Serial Drama

Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings

Before I even watched it, I knew I wasn't going to like today's General Hospital.  I knew this when my TiVo informed me that the episode was entitled "Sonny and Carly's Feelings."  No, seriously.

That's right, it's time for installment 759 of Sonny and Carly:  Dysfunctionally Yours Since Overalls Were in Style.  Do we have to go here again?  Is there any remotely interesting story left to tell about this couple?  Is he going to shoot her twice in the head?  Is she going to get distraught and drive off two cliffs?  I just can't care about these two, their feelings, their children (one insanely creepy), their relationship, their marriage(s), or anything else.  I do care that this whole thing will mean that once again Jax gets crapped on, a tradition that is almost as tiresome as Sonny and Carly.

Random other observations:

Where Is Her Butter Churn?

I can't believe it has taken me this long to rant about this, because it routinely bugs me, but why do the Days wardrobe people dress Mary Beth Evans like she is a 70-year-old extra on Little House on the Prairie? She is a lovely woman, who is inexplicably as gorgeous as she was during the height of the Patch/Kayla hysteria in the late 1980s without any apparent scalpel-based assistance, and yet they dress her abominably, reaching a sartorial nadir today with this little number:

I mean, even Ma Ingalls would have seen that nightgown in the general store and been all "Ew, as if, too dowdy." Related note:  Stephen Nichols = yowza.  The dude is 56 years old!

Unrelated note:  When did I stop hating Chelsea?  I think it might have been around the time I moved Maxie on GH from the "despise" to "tolerate" column.  Which means we might have to reopen the Worst Character in Daytime competition.  Your submissions?

Screencaps courtesy of Days of Our Lives 2.

- Evil But Twinless

The Day's Most Awesome Dialogue

I know that this is a hugely unpopular opinion, because everywhere I turn people are clamoring for her death, but whatever: Colleen Cecile Carlton rules and I will hear no arguments on the matter.

Is she annoying? Yes. She totally is. Does she have a tendency to whisper all of her lines? Yes. She totally does. Is she unfortunately related to Brad Carlton, whose brain cells, emotions and resistance to tanning salons simply don't exist? Yes. She totally is.

But she rules. I don't know why I like her so much. I think it might say something about the horrid state of Y&R and how there are pretty much no likeable characters on it, but it might also say something about the fact that I am easily swayed by pretty hair.

Anyway! She was fantastic during yesterday's episode where she was locked in a refrigerator to face death (again) and we learned that Foreign Random is the one who killed Poorly Dressed Random. Gasp!

(PS: Lynn Marie Latham, if you happen to be reading this: nothing about the Carmen Mesta murder storyline was interesting. Nothing. So please stop discussing it as if it were anything but the soap opera equivalent of Lunesta)

So Jana was all falling apart about the Reliquary and how she was poor and living in camper and she had to kill Carmen for no reason and she was all crazy bitch and revealed her evil master plan of killing Kevin and Colleen, and Colleen said so simply, succinctly and gloriously:

And then you will rot in prison for the rest of your life, alone and poor

On the awesome scale of 1-10, that's, like, a 40. That may be the show's single best piece of dialogue in the past six months. You rock on with your bitch self, Colleen.

- Promising Ingénue

Jason Morgan, Superstar

I'm not generally the gambling type*, but I will bet you all $25 that on the next episode of General Hospital, a Kelly's patron will find Jason's face in her toast and, overcome, will fall on the floor speaking in tongues.

That would only be slightly more outrageous than the repeated discussion by every character on this show about the glorious wonder that is Jason Morgan, Pretend Father to the Nation's Children, Pure Hearted Hitman, and Omniscient Thug. Because he's perfect. Perfectly perfect, perfectly perfecting the art of perfection.

EXAMPLE #1

Sam: When the vault is opened, it's going to be chaos in here. You're not going to have time to think. You need to run straight to Jason and he'll get you out.

Because he's a HERO

The Day's Best Dialogue

From Days of Our Lives, it's short but sweet:

Phillip:  Shut up, Willow.

God, seriously.  The character, her fashion, her "basketball," her storyline, her...existence.  I need it all to just stop.  Shutting up is an excellent place to start.

- Evil But Twinless

Just So You All Know

I will no longer be posting here, as I have packed my bags to take off and make a full-time job of stalking Jason Thompson.   Because those ABC fan commercial thingies the last couple of days, with him and the first graders?   Sent me over the edge.  He has maximized his hotness and forced me to act.   I WON'T BE IGNORED, Jason!!!

Edit: Oh dear, did y'all know stalking is, like, frowned upon and possibly illegal?  They should put that on the web somewhere or something!  I will have to settle for admiring Mr. Thompson from afar, content in the knowledge that when we finally do meet he will fall for me so quickly and thoroughly that I won't have a moment's peace until I agree to be his forever.  Also, he will give Promising Ingenue Peter Bergman's phone number and they will also fall totally in love.  It will be perfect and not at all fictional, just you wait and see!

- Evil But Twinless

Go On Now Go, Walk Out the Door

Just turn around now, 'cause you're not welcome anymore, Ric Lansing. First, let me just say this:  Rick Hearst is amazing.  He's adorable, a great actor, seems content to stay in daytime, has played several roles on different shows and always been fantastic and made the most out of what he's been given.  Honestly, how can you not like this guy?

So Rick is great.  I hope he somehow escapes this craptastic show and finds another daytime home where he is valued.  Hey, he could go back to Days!  Scotty Banning could totally come back to Salem, with a newly fabulous, non-mousy Faith, now that Melinda Clarke can't live in The O.C. anymore.  I'm giddy just thinking about it.  Anyway, I digress.  To sum up:  Rick Hearst = love!  Ric Lansing = hate.  No, seriously, I hate this fictional character.  Almost as much as Sonny.  I don't want to, and I know it's absolutely the fault of the GH writing staff who best as I can tell employ some variation on Mad Libs to write this show, but I do.  I hate Ric Lansing.

More Like Lynn Marie LAMEham

Lynn Marie Latham was responsible for some of the greatest things that ever happened on Knots Landing. I love Knots Landing in myriad ways, so I am trying to understand how that show could be so gold and her tenure on The Young and the Restless could be so crappy.

Because it is. Crappy. So crappy. It's gotten to the point where I just won't watch it if Jack isn't involved, and they are doing their best to make Jack look both evil and special needs and let me tell you, as a Peter Bergman devotee, it angers me, so watching the show isn't the most pleasant experience one could have. It leads me to nonsensical and slightly obsessive run on sentences!

It's just---it's mind boggling how there could be such an enormous drop in quality, logic and production values all at once. How could anybody involved in the show in any capacity think that things are going smoothly?

This is why it is such a bad idea to have someone as the head writer and executive producer, especially someone who hasn't been with the show for a long period of time, because there is no one there to reign them in. Lynn Marie Latham needs a someone to help her. I mean, it's practically an implosion. All sorts of crap going on at once. I mean, at least when Sonny and Jason are eating the show with their awfulness on GH, there are some positives (Robin/Patrick, the newfound awesomeness of Maxie, and...um...) to balance out the bad. But on Y&R, it's like everything has started to suck all at the same time.

* VICTORIA ROWELL QUITS

I went through all of the stages of grief when I heard this news. The idea of Y&R without Dru's fierceness and her hats is depressing, but at the same time, this isn't Dru we've been watching lately. It's some horrifically annoying person who acts foolish for no good reason and screeches and is crazy and irrational. That's not the Drucilla that I know and love.

Gag Me With a Spoon

As a devoted fan of The Facts of Life (that might be the saddest sentence ever typed), I'm well versed in the idea that one must take the good, take the bad, take them both and then you have the facts of life.

But Tootie never prepared me for what happens when you take the good, and then the bad is not only bad, but gut churningly, offensively, horrifically, tragically, campily, terrible. If you take them both, I'm pretty sure you have a chemical reaction.

Days of Our Lives has the good: it has Steve and Kayla, who continue to have unparalleled chemistry in all that they do, and Sami, and the surprisingly adorable Chelsea and Nick (if you had told me last year that I would have wound up loving Chelsea and Maxie on GH, I would have laughed in your face and then made fun of your shoes), and the hot-yet evil-yet hot EJ and the surprisingly good new/old Philip and even crazy Willow, who seems like she'd cut you just for fun.

And Days also has the aforementioned gut churningly, offensively, horrifically, tragically, campily, terrible. I think we all know that I speak of John and Marlena.

  

Spin This Off, Losers

There will be days when I am totally high self esteemy and think nothing can bring me down and then I remember that Brian Frons is the head of ABC Daytime, and then I get depressed. I have no idea how a man so hopelessly, gloriously inept is not only allowed to keep his job, but also take on new responsibilites. It's almost like giving a toddler a gallon of gasoline and a lighter, except the toddler will not do anything stupid with them. Big news at SOAPNet indicates the people in charge are both dumb at their basest level and also about four years behind pop culture trends.

The network also acquired rights to the young-skewing prime-time soaps "The O.C" and "One Tree Hill" from Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution. Those contemporary shows should also appeal to young viewers.

The same "The O.C." that just got cancelled because no one watches it? And the same "One Tree Hill" that everybody mocks just for existing and also stars the loathsome Chad Michael Murray and for the love of God, why must the world need to be exposed to him on multiple channcels?

"We speak to `General Hospital' viewers on both SoapNet and ABC on a daily basis and we easily direct them to this special `GH: Night Shift' series," he said. "Then we don't have to buy billboards, we don't have to have helicopters dragging signs across the sky."

I...have no idea what that means. What do helicopters have to do with anything? You don't need to advertise a show because there's a show like it on a totally different channel?

Unlike daily soaps, most "GH: Night Shift" plots will be wrapped up in a single episode.

Do these people not understand what a soap opera is? 

The show will be hipper than most daytime soaps and understandable to those who don't watch "General Hospital," Ms. Blackwell said. Although no contracts with actors have been finalized, the show features several characters who are the grown children of longtime residents of the fictional town of Port Charles.

Saying that something will be hipper than most daytime soap operas is like saying that someone is younger than the old lady from Titanic. And shoving "the grown children of longtime residents" into this bizarre random show is so a transparent ploy to get anybody who isn't Sonny off of GH. I just don't get it! This makes no sense to me! When are they going to air these new shows? Someone help me understand!

- Promising Ingénue