A Ewing is a Ewing (DALLAS, 28 Jan 83) v Ewing Rise (DALLAS, 25 Sep 87) “I’m a good listener,” Donna Reed’s Ellie told a brooding Donna Krebbs on the cardboard patio in The Ewing Connection. “I’m a good listener,” Barbara Bel Geddes’s Ellie tells a troubled Clayton when they meet by chance in...

08 Sep 14: DALLAS: Victims of Love v. 30 Nov 16: EMPIRE: What We May Be v. 22 Mar 19: DYNASTY: Motherly Overprotectiveness A gift-wrapped box containing a prostitute’s severed hands, an aunt discovering her nephew’s body dangling from a noose, a long lost son pushing his mother’s face into a...

08 Sep 14: DALLAS: Victims of Love v. 30 Nov 16: EMPIRE: What We May Be v. 22 Mar 19: DYNASTY: Motherly Overprotectiveness A gift-wrapped box containing a prostitute’s severed hands, an aunt discovering her nephew’s body dangling from a noose, a long lost son pushing his mother’s face into a...

The Cliff (04 May 82) v The Close Call (04 Dec 85) Both episodes open with Blake and Krystle being rudely awakened in their marital bed — in '82, by labourers knocking together a marquee for Alexis and Cecil’s wedding reception, and in '85 by Kristina's crying. The latter wouldn’t be that big a...

Oh yes, the TOTP audience are always extremely good value (at least until those terrible dancing cheerleaders, Zoo, appear sometime in the '80s and start taking over.)

That's an interesting take. I think the writer is talking from his own subjective position as a pop kid following the charts and all the exciting new music at the time -- and then this comes along. Ordinarily, I love a bit of a Jesusy sing-song and an inappropriate Number One is always fun and...

'Like so many of 1979’s chart-toppers, Lena Martell was a new face: but this time trailing no stylistic or cultural shift ... this sticks in the craw, feeling like a refugee from grimmer times: it would have fitted into the more erratic, unlucky-dip lists of the mid-70s ... It’s a clunky...

I haven't watched any of the coverage of PP's death, but I've read a lot of coverage about the coverage, if that makes sense.

I really like this one, co-written and produced by the great Alan Tarney, who also did Cliff's 'We Don't Talk Anymore' and 'Carrie', Barbara Dickson's 'January February' and A-ha's 'Take on Me' Then there's

Ewing-Gate (DALLAS, 01 May 81) v Ewing Inferno (DALLAS, 06 May 8) It’s a season finale double bill! Miss Ellie only appears in one scene of each finale. In Ewing-Gate, she calls JR from Paris where the writers have despatched her and Jock because of Jim Davis’s illness. In Ewing Inferno, her...

I felt like that in '97 when the extra-extra special EastEnders in Paris Sunday omnibus wasn't shown the day after Diana died. It had been well reviewed in the Guardian and I'd been really looking forward to it and was then worried it would never be shown at all, but we ended up getting double...

Well, it's actually Rex Manning Day, but close enough. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rex-manning-day-maxwell-caulfield-thrilled-empire-records-celebrated-yearly

'The Tammy Wynette original has one of those gimmicks so deathless that every songwriter in Nashville must have wished they’d hit on it first. Connolly’s parody skewers it without sneering at it, and a lot of the spelling-out fun is just carried over from the source. It doesn’t have a great deal...

Lila Maxwell, Galveston Industries secretary. She was investigating the toxic whatnot in Jill Bennett's hometown until Paul Galveston had her killed. This was her only on screen appearance. Yes! or Victoria Principal's aunty. He paralysed Mickey Trotter in Dallas and was Dr Brain Virus on Dynasty.

Standing to attention and saluting each time.

Yes, Freakytrigger/Popular has an unusually good comments section. Its American equivalent, the Number Ones on Stereogum, has an even better one. https://www.stereogum.com/2142949/the-number-ones-whitney-houstons-so-emotional/columns/the-number-ones/