Faulkner

Nishioka just took out Kohlschreiber in a five-setter with a ton of momentum swings apparently. I really like him, and it sucked that he tore his ACL when he was on the verge of really breaking through. Good start to his return, though. Wow, how childish of Coco. I see she's back to her old, entitled ways.

Wow, of all of the female semifinalists from last year, only Lučić-Baroni is still in the tournament with Serena not playing and Venus and Coco out in the first round. I'm not watching as I don't want to be sucked in, but with Venus out, I have fewer people to root for anyway.

Oh dear. I hate Kim.

LMAO!

Big NYT story on Mario Testino and Bruce Weber, with several models saying they were molested. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/style/mario-testino-bruce-weber-harassment.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=https://m.facebook.com/

This could go here or in the movie awards thread, but Oscar voting is closed as of a few minutes ago, and many Academy members are regretting voting for James Franco for "The Disaster Artist" due to the sexual harassment allegations. Nominations are announced January 23. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-james-franco-oscars-20180112-story.html

Great, revealing interview with Serena in Vogue magazine. https://www.vogue.com/article/serena-williams-vogue-cover-interview-february-2018

Yeah, I agree that Sara Gilbert as producer could act as a check/balance on any of Roseanne's excesses, which is why I'll give the show a chance. Gilbert seems pretty savvy to me.

Of course, many people are aroused by rough sex and BDSM, which is fine within a consensual relationship where someone's boundaries are known and respected. But it doesn't seem like Santa Barbara was exploring that issue.

Dude was an Adonis.

That was a great scene. Remember those days when soaps actually used music effectively? Guess that was one skill JFP had. You never could tell watching her Y&R. Sad to know it was all downhill for GL from there, but the entirety of Springfield mourned Maureen. It's different from these days when people on soaps die for easy shock value and are forgotten within weeks. I recall how angry I was when Nadine was killed by Brent Lawrence, and she was treated like a day player. They gave Maureen the closing credits the day she died. Soaps only usually do that sort of thing when actors pass away in real life.

Nice! I love Cabernet. My dream was so plain as day, but oddly Anna Stuart had long hair (like she did on The Doctors) and AMC was shot on film in it. My legit first soap dream. Go figure. Happy 48th, AMC.

More women come forward against Paul Haggis, who is accused of multiple rapes. http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/director-paul-haggis-accused-of-multiple-rapes.html?utm_campaign=vulture&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1

Yeah, this post-holiday week is a strange time to re-launch shows. Nick Offerman has dropped a TON of weight since Parks & Rec. He's awesome in this episode.

Ditto. Just saw from Ben Rothenberg that Thomaz Bellucci was serving a five-month ban (ending this month) after testing positive for a substance, but was seen to be not at fault due to a tainted supplement.

Nick Offerman looks GREAT.

Meh. I was so excited for this Aussie Open on the chance that we could see all of these veterans returning from the sidelines, but I'm not interested in watching Federer vulture another tournament untested.

The mid-1990s were, of course, trash, and the show had so many departures of pivotal players in short succession (Bev, Sherry, Ellen Parker, Rick Hearst, Leonard Stabb, Melina, Nia Long, Monti Sharp, Morgan Englund, Vince Williams, Kimberly Simms, Jean Carol, Beth Ehlers and Mark Derwin, the deaths of William Roerick and Larry Gates). So that left the show reeling, and so many recasts of big roles were meh (Marj, Ron Raines, Michael Dietz, Jennifer Roszell, Liz Keifer, Frank Grillo, Barbara Crampton, Rebecca Budig, et al). For me, 1997 was sort of a strange outlier. You had Annie's awesome reign of terror, which almost by necessity couldn't be maintained. (They tried disastrously with Signy Coleman.) You had the accidental chemistry of Beth Ehlers and Grant Aleksander (before Beth Chamberlin came in and ate the show and Harley became the humorless harpy she was from then on). Abby and Rick could have re-ignited the Bauers, but again, they couldn't figure out how to build on it or simply didn't want to. For a moment, they presented us with shiny objects that masked deeper problems in the show in hindsight. And then shortly thereafter was Ben Warren, all Cassie all the time, the San Cristobal crew, the mob, Clone Reva, the list goes on, and everything went to hell.

GL was really destroyed around 1994-95. It just never really recovered for me, even though I enjoyed the Reva/Annie/Josh, Phillip/Harley, and Abby/Rick stuff around '97. I even liked the Drew/Selena story. But what I loved about the show, the feeling of Springfield as a community, was gone.

I loved Gilly too. Her relationships with Roger and Alan-Michael were so complex and compelling. I still get pissed about Lucy Cooper and that obnoxious pipsqueak-voiced Sonia Satra. I never really had the same love for the show after that, and I started watching GH more and more at the time. Amelia Marshall never got a role worthy of her again really, including Belinda. And the less said about Passions the better.

Had a dream that I was watching an intense scene where Anna Stuart's Mary Smythe was laying into Erica about a large donation Erica made to the Chandler Foundation. An amazing match of wits between Stuart and Lucci. There was no context whatsoever, but I was so energized that I was going to come post here, "Wow, AMC was LIT today! Maybe our show is back?" Such a weird random dream, and I legitimately hadn't thought about AMC in forever. I need to stop drinking bourbon before bed.

I know that Kinkead, Parker, and Hayden all won, and Garrett, Edson, Carol, Ehlers, Miner, Hutchison, and Kanakaredes got nominated either during that era or shortly after due to JFP's infamous block voting tactics. Of course, it's an embarrassment that Bev was not once nominated as Alex (and Marj Dusay somehow was). And all of the other women were just as deserving.

This makes me smile.

I was just thinking about what an embarrassment of riches GL had with its female cast in the very early '90s. So many types of the female experience represented: Maureen Garrett, Maeve Kinkead, Beverlee McKinsey, Amelia Marshall, Nia Long, Jean Carol, Ellen Parker, Sherry Stringfield, Beth Ehlers, Tina Sloan, Melissa Hayden, Kimberley Simms, Fiona Hutchison, Melina Kanakaredes, Rachel Miner, Hilary Edson. That's not to discount the equally wonderful men on the show at that time, but this is a female genre, and there was such richness, fortitude, grit, and complexity to all of these portrayals. Each woman had many, many opportunities to shine. How blessed were we to witness that in our lifetimes when soaps were already beginning to lose their luster? Maybe only the Labines' GH rivaled that in the past 25 years or so. Sorry if this has already been posted, but I stumbled upon this bizarre but charming story from earlier this month about Nancy Curlee Demorest befriending a former UNC basketball star she idolized in her youth. http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/acc/unc/article189171094.html

That's really lovely re: Eddie Alderson.