Serial Drama

But Where Will Her Tragic Scar Be Now?

Yes, I know I'm more than a month slow on the uptake, but nonetheless . . . Oh, sigh:

Bjorlin's Back!
As reported in Digest's 9/4 issue, Nadia Bjorlin (Chloe) is returning to DAYS OF OUR LIVES. She will first air in November. "We're thrilled to have her back," says Executive Producer Ken Corday. "She is an amazingly beautiful and talented woman." Not surprisingly, Chloe will be part of a storyline with Shawn, Belle and Philip. "She comes back with an edge," teases the exec.

I have nothing in particular against Nadia Bjorlin (though I did find the Bruce Willis stuff a bit sleazy), and apparently this is an unpopular opinion since they're bringing her back, but damn, I did not like Chloe.  Admittedly I was only watching intermittently during most of her time on the show, but the character just seemed whiny and boring to me.  Not to mention she was one soap-ingénue cliché after another:  "I am so terribly ugly!  I'll never find love!  On the other hand, if I take off these black clothes and clunky glasses, I am a supermodel!"; near-fatal illness;  disfiguring scar; etc.  Plus I found her parents, Craig and Nancy, totally irritating. 

As for Chloe's return, I am highly suspect that anything associated with Belle and Shawn will have "an edge," and I really don't need yet another round of Shawn and Philip fighting over Belle, unless and until they show me one personality trait worth fighting over in a context other than "Belle makes me want to fight over who has the opportunity to run away from her first."

All that aside, Bjorlin's return caused me to look up Chloe's history on SoapCentral, which led to my re-discovery of how awesomely awful some of the writing and recapping is there, including this gem:

Crimes Committed
Threw a dead rat in Jan's face and caressed her with it.

First of all, I am so, so sorry I missed this.  Second of all, was there a trial for this supposed crime of rat throwing-slash-caressing?!  Because that would be about ten times as interesting as Jason's hundredth murder trial on GH.

It All Makes Sense!

I had a lot of questions watching Richie nearly be lynched by Ryan and Aiden:

1. What is with ABC Daytime's hard on for violence?

2. Why is it that the only thing they can do with the gorgeous, British, DEVANE as in ANNA DEVANE (and did I mention gorgeous and British?) Aiden is have him be Greenlee's redeemer and also the kind of person who lynches people by means of interrogation?

3. Where did Aiden get the noose during the three minutes Ryan wandered away from him?

4. If a story features Babe and Ryan in huge, prominent parts, what percentage of the viewing audience will kill themselves out of sheer frustration?

And so on.

But the entire episode actually answered one huge question I've had about Annie: why has she never showed one iota of personality or chemistry with other human beings in the thirteen months she's been on the show?

The answer: because her brother took up the entire family supply of charisma, what with his lifetime supply of kickass.

I know he's, like, "shady", and "immoral" and "harmful to small children" and also "psychopathic", but...kickass.

Truly, I'm trying to think of the right adjective to use whilst describing someone who, while hanging by a noose, hears the police come in and decides to turn the tables on his interrogators by kicking the chair out from underneath him. All I'm coming up with is kickass.

I honestly think Richie could be a really compelling villain, if they keep him evil and devious and don't turn him into a cartoonish, over the top, "villain" like the Hamburglar. Plus, I am all for any character who gets the best of Ryan. Is it too much to hope that said best getting happens repeatedly?

Days of Our Lives Week in Review

This will be a short wrap-up this week, both because there was very little forward story-movement, and because what there was was decent and not really mockable.  Damn you, improved Days of Our Lives writing!  I'm sure I can find a couple of things to make fun of, though.  I usually can if I put enough energy into it.

Stop me if this sounds familiar.  This week, Sami was angry.

Then she got into a ridiculous predicament with EJ.

Also, she and Lucas fought.

It's getting to the point where the only way I can distinguish Sami week-to-week is by whatever awful maternity dress they force Allison Sweeney and her not-even-trying-to-be-realistic pregnancy pillow into.

The writers did have the decency this time around to acknowledge some degree of repetition: 

Sami:  ...I keep getting in these ridiculous life-threatening situations with EJ!

But perhaps they could just write something new, instead?  Like, maybe Sami gets angry, and then gets into a ridiculous life-threatening situation with EJ that requires him to be nearly naked, and then she and Lucas fight about the fact that she has posted her hair-care regimen on large posters all over their apartment (which are easily readable by, say, the average soap opera viewer).  I'm just saying, there are all kinds of directions to go in.

BREAKING NEWS!  There exists at least one screencap on the interwebs in which James Scott does not look gorgeous!

But I'm reasonably certain it's just the one.

Yeah, it was a total anomaly.  Thank goodness.

General Hospital Week in Review

Oh show, why do you suck so?

How boring is General Hospital right now?  Why, with this cast and history, isn't this the best soap on daytime?  Oh, right, the writing.  I bet you wouldn't think that if you could watch the show on your Blackberry, though!

Let's start off with the dumbest thing that happened this week, the clunky attempt to integrate Night Shift storylines back into OG GH.  I thought Night Shift was supposed to have stand-alone episodes?  I thought it was supposed to be an "alternate universe" that wouldn't cross over to regular GH?  I thought the showrunners had decided it wasn't possible to integrate the two shows?  And most importantly, I thought we were rid of this horribly crappy spin-off?!

Friday's episode would have made no sense to someone who didn't watch Night Shift, right?  And the majority of General Hospital viewers actually didn't watch Night Shift, right?  How would someone who only subjects themselves to regular GH have known (or cared):

• why Cody was in jail?
• why Dr. Julian is limping?
• what Epiphany is talking about re: exploding ambulances, pulling plugs, switching meds, and shoot-outs?
• why Kelly was freaking out about a couple of teenagers being schmoopy, or why she's in sex addition therapy
• that Andy has a drug addiction?
• why Jolene is the "angel of death" or how she got shot?

And on Night Shift, Leyla and Patrick have been sleeping together for weeks and Robin knows it, but on GH it's big news that they're going on a date, and Robin is upset about it?  Plus:

Leyla to Robin:  [Y]ou don’t get to belittle me just because your boyfriend broke up with you.

What?  Didn't I see GH Robin break up with GH Patrick, not the other way around? 

Liz: How happy are you to be done with night shift duty?
Robin:  Let me count the ways.  Unfortunately, the after effects still linger.

How deliciously meta.

I would have preferred a Dirty-Dancing-esque, "This is my dance space, this is your dance space" approach to the two shows.  I call foul on the spaghetti arms!  And I am totally okay with putting Night Shift in a corner.  Uh, this comparison is getting away from me, so let me just sum up by saying that say what you will about GH, it is perfectly capable of not living up to its potential without an assist from another, even more disappointing, soap.

This week, a DNA test confirmed that Scott is Logan's father.

Well knock me over with a feather.

Despite fantastic casting, the writers managed to drain this reveal of any drama whatsoever by speeding through the paternity issue at the same breakneck speed they did Logan and Lulu's "relationship."  So...meh.  It was good to see Kin Shriner, and nice to hear Scott finally mention Serena, but there had better be a new and interesting twist to this storyline, soon.

Night Shift in Review: "Primetime Spin-off" Means "Late-night Crap-fest" in Los Angelese

Since apparently the wise powers-that-be who oversaw the train wreck that was Night Shift in their infinite wisdom have decided to now bring a ton of the crap from that show to OG GH, and because many of you were luckily spared the spin-off viewing experience but will now be in the dark about some of the "storylines" that happened over those painful 13 weeks, here are some handy links to our recaps of the entire [almost exclusively awful] series. 

• Episode 1: Frayed Anatomies (Mallory)
• Episode 2: Skin Deep (Becca)
• Episode 3: Paternity Ward (Mallory)
• Episode 4: Keep the Change (Becca)
• Episode 5: Bed, Bath and Be Gone (Mallory)
• Episode 6: Love's Labors (Becca)
• Episode 7: Mother's Day (Mallory)
• Episode 8: Employee of the Month (Becca)
• Episode 9: Gutter Ball (Mallory)
• Episode 10: Falling Star (Becca)
• Episode 11: Fools In Love (Mallory)
• Episode 12: What Becomes of the Broken Hearted (Mallory)
• Episode 13: Time Served (tag team)

Disappointment, disgust, and expletives, ahoy!   Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to comfort Jason Thompson in his time of need.

Night Shift Episode 13: Time Served

Oh man, you guys, did you watch?  We could go into great detail about all the dropped storylines, plot holes, character destruction, plagiarism, and general incompetence involved in this show.  We could rant about how on a scale of one to ten this show, especially the last episode, would be like a minus 17.  We could write a thesis on how if the people behind Night Shift had made a conscious effort to stock it full of industrial-strength suck, it couldn't have been worse than what we got.  But even for you, dear readers, we won't do any of that.  It's too much effort. So after 12 painstakingly detailed recaps, for the finale we're casting that approach aside.  Instead, you get parts of our IM conversation from during the show, and random lists.  Uh, we hope it will be more enjoyable than it looks just written out like that.  But we're not promising anything.  The show may very well have zapped us of our ability to entertain, having set such a poor example itself.

Admittedly, we didn't go into the finale with the best of attitudes:

Becca: I am so glad this is the last hour of this crapfest that we'll have to sit through. It is going to be challenging to make a recap entertaining. I hope Patrick has at least one "hotly"-worthy moment.
Mallory: All I am hoping for is some Jason hilarity. I am looking forward to JASON. I am officially brainwashed
Becca: Right?! The episodes he wasn't on were the worst. Which is just...tragic. It's a soap opera tragedy. But without a dramatic death, or adultery, or a disfiguring accident.  Which is so wrong.  Speaking of tragedies, I have made the mistake of using the half-hour leading up to Night Shift to watch The Office ep that I TiVo'd earlier tonight.  Do you know how damaging it is going to be to my psyche to go from that brilliance to Night Shift?
Mallory: Maybe we can just recap The Office instead. "Regularly scheduled recapping will be pre-empted indefinitely for a show that doesn't blow"
Becca: I'm in.  And it's not even totally off-topic, since tonight's guest star on The Office was OMG EDWARD QUARTERMAINE!!!
Mallory: I KNOW!!!  I almost died
Becca: You know, if we do this right, maybe we can avoid the horrible topic of Night Shift entirely.
Mallory: Oh, we can try our hardest. Remember when the show didn't suck? In that first episode? Good times
Becca: I maintain that the boob job incident ruined the show's mojo. You can't recover from something like that.
Mallory: So true. Making Jason Thompson look skeevy is something that takes effort and these writers made that effort. Why they can't make it to, you know, tell a decent and cohesive story is a story for another time

But as has been true throughout these looooong 13 weeks, we were right not to heighten our expectations:

Becca: I know it's been about 15 minutes so I should be over it, but: WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!
Mallory: I'm trying to repress it, whatever it was
Becca: I think we need to put this in perspective. And also, composing lists always makes us feel better. Therefore, topic: Things that are worse than General Hospital: Night Shift
Becca: famine
Becca: war
Mallory: genocide
Becca: some diseases
Becca: animal cruelty
Mallory: child abuse
Becca: certain polyesters
Mallory: Hunter Tylo's boob job
Becca: Donald Trump's hair
Mallory: clowns
Becca: Hee!
Mallory: I'd rather watch Night Shift than IT , because IT could kill me and Night Shift only makes me want to kill myself, so at least I'd have a choice in the matter
Becca: You know what, I take back the Trump thing.  I would rather have stared at his hair for 13 one-hour segments than have watched this show.  And at least on The Apprentice people get fired. Plus I bet IT didn't ruin one of your celebrity crushes.
Mallory:  IT lived in my freezer and I was too freaked out to open the freezer to get ice cream. But Jason Thompson losing his dreaminess is probably slightly more tragic
Becca: I will fight hard to maintain my Jason Thompson crush.  None of this is his fault.  Do you think that a couple of episodes in, he and Kimberly McCullough realized what was going down and tried to escape?  Like, did they have to chain the soundstage doors?  I envision it like the prom scene in Carrie, only with slightly less pig's blood.
Mallory: I bet he and Kelly Monaco go out for drinks and are like, "No, seriously, what the hell did we do to those writers?"

Becca: Oh god, here we go. Why didn't I have more Grey Goose?
Mallory: Seriously, it's time to bust out the shot glass
Becca: "Previously, on Night Shift" . . .we stole 12 hours of your life you'll never get back, you gullible morons.
Mallory: Aren't they in an ER? That is no time for flirting. Oh, sorry, "flirting"
Becca: Oh my GOD, Robin's hair: why???
Mallory: Honestly, she should be jailed for that

. . . . .

Mallory: Oh! Billy Dee isn't dead! This is good news! Maybe we'll get another song and dance dream sequence to an oldies song
Becca: The screen helpfully tells me the finale is called "Time Served" -- genius! Watching this show has definitely been a sentence.
Becca: Another f'ing pregnant woman? Seriously? Do these writers know of not a single other medical emergency?
Mallory: It's either pregnant woman in peril or someone with a broken brain
Mallory: Robin's hair manages to look both dry and greasy. And also like someone cut her bangs with a butter knife. I can't get over it
Becca: It's horrible. It distracted me from the otherwise nice-ish-ness of that scene with her and Patrick in the locker room.

Possible Explanations for the Storyline- and Hair-Related Atrocities Forced on Kimberly McCullough and Jason Thompson

• retaliation for Gloria Monty's ghost's constant 'shipping of Robin and Patrick
• Bob Guza is angry that Jason Thompson gets to share a name with the holiest of hitmen and yet uses his power for good, not evil
• the NS brass is Team 50 Cent while Kimberly and Jason are Team Kanye
• a potent combination of anti-Canadianism and anti-Daytime-Emmy-winnerism
• executives were furious over the "Scrubs" nickname, particularly that it could inadvertently tie them to Zach Braff and therefore The Last Kiss

Mallory: Regina just said everything would be fine when Dr. Lee got there to take care of the baby. If that's not a death sentence, I don't know what is. They should have just paged Jason to do the delivery!
Becca: Dr. Lee, hey there. Shall we start keeping track of dropped storylines? (1) Kelly's sex addiction.
Mallory: (2) Everything Maxie related
Becca: (3) _____ Barrett, unless in the next 53 minutes they plan to reveal her identity, her connection to Jason, how she got injured, and what the consequences of her being in town are. Of course, these are the people who wrote Logan and Lulu's 35-minute romance, so maybe that could all happen.

Things With Fewer Holes Than Night Shift Plots

• swiss cheese
• fishnet stockings
• beehives
• Carlsbad caverns
• the entire catalog of Michael Bay

LML: Evil Genius?

During today's horrifically painful scenes where Lily and Colleen had a stilted, poorly acted girl talk about how dreamy Cane is, complete with giggles and the line, I quote, "Oh, my gosh, shut up!", I kept getting distracted by Tammin Sursok's rapidly appearing and disappearing accent and Tammin Sursok's enormous head (which, technically, is not her fault and is something I shouldn't mock her for, but, you know...heartless) and then I thought to myself, "Wow, Christel Khalil is pretty good".

!!!

Seriously: Tammin Sursok made Christel Khalil look like Michelle Stafford. That is how bad Tammin Sursok is.

And then it hit me: what if Lynn Marie Latham is a diabolical mastermind who decided to hire a terrible actress to play Colleen so that her decision to bring Christel Khalil back to the show would look like a pretty decent idea? I mean, more than likely, that's not true and LML is just inept in every facet of her job, but, you know, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and, if it's true...well played, LML.

First Anniversary Self-Indulgence: Becca Is Brill

Have you ever met someone so awesome that they make you feel bad about yourself, but it doesn't detract from how awesome that you think they are? Becca is that person for me. She always manages to top herself in terms of hilarity and general brilliance (and, needless to say, her taste in shoes and handbags is impeccable). She's pretty much who I want to be when I grow up. Um, in the "role model" way, not the "tie her up and take over her life" kind of way.

I could easily say that every post she's ever written is my favorite of hers, but I am going to give you the creme de la creme

• I think that this might be the best thing John and Marlena have ever been associated with
• Her fantastic fashion sense have led to myriad scathing speaking commentaries on the sad state of soap wardrobes. I can only imagine that if the GH and Days of Our Lives wardrobe departments saw them, they'd cry themselves to sleep.
• The world is a better place with the official Awesome Alert scale in it
• Reading her searing hatred of Jeremy "Horton" will never get old
• Three beautiful words: Be Quiet, Carly
• As the founder of the Expression Hall of Fame, Becca has a comprehensive series of screencaps that make me laugh and cry every time I see them
• And she's a songwriter, too!
• Seriously, in the history of the internet, has there every been a better piece of writing than Jill Farren Phelps's statement on Jax's rape? No, there has not. We can shut the internet down tomorrow, because nothing will ever top that.

Thank you, Becca, for your nonstop amazingness. True, it's gotten me in trouble at work when your entries make me literally laugh out loud, but it's a small price to pay. 

First Anniversary Self-Indulgence: Mallory Cracks Me Up

Most of y'all must know this already, but just in case you're new, I must inform you:  Mallory is one funny scathing-speaker.  In celebration of our first anniversary as co-bloggers, I thought I'd share a few of her posts that made me laugh out loud the hardest.  (If I were not morally opposed to them, smiley emoticons would appear in this space.) 

• For "Gloria Monty's ghost" alone, but then for the several minutes of unstoppable giggling the rest of it induced, "Behind the Scenes" is a classic.
• Two words:  "Bitch, Please."  And more Cameron brilliance.
  
• Poor Kelly Monaco.  RIP, Sam McCall's likability.
• "All My Generally Restless Days."  Awesome. 
• The mental image of Bob Guza throwing darts at his Genie Francis dartboard will stay with me as long as a network inexplicably keeps him employed as a soap writer.  If only he would take some friendly advice.
• So, you want to ruin soaps?  A primer.
• To anyone who thinks we're just haters, Mal's obvious love of true soapiness should set you straight.

I blame several of my laugh lines on you, Mal, but whatever, there are ways to deal with those.  I hear Hunter Tylo can give me a great referral.

First Anniversary Self-Indulgence: Google Is Love

Technology affords us the awesome ability to see what search engine searches lead poor unsuspecting internet surfers to our little corner of the world.  We keep some of the results, because they are so entertaining on a number of levels (not because we don't have lives, okay?).  Some are hilariously random, others are hysterical because someone actually thought the internet could answer the question (and only responds to full sentences), some are bizarre because they directed people here, and some are awesomely insightful into people's thoughts on the shows we love to mock.  We thought we'd take the occasion of our first anniversary as an excuse to share with you how some of your fellow readers found us.  We give you:  Our favorite Google searches.

• how many times has susan lucci had facial surgery on her face?
• is liz pregnant with jason's baby (general hospital)
• don diamont's hair never moves
• hunter tylo looks like a freak
• do guza hate women
• IS KELLY MONACO DOING OKAY WITH THE NEW STORYLINE ON GENERAL HOSPITAL
• in general hospial night shift who is putting all the bad things in peoples things
• gh nightshift makes no sense
• what do sonny and jason do
• amber trashing up show young and restless
• where did steve burton's neck go
• why was charity rahmer replaced
• shouldn't jerry know carly
• jason morgan/ spinelli slash
• why are they writing such a crappy storyline on gh for sam and jason?
• jason cook's home address days of our lives
• is jason morgan really a murderer
• the young and the restless writers is stupid
• can i see rick and sam having sex on general hospital
• i don't understand general hospital night shift
• gh steve burton did he double in size?
• night shift is a really bad show

The truly random:

• husband wears pantyhose during sex why
• some one's being a full-on diva skank
• gauchos and dress code policy in hospital setting
• soap stealing robot that ruined our lives
• drugging your boss
• are you a fugly skank?
• leggings parking tickets women prison

If you're curious about the most popular searches, they are some variation on the following (in no particular order)

• are Jason Thompson and Kimberly McCullough dating in real life
• Laura Wright's hair
• Megan Ward's hair
• Carly on GH's wardrobe [Sob!  - Eds.]
• Hunter Tylo plastic surgery
• Serial Drama/Serial Drama blog/Serial Drama soaps funny

Search engines are responsible for a huge portion of our traffic, so we should love them for that reason, but even if they never sent us a single returning reader we'd love them forever for the entertainment the searches alone provide us.