Ding, Dong, The Headwriter's Gone

I've been on cloud nine since a delightful reader told me the wonderful news that Megan McTavish has been officially fired. It's just...beautiful. I keep having these daydreams that all of the past couple of years will be done away with and there will be no Aborted Fetus, and no Zarf/Zoe, and no pancake murders and no torturing for Tad and no incredibly true adventures of an autistic teenager married to a murderer and no hackneyed breakup for Jack and Erica...

The woman is a poison. She's quite nearly on par with Jill Farren Phelps as far as show ruining goes. I mean, her most recent tenure on AMC goes without saying, but DID YOU KNOW that when she was the head writer at General Hospital , she was responsible for:

- Loon Lake

- Unfrozen Stavros

- Luke and Felicia

- AJ on the meathook

Perhaps most chillingly, the introduction of Courtney Matthews That's a whole lot of dreck in a concentrated amount of time. In some states, she would have been prosecuted and could have gotten twenty years to life in prison.

So I was feeling pretty good, you know? I had already gotten one of my shows back thanks to a newly introduced headwriter, so AMC is well on its way to reclaiming its former glory.

And then it hits me: That's not how ABC Daytime works. ABC Daytime doesn't replace crap with quality; they replace everything with crap. It's like Brian Frons gets a paycheck every time he makes me cry. I bet I've bought that bastard a new car this year alone.

So I'm starting to get terrified, especially since I keep reading rumors alluding the horrifying prospect that the next AMC headwriter might be...James E. Reilly. Which...that can't happen. Right? I mean, nobody in the free world with any respect for the sanctity of daytime television and also the lives of viewers at home would let that happen. It would be tragic and offensive and it might actually put me into a coma, and I don't want to be in a coma, especially if my coma self thinks nonstop and has a super annoying voiceover like Kendall's did last spring.

I'm totally overreacting, right? Because this isn't going to happen. Because James E. Reilly probably can't leave his house without throngs of angry soap fans pelting him with eggs and tomatoes, let alone fly to the East Coast. Right? It's so ridiculous! It totally is! It's almost as ridiculous as unaborting Erica's child and making vile, abusive thugs the show's romantic and saintly leads, which---oh. Ohhhh.

***

COMPLETELY RANDOM GH FACTOID: I watched The Departed for, like, the tenth time today and I was IMDBing Vera Farmiga and it turns out that she used to be married to Sebastian Roche, who plays Mr. Craig on GH. !!! Why did I not know this before? Then it got me thinking of the way the film depicted the mob as opposed to GH and I got the most hilarious image of Sonny Corinthos having to act big and brave to Frank Costello and then I laughed so hard that I threw my back out.

- Promising Ingénue

Comments

[Evil But Twinless]

I had no idea she was responsible for all those GH horrors! In that case, I'll join in your dance of joy, though this talk of Reilly replacing her makes me worry for you. And for me, because if your head explodes then I have to write this thing by myself.

[Southern Girl]

Wasn't she also responsible for Sexis? And the destruction of Nexis? That alone will have her forever on my list. And it ain't the list to send Christmas presents to either. ;)

[Ms Chicklet]

The ultimate question is, why do people like Phelps and McTavish keep getting soap jobs?

You can't tell me there aren't talented writers out there who could both respect and invigorate the genre. Until network brass do a clean sweep, soaps will continue to wither on the vine.

[zarathelawyer]

I didn't realise she was responsible for all that on GH either. And as for JERk on AMC, oh my god no! Remove the thought immediately. Not even ABC could be that bad.