Serial Drama

Night Shift Episode 4: We'll Always Have Paris

PREVIOUSLY on Night Shift, Robert was brought into GH after his small plane crashed; Billy Dee Williams told Epiphany that he wants to settle down; Robin worried that Stone's behavior is unusual; Claire and Kyle ripped off Friends instead of Grey's Anatomy; "Leo" hooked up with Saira; Robert Scorpio was diagnosed with a brain tumor

This episode...was not so good. I know I'm cementing my reputation as a curmudgeon who sells Hallmark cards, but...really. Not so good.

Saira, looking particularly fetching, is on an elevator in street clothes, looking at her phone. Just before the doors close, "Leo" runs into the elevator and smirks at her. I know that his default facial expression is a smirk, so how do I know that's what he was going for? That, my friends, is how over-the-top his smirk was. Either not realizing that another doctor is on the elevator with them intently studying paperwork, or wanting to impress him, "Leo" smarms at her that she left pretty quickly this morning but she forgot something: her bra. Which he pulls out of his pocket to show her. Which is "charming" and "cute", apparently. The episode has been on for twelve seconds and I'm already skeeved.

He wonders if it was a party favor, but she tells him she's not that type of girl. They start bickering, and she tells him that, since they are at work, they need to behave professionally. Physically unable of having a conversation end on a mature note, "Leo" says, "Like you did when you jumped me in the locker room?" They bicker again about the circumstances of their sex-having, whether or not she'll be able to stop thinking about their sex-having and whether or not that the juvenile teasing about their sex-having is the best game "Leo" has to offer. As she departs, Saira tells him that he better not spread his non-game around town and, with a winning smile, steps off the elevator. He watches her leave with a dopey smile on his face.

Our Column in the 8/19 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

Our latest My Take/My Take, Too column appears in the August 19th issue of Soap Opera Digest, on newsstands and in subscribers' mailboxes now. Becca longs for the golden days of soaps, and wonders why Days of Our Lives and General Hospital can't have more than one compelling couple on canvas at a time, while Mallory explains why General Hospital and All My Children need to understand that being bad is much better than being good (in terms of entertaining characters; they have being bad down to a science when it comes to producing quality shows, so they don't need her advice there).

The issue also has a feature of common links between soap stars. Did you all know that Eric Braeden's real name is Hans Gudegast? Or that Stephen Mact (Trevor, GH) and Josh Taylor (Roman, Days) both went to Dartmouth?

GH: The Day in Pictures

Due to a power outage last Friday, my DVR didn't record General Hospital.  And to give you an idea of how motivated I was to catch up on this "soap opera," I didn't discover that it hadn't recorded until Monday, long after the SOAPNet catch-up-on-all-the-crap weekly marathon had already run.  Obviously, I cried my eyes out and cursed the unfairness of the universe.  But then I had a lime popsicle and felt much better.  So then I was in such a good mood that I decided not to spoil it by, say, blogging about the GH I have managed to watch lately.  And then Mallory was all hilarious and caught everybody up on the abject horribleness of the show, so I was additionally unmotivated to blog about it because why disturb the rage-tinged funny, you know? 

Now, you're reading this and probably thinking something outrageous must have happened to draw me out of my blogging semi-hiatus, to warrant two GH posts in as many days from your beleaguered Serial Drama girls.  And . . . you are right.  Witness the something outrageous:

I know I should have realized it when he named his firstborn after a legume, but now it's clear:  Ingo Rademacher has lost his mind and/or has access to really, really good pot.  Who goes on television with that hair, and seems so happy about it?  That hair is ruining Australian hotness, and that is unacceptable!  Mel Gibson's personality and post-1998 appearance does enough in that department.  There is only so much heavy hotness-lifting that their men's Olympic swimming team can do to compensate for one of their countrymen falling down on the job like this.

But maybe I'm being too harsh.  Liz, what do you think?

Yeah, "bitch, please [cut that mess]" was sort of what I had in mind as well.

Let's check in with Spinelli about his take on this critically important issue.  His hair-styling standards are obviously low.  Verdict?

Forget Lulu, I'M The One on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

I am the first to admit that I am prone to hyperbole and that I have a tendency to be a drama queen but I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I tell you that General Hospital is so relentlessly awful right now that it is LITERALLY BREAKING MY BRAIN. LITERALLY.

(Seriously, earlier today, I forgot my voicemail password and stared at my cell phone, slack jawed, for minutes. And when I paid for a latte at Starbucks, I gave the barista the wrong amount of change...twice. Either I have a concussion from hitting my head on a shelf at Marshall's, or GH is causing me mental anguish. When in doubt, I blame GH)

I find myself with so many questions as I watch the show (questions that I ask out loud to an empty room which, again, BROKEN BRAIN):

• Why is Claudia involved in every story on the show? I'm a certified Sarah Brown fan, so if I am irritated by her constant presence onscreen, how annoyed are her haters?
• It's 2008, right? Which makes Spinelli's endless complaining about how he should be the one saving Maxie and not vice versa totally lame, right?
• On what planet is the introduction of a new mobster even in the same hemisphere as entertaining? I think that at this point even Steve Burton is like, "SERIOUSLY? We're doing this again? Are you freaking kidding me? And people make fun of me for not doing anything new and original this century? Let me guess, I'm going to put on a black t-shirt and jeans and get shot at. Am I right? Seriously?"
• Was there any point to Claudia, Carly and Jason being part of a shootout at the warehouse other than "Hee! We have two Carlys in one scene with Jason. Hee! Carly and Jason and CarlyClaudia are awesome! Hee!"?
• Why do the writers even try to present the possibility that Our Lord and Savior Jason is going to get killed in one of the many shootouts he's involved in? Is it just to get our hopes up in order to cruelly dash them? Or do they think the audience is dumb enough to get emotionally invested?

And, most importantly, how on earth does ANYBODY think this show is entertaining? What is the thought process that goes in to writing these stories? Is there any thought process going in to writing these stories?

The more I think about it, the more it makes my head hurt and then I make a face kind of like this:

This effing show.

Does It Count As "Soul Searching" If You Don't Actually Have a Soul?

I wouldn't go that far, Old Vic.

Whenever Victor experiences pain, he hightails it out of Genoa City to go on the "Victor Newman is experiencing the gravest grief to ever grieve" world tour. In some cases, like last year when he ditched his family as they mourned for Nicholas so that he could go find his other son, it's a way for Eric Braeden to take a vacation, so we get a nice break from Victor.

If only we were that lucky this time around! No, we get to see him while he mourns his child bride, and while his family misses him, as though he doesn't pull this shit once a year and as if any of them really like him in the first place. We are unfortunately with him EVERY step of the way.

WATCH as he, the world famous mogul, disguises himself with a baseball hat!

LISTEN as Christian LeBlanc speaks this cheesy line without choking!

We both know that Victor could not be taken down without putting up the battle of a lifetime...

Passions Nostalgia: How Many Morons Does it Take To Open an Envelope?

Are you still in mourning over Passions' curtain call last week?  Are you struggling with how you will cope with yet another hole in your soap-viewing schedule?  Or do you just want to feel better about the fact that you sit through the dreck masquerading as All My Children and General Hospital these days?  Then read on, as Ryan Mason recaps a classically crappy episode of the now-late Passions.

Oh man. You can see firsthand in this one just what I mean about things happen in theory on this show, but nothing ever actually happens.

The envelope in question contains the results of the DNA test that will prove if John is really Grace’s son. Of course, in reality he’s not, and the tests show this, but Ivy is blackmailing Eve to lie and say he is or she’ll expose Eve’s SECRETS. It wound up taking TWO FREAKING WEEKS to open that damned envelope, because Kay decided to set a small fire outside to stop Zombie Charity from making love to Miguel, and it wound up getting out of control and burning down the entire Lopez-Fitzgerald home.  I think Eve had managed to get the envelope opened about a quarter of the way more when word broke of the fire and everyone raced over there, and then we had to deal with all that before we got back to the envelope. This also illustrates another Passions hallmark—the Catholic Church has the Stations of the Cross; Passions has the Stations of Stupidity. All the characters will be standing around one location waiting for something to not happen, like they are here in the Bennett living room, then something else will happen, like the fire, and everyone will shuffle over there to mill about and gape and talk to themselves. Lather, rinse, repeat. You could also look upon it as a never-ending Progressive Dinner with no actual progress involved (a Regressive Dinner, perhaps?).

The big deal with Zombie Charity potentially making love to Miguel is that it turns out she’s a succubus and if she has sex with him it will kill him. It happens.

Night Shift Episode 3: Fallen From the Sky

Previously on Night Shift, Robin told Jagger that Stone's behavior seemed unusual, and Jagger got upset.  (This is after Jagger was shirtless.)  Billy Dee told Epiphany he wanted to do right by her, and they kissed.  Claire and Kyle decided to move in together.  "Leo" had an off-screen personality transplant and among other things told Saira she could tell him something in confidence but then turned around and  brutally told a set of adoptive parents that their child was the victim of human trafficking and that they (ignorant of any of that) should be ashamed of themselves.  Saira was all how could you, I trusted you, and "Leo" was all yeah, that was dumb of you.

Also, Jagger was shirtless!  And GH viewers scratched their heads over why they are stuck with the mob dreck while the decent writers are relegated to a 13-episode weekly nighttime soap on SOAPNet.  (Also puzzled are SOAPNet executives, to learn that they are producing an actual soap opera.)  Plus, Jagger was shirtless!

Patrick and Robin appear to be arguing over her refusal to take his input about x-rays of a patient's torso, but it turns out they're actually arguing over Patrick's insistence that they name their daughter (if they have one -- they don't know the sex of the baby yet, do they?) Dale, after Dale Earnhardt Jr., Patrick's favorite NASCAR driver.  Oh Patrick honey, don't remind me that you like NASCAR; it diminishes the hotness.  Anyway, Robin -- who apparently unlike me did not have a grandmother who filled her in on at least one of the wives of Roy Rogers -- says Dale is a boy's name.  Patrick hotly says no, it's unisex -- like Robin.  Robin wants him to name all the male Robins he knows and he says there are lots but he just can't think of them right now.    Robin hands Patrick a names book and says pick a name out of there.

Patrick:  Robin, we're not going to pick our daughter's name out of some book, okay?  It's got to come from the heart.
Robin:  What about Matilda?
Patrick: ::is horrified::

Robin:  What?  I like Matilda!  It's French.
Patrick: Unfortunately, our daughter's going to grow up in America, where we beat up kids named Matilda.  [Sri Rao, you are just asking for a thousand crazed Heath Ledger fans to descend upon you!  -Ed.]
Robin: Fine.  You said that it has to come from the heart.  Matilda was the name of my dorm mother in Paris.
Patrick: When I said heart, I meant my heart.

Hee! I love this version of these two.  Anyway, they argue a bit more, and just after Robin leaves the room Patrick has a lightbulb moment -- Robin Williams is a man!  "Unisex.  Dale's back on the table."  Oh, Patrick.  You are so never going to win this fight.

ConFusion, ConTrivance, ConStant Aggravation

The other day, I said to myself, "Oh, wow, I haven't written about All My Children in ages. I should probably write about---oooh, look, there's something shiny!"

The sad thing is that the writers of AMC haven't put even that much brief, distracted by stained glass thought into this show in months. And it shows. Remember the days when things happened organically, and characters grew and had human interactions with one another? Now, it's just a series of plot contrivances until a plot ends, never to be spoken of again, before a new series of plot contrivances begins. So on and so forth.

Take, for example, Aidan/Annie/Greenlee/Kendall/Ryan/Zach going to Las Vegas. No good ever comes of a large group of television characters going to Las Vegas, especially when the group of characters is annoying to begin with (I'm sorry, Kendall and Zach, I really am. If it makes you feel any better, you're only a little annoying right now. Maybe if Kendall stops her blatant attempts to get Greenlee and Ryan back together, I'll be a little less cranky. Part of me seriously suspects that she moderates a Rylee2Cute2B4Gotten<3 messageboard). So when you throw in Vegas shenanigans, dated "What happens in Vegas" jokes and the threat of quickie marriages, it takes it all to threat level midnight.

I'm not spoiled for anything--I have a hard enough time making myself sit through the show now, let alone if I knew what was going to happen--but I don't see this story ending without everybody bumping into Aidan and Greenlee getting married, perhaps by an Elvis impersonator. Which is so...what's the word I'm looking for? Dumb? That sounds about right. And what do you call the moment where Ryan was fantasizing about Greenlee and, when his wife asked what he was thinking about, he answered "the woman I'm in love with"? I call that "an staggering example of douchebaggery", but I'm not sure that's what the writers were going for.

In Honor of Its Final Episode, a Recap From When People Still Watched Passions

Friends, today is a sad day in soapland . . . for the seven people still watching Passions.  (Or more accurately, for the three of those viewers who still actually enjoy the show.)  The last episode will appear today on public access in Winnetka, or Direct TV, or wherever the hell it has allegedly been airing.  Our guest blogger Ryan celebrates the end of an era -- a short, horribly written and often poorly acted, cheese-filled era, but an era nonetheless -- with a recap from way back at the beginning of this century.  We would have called this a Vintage Suds entry, but feared that calling something from 2001 vintage would make us sound dumber than that Blayne kid on Project Runway who thought the Beatles were popular in the 1930s, so we decided against it. 

I used to post a lot on various message boards about Passions, and still have some of my posts that also came to me via email saved. I’ve selected a few to share here, with a bit of present-day explanation and clarification leading each one off.

Right around the time when I wrote this one, I had discovered sites like Television Without Pity and Reality News Online that did full-length humorous recaps of TV episodes, so I decided to try my hand at it with Passions just for the hell of it.  Just as in theirs, some of the stuff in here didn’t actually happen but was thrown in for humorous effect (well, hopefully).

I loved the actress who played Norma, Marianne Muellerleile, but the character wore out her welcome because they kept bringing her back to do the same damned thing over and over—bellow and shriek and try to kill Tabitha. Starting around the time of the Rome/Vendetta storyline, though, thankfully they gave her more variety, and the character was more tolerable again.

This is when Theresa was pregnant with Little Ethan but because she thought it was Julian’s, she was planning to have an abortion before Ethan could find out she was pregnant, even though Ivy's already pieced it together. Theresa got on my last nerve for the first few years, as you can tell here. I didn’t start liking her until around the time she and Fox got together, possibly because for the first time she didn’t make everything all about EEEEEETHANNNN-nuh! and FAY-tuh! Lindsay Korman/Hartley also, at this time, wildly overacted with her facial expressions when Theresa thought one of her SECRETS was about to be blown. I think in time she toned down the ridiculous overenunciating too; she definitely grew a lot as an actress during her time there.

Ah, Miguel. I don’t know if Jesse Metcalfe was (understandably) bored to bits with the material, and I won’t presume to make any speculations about him in real life, but I swear he managed to give every line he droned the subtext of “pissy closet case.” Also, this is during the time period in which Kay cast a spell that imprisoned the real Charity in a block of ice and created her Zombie double that was supposed to help Kay land Miguel. It happens. And despite the huge brouhaha that Passions normally makes about EEEEVIL not being allowed in a church (Kay wasn’t the year before this when Hecuba had her soul; Tabitha just recently wasn’t until she renounced her powers), Zombie Charity was in church with no incident here. Another crackerjack job from the people in Passions continuity!

The Hallmarks of Passions

In honor of Passions' last week on the air, our guest blogger Ryan Mason is continuing his nostalgic look back.  Today he tackles the hallmarks of this temporarily sort-of classic daytime drama.  As you read them, try not to get yourself worked up by remembering that this show replaced Another World.  Not that I do that and break stuff, or anything.  ~ Becca

Passions definitely had its own little tics and trademarks and Alice in Wonderland-like rules of logic. Here are some of the key hallmarks:

ENDLESS DAYS. One day in Harmony could last for eons, and then just suddenly pop to the current time at will—in other words, New Year’s Eve could stretch into February, at which point it would suddenly become Valentine’s Day. The carnival that kicked off the show lasted for nearly a month, for example, and seemed twice as long. Then there was the never-ending party in early 2001 at the Crane mansion to celebrate Theresa and Ethan’s engagement—not only did it last for over a month, but to add insult to injury, every single episode featured Gwen and Rebecca huddled in the corner having this exact same exchange like some sort of demented cross between Statler & Waldorf and a cuckoo clock:

GWEN: Mother, are you sure this is a good idea?
REBECCA: TRUST me! Emailing Ivy’s letter proving that Ethan is Sam Bennett’s son to the tabloids from Theresa’s computer was a stroke of genius!

All in all, your typical Harmony year might consist of about 10-15 days, each jam-packed with nonaction.

BUTTINSKY BIT PLAYERS. A Passions staple, these are the people who would pop up from out of nowhere, convinced they knew everything about you and your innermost thoughts, and proceed to offer “Who asked for it?” oracular insights into your life. They seemed to be especially prevalent on airplanes, where the passenger in the seat next to you would invariably chirp “I can tell just by looking at you that you’re pining away for your TRUE LOVE!!!!111!!!” when all you’d done was ask them to pass the peanuts.

The very first Buttinsky Bit Players were the Parisian flowermongers in the first episode who provided this sterling bit of commentary from out of the clear blue sky after Sheridan walked away from their stand:

FLOWERMONGER #1:  There she goes. Every day. Same time.
FLOWERMONGER #2:  I wonder who she is. And where she goes.
FLOWERMONGER #1:  She looks like a princess.
FLOWERMONGER #2:  If she is, she is a very sad princess!

Oh, lady, you don’t know the half of it.

And on it went. My personal favorite was the jeweler who refused to sell Ethan an engagement ring for Gwen because she just didn’t feel he was buying it for the right reasons, even though she had known him for all of ten seconds. Because, as we all know, jewelers are wont to throw a sale worth thousands of dollars out the window if they have even the slightest concern about the buyer’s motives.

RECAP MASQUERADING AS DIALOGUE. Even on the best of days, as my Top 25 WTF? Lines of Dialogue entry demonstrated, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything on Passions even vaguely resembling normal human speech, but the worst was when characters were routinely given entire paragraphs of recap to spew. For example, here was Rebecca at the top of one episode: