By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman
So what did you think of Katie, Ms. Couric’s new talk show? I have mixed feelings about it.
Couric herself doesn’t bother me. Au contraire – we should be proud that daytime television, which marginalizes older women, is spotlighting a 55-year-old. Katie’s usual intelligence does shine through on the show. Plus she’s the real deal as a journalist, a terrific interviewer. She has the professional acumen to ask the difficult questions — on her first show she asked Sheryl Crow if she knew about Lance Armstrong’s drug use while she was dating him. (Crow copped out and said she doesn’t talk to him much anymore.)
Katie Couric
One of the show’s main problems, though, is that so far it hasn’t measured up to the Couric intelligence. It’s been focused too much on what I call the girly-girl lightweight subjects, like weight and romance. Wasn’t the interview with shallow Jessica Simpson just a bore? Who needs yet another recommendation for Weight Watchers, as Simpson went on about her weight loss and even brought on her WW counselor. Katie gave over an entire show to a feel-good author named B’rene Brown who just burbled on for endless segments about how beneficial it is to make yourself vulnerable to romance and all in life. She was so New Age-ish and so full of hot air that the show just went on interminably.
As I’ve written, a daytime talk show shouldn’t appeal only to women. It should appeal to all people who have brains, as The View does. Katie herself seems [Read more...]
all before she came to Y&R. She appeared in such movies as The Girl From Wyoming with Maureen O’ Hara (who initially tried to push younger actress Cooper into the background) and Let No Man Be My Epitaph (where she became friends with Shelley Winters.) For more than two decades she was a most prolific guest star on primetime shows (from Wagon Train and Perry Mason to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Bracken’s World) getting to really know such stars as Barbara Stanwyck, Raymond Burr and her dear longtime friend, Barbara Hale.
having to say the actual words “des,” “dems” and “does.” Joe’s is a master liar who usually got away with everything in the past (sound familiar?) I can hardly wait to see the super melodramatic prison reunion this week between Joe and Kate, the woman he raped long ago. This rape produced a son, obviously Trey, played by slick looker Erik Valdez, an actor I don’t especially like. So that makes a show with how many rapists? Todd, Joe, Luke. And how many murderers walking around? Sonny, Jason, Heather, Johnny. That’s exactly double the number of such criminals GH had under Guza. Sopranos creator David Chase could hardly dreamed up this line-up, no? Ladies and gents, please no letters on the good looks of Maurice Benard and Steve Burton. I already know.
what one always talked to him about: the work. He was the only person I ever interviewed who hardly ever promoted himself personally. And he was in show business! Bell, a true gentleman, preferred to have his work speak for itself.
Days is way too juvenile even to contemplate. Young and Restless is very competent soap opera. But someone help! We’re left with the ABC Daytime line up. Admiring my dog Nigel sleeping on the couch seems to look like better entertainment after a while.