Serial Drama

General Hospital Week in Review

Okay, so I'm exhausted because of the potent combination of trying to survive an oppressive heat wave and looking at tremendously bad fashion and hair over the last few days, so this review will be shorter than usual.  It will not, however, be more glowing than usual, because this show continues to find new ways to suck. 

I'll start with the worst of it.  Sam.  Irredeemably ruined, poorly dressed, inexplicably coiffed Sam.  Promising Ingénue covered this ground brilliantly and hilariously, so I will take the low, uncreative approach and just put it right out there:  The people who write this show are no-talent ass clowns.  The end.

Speaking of those clowns of the no-talent-having, assy variety:  The Logan-is-Scott's-son storyline.  Could they have messed this up any more royally?  Calling it a "storyline" is overly generous.  What did that reveal take, 1/10th of an episode?  Are these writers even familiar with the concept of a soap opera?!?!

RIP

The Notion of Sam McCall As A Viable Character Finally Dies
After four years, character finally reaches the point of zero rootability

YOU KNOW THAT SHE'S NO GOOD Despite attempting to jump on the Amy Winehouse beehive bandwagon, Sam McCall remains a horrible character

LOS ANGELES--After a tumultuous four years that found her character sleeping with two men in one night, being a kept woman to a local mobster, wasting precious hours in an inane ballroom dancing plot, killing several men in self defense and sleeping with her mother's husband, the notion that Samantha "Sam" McCall is in any way, shape or form, was killed.

"You know, it wasn't easy, coming up with ways to completely decimate Sam as a character," a General Hospital writer, who wishes to remain anonymous, remarks. "No matter what we did, Kelly Monaco managed to bring some sort of charm to the role and people still liked her".

Writers knew that drastic measures must be taken to ensure that the character was stripped of all positive attributes.

"Yes, of course we wanted to see Sam stripped", a statement from the office of Brian Frons said. When told that the statement was referring to a metaphorical stripping of good qualities and not of clothing, the next statement released was a concise, "Well...then, no comment".

Viewers tuning into the "Who Kidnapped Baby Jake" storyline on General Hospital today saw Sam having a flashback to the day the baby was taken, where she creepily lurked in the park like a creep, watching Maureen steal the baby. Her repeated lies about her knowledge of the kidnapping, coupled with a horrific scene in which she remarked to the distraught Liz that, with the loss of Liz's child, they were "even, marked the end of Sam's reign as a character that people could root for.

"It's pretty awesome," the unnamed GH writer exclaims. "I don't know why we want people to hate Sam, but we do, and it's going to be near impossible for her to rebound from this. I mean, she [expletive] with the kid of the Port Charles messiah. You don't [expletive] with the kid of the Port Charles messiah!"

The writer continues, "We're not sure what the fallout is going to be, we haven't written that yet...we usually write scripts the morning that they're being filmed. But I'm pretty sure we're going to learn that Alexis is at fault in some way because, you know...it's Alexis".

Viewers are encouraged to deal with their grief by watching scenes from happier times, when Sam was not insane or part of a kidnapping, and to urge Kelly Monaco not to renew any contract with General Hospital, ever. 

A Whole Lot of Ugly Goin' On

I like to think that the General Hospital wardrobe department personnel are collectively on medication, or have some kind of bet about who can go the longest without foisting some hideous ensemble on a poor unsuspecting soap star.  But then either the meds run out, or like in the Seinfeld "Master of My Domain" episode they all decide that the payoff is worth more than the bet, and BOOM . . . cavalcade of fugly.  One fashion disaster after another.  Take, for example, the last couple of days in Port Charles.

Is she a lawyer . . . from 1982?  Is she trying to recreate the least interesting lawyer character in the history of television, L.A. Law's Abby Perkins?  Is she going directly from the courthouse to appear in a community theater musical production of Working Girl?  (Which, side note, I think could be a hit on Broadway.  Let the geniuses behind Legally Blonde: The Musical at least take a shot.)  Is she finding increasingly creative yet heinously unattractive ways to cover up the fact that she's wearing a bullet-proof vest to guard against the wrath of her murderous employers, given how openly she (much to my delight) mocks them? 

This woman is so stylish that she reads high fashion magazines and squees over meeting Couture's editor-in-chief?  Really?  Maybe she just has a girlcrush on Kate.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The First Rule of Bad Sex Is You Do Not Talk About Bad Sex

So Chelsea and Nick apparently had really bad sex (by the way, TMI there, writers), and now Chelsea is running all over town (aka telling Stephanie) announcing that she and Nick had really bad sex.  Is this supposed to make me hate Nick, for some reason?  (Since there does seem to be a campaign underway to totally torch that once-charming character.)  Because instead it's making me hate Chelsea, who has only recently been rehabilitated after her tenure as the second-Worst Character in Daytime.  Plus, teenagers having bad sex?  Stop the presses!  What's next, Chelsea's trailblazing battles with oversleeping and moodiness?

Also, ew.  This whole storyline is making me uncomfortable.  I mean, is it just me?  I guess it's realistic, but so are colonoscopies and accounting spreadsheets, and I don't want to see them on a soap, either.  I also hate Sami and Lucas constantly talking about hooking up, and their unnecessarily graphic sex scenes.  There's a whole internet full of porn out there!  Are there really people depending upon NBC Daytime to provide this particular service?

And with this post, I have officially become the Church Lady.  So I guess I'll just say it.  Who is responsible for Jeremy, the Bad Sex Follies, and the Roberts' Porn in the Afternoon?  Could it be . . . SATAN?

Where Is His Halo?

Oh my god, GH writers, I give up.  I GET IT.  Jason is good and pure and a hero and a savior and ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THE WORLD and is not at all tainted by his job killing other human beings for profit.   All hail, Jason Morgan, Superstar.

Liz's dream today was just beautiful.  Oh, if only I had an imprisoned hitman/babydaddy/confidante/rescuer to help me in my time of need!  And weren't burdened with some dunderhead/detective/loving father/husband instead.  Every girl should be so lucky.  Well, not "Lucky," because he sucks.  And Jason rocks.  Speaking of things that rock, can we talk about those scenes with a big scary dude beating the snot out of 90-pound Sam yesterday?  Moving and not at all disturbing.  This show loves women, and totally doesn't glorify violence. 

This Kool-Aid is delicious!

Cocktail Hour

After a grueling day of shooting, Kelly Monaco starts to leave the General Hospital set. Dejected, worried about job security and covered with a thick sheen of grease from Steve Burton's head, she sighs and wonders where it all went wrong...

KELLY MONACO: How did this happen? Did I do something wrong? It seems like I was this show's breakout star just a few weeks ago and now I'm the one that they hate. Is it my breath? Do you think someone complained that I have bad breath and now they don't want to be in scenes with me? But I always have Altoids in my purse, so that can't be it--

She hears the muffled sounds of someone singing (off-key, might she add)  "Rehab", by Amy Winehouse.

MUFFLED VOICE: "They tried to make me go to rehab, and I said no-no-no...I tried to write an awesome episode and they said no-no-no"

KELLY: Is there someone in the supply closet?

She tentatively knocks, then opens, the supply closet door to find a melancholy figure eating Ramen noodles, stuffed in between a boiler and a dilapidated filing cabinet.

KELLY: Hey, I know you! You're the one everyone calls Awesome Writer.

AWESOME WRITER: Thank you SO much for getting me out of here! I was afraid I'd be stuck in there until tomorrow morning. What are you doing here so late? Everybody else left hours ago.

KELLY: (Sighs) I was afraid I'd run into a group of angry Jason/Liz fans again. Or a mob of Alexis/Ric fans. Or that weird John O'Hurley fan who keeps saying "You may have won first, but I took the dance off!"

AWESOME WRITER: I think that actually is John O'Hurley...

KELLY: Oh. That's really sad.

AWESOME WRITER:  Hey, thanks a lot for helping me get out of there. Can I buy you a drink? You look like you need one.

KELLY: That would be really nice.

Soap I Don't Watch #2: The Bold and the Beautiful

So it turns out at least a few of our readers watch the first Soap I Don't Watch, Guiding Light.  And shockingly, since just days before I had thought it was imaginary, I liked the show.  Apparently it is seconds away from cancellation, which is a bummer, but it may free up several really good actors to be picked up by shows I actually do watch, so that's good news.  For me.  Which is really how all things must be viewed; by their impact on my life. 

Anyway, next up in the SoapNet Daytime Emmy Dramarama marathon is little show about people, some of whom are bold, and others of whom are beautiful.  I actually remember this show debuting in the 80s, and I was rather pleasantly surprised to see that a bunch of the original actors, whom I watched back in the day at the Soap Opera Digest awards and other high-brow events, are still on the show.  I think this soap might actually respect its veterans instead of casting them aside for 19-year-olds.  I will need some time to adjust to such a phenomenon.  Here are some other things I noticed about this show (two episodes of it, because of that wacky half-hour format it has), continuing with the scientifically proven "pro and con" format.

GH Week in Review: It Teaches Me So Much

General Hospital is so educational these days! Just look at the things I "learned," this week alone:

1. If you are a career woman who is unmarried without children, and you find two specific fish-murdering, trespassing children annoying, you hate kids.
2. If your infant is kidnapped, you must be suffering from postpartum depression and have done something to the baby yourself.
3. A psychiatrist can diagnose a person with postpartum depression without ever examining her.
4. That same psychiatrist can diagnose a different person with severe depression without ever examining her.
5. If a new mother cries, it must mean that she wants to harm her child.
6. If you make a deal with your boyfriend’s friend to sleep with him if he gets a girl you don’t like to sleep with him, you are awesome and he is "disgusting."
7. A grown woman can be committed to a mental institution against her will, as long as the crappiest doctor alive has a hunch that she is crazy.
8. They still use straightjackets, including for people who have not demonstrated that they pose a threat to themselves or anyone else.
9. Blaming your wife for her child being kidnapped is okay, as long as you're genuinely interested in finding the baby.
10. A detective should absolutely be allowed to participate in the official investigation of the abduction of his own child.
11. A person can go from falling-down drunk to totally sober and camera-ready in a matter of minutes.
12. You can break a criminal out of jail easily, as long as you've got a laptop and a dream.

And now for things I didn't actually need to learn because I already knew them and/or they are patently obvious:

The Pilot...comes in for a landing

All good things must come to an end...even the 90210 pilot. Before we get to the final 46 minutes, a quick recap of where we last left our heroes:

Brandon: hot tub with Maryann

Brenda: hip dance club with lawyer Jason

Kelly: arguing with bouncer

DMG!: standing next to Kelly

Steve: depressed and Kelly-less, with a smashed-up car

Young David Silver: unknown

Young Scott Scanlon: dead, or alive, wearing his Lakers hat

Andrea Zuckerman: who's she?

And now, on to the thrilling conclusion!

Ballistic: DiMera vs. Brady

One of the things I love about Days of Our Lives is the way it can be profoundly awesome in the ironic way and profoundly awesome, period. The same people who brought us Nell Lexie just one week ago crafted an episode of television that was well written, well acted, compelling and drew upon decades of show history. It's a little weird how a show can veer from cheesy to legitimately good in the span of seven days, but you know what, I am not going to question it, I am along for the ride and enjoying it. Hogan and I are totally back on.

How fantastic was the dramatic return of Anna?!

I knew that it was coming and I am also completely unfamiliar with the character of Anna (I wasn't born yet when she made her Salem debut and all I know about her character is that she's Carrie's mom, and then some information gleaned from the Days of Our Lives 30th Anniversary book that I got when I was in middle school [shut up!]; she lied about being sold into white slavery, but actually had multiple sclerosis? That's so soapy!) but that did not detract from how fantastic it was.

Her reunion with her former in-laws was nothing short of hilarious.

CAROLINE: It's like looking at a ghost from the past.
ANNA: ...

No doubt, she had seen the bizarre clown couture outfit Peggy McCay wore to the Emmys and was too shocked to formulate a reply.

ROMAN: Anna. Oh, my God. That is you.
ANNA: Roman, you look well.

The unsaid ending to that sentence was "well on your way to a life that finds you shunned by a society frightened of your inability to move your face or open your mouth when you speak. I'm praying for you".