Panopticon

Is Olivia the one who used to be called “Angry Olivia?” Maybe Jill got in the habit of editing out the kid who had a perpetual scowl on her face as a toddler.

Bold of you to assume Hunk was concerned about his child lighting herself on fire rather than about the possibility of the cake getting damaged in the ensuing chaos.

... At which point Amy would likely find another school or start homeschooling, announcing on her social media that "[school which was desperate to get rid of Dax] suggested that Dax is JUST SO SPECIAL that he was being held back by the other students, and [school] even bent the rules to tell me it wasn't good enough for him."

I finally had to get an ad blocker. I try to be live and let live with ads. I'm aware that they generate site revenue, and sometimes I even appreciate them. (Targeted ads think I care when Theory is on sale in case I want to fill in a gap in my work wardrobe. Targeted ads are correct, lol.) Adding a third layer of ads is a very big deal when it eliminates the small percentage of content-dedicated space you had left on your phone screen. And when all you can see are ads, there's no longer a point to visiting the site, so the choices became "ad blocker" and "stop coming."

Ugh, what a shame. So they’re going to acknowledge John Aniston’s death without Victor’s most famous kid (Bo) and with the bizarro recast version of Victor’s other kid (Philip). I don’t dislike JPL, but I felt like Philip was not exactly in his wheelhouse and he did nothing to convince me otherwise. Can I blame this on Ron Carlivati? These episodes would have been written by him pre-strike.

They've said over on the bugs forum (in the overall forum list, go to "beyond TV shows" and "site business") that they're working on the issue and have locked the thread. Obviously I get how hard the people running this site are working, so this is not a complaint about them. But it is serious overkill to have a video ad running at the top of the screen, a banner ad creeping up from the bottom of the screen, and in-line ads between every post. It's literally just banner ads covering in-line ads at this point; no hope of seeing actual content.

I’ve had the same issue trying to read this site on my phone. All of a sudden a pop up ad covers more than half of the screen and it can’t be closed. Meanwhile the tiny speck of screen left is often covered by an in-line ad. I’ve never really needed an ad blocker on my phone before but I guess I do now.

Why couldn’t you have taught the Bible class I was required to take at my somewhat strange high school???

Well, if you can't get to the golf course, you bring a part of it to you.

Aww, Justin remembers from old episodes of the show that golf courses are the best place to dry hump. He did learn some of his parents' values!

I think her comment that it “can” happen is open to so many interpretations that it leaves us knowing nothing new about what Jill thinks. It can happen, but won’t if parents stay involved and make sure their children learn their parents’ beliefs? It can happen, but only in certain schools in certain states? It can happen, depending on the kid’s personality? It can happen, and it’s a total roll of the dice whether it does?

Will never cease to be funny.

Joy could have all the time in the world and Gideon et al would still have virtually no chance at an actual education, even compared to their cousins. The oldest of the Duggar 19 might have gotten a decent educational foundation because there wasn’t quite as much chaos in the house when they were starting out. The youngest of the Duggar 19 might have learned a bit from in-laws who took over classes here and there. But the ones right in the middle like Joy got absolutely nothing— just teenage “teachers” in the middle of a madhouse. Even Spurgeon has a better chance than Gideon.

Some of the kids not only have no relationship with Jon but appear to despise him. (Mady’s comments a few years ago come to mind.) If they decided to get rid of the surname inherited from a father they don’t like, they certainly wouldn’t be the first. That said, I doubt that they would since there’s no easy alternative. Kate herself still uses Gosselin, which is after all the recognizable/marketable brand. As for Jon: for all of his flaws, Hannah was lucky to have him around to allow her to start college when she was ready, rather than holding her back because she happened to have siblings who needed an extra year before finishing high school.

I genuinely wonder how many babies Joy will have before one doesn’t get Austin’s nose.

Wow! I loved the original film and also the stage adaptation. I had no idea this was coming.

I unexpectedly ended up there on my last trip to London! Their display of posters advertising public transit over the decades was an interesting slice of social history.

Right? Now if I want to come to this site and read about a dysfunctional family where the golden child turned out to be a sex pest and everyone follows a weird dress code, I have to head over to the Royals section. If only one of the Duggar 19 could do like Prince Harry and air some family grievances in a memoir.

Jill explains in the same post that Ma “seems to understand a lot” but “for the most part is quiet.” That’s probably the truth. And it doesn’t line up with monologues about the wonder that is Jill. Jill is slipping in her lying game.

I had a similar experience in the break room at work— it turned out everyone watched it. I think it was the only time I LITERALLY discussed a tv show around the water cooler. However, when I said I laughed at the death in question (the show’s pattern of parenthood=death in combination with the way that driving scene was shot was a bit much), a few other people admitted they had too. Sadly, I’m pretty sure none of these people watch All Creatures, which I love much better.

I have a friend who bought a drive with bootleg episodes of Days from 1984-on, plus some older stuff. She was nice enough to share with me and during the height of the pandemic, instead of binging Netflix, I binged Days episodes that aired before I was born or when I was too young to watch. My conclusion was that in some ways the 80s episodes are objectively better than the current episodes... not because of the talents of everyone involved but because of the almighty dollar. Since 80s Days had a budget, the actors got time to rehearse and do multiple takes. The result? Better acting, even if those actors are inherently no more talented than these. Since 80s Days had a budget, there were location shots galore. Seeing the streets of London behind Bo or the streets of Boston behind Melissa adds enormous depth to a story, even if you don't especially like Bo or Melissa. Since 80s Days had a budget, they had much more freedom to use all kinds of music to enhance the narrative. There's also the big way 80s Days was worse than current Days: almost complete lack of diversity of any kind and the occasional slide into outright racism. I found the off-the-wall plots pretty much the same, honestly. All-powerful prisms that could destroy the world, Eugene's vibes and inventions, hypnosis by pagoda, villains dropping heroes in alligator pits... And as always, some of the stories stunk, and sometimes there were obvious u-turns midstream when an actor quit/was fired. Some other stories were absolutely brilliantly crafted, characterized, and paced. Some stories aged incredibly well, and others aged incredibly poorly. You can tell me all day why it's unrealistic to wish that these episodes will ever be made widely available without the messy look of having been recorded on a VHS tape 40 years ago, complete with "breaking news" preemptions. I get why it's highly unlikely to ever happen, but I'm going to wish for it anyway. Not everyone would enjoy it, but some people would, and since it already exists... it's a shame that each individual can't decide independently whether to watch Eve lie about why there's a live penguin in her basement.

LOL, true. Hopefully if Days actually did that they would put more thought into the episode choice and the actor script than I did spontaneously wasting time on a discussion forum...

I wish Days would take a week here and there and run genuinely classic episodes. I believe they’ve done that in the past on occasion. Since they have so many of the same actors on the payroll, they could even have one of them record a quick summary for context. “Hi, I’m Leann Huntley, and in this episode from 1985 Anna receives divorce papers from Tony, not knowing that he still loves her but wants to protect her from his family. If you’re a newer viewer you may not have met Anna’s friend Calliope before, but I like to think Calliope is why Anna doesn’t think Roman talking to an urn is all that weird,” etc.

Alex/Gwen would bother me a lot less than Alex/Stephanie the way Max/Chelsea bothered me a lot less than Max/Stephanie, since Gwen/Chelsea were not raised in the families that raised Alex/Max whereas Stephanie was. (Get a reasonable love interest, Stephanie! I still say that would be Philip Kiriakis but any non-relative with a semblance of a personality would do.) Gwen with recast EJ is an intriguing thought. Recast EJ doesn’t have that much in common with OG EJ so letting him try a relationship of his very own, without the shadow of the OG version, seems fair.

I have been an adult for a good number of years. My mom last used that exact line on me… this past Christmas.