Serial Drama

Our Top 10 TV Blogs

When the editor at Blogs.com approached us about naming our favorite TV blogs for the site's "Top 10 Blogs" series, our corresponding 10 reactions were, in order:  1) that sounds fun, 2) why the hell would anyone care what we think is good, when we watch bad TV for our side job?, 3) do we even know how to recognize good things related to TV anymore?, 4) this still sounds fun, 5) wow, for two hypercritical bitches we read and like an awful lot of blogs, 6) yikes, we watch too much TV, 7) when did Katherine Heigl become so damned unlikeable and is it at all related to when Grey's Anatomy started circling the drain? (okay, this was not entirely related, but it was definitely a thought), 8) are the bloggers we list going to think we're crazy stalkers, and if so would that be kind of awesome?, 9) thank goodness we don't have any disagreements between us about what rocks and what sucks, and 10) this really was fun!

You can check out our Top 10 TV Blogs here.  Feel free to leave your additions in the comments here, and we encourage you to check out the blogs that made the list.  They really are our favorites; no money or sexual favors were exchanged for making the list.  Well, not much money, and no especially scandalous sexual favors, anyway.

Congeniality Lessons With Victor Newman

Can you imagine a self-help book written by Victor Newman? It would include lots misplaced anger, detailed instructions for how to never accept responsibility, and lots of YOU GOT THAT?'s.

There are days that I forget how awful he is (these are usually days when Victor is not onscreen at all) and then there are days like last Wednesday (I'm behind) that Paul confronts Victor about Victor bringing Crazy Pants Patty to town and giving her the identity of Mary Jane as part of his never-ending war with Jack, and Victor glares and sneers and lies through his teeth condescendingly, and blames Paul for the entire ordeal and, well, the hatred comes rushing back.

Paul, righteously angry: So my sister comes home as Mary Jane Benson and targets Jack from the very beginning. You give my poor, lonely, confused sister a new life, a new face and a trumped-up résumé for one reason and one reason alone-- to get at Jack Abbott. And now she's completely out of control, so every mistake she makes is on your head. 

Victor, sneers condescendingly

 

Paul, apoplectic with rage: And your sick need for vengeance. My sister was so in love with that guy, and she's so mixed up, she was bound to spin out of control, and you knew it. You knew it, and you didn't care. All you cared about was getting even with Jack Abbott and making him pay!

Victor, completely over this conversation

Paul, attempting to end on a dramatic note: You cannot dodge forever. I will find my sister, and she will tell me everything you did to her. And when she does-- 

Victor, going for the jugular: You're my friend. I understand that you're upset. But you talk about family? You didn't even recognize your own sister right in front of you, plastic surgery be damned. You know why you're here? Because you failed as an investigator, and you failed as a brother.

Paul has no comeback

That was needlessly cruel! Paul, his index finger and the throbbing vein in his right eye have had a very hard time of it lately, and there's no need for you to make him feel any worse, Victor!

To Be Fair, The Fair So Far Is Fairly Amusing

I have complete faith that, no more than eight minutes into the next episode of General Hospital, the show will unleash a metric ton of fuckery that will make the half-hearted compliments that follow completely moot, but today's episode was vaguely decent, no?

Yes, despite featuring Spinelli dressed like a clown

(I'm not quite self-absorbed enough to think that the writers are trying to goad me, personally, into a nervous breakdown, but on the off chance that is the case, they're certainly going about it the right way! A nemesis AND my greatest fear, combined into one grease-painted, babbling buffoon)

and some of the worst soap acting this side of Passions

(I...my word, has being out of the soap acting game for a while complete eroded Martha Byrne's skills? Or was she this bad on As the World Turns? I complained so often about how all she did was stare blankly or dart her eyes nervously, but that is far preferable to the stilted line readings and ridiculous faces)

and the inclusion of violence in a story that doesn't call for it

(This is not surprising, but it is annoying all the same)

and a Quartermaine in peril

(Again, not surprising. Also, I just saw an episode of The Golden Girlsfeaturing John Ingle as a colleague of Miles. He was as adorable as you'd expect in his professor garb!)

..I still ended the episode not wanting to assault my television set while The Geto Boys play in the background. So that was a nice way to end the week!

I'm Running Out of Room on My "Dead To Me" List

At the very top of my "Dead To Me" list is, predictably, the AMC writing staff, accompanied by an eight paragraph annotation detailing the myriad reasons they are dead to me.

Today, I was able to add to the list, "because they are incapable of writing sympathetic characters" and "because they made me sympathize with David Hayward". The latter is especially galling and makes me feel dirty, but, nefarious as he may be, he has a point about the citizens of Pine Valley being sanctimonious, hypocritical and awful.

D.A. Willis: Ms. Colby, they faked their child's death. Hid him from his biological father. The number of laws broken, not to mention the countless people involved, two of whom I believe I'm looking at. All of you hid that baby.

Liza, the one who ran away with Colby: We were hiding him from David Hayward.

D.A. Willis: I understand.

Liza, who also faked a pregnancy for literally no reason: Do you? Really?

D.A. Willis: I'm well aware of Dr. Hayward's colorful history, ok, but--

Tad, the one who buried a man alive: Colorful? That's generous.

D.A. Willis: But it doesn't change the fact that he has rights. Rights which were stripped from him in every way possible.

Their entire justification for this half-cocked, certifiable dead baby/pillow baby/fake foster baby triple whammy comes down to "But it's David Hayward and he sucks. Why do you not understand this, legal system?" Like, did they expect Willis to say, "David HAYWARD? I thought you meant a different David. David Hayward should obviously be put to death, just on principle"?

Soap Blog Coalition

 

Michael E Knight has announced that he is willing to move to AMC's new production facility on the west coast. Meanwhile Charles Pratt has indicated that 22 year vet Walt Willey's character, Jackson, has been "retired". With that in mind fans are answering the question - Is it time Tad was "retired" as a character? Join the conversation. (AMC Superposter)

Daytime Confidential’s Jamey Giddens reports live from the 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards. Listen as he shares behind-the-scenes scoops, being on TV, red carpet tidbits and his experiences in the Emmy Award press room. (Daytime Confidential)

DAYS Lauren Koslow was Michael Fairman's Fashion Correspondent on the Red Carpet of the Daytime Emmys. Find out who had Emmy Style and who didn't, in her fashion review! (Michael Fairman Soaps)

This years Daytime Emmys were an all time ratings low. Is this the end of televising the Emmys? Check out this weeks commentary and then share your thoughts! (Pine Valley Bulletin)

Daytime Emmy's fashion! We were in the front row for the red carpet show. Come check out our library of photos. (Scrubs Hub)

The 2009 Daytime Emmy Awards were...well, they were something else. The Serial Drama girls present their own awards to this year's Emmy broadcast. (Serial Drama)

Is there such a thing as a 'work ethic' on the soaps? For a select few, there certainly is. Nurse Lillian Raines from Springfield comes to mind immediately and--as stupid as this sounds--if you watch General Hospital, Kate Howard is married, devoted and attached to her job like Velcro. (Soap Opera Examiner)

Did you see the dramatic Daytime Gives Back segment during the Emmys? With emotions running high, stars shared their experiences in Kenya. (Wubs)

Carnival of Souls

I am in a high spirits today (mostly because Starbucks is once again selling their Pumpkin Spice Latte. When you get right down to it, I'm immensely easy to please, which makes the soap world's failure to please me all the more galling), and I've decided to throw a compliment General Hospital's way: I always love the episodes leading up to their latest stunt stories. Granted, I love these episodes for all the wrong reasons, but a compliment is a compliment!

Yes, their gimmicks quickly devolve into poorly written, logic-defying (and yet, Emmy winning) chaos, and they almost always involve a dead child and/or dead Quartermaine, and they cause thousands of viewers to scream in plain and flee from the show every year, and I'm not at all looking forward to this carnival story for myriad reasons (not least because: CLOWNS!), but you have to admit that these stories begin hilariously, if only because it's unbelievably funny to watch a bunch of untalented writers scramble to get all of the show's characters to the same place.

Watching today's episode, I'm surprised that the writers just didn't have all of the characters say, "Uh, bad shit's gonna go down at this carnival and I have to be there for contractual reasons, so...", because the setup was half-assed in the extreme. Which it shouldn't have been, since it is Michael and Hospital related, meaning that nearly everybody has a reason for being there, but the writers couldn't even be trusted to execute that properly!

A recap:

SONNY: Michael, Morgan, and Girl-Child, I'm done being an absentee father. Let's all go to the Michael Corinthos Head Trauma Foundation carnival together!

LIZ: Lucky and I are taking Cam and Jake to the carnival. I think you should come, too, if only so that we can exchange longing looks at each other.
NIKOLAS: There is nothing in the world that I enjoy more than a carnival. Corn dogs, carnies...I'm in my element there.
LIZ: And you can bring Spencer, too.
NIKOLAS: A child, at a carnival? Why on earth would I do that?
REBECCA: Hi! Hi Nikolas! Hi!
NIKOLAS: Would you care to join me at the carnival?
REBECCA: Ohmigod, really? Yes! Yes, I would!

JASON: Would you like to join me on a romantic evening at the carnival?
SAM: Would I?!

MAXIE: My boyfriend was brutally murdered at a carnival.
SPINELLI: And I am deathly terrified of clowns.*
MAXIE: I'm so looking forward to this.
SPINELLI: As am I, fair Maximista.

MONICA: I'll have a car take you to the carnival.
EDWARD: Why would I need someone to drive me? Is it because two doctors warned me that I should take it easy? Or because the latest Port Charles psychopath has been giving me the evil eye while caressing a vial of medicine and is right now sinisterly talking about my demise? What could possibly go wrong?

We are in for a long few days, you guys. Anybody willing to place a wager on which character(s) are brutally killed during this event?

*I don't know which is most horrifying: that I remember that Spinelli is afraid of clowns, or that Spinelli and I have something in common.

Even The Tanner Children Faced Harsher Consequences!

Really, Carly and Alexis?

Michael: That I'm sorry, for everything. All the reckless driving, the attitude, the lies, and then taking Kristina and running off with her. The list goes on, you know, but I haven't made one right decision since I woke up, and I'm gonna try and do better.

Carly: Well, that's all any of us can ask, you know.

"[Trying] and [doing] better" is all anybody can ask? Doing better than what? Because if all you're asking is that he behave better than he did before the car accident, that's not setting the bar very high at all, as I believe prison inmates are routinely better behaved than Michael was before his jaunt to Mexico.

Alexis: Listen to me. There's gonna be an important lesson that we're all gonna learn here, all right? And we're gonna take that information and we're gonna incorporate it into our future decisions. Is that understood? I want you to promise me something from now on.That when you get this upset and when things feel too big for you to handle that you will come to me, do you understand?

I guess I missed the "The part of Alexis Davis will now be played by Bob Saget as Danny Tanner" voiceover at the start of the episode...

Carly: You're not broken or pathetic. And not that I condone you and Kristina running off to Mexico, but...It does prove how resourceful and capable you are.
Michael: Well, I get that from my mother.
Carly: I'm proud of you. And I love you very much.

REALLY?!

Your children maybe run their stepmother off the road and then run away to a posh Mexican resort, and when the local hitman/hero brings them back, your only reaction is to plagiarize a speech given at the end of an episode of Blossom? What the what?!

Dancing (And Soap Writing) In The Dark

Maybe this won't be two horrific weeks of cheesy, over-the-top badness. 

All My Children will riff on the classic Jane Fonda film “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” with an epic dance marathon that’ll run a full 10 episodes. The special event (airing September 17-30) involves the entire cast, headlined by former Dancing With the Starscontenders Susan Lucci (Erica) and Cameron Mathison (Ryan). The plot has the citizens of Pine Valley pulling together to help Erica raise money her new pet cause—starving kids in Africa—via a local telethon. The rules: Couples must maintain physical contact at all times and never stop moving. In order to earn a break from the dance floor, a couple has to bring in a big donation from telephone call-ins. Mass exhaustion ensues, but so does the sex and mayhem.

“We’ve got characters making time for a five-minute quickie, there are fights in the ladies room, a little stalking, a possible murder. It’s fun!” says exec producer Julie Hanan Carruthers. [Stalking and murder! HEE! That IS fun, JHC! --Ed.] Things also get a little goofy. “I promise you a chicken dance with full cast participation,” Carruthers says. “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Thorsten Kaye [Zach] doing the finger snap.”

It is POSSIBLE that it could be entertaining on purpose, and hilarious in the good way, and soapy like a soap opera is supposed to be, because ANYTHING is possible. But as AMC is never any of those things under the best of circumstances, and since they handle gimmicks even worse than they do day-to-day writing, I'd say that it is PROBABLE that after ten days of watching these fools dance and engage in mayhem, we will be cursing the invention of the television.

I will admit to being more than a bit intrigued by the idea of Zach chicken dancing. And how riffy will this riff on They Shoot Horses, Don't They? be? Will we see (Do we still say spoiler alert if the movie is 40 years old? Just in case: SPOILER!) an exhausted, depressed participant be put out of their misery by a bullet? If so, please let Ryan get tired, please let Ryan get tired, please let Ryan get tired.

 

GH Wins Outstanding Writing; People Run To Dictionaries To Confirm Definition of "Outstanding"

We woke up yesterday morning with vague, hazy memories of what could be the most bizarre, poorly produced Daytime Emmy telecast ever. Some of the memories were so strange (Fashion Show?!?!) that we wondered, hopefully, if we had hallucinated the whole thing, but then the tragic details came rushing back to us. Like General Hospital's writing staff being named the best at writing in all of daytime!

The closing credits of Sunday night's allegedly-real-and-not-an-elaborate-practical-joke ceremony informed us that the voting panels are “made up of people with outstanding accomplishments in their respective fields.”  We are forced to conclude, therefore, that said fields for the people who vote on writing are 1) being terrible, 2) enjoying watching a beloved genre circle the drain, and 3) exercising exceptionally poor judgment.

Yes, after a year that included

• Undead Diego being revealed as the Text Message Killer
• Michael being shot in the head as punishment for using a gun
• Limo sex
• The bungling of daytime's first HIV+ pregnancy
• Nikolas having sex with a tumor (okay, with a figment of his tumor-addled brain, but STILL!)
• The introduction of Claudia Zacchara
• Logan's murder/the debut of Ghost Logan
• Involving two distinguished physicians in an effing blog war
• Sonny breaking up with Jason and leaving the mob but not really because the mob is wonderful and great and where he's meant to be

in addition to the usual

• Mafia overload
• Endless violence
• Rampant misogyny

the writers were named the best in daytime. At writing, not sucking!  Does not compute.

poll by twiigs.com

P.S. To the person who found Serial Drama yesterday with the Google search "why was general hospital not nominated for 2009 emmy for best drama":  You should really probably not read this blog.  Maybe you should spend your time instead on a lengthy research project of what "best" means...or even just "good"...or "not aggressively horrible."

The Daytime Emmy Award Winners: Our Take

The 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards have come and gone, and were a blend of bizarre, awkward, and terrible, with a few fleeting glimpses of quality. We found ourselves this year in the unfamiliar position of being familiar with nearly all of the winners. Thoughts? Yes, we have some.

Outstanding Supporting Actor: TIE! Vincent Irizarry (David, AMC) and Jeff Branson (Shayne, GL)

What's with the Daytime Emmys and their ties? It seems wrong! We're not sure what the most viable tiebreaker option would be (Our minds always go to dance-offs, but that seems impractical and doesn't, strictly speaking, have anything to do with soaps. Then again, most of this inane broadcast had nothing to do with soaps, either, so it's perhaps more plausible than we originally thought.), but we shouldn't complain too much, since two very good actors were rewarded for their performances this year. Jeff Branson's reel was Mallory's favorite, and Vincent Irizarry's win led to his adorable speech...

(Fun fact: Jeff Branson was the overwhelming pick by Serial Drama voters for who should win the Emmy and was the only one of your picks to actually do so.)

Outstanding Supporting Actress: Tamara Braun (ex-Ava, DAYS)

We're equally surprised and happy that Tamara Braun won this year, because she was simply so much FUN as Ava, and her shock upon winning was adorable. Plus, she looked gorge.

Okay, so according to most of you Bree Williamson probably should have won (we'd ask Louise for comment, but she's currently in the fetal position, weeping), but we can't deny the entertaining power of Braun's reel, plus, we like to think of this award as a big "We're so sorry that you were saddled with the worst character in the worst soap storyline in the history of the world" statement.