without the dumb hair. But can’t think of anyone else of note. Soderling? Sheesh.

The notable Italian men (aside from Lorenzi) are pretty much all great-looking. Berrettini is a looker and is starting to build in confidence. Maybe he’ll find the consistency that Fognini lacked? The jury is out. Cecchinato is 10th in the race to London currently, which is insane. The women? Hmmm. Flavia’s cute and does seem nice. Good riddance to Roberta Vinci. Schiavone seemed ok, but her grunt is up there with the most annoying in tennis. Errani is only notable for the “Why you say ‘Vamos’? Say ‘Allez’!” comment to Cornet. Giorgi is, like Jon Wertheim says, “See ball, hit ball,” which can be enough to beat great players if she’s having a good day. But none of them are really rootable.

That’s funny. I didn’t know Kate (who is 60 today) shared a birthday with Brontë. Makes sense. Kate was born the same summer as Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson in 1958 (for those three, all in the American Midwest). Changing topics: this is a good cover.

Chen “addressed” the issue very briefly at the top of today’s Talk. She just said, “Some of you may be aware of what’s been going on in my life in the past few days. I issued the one and only statement I will ever make on this topic on Twitter. And I will stand by that statement today, tomorrow, forever.” And she just kept it moving to the hot topics. Pretty much what was expected. Sara and Sharon were absent with guest co-hosts filling in. Lots of chatter on social media about her statement being hypocritical (since she discusses everyone else’s business on the show) and cowardly, but I don’t know what they thought they were going to get. The Talk isn’t The View. It’s a much more canned, controlled show. Even The View probably would have kept mum on Bob Iger if he had such allegations levied against him, especially if he’d been married to the lead host. The View would have likely milked the drama a bit, as they traffic in tears and discord between the women, although less now than in the past.

Maybe the ratings haven’t dipped enough for the show to feel the urgency for drastic, necessary changes. I just feel there’s really nowhere to go with this crew, and one woman in, one woman out isn’t going to be enough of a shift. Like how many times can we do this with LVP and Kyle? But if Kim hadn’t imploded so spectacularly at the reunion, it looked like Bravo was going to send us on the Nene/Kim rollercoaster again. They don’t really ever learn to stop beating dead horses.

Constant and writer/EP regime changes have a deleterious effect on characters over time. At least with the same actor or writer, you have *some* continuity (although not always), but I just never felt that overarching story being told. There was Kevin the crusading journalist in the ‘90s, but you couldn’t pick actors who had such vastly different approaches than Stapleton and Gibbs. Then he became a politician. I feel like Joey might have suffered less (maybe because Nathan Fillion was so popular and put such a stamp on the character) but still was problematic.

Ugh. Why can’t it be both? They are so awful and toxic to the show. And kick Dorit out with them.

I’d prefer it if Isner won this, honestly, but he looked pretty sluggish. It’s maddening that Hyeon played so stupidly against Ryan, especially after he had leads. That was a match he could have won easily. It wasn’t like Ryan’s level was that great; actually he was downright crappy during the third set TB. EDIT: Isner pulled it out in the end.

Most of the year he’s been injured, so we’ll see how he progresses now that he’s healthy again. The Harrison match wasn’t promising, though. A lot of just brain dead unforced errors. Isner vs Harrison isn’t a match I’m that interested in, but I saw in passing that Ryan won the first set.