Serial Drama

Update: I Still Hate This Show

THINGS I WOULD RATHER DO THAN WATCH JAX BECOME A SAD, COLD SHELL OF A ONCE AWESOME CHARACTER AND WATCH THE DEATH OF ALAN QUARTERMAINE BECOME ALL ABOUT JASON

1. Buy a Taylor Hicks album
2. Admit to the public that I do, in fact, subscribe to US Weekly
3. Swear off shopping for a month
4. Take Physics again
5. Gouge my eyes out with a spork

In case my hours of bitching have not made it clear, I despise a lot about General Hospital and the way Jill Farren Phelps & Co. choose to be. It hit me quite strongly during yesterday's episode, when, on multiple occasions, I found myself sputtering at the television set, unable to speak in coherent sentences, as if I were, like, Sonny or something. If I had barware next to me at the time, I so would have tossed it angrily at someone!

Waglear = OTP

Ohmigod, you guys! In what could possibly be the greatest real life coupling ever (at least until I have confirmation that Jason Thompson and Kimberly McCullough are dating in real life, because, hello, adorable), rumors are swirling that Heather Locklear is dating Jack Wagner!

Heather Locklear and Jack Wagner turned heads when they showed up holding hands at Dreamworks chief Jeffrey Katzenberg’s The Night Before party at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Feb. 24!

“They looked very much like a couple - they seemed very comfortable together,” an observer tells Star. “They stayed close to each other during the party and they even left hand in hand.”

Locklear, 45, and soap star Wagner, 47, go way back. They were co-stars on the hot 90s prime-time soap, Melrose Place. Locklear dated comic David Spade after her breakup with rocker Richie Sambora last year. Wagner was married to soap opera actress Kristina Wagner, but according to reports, he has been separated from his wife since 2005, when they filed for divorce.

It's just...awesome. I mean, if Frisco and Felicia can't be together in real life, I am TOTALLY okay with Peter and Amanda dating. Truly.

- Promising Ingénue

The Day's Dumbest Dialogue

Someone on the All My Children writing staff is either twelve years old (judging by the day-to-day quality of the show, this is entirely possible) or is simply taunting me by making it all too easy to mock this show. You unabort fetuses, you name people Zarf and Spike, you kill someone with pancakes and now you have Babe allude to being a dead lay?

Jeff:  Well, Babe, you're recovering right on schedule. Good work. Babe: I just lie here. Josh does all the work.

!!!

!!!

?!?!?

Much like Babe, that's just too easy. You bitches, you take away the quality of my show and now you take away my livelihood? I hate you all.

- Promising Ingénue

Violence Really Is The Answer Sometimes!

I know that Kevin didn't actually try to kill Colleen this time around and all of this will lead to a long, drawn out "Cruel, cruel world, how dare you misjudge Kevin, he's a good man!" storyline, but not even that can put a damper on the brilliant, brilliant scene where Brad clocked him in the face:

[video]

 

OMG, Patrick and Robin 4evah!!1!1!!!

Ahem. I mean, there appears to be breaking news about a soap pairing I'm rather fond of. Join me in celebrating this news, won't you?

Initially this seemed like a terrible idea.  But now, word is that Doctors Drake and Scorpio (dubbed "Scrubs" by internet fans; I usually hate couple-y names but this one is damned cute) will be the centerpiece of the now-sure-to-suck-less spin-off.  I love them.  They are a great couple that the writers actually took some time to bring together (you know, how things are supposed to happen on daily dramas?), and the actors are fantastic.  Kimberly McCullough has been a stand-out since she was in elementary school, and Jason Thompson is easily the best find in daytime in the last few years.  Also, as I think I've probably mentioned, he is The Hotness.  Anyway, yay Scrubs!  Woo!

This, however, is insane:

"We are committed to growing the soap genre . . . " said Brian Frons, President, Daytime, Disney-ABC Television Group.

Have they recently redefined "grow" to include "ruin"?

Screencap courtesy of General Hospital Happenings.

- Evil But Twinless

Those Kids Ain't Right in the Head

So, it's a rare day when I think that maybe I'm just not smart enough to watch soaps. But this week, I've been convinced that clearly there is something I'm missing on Days. Clearly two young parents -- who supposedly love their daughter so much that they would rather live their lives on the run than let the Kiriakis heir have her for a while (because come on, no matter how many people Victor paid off, a kid's non-adoptive, non-biological, non-father isn't going to get custody unless the bio 'rents are growing weed in the living room and juggling knives at the dinner table) -- clearly these people would not jump off A FREAKING CRUISE SHIP (many stories high, judging from that swanky cabin they had) into the ocean in the middle of winter with the toddler who's at the heart of this battle. The fall alone would kill most people, yet hey let's hold hands and give it a shot? And then this tiny baby gets separated from her mom IN A RIPTIDE yet somehow floats to shore like she had water wings and a snorkel? What the hell? All that risk was worse than a custody hearing? Seriously? Claire is gonna be so dumb.  With those genes, there's just no other option.

If I didn't think it would get me mocked and also reveal my secret identity as a soap blogger, I would totally make this photo my desktop at work.  It's just...it's the duh-iest!

This brings me to the larger issue, which is....is Days getting to be not-so-good again?  It's nowhere near as bad as it was under the old writing team, but I feel like it has stagnated, and that the new people in charge are trying to recreate the heyday of the late 80s to early 90s (complete with deserted island adventure, couple-on-the-run plots, DiMera brainwashing mysteries, and a Sami WTD? storyline!) to show how much they don't suck like the old guard.  I don't know, the new Days is losing its luster for me.  Then again, I am practically a professional complainer, so maybe everything is sunshine and rainbows.


Screepcap courtesy of Days of Our Lives 2

- Evil But Twinless

I'm No Martha, But Cute Boys Are a Very Good Thing

General Hospital news - new and returning hot men!  I will not snark on such pleasant developments.

After a long break, Ingo Rademacher is back in Port Charles as Jasper "Jax" Jacks on Feb. 27. The Aussie hunk won't be happy to find out that his fiancée, Carly, remarried her ex-husband, Sonny, while he was away.

Don't you miss Wally Kurth as Tracy's son, Ned Ashton? He's got three GH airdates coming up: Feb. 28, March 6 and March 8. Appropriately enough, Ned will deliver the eulogy at the funeral of his uncle, the soon-to-be-deceased Dr. Alan Quartermaine (Stuart Damon).

Leave it to the messed-up Maxie Jones (Kirsten Storms) to fall "in like" with a ski-masked terrorist while locked in that vault. Jason Gerhardt — who plays the hostage taker known as Three — has been signed as a GH contract player. FYI, they've given Three the cute name Cooper to go with his teen-magazine good looks. Nice hair, Coop!

- Evil But Twinless

It's Your Turn!

So, when we started this gig eons ago (2006, for those keeping track; we adhere to the fashion world's sense of time), we kicked it off with a little debate about who was the worst character in daytime. Both because somehow those two are now not only the worst but are among the best characters around, and because we really need more formats in which to vent about things in an organized fashion (believe us, if you could put a spreadsheet on Blogger, they'd be here), we're making The Worst Character In Daytime a regular feature. And you, our dear readers, will help us decide who is truly the worst. Vote now for who sucks more - Sonny or Babe - and tell us why you cast such a momentous internet vote for one of those two wastes of airtime. Or, nominate someone else for the worst character, and we'll take your comments  into consideration the next time we have fun pulling apart every aspect of a fictional person and putting all of the nastiness on the internets for the world to see. It's fun, join in!

Who is the worst character in daytime?
	Sonny Corinthos
	Babe Carey Chandler
	Other  (Name your choice in the comment section!)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Nominee for Worst Character in Daytime: Babe Carey

The rise and fall of All My Children reads like a fairytale of some sort. Just a few short years ago, life was good, gas prices were low, no one had heard of Sienna Miller and All My Children ruled. It was home to complex characters, intricate storylines, wonderful romances and a great sense of humor. Oh, and it also introduced me to my soulmate, Josh Duhamel. Like I said, life was good (we continue to be very happy together, thank you for asking).

Not content to be the head writer of a successful show, an evil woman decided to introduce a new character, a character who would devour the show and all it stood for with an alarming level of ferocity, who would usher in a new era and make the show unrecognizable from the groundbreaking and award winning drama it once was.

The character I speak of, quite obviously, is Arabella Carey Cramer Chandler Chandler also known as "Babe" also known as "The Baby Stealing Tramp Whose Life In Pine Valley Calls To Mind Sherman's March to the Sea" also known as "The latest Serial Drama nominee for Worst Character in Daytime."

 

Nominee for Worst Character in Daytime: Sonny Corinthos

So, you may have caught the occasional anti-Sonny reference around here, but on the advice of my team of personal physicians, therapists, and facialists, I try not to discuss him too often. My Soap Opera Rage, it rises, and it consumes everything in its path. I start to recall how General Hospital has stopped being about General Hospital and the people connected to it and has instead become the tale of the tiny mobster and his exploits, and I seethe. I remember when the Quartermaines and Spencers and Hardys and Scorpios were the central families of the show, then I compare it to now when Sonny and his various babymommas have replaced them, and I simmer. I think about how Sonny could actually be an interesting character, if only he weren't The Only Character and if he had some dimension, some evidence that he is morally conflicted about the fact that he commits crimes for a living, and I am incensed.

Okay, so I don't actually get that worked up over a soap character, but I do find him really annoying! He ruins the show for me on a regular basis - though thanks to the magic of TiVo's fast-forward feature, he does save me some time every week. Anyway, due to popular demand and my personal opinion, I give you our latest nominee for the worst character in daytime, Michael Corinthos Jr.