Serial Drama

Good ("Good"?) News and Bad News

So Days of Our Lives finally got renewed, though only for 18 months.  If the writing doesn't significantly improve, that will be the longest year and a half of my life.  Lord, beer me strength.

The truly bad news is that in order to meet the budget cuts that were apparently part of the renewal package, a ton of actors may be on the way out. 

Soap Opera Digest reports:

DAYS Casting Shocker!
Hot on the heels of the news that DAYS got a pickup (at an extremely reduced fee from NBC), Digest has learned that negotiations between the show and Jay Kenneth Johnson (Philip) have broken down and the actor cleared out his dressing room yesterday. Money is said to be the main issue. "Everyone is being asked to take a paycut," reports an insider. Sources say the show is looking for a potential recast and actors are being brought into the studio today to read. A DAYS spokesperson says, "No comment."

That will decrease the younger male prettiness on that show by at least 33%!  Unacceptable!

And the rumors about who the additional cuts will be are not encouraging.  I swear, if they renewed this thing just to jam Marlena down our throats five days a week, I reserve the right to have all my Days posts be a series of moans and gasps.  (Assuming I could stay awake, and not have a smugness-induced stroke.)

poll by twiigs.com

P.S. Yes, a real Days post is coming soon.  The things I suffer through for you people.

General Hospital Week in Review

Yes, the Week in Review is back.  I didn't think it was fair to continue to punish a perfectly useful blogging device just because the subject of said device is a horrible, miserable, depressing excuse for a soap opera.  And plus, with Robin and Patrick having a baby and Laura's brief return, General Hospital has decided to harsh my "I hate this entire show and everything about it and it sucks and is fat and ugly and mean and I want it to die" buzz a bit, so I needed something else to keep me going.

As you can tell, my positive attitude and generosity of spirit have returned along with the Week in Review.  Rejoice.

At the risk of oversharing, I feel the need to share a bit of background on a particular issue.  Here's the deal:  I do not especially want to have children.  If I meet the right guy and he wants to, I might, but I don't have that biological imperative thing going that many women do.  I don't hate kids, but I don't crave being around them, you know?  Mostly I think they're kind of perpetually sticky, and also sometimes dirty and stinky.  They also don't have a lot of use for personal space boundaries, which is a biiiig thing with me.  A few months ago while standing in line, a small girl mistook my legs for those of her mother and threw herself around me.  I nearly had a stroke, and then wondered whether dry cleaning my pants would be an overreaction.  Oooh, and the ones who fly around department stores on their little wheelie shoes?  I have been tempted to stick out a well-shod foot to teach them a lesson.  Judge me if you must, but you know those shoes -- and the parents who allow their rampant, indoor use -- are evil. 

ANYWAY, none of this is relevant, really, because before they develop into children, babies are adorable (unlike Robin Scherbatsky, I do not have a baby phobia).  I realize this is a controversial position, much like that puppies are cute, but I'm going to stick with it.  So I did not expect to be especially moved by the birth of Emma Grace Scorpio Drake because 1) she is fictional, and 2) she is a TV baby so she's going to be at the extra-cute end of the baby attractiveness spectrum.  And she was as precious as I expected.

That is a cute-ass baby, folks.

What I did not count on, however, and what has caused my knees to turn into a gelatinous goo on at least two occasions now, is this:  Patrick Drake is, in the regular course of the storyline, required to hold Emma.  And so it happened that these images:

...have caused me to call into question many of my existing theories about children.  My god, they truly do have the power to make even already exceedingly hot men hotter!  And I have never been one to buy into that cliché about men holding babies being sexy.  I rebuke that cliché!  But somehow, in spite of myself . . . gooey.  Gooey knees!  My ovaries might even have twitched.  But I don't want to sound like an overly emotional woman, so let me break this down logically:

[Jason Thompson's hotness]
+
[adorableness of baby playing Emma]
+
[Jason Thompson hotly holding adorable baby playing Emma]
=
[Jason Thompson's hotness]^{10 (or maybe infinity)}

Who said math isn't sexy?

Not one to stop at just hotly reproducing, Patrick did other things hotly last week.  He:

I Don't Normally Advocate Using Children As Weapons, But I'll Make An Exception

Annie reaching new levels of crazy, to the point where she fakes Emma's kidnapping just to screw with people, should not entertain me for a number of reasons:

• Annie is the latest in a long line of characters to be sacrificed in order to let Ryan be with Greenlee. Or Kendall. Or whoever his latest true love is at any particular time of day. I mean, granted, it's not like she started out as a good character, so her road to ruin was a short one, but still. Melissa Claire Egan has grown on me.

• It forces Cameron Mathison to play grief, worry and rage, which...makes me uncomfortable, to say the least.

• They recasted Di with a girl who I am pretty sure is new to acting, perhaps having won a contest of some sort. I am also reasonably sure that she was reading a teleprompter for the duration of her scenes

• Greenlee is tagging along for no real reason and--it pains me to say this as a card carrying member of the "Rebecca Budig! OMG<3Squeal!" fanclub--Rebecca Budig could not care less. I don't know if she's counting down the days until she leaves or if she thinks the story is lame, but she is completely half-assing it And the fact that I notice this during scenes with Ryan and Aidan says a whole lot.

• It's setting up weeks, if not months, of Ryan ranting and raving more self-righteously than usual about the grave injustices done unto him. "Can't wait".

However, I can say without hesitation, that I am enjoying the hell out of this, mostly because I am a horrible person who likes to watch bad things happening to Ryan Lavery, even if only temporarily.

This Show Is Only An Hour Long? Really?!

The most awesome thing to happen on The Young and the Restless in, like, months happened on Monday.

I know that this technically did not happen on Y&R at all and that Robin Scherbatsky Sr. was pretty much Victor Newman, except intentionally hilarious (and also Canadian), but I figured I'd throw the show a bone and pretend that they received some of How I Met Your Mother's awesomeness by osmosis.

Because if there was ever a show in need of something entertaining, it's Y&R. Please don't interpret that as me saying that the other soaps on the air are quality programs because...um, no, but at least they are filled with storylines so awful that you can't help but stare at your television transfixed. The Young and the Restless, on the other hand, doesn't even feature anything hideously bad. It is just spectacularly boring. 

Take a look at the current storylines:

• Lily's online dating and finding "Sonny", who is really Billy. Yes, you read that right: Y&R has made Billy Miller boring to me. I know. I know! I didn't think it was possible either, but it is.

• Kevin's money problems. If I am ever going to care about Kevin and Jana, both separately and as a couple, I am going to need one of them (at least) to go back to their scheming, homicidal ways.

• Gloria and Michael and River's drama. My soft spot for Steven Keaton only goes so far and, unfortunately, does not extend to Gloria-related things.

•  Sharon, Nick and Phyllis. I seem to remember a time when their dynamic was entertaining, but that ship has sailed, people.

• Neil, Karen and Tyra...existing.

• Another endless storyline of someone wandering around another country looking for Victor because we haven't had one of those in, like, two whole months. And also, what the hell, Ashley? Who wanders around PARIS asking if people have seen someone?! I know that Victor's like a super famous mogul or whatever and that the mustache is recognizable, but STILL.

There is a glimmer of hope in the Kay/Marge story. It seems like it has the potential, at least, to be sort of worth watching, which places it eons ahead of the rest of the show. I am going to hold out hope that Jeanne Cooper will come through for me, as she has so many times before.

Our Column In the 11/11 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

Be sure to pick up the latest issue of Soap Opera Digest, which is on newsstands today, for our newest My Take/My Take, Too column. This month, Mallory praises the glorious romances on General Hospital and All My Children, while Becca expresses delight over the pacing of Days of Our Lives and the exciting, original storylines on General Hospital.

...well, maybe we would do those things if romance, fast-paced stories and originality existed on these shows, but they most emphatically do not. So instead, we lament the sorry state of soaps today.

I'm an Irate Blogger, and I Endorse this Message

You knew it was coming; I'm about to get all political up in here.

I know that reasonable minds can disagree about many, many issues.  I respect differences.  I fully appreciate that one's background determines how one feels about the myriad issues around which our politics rotate.  I understand that nobody wants some soap opera blogger to preach at them about how they should feel about certain critically important social and moral issues.  But on the eve of this historic election, I must implore everyone to do as I do:  Take an unwavering, steadfast, heartfelt, deep-rooted, ideological stance in favor of good-looking Days of Our Lives actors CUTTING THEIR EFFING HAIR.

For the love of all that's good in this world (aka hotness), what is going on with this show's leading men?!

We can work together for change to get them to stop looking like homeless people and/or 1980s Euro-hipsters.  Yes we can. 

Screencaps courtesy of Days of Our Lives 2.

Soap Opera Blogger/Columnist Arrested, Institutionalized

Undisclosed East Coast Location, Friday -- Part-time soap opera blogger and magazine columnist Becca Thomas was arrested for vandalism and subsequently placed in a lock-down mental health facility after an incident at her home. 

According to reports, Thomas returned from an extended business trip for her day job and became despondent over the idea of having to watch two weeks' worth of Days of Our Lives and General Hospital episodes saved on her DVR.  At her wits' end, Thomas propelled her TiVo through her living room window.  When police arrived, Thomas tried to explain her actions, but officers said she had clearly lost touch with reality.

"She kind of teared up and she started talking about how Days had made Steve and Kayla invisible, and Bo and Hope super boring, and that General Hospital was shooting kids in the head and having a mobster with a magic penis be the center of the show.  Really crazy stuff," said Deputy Kate Johnson, who said she herself used to watch those two shows until the mid-1990s.  "She also said something about a hitman being a hero, and how she would find watching the Golf Channel for a week straight more interesting than ten consecutive episodes of Days of Our Lives.  The poor woman clearly has some kind of chemical imbalance."

"To Have and To Hold, From This Day Forward, On Awesome Shows and Bad Shows..."

I started writing this entry by typing, "The past few days of General Hospital have been so utterly great that I've had to consult a thesaurus for new ways to say 'adorable', 'fabulous' and 'soapy'" and, as I re-read the sentence, I realized that I have not typed a sentence like that since, like, 1997. At least.

Then I started to worry. I mean, since when do "great" and "General Hospital" belong in the same sentence when not separated by "-ly disappointing"? And for the OG GH to demonstrate this newfound creative renaissance with Patrick and Robin? A couple that they barely cared to write for over the past few years and when they did deign to write for them, crafted storylines like The Blog Wars and The One Conversation and Night Shift: Season 1? Really? That's...unlikely. So I thought that, maybe, perhaps, I had just hallucinated the entire thing. "It finally happened," I thought to myself. "General Hospital actually BROKE MY BRAIN."

But I rewatched the episodes and it turns out that they were actually episodes that were aired, for real, and were great: Fabulous Scrubs wedding! Spencers, Cassadines and Baldwins, oh my! Sonny being STABBED! It's like the writers said, "You know what we should try for a few days? Writing some quality soap. It could be kind of fun, doing something different like that".

Whatever the reasoning, whether it's just them actually trying for once, Awesome Writer being handed the reins or the simple notion that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, I have to give these writers credit for creating a fantastic soap wedding.