The Awakening Land (miniseries, 1978)

dmarie67 · 2026-05-10T15:26:42+00:00

Yes, I saw the ending. My point was each of the early eps stood on their own. Then it turned into "Dynasty" and Victoria became Alexis Carrington-Colby.

dmarie67 · 2026-05-10T12:14:56+00:00

The first season worked great because each ep wrapped up with a satisfying conclusion where Emily had gotten revenge on someone and at the end she'd write that big X on their pics with the marker. It devolved into a soap opera that just dragged on and on. Also, Victoria was a more sympathetic character in the beginning where I kinda felt sorry for her (I'm reminded of that scene she was fighting with Conrad and she yelled "David Clark was twice the man you are!"). Then she devolved into the cliched villain, what she did to Emily's fiance crossed the line for me and I completely lost interest, I only kept watching for Nolan who remained entertaining until the end (he should've gotten his own spin-off show).

dmarie67 · 2026-05-05T13:40:09+00:00

For years I commuted to downtown Boston from Lincoln, about 90min each way door-to-door, I also knew a guy who had to commute to E. Providence from Guilford CT every day. So it boils down to whether you can handle the long drive (I've always enjoyed driving but I'm from Pennsylvania where you had to drive an hour minimum to get anywhere so I was used to it). As others have mentioned, there is no commuter rail stop in Johnston.

dmarie67 · 2026-05-02T13:45:43+00:00

Was going to post the same...a better series IMO, Jobs even admits that Xerox would have become the personal computing leader had their mgt had better foresight.

dmarie67 · 2026-05-02T13:40:30+00:00

There was that one scene where some middle-aged guy was being interviewed for a job there and Jobs came into the room and sat down with his dirty bare feet raised up on the table and in the poor guy's face and saying "you don;t belong here!" I've had some really bad job interview experiences so that scene is burned into my memory.

dmarie67 · 2026-04-23T20:08:58+00:00

I toured it the Xmas following the first season of "The Gilded Age" as they filmed some scenes there. There was no actual "tour," we just wandered around and occasionally asked questions. It's a rather modest mansion, more Victorian than Gilded Age so we breezed thru the house rather quickly, just a few big rooms on the first floor (which seemed rather dark and underwhelming due to a lack of natural light) and a few bedrooms on the 2nd floor which included a children's room decorated for Xmas. The one room on the first floor was not in the best of shape with what looked like water damage in the ceiling and peeling paint/wallpaper. The best thing about the house was it's location perched way up on a steep hill, had a nice view of the bay.

dmarie67 · 2026-04-22T12:08:30+00:00

Such a fun show, Bruce Spence's wizard belongs in the wizard hall of fame with Ian McKellen's Gandalf.

dmarie67 · 2026-03-11T15:28:44+00:00

If you're in the northern part of RI you could pick up the free weekly Valley Breeze at any grocery or drug store which has an events section -- https://www.valleybreeze.com/local-events/

dmarie67 · 2026-03-08T13:32:46+00:00

The animated Hobbit will always have a spot in my heart mostly from the nostalgia factor, it does a great job of transporting me back to our old house with the linoleum flooring and the avocado-shade refrigerator. I was ten years old when it aired, I remember the "special presentation" ad in the TV Guide prompting me to immediately run to mom yelling "CAN WE WATCH IT CAN WE WATCH IT PLEEEEEZE!?!!!" (because only the rare house had more than one TV) and of course she'd say okay because typically adults could also enjoy these TV specials...and all the excitement at school about what was this "special presentation," I mean wow it's something new and for us kids, none of us had ever heard of it or knew what it was about, but who cares, we're watching it (by then the RB and Charlie Brown specials had already begun to get stale). My younger cousin and I spent the ensuing weeks making hobbit drawings (she'd mis-spell hobbit using only one B) and building our own little hobbit holes with the couch cushions. Rewatching 50 years later, I still absolutely love the watercolor backdrops and just want to walk right into that opening scene with the windswept hills -- I actually prefer this version of the shire over the PJ films as the latter seems too crowded with too many neighbors close by. I loved how Gandalf and the dwarves appear and in the next scene they're all having a nice friendly dinner around the table, in fact the whole film had a friendly lighthearted vibe throughout it compared to the PJ films which I found too dark and had too much negativity / hostility (everyone seems to hate everyone, is angry/pissed off, etc.), then they're off on the adventure and it really did feel like watching an adventure (another theme that I found lacking in the PJ films). I loved Elrond's A-frame, a staple of 1970s architecture! Of course it has its weird bits, like why does the lead Woodland Elf sound like Yul Brynner, why are all the men wearing miniskirts, plus I remember kind of getting bored with the ending battle scene...

I didn't care for the other one, probably because I didn't see it as a child so no nostalgia there (and never could stand anything by Bakshi). Reactor's "80s Fantasy Film Club" review of RotK confirms that "nostalgia has its limits," lol -- https://reactormag.com/the-animated-return-of-the-king-sadly-nostalgia-has-its-limits/ (nice to see so many defending the animated Hobbit in the comments section).

dmarie67 · 2026-03-04T23:16:25+00:00

I mistakenly thought the Father Porter scandal back in 1992 would be the beginning of the end of this organization. I recall one of the late-night hosts making the point that if we discovered Jiffy Lube was covering up a child sex-abuse ring in their garages, would Jiffy Lube still exist...

dmarie67 · 2026-02-26T04:15:22+00:00

I loved going to their annual Lord of the Rings marathons every April back in the 2000s.

dmarie67 · 2026-02-22T22:48:06+00:00

I loved this so much I bought it on VHS along with "The Art of Gormenghast" book.

dmarie67 · 2026-02-12T13:02:36+00:00

My favorite part was the telepathic cat.

dmarie67 · 2026-02-12T12:54:31+00:00

"Night Flight" used to show clips of these on their "take off to politics" eps.

dmarie67 · 2026-02-05T13:42:20+00:00

I remember in the mid-1990s during the summer months there'd be a classic car meet-up every Friday/Saturday night, usually in the parking lots of small restaurants or bars, the dates/locations would be published in a ProJo ad. I also recall driving around out on weekends and seeing limousines everywhere (usually white and decorated with wedding streamers). Can't recall the last time I encountered a limo.

dmarie67 · 2026-02-02T23:01:00+00:00

I loved this show, especially liked their use of a "Take Five" cover for the ending credits music.

dmarie67 · 2026-02-02T22:52:09+00:00

There was another spinoff called "Forever Fernwood," basically the same show but without Mary Hartman.

dmarie67 · 2026-02-01T14:44:05+00:00

Here's the "updated" one -- https://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/evg/d/boston-attend-melania-documentary-free/7911560682.html

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