Serial Drama

And Then There Were...Almost All The Same People, Actually

When the news broke that All My Childrenwould be moving to Los Angeles, I became hysterical and prone to Byzantine conspiracy theories almost immediately, and was convinced that the ever nefarious powers-that-be would use this opportunity to force people off of the show while pretending that they had a choice in the matter (kind of exactly what seems to have happened with Greg Vaughan and General Hospital, so my worries were not completely out of the realm of possibility! Why so shady, ABC Daytime?). I figured that Julie Hanan Carruthers and Charles Pratt are slowly destroying the show anyway, so they'd certainly take advantage of this opportunity to speed up the process.

I was sincerely anxious about the prospect of an AMC without the characters who make the show, and had terrifying visions of episodes filled with just Ryan and Liza and a suddenly not-so-dead Babe and a suddenly not-so-gay Reese and generic newbies who occasionally snorted about people like Adam Chandler and Erica Kane and something called "Hubbards" who used to live in Pine Valley.

A Tale of Two Reactions

When trusty news correspondent Beth R. let me know the epic news that Greg Vaughan was let go from General Hospital and that the role of Lucky will once again be played by Jonathan Jackson, I didn't know what to do. I let out a muffled shriek and all I could type was "OMG!" (Seriously, when I posted this on Facebook, I used OMG six times. And that was after deleting a few more because I didn't want to seem COMPLETELY unhinged).  I may have even flailed, which I usually only do ironically.

This is BIG NEWS. And I had A BIG RESPONSE. Two big responses, actually. It went a little something like this:

PRESENT DAY MALLORY: I cannot believe that Jonathan Jackson is back. I can't. I never thought that would happen.

14 YEAR OLD GH FANGIRL MALLORY: JONATHAN JACKSON IS BACK!

PRESENT DAY MALLORY: I KNOW, it's completely crazy. And unexpected.

14 YEAR OLD GH FANGIRL MALLORY: JONATHAN JACKSON! REJOICE!

PDM: I KNOW! Remember when there was that rumor when Genie Francis came back for Luke and Laura's 25th anniversay (in a story that the writers predictably and epically botched) that Jonathan Jackson would be back, too, and I got really excited and then it didn't happen?

14YOGHFM: Remember when Jonathan Jackson won, like, a million Daytime Emmys?

PDM: I do remember that.

14YOGHFM: And remember how his birthday is May 11, and you're also born in May and he's a year older than you and you thought that was just the coolest?

PDM: I am chagrined to say that I do remember that his birthday is May 11.

14YOGHFM: And how you used to have three hour long conversations during and following GH where you and your friend Jill would talk for hours about how adorable Lucky and Liz were?

PDM: Yes.

14YOGHFM: And remember when Lucky "died" and you cried so hard that your eyes were still puffy and bloodshot the next morning and you considered staying home from school?

PDM: ...vaguely. But poor Greg Vaughan! He has shafted so spectacularly, so many times by the people in charge of ruining--oh, I mean running this show. See what I did there?

14YOGHFM: Yeah, I got it. You didn't get any more clever as you aged, did you?

The Horror! The Horror!

I cannot even.

Once today's All My Children ended and I mustered up enough energy to close my mouth, which had fallen open in an expression of slack-jawed horror, I tried to think of how to describe the events that transpired in the episode's last few minutes, not because I relish the opportunity to talk about the events that transpired because, in all honesty, I'd rather repress the memory, even if it required being administered some heavy duty narcotics, but I feel it necessary to provide a written record of being a witness to one of the most profoundly disturbing television events of all time.

Obviously, I could call for the usual "EW", "WTFNoooooooooo!" "glurg", "I just threw up in my mouth" and "If there were a bottle of Clorox sitting next to me while I watched the show, I would have used it to blind myself", but those don't quite do it justice.

Or I could wonder how much ABC will inevitably charged by the FCC for broadcasting such filth. If Janet Jackson's Superbowl nipple got a $550,000 fine, I figure this would easily garner a million, if not more.

Or I could "congratulate" Charles Pratt on besting General Hospital and The Young and the Restless in the sweepstakes for "Most Vile Coupling", taking the title from Claudia and Sonny, and Victor and Ashley, respectively, but I am uncomfortable offering Charles Pratt congratulations of any kind, even if they are purely sarcastic, because you just know he is the type who doesn't get sarcasm and would happily take it as a real compliment.

OR I could mention that Ryan and Erica...Ryan and Ericaing completely got me over my shock and dismay over the liaison that happened on last night's Mad Men, but, surprising and strange as that hookup was (I'm keeping it vague so as not to spoil any people who have not seen it yet, but for those of you who have: ???, amirite?), it didn't make me actively want to injure myself, while Ryan and Erica...Ryan and Ericaing had me attempting to MacGyver two pens, a few paper clips and a piece of gum into a machete.

This may sound melodramatic, but the best way to describe the end of today's show is: MY SOUL DIED. I'm so sorry that its last moments were so upsetting.

After the jump, a clip, for those who dare!

Aren't They Just... Adorable?

I'm gonna come out and say it.  I love this show. Love it.  Total fangirl, or fangurl, or whatever they call it.  Wednesday?  Are you kidding me?  I cried, I laughed, I... it's not fair.  If Todd and Tea hadn't been on that episode, I'd say they should submit it for an Emmy.  Or, like, entrance into Heaven.

I couldn't possibly care less about Markko and his father, but somehow I loved them.  Bo and David?  Father and son?  I'm dying here.  And I cannot say enough about Eddie Alderson and what a tremendous actor he's turned out to be -- he can hold his own with Hilary Smith, Robert Woods, and Tuc Watkins.  That is no small thing.  They put on an acting master class on a regular basis.  And we only had the Morascos one or two days this week.

Also, how cute was this:

Boys, uniforms.  Good deal.

I have this new plan.  It's clear that Jared's days are numbered, and I think Scott Clifton is the most mis-used actor on this show, so... Natalie and Schuyler?  Schutalie?  He would up Melissa Archer's game, and he needs to stay far away from the only storyline he's in.

Okay, so let's get down to business.  Todd and Tea were on Wednesday's episode.  And Thursday's.  And Friday's.  This is going to drive me to drink (I say, pretending I need an excuse).

Here Come The Sighs

Carly: Call me corny, but I love weddings, especially oddball ones.

Oh, Carly. You speak the truth.

If Friday's episode of General Hospital had featured a wedding for a couple I was actually invested in, or a bride whose hair was not decorated with what I can only assume would be a ceremonial headdress in some cultures...

(Many, if not most, things I encounter in life invariably lead me to a How I Met Your Mothercomparison, this time from Lily and Marshall's wedding: when Marshall first accidentally got hideous tips in his hair and then shaved part of his head in a fit of anxiety, and Barney and Ted were brainstorming ways to cover it up, and Barney kept insisting that an Indian headdress would work? I wonder if Maxie had a similar hair emergency, because I am uncomfortable believing that anyone, not least an aspiring glamorous fashionista, would find that to be anything but hideola, although if her hair this week is anything to go by, she certainly is blind to a whole lot of ugly).

...I imagine that my praise for said episode would be at a fever pitch. As it was, while I never thought of myself as the type of person who would use the phrase "Well, knock me over with a feather" (the only person I've actually heard use that phrase with aplomb was a kindly septuagenarian, so I felt like I lacked the life experience to pull it off), it was the first thing that popped into my head at the end of Friday's episode. Even more surprising was the rest of the thought: "Well, knock me over with a feather, that was almost a good episode". An almost good episode on GH is surprising enough, but when the episode in question is focused on the Spinelli/Maxie--a pairing, remember, that I have not been fond of--wedding, well...like I said, feather, me, knocked over.

Soap Blog Coalition

The Daytime Confidential podcast gang discusses the final week of Guiding Light. The highs, lows and final moments of the broadcast icon. (Daytime Confidential)

PVB Roving Reporting Peppermint Patti hit lot of the events around AMC Fan Club Weekend. Check out her first hand account of all the festivities! (Pine Valley Bulletin)
 
The Young and The Restless killed off Colleen Carlton and made the Serial Drama girls to wish, again, that soaps would stop killing off legacy characters. And also that Victor Newman would just stop. (Serial Drama)

I love my DVR recorder, but if it is smart enough to know Guiding Light simply evaporated, it should have been kind enough to send me a digital condolence message or something. (Soap Opera Examiner)

What happens when a bunch of Spinelli fans get together on Twitter to start a movement? GH, OLTL and AMC stars, writers and producers all Twibboned up to support a fan and raise money for a great animal shelter. (Wubs)

Truth Telling in Port Charles

If you looked really closely at today's episode of General Hospital, there were two notable golden moments that made me laugh out loud. Literally, which is something that I rarely do.

Unfortunately, you had to look REALLY closely, since it was easy to miss them in the midst of the crap that this show offers up as "entertainment", such as:

• Claudia's dangerous psychosis: when she slithered into Johnny's hospital room and started talking in an oddly stilted, breathy voice, I was convinced that the psychotic break we've all been anticipating was on its way, and that she was either going to smother or dismember him.

• Claudia's insistence on detailing every step of the procreation process to an audience who has committed no crime serious enough to earn that as a punishment

Sonny: You're not pregnant.

Claudia: Not yet. So do you want to go upstairs and fix that or stay down here?

• Maxie's hysterical immaturity, and I mean "hysterical" as in "a mental disorder characterized by excessive excitability", not hysterical as in "Hilarious": I can't even. 

• Spinelli's babbling: I gather there was something about Jason's pink tie, and their BFFship, but to be perfectly honest, I fast forwarded so hard that I have blisters on me fingers.
• Maxie's hair: How did this cacophony of fug make it past the censors?

BUT, if you ignore all of that, there were two fantastic lines.

Olivia: Sonny... If you get this woman pregnant on purpose, I pity all three of you.

To be honest, Olivia has been irritating the hell out of me, and the fact that Olivia has been everything from hypocritical to holier-than-thou to quite nearly as dangerously crazy as Claudia as far as the Dominante/Sonny relationship is concerned does cheapen the awesome a bit, but the really fantastic part was her accompanying hand gesture:

Raise your hand if you think this is a sly commentary on Little Sonny!

And then the man, the myth, the guy they throw onscreen every so often and usually to bumble or bluster ineffectually: Mac Scorpio, succinctly summing up the "W" portion of "WTF is wrong with Spinelli?"

Mac: How can you endorse this wedding? You know, not only is Spinelli practically his own species, but he's a hacker who works for organized crime, all right. When he's not the target of mob violence, he's an accident waiting to happen.

THANK YOU, Mac, for speaking the truth, both about Spinelli not being human and being part of the mob. Which, reminder, Port Charles cheerleaders of this tragic union, is not the kind of person the police commissioner wants to associate with.

Patrick doesn't seem to get this, though:

Patrick: Yeah, well, that's great for you, but it doesn't change the fact that Mac wants to see Maxie with somebody that has a stable job, like a banker or a lawyer.

Like...Mac is not concerned with this wedding because he's a stereotypical overbearing mother who wants her daughter to marry a doctor or banker, he is concerned with this wedding because he is THE POLICE COMMISSIONER and wants his daughter to marry someone who IS NOT A CRIMINAL. Why is this concept so complicated for people?!

*Screencaps courtesy of LisaW!

I Need A Cassadine To English Dictionary, Please

It is the height of blogging laziness to post a ridiculous quote where a character exhibits a startling lack of self awareness and then make the obligatory Inigo Montoya "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" quote that has been done to death in the blogosphere, but then Nikolas Cassadine says:

Nikolas, the guy who had sex with the woman his brother wants to (re-)marry: 'Cause you're family. And that means something to him. See, Lucky and I inherited this fierce loyalty gene from our mother.

and the only rational response is to quote The Princess Bride, because REALLY.

It's especially amazing that Nikolas doesn't consider himself to be merely loyal--oh, no, our Cassadine prince is is FIERCELY loyal. FIERCELY, BITCHES! Also, don't bring Laura into your reindeer games, Nik! She deserves better.

You know who else deserves better? The viewers. Can someone explain the "twist" in the Nikolas/Rebecca story for me? Speak slowly and use small words.

Ethan: [Laughs] For a million quid? Come on, how many people do I have to kill? Or if that's not it, let me guess. Uh... If I'm to cash this check, I must leave town and never contact Rebecca again.

Nikolas: Flip it.Cash the check... And keep Rebecca away from me.

Buh? This is the worst plan ever, between the "I'll pretend to like Rebecca and then she'll realize she can never replace Emily and she'll be totes burnt" and now "Let me write a massive check so that someone will keep the woman that was effectively out of my life but who I let back in so that I could string her along away from me!" It's so convoluted that I suspect Claudia advised him.

Dear Kendall: The Hell Is Wrong With You?

It's not that I object to Kendall reacting to Liza kissing Zach, her co-winner of the Sexiest Couple at the Dance-A-Thon title, by becoming angry and hysterical; I was upset, too, although my distaste was more along the lines of "Stop trying to make Liza happen, writers" while Kendall's was a potent combination of rage, insecurity, jealousy and insanity possibly caused by cabin fever. So I understand why she wanted to haul ass to Fusion to do something to convey how angry and disgusted she was, I just don't understand why she did  it. I do have three theories ("a well-documented history of being territorial", "poor impulse control" and "she's currently being written by a staff of fools"), but none of those possibilities are quite enough to make those scenes anything but crack-addled fuckery.

So, okay, Kendall decides to bolt from her secret room--she did make sure to get neighbors to come and babysit for Ian, which is a plus, although I'm sure they would find it odd that "Rachel" ran out so fast and left Ian alone before they got over there--and rushes to Fusion, blithely ignoring the fact that she, Zach and Jesse could be in a world of hurt if this ridiculous plan was ever found out, hoping to avoid the cameras and hoping that none of the dancers or bystanders or staff or security would notice her. What if a news-channel watching crime buff was there and noticed her, and then caused mass hysteria by screaming, "It's Kendall Hart! Murderer! THERE WAS A JAILBREAK!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!" 

(Luckily, none of those people actually DID notice her. I hadn't heard anything about the majority of Dance-A-Thon participants coming from a school for the blind, but that's the only explanation!)

...so that she could...confront Zach over his televised kiss? Yes, she got the chance to do this, but Zach was completely unamused, to say the least. Rhett Butler's saying to Scarlett, "I'll put my hands on each side of your head and I'll smash your skull between them like a walnut" came to mind

Bean Liza over the head with another heavy object? I totally understand the urge, and it was hilarious when she did it and I'd love to see it again, but we all know that, frustratingly, Liza is at their house often enough that there is going to be another opportunity soon to bludgeon her again.

Shout "I know I confessed to murder and am supposed to be in jail, but whatever, Liza Colby's a total skeezer!"?

There is NO explanation for this, aside from the aforementioned  "well-documented history of being territorial", "poor impulse control" and "she's currently being written by a staff of fools".  I would like to be able to sit through an episode of this show without (a) falling asleep or (b)wanting to throttle my favorite character. IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK?

The Curious Death of Colleen Carlton

If there were some sort of governing body that regulated the production of soap opera storylines and I became its leader after a well-organized and awesome slogan-filled campaign, one of the very first soap plots I would banish would be killing off a young character from an important family for kicks.

BECAUSE I AM SO DONE WITH THIS.

Killing off Colleen was a TERRIBLE idea. Not quite as terrible as murdering Georgie Jones and Emily Quartermaine in the same heinous sweeps story, but terrible nonetheless! Yes, she was a nonentity for the past year or so. And yes, she was, more often than not during her time on the show, completely pointless. And YES, Tammin Sursok was such an awful recast that "Tammin Suresucks" quickly became the third most popular keyword search leading people to Serial Drama. But she's Traci Abbott and Brad Carlton's daughter and that alone should be enough for her and her heavily accented portrayer* to be written off the show by leaving town, or being in a coma, not killing her off! That's exploitative and lazy and I am trying and failing to see the point of it all.

*Really, as soon as Tammin Sursok realized she was out, she completely stopped even attempting to hide the accent. It was so blatant that I expected her to start peppering her dialogue with Aussie slang just to show how completely over it she was.

Wednesday's episode ended with Colleen finding her canoe salvation, and Thursday's began with her underwater. Was there a reason they couldn't show her falling out of the canoe onscreen? That seems like something I'd want to see. Well, not really want to see, but we're treated to painstaking details about Amber and Daniel's existence, is it really asking too much to see for ourselves how Colleen wound up underwater? UGH, LAZY.

So after being held hostage, and getting away through dumb (very dumb) luck, and finding a canoe, Colleen is eventually thwarted by a capsized canoe trapping her underwater and causing her to hit her head, which really just seems silly. I don't know if watching General Hospital has given me a case of blood lust or something, but wouldn't it have been more dramatic if Patty had actually shot her? Managing to drown after she ruined a dozen chances to get away is laaame.

Anyway, during the sixty minutes that it took her to die, she was sent off to a technicolor dream land and visited by her friends and family and Kevin, and they urged her to come back to them.

It was exactly as cheesy as it sounds.On the plus side, she didn't speak at all, so at least she ended her tenure on a high note.