Serial Drama

There's Some Sad Things Known To Man

I have been very teary all day today, which led to me almost bursting into tears at the adorable sight of a girl holding her brother's hand as they walked around Target and pausing to wipe his face after he got powdered sugar on it (I am not doing the ABSOLUTE CUTENESS of the situation justice. It was SO CUTE), and I am not exactly sure why, although I have narrowed the possible reasons down to:

• Tomorrow is March and March, as we all know, is the longest month of the year. Or at least it feels that way. March is infamous for taunting me with the occasional sunny, warm day and cruelly following up with a blizzard. It is also very muddy.
• The Winter Olympics are ending. That sounds like a silly reason to be depressed, but I have eaten, breathed and slept the Olympics for the past two weeks. They bring me such joy, for reasons including, but not limited to: awesome feats of athleticism, exciting medal races, skiing, skating, speed skating, Bob Costas's terrible dye job, hockey (I actually don't love hockey the way I love the rest of the events, but I have to give it a shoutout because the game today was exciting AND Joshua "Rizzo" Sacco got to do his famous speech for the US hockey team last week! Adorbs x 10), possibly incestuous ice dancing routines, tear-jerking feel good stories, curling in general, and tall, hot Norwegian skiers. What's not to love?!

So maybe I am not the best person to judge the emotion in JR's scenes from Friday's All My Children because I am already prone to crying, but...I totally teared up.

Adam: I mean that I tried to keep you from knowing that he wasn't actually coming. But i wanted you to be positive. We have a lot to look forward to: A.J. Growing up and Chandler Enterprises expanding. I'll tell you what. When you get out of here, I'm gonna throw the biggest birthday party in the history of mankind for A.J., And I'm gonna see about getting you back into Chandler Enterprises.

J.R.: Dad?

Adam: Yeah?

J.R.: It's time to be realistic.

I feel like the writers have mishandled this cancer story, all things considered. Not so much what we're seeing now, but the beginning, which was poorly paced and not given the attention it should have been. I know,  I know, Charles Pratt mishandling something and ignoring things in favor of Ryan Lavery are truly shocking developments. I'll give you a moment to compose yourselves.

Anyway, no matter what complaints I have had about the story in general, Jacob Young's performance has been utterly flawless. I remember reading in Soap Opera Digest a while back that he has family members who have battled cancer and, because of that, he wants to make his performance as authentic as possible, and it shows. He's just been so good! He's fantastic with David Canary and Julia Barr, and he makes Brittany Allen look like a professional actress and he was so good that when JR said this to Tad

J.R.: Would've been something if you and I were really related. But sometimes life just doesn't work out the way that you want.

I only shuddered and made a sound that was a cross between a groan and an "Oh, he did not", which is a big step above the full-on rant complete with flinging a remote control that usually happens when JR effusively praises Tad. If that doesn't speak volumes about this great performance, I don't know what does.

And then there were the other lines in Friday's episode that made me cry. Cry in anguish at their stupidity

The New Neutrals

Once spring styles start coming out, I am inundated with emails from Banana Republic, J. Crew and the like, proclaiming that this is the year of the new neutral (their willingness to recycle trends and package them as brand new reminds me a lot of the advertising campaigns for ABC soaps, actually: "You won't want to miss this! Even though you saw it happen last week, pretty much word for word. Tune in!").

But it's entirely possible that by "new neutral", they'll mean "hot pink pants and a day-glo green top", because...well, because in the past couple of days, General Hospital attempted to re-define the idea of neutrality, with hilarious results. Did I type out "hilarious"? I actually meant "results that make me want to stab myself in the face repeatedly".

It's not that I expect Sam "Jason, I'll do whatever you need. Whatever. Seriously, do you want my blood? How much? Here, this vein looks really good" McCall and Robin "Sonny was completely amazing this time fifteen years ago" Scorpio to have particularly nuanced views of the current situation with Sonny. I just...

Sam: Okay, fine. Look, I never had much to do with your sister. I didn't know her all that well, which means that I'm pretty objective about this whole situation.

Robin: [Dante] needs to have a balanced view of who his father is. 

I just hate this show, is the way I was going to finish that sentence.

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

My Take
By Becca Thomas

Two of my favorite daytime characters are seriously trying my patience of late.

DAYS OF OUR LIVES's Hope Brady, played by the gorgeous and talented Kristian Alfonso, has been among my favorite characters since I had big bangs and wore stirrup pants. But recently, Hope has--how can I put this delicately--lost her damn fool mind.

I completely understand the writers' temptation to jump into the Bo/Hope/Justin/Carly quadrangle. All four actors are great, and new couples with old drama could drive story for eons. But Bo and Hope should have split up for a remotely logical reason. As a viewer. shouldn't I think a couple really belongs together in order to be torn between them reuniting versus turning to their respective interlopers? That's not happening right now.

Hope's reasoning for leaving Bo--who she's been in love with for most of her adult life--appears to be "I'm really peeved that we disagreed about a law enforcement tactic you chose that ultimately led to our kidnapped daughter being returned unharmed many months ago." What? Where is the soapy drama in a quadrangle when it's been months since you really liked the female half of the couple at the center of it? A good, slow-burn romance with Justin, followed eventually by reconciliation with Bo, could restore my affection. But it remains to be seen if this show can do a properly paced relationship.

Soap Blog Coalition

Daytime Confidential's Jillian Bowe catches up with One Life to Live's Gina Tognoni and previews "something going on" with Kelly and Todd. (Daytime Confidential)

Pratt's gone and there is much to rejoice about. Check out the latest Pine Valley Bulletin commentary and poll! (Pine Valley Bulletin)

The terrible writing for Jason and Sonny lately has forced the Serial Drama girls to re-evaluate their list of least favorite things. And when a soap comes out looking worse than the Kardashian sisters, well...that's a problem. (Serial Drama)

Soap Opera Examiner's Mary Montanari pens an open letter to Days of our Lives' villainess Vivian. (Soap Opera Examiner)  

The Wubqueen is crushed to learn her favorite One Life to Live actress may be leaving, dishes about Robing Christopher returning to General Hospital and gives a fun weekend update of daytime's best tweets. (Wubs)

Calvin Stops By (for some Awesome)

I have a nasty head cold and am completely exhausted, but you guys knew I'd have to at least say something about today's episode.  I'll be brief.  It really never disappoints on Snoop Dog Day.  There were a few gems that really we, as the audience, should consider gifts -- and I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.  That's right, Carlivati, I called you a horse!

Jack finally met Danielle, his half-sister, and their first lines of dialogue were a welcome nod to those of us whose heads exploded from trying to do the math regarding Dani's age in relation to Jack's age.  

    Jack: You're... my sister?

    Danielle: Who were you expecting, Taylor Swift?

    Jack: But, you're like, old.

    Danielle: What does that, like, mean?

    Jack: I overheard my Mom and Dad talking, that my Dad and Tea had a kid.  So I figured... you'll be my little sister.  I thought you'd be like 8 or 9. 

    Danielle: Well I'm, like, not.

    Jack: That makes no sense.

    Danielle: Get over it.

Okay, okay, we'll get over it!  But I did appreciate that little meta-SORAS moment.

Jack had a few more zingers today about preferring to stick his hand down a garbage disposal than get to know his new sister and calling Dani the "soulless princess of adolescent fury."  Jack's fun and all, but where the hell is Sam???

Adding to the zingers, when Todd had the all-out gall to try to forbid Dani from going out with Matthew, Dani asked him, "What do you think's gonna happen?  What, is Matthew gonna get drunk with a bunch of his frat buddies and do 'Todd knows what'?!"  Wow.  I can't have been the only one whose jaw almost hit the floor and then followed it up with a gleeful cheer, right?  Miss Danielle has done her research on her unfortunate sperm donor.

So apparently Snoop Dogg (who apparently Shaun works for) knows everything that's been going on in Llanview, in particular that young Matthew Buchanan is a "playa from the Himalayas."  It's a good thing someone finally acknowledged that.  (Also, Bo and Nora were totally adorbs in every way today.)

The entire Evans family returned, which was more than welcome -- it's been a while!  I was wondering if any of them other than Greg were even recurring characters anymore.  Another spectacular moment had Snoop/Calvin meeting Phylicia Evans and saying she reminded him of someone.  When prodded a bit, he said she reminded him of "someone who used to always deliver the goods."  I squealed a bit!  Heylia!  Weeds!

I do love that we get Tonye Patano on our show -- I hope they dust her off a little more often.

Did anyone else love how bad-ass all the cast looked with the opening credits set to a Snoop song?

I am going to go drink several bottles of Nyquil, but just thought it'd be unfair to let the episode go by without comment.  I'll just leave you with the main event!  (I loved Tea's little dance the most.)

Destiny out!

Three Truths and A Lie

Can you guess which one of these All My Children observations is a blatant falsehood?

• I am growing to hate a Hubbard
• Nurse Gayle made me cackle with delight
• JR's scenes with Little A Buzz "AJ" were sweet
• I was pleased to see Brooke at the end of today's show

Let's look at the choices a little closer, shall we?

I am growing to hate a Hubbard...sadly, this is a TRUTH, but since it's Frankie, I don't feel so terribly bad. What the hell, though? He's a grown man, with Jesse and Angie's DNA, ostensibly smart enough to graduate from medical school, and he knowingly endangers the life of a patient so that his parents will be able to have some alone time? What the hell?! Someone's been watching too many airings of The Parent Trap and looking at it as an educational tool, rather than an adorable late 90s guilty pleasure.

Nurse Gayle made me cackle with delight...another TRUTH. There's something about a mentally unbalanced woman scorned that amuses me, especially when she starts hurling insults. She called Greenlee a "bug-eyed twit"! I mean, I adore Greens and all, but that was funny. It was the one highlight in the increasingly silly Erica/David kidnapping. Erica's steadfast determination to get Greenlee out of Fusion and out of town is only going to end poorly for her.

JR's scenes with AJ were sweet...yes, despite the presence of Marissa, a child actor who...is very new, and pimping of Toy Story 3 (Disney's acumen for advertising across all of its platforms is unnecessary here, because any thinking person is planning to see Toy Story 3 regardless of whether or not its advertised!), I found it all very cute. I am relieved beyond belief that the kid now has a real name*, since I had visions of a 40-year-old in a Chandler boardroom meeting being referred to as "Little A" and those visions made me sad, and the shot of them both reading the paper was just so adorable.

JR: How did you grow up so fast?
AJ: I don't know, I just did!

But why on earth did Marissa have to be the one to come up with AJ, after an elaborate story about how it makes sense because his grandfather is Adam, and his father is JR. I know his first choice was Buzz, but maybe back off and let him assert his independence a little, you bland fool!

Okay, this is a slight digression, but on the topic of JR and Adam's frantic search for Sonia Reyes and her son...if he turns out to be a match for JR, does that mean that Adam is his father? Because that would be RIDICULOUS. I know ridiculous is what this show does for a living, but come on--there is NO way that Adam Chandler would just opt to not have contact with one of his children. Allow me to say PUH-LEASE and have a ginormous eyeroll in advance of that potential storyline direction.

*Any hope that Spike can get the same?

I was pleased to see Brooke at the end of today's show...huge, massive LIE! That is far too mild a description of the reaction I had when Julia Barr's lovely face greeted Annie at the end of the show. My notes for today (yes, I take notes) (yes, I am a nerd) say, "Brooooooooke! Sooooo excited to see Broooooooke!" and, if I am being honest, the notes actually include more o's than I was willing to post here for all to see, and my response was accompanied by a high pitched noise and spectacularly uncoordinated seal-like clapping. It really doesn't take that much to please me, which makes the soap world's completely inability to do so even more tragic.  

Finally, Someone Said It!

I often wonder about the extras in certain soap scenes: what do these random Genoa City residents think of the melodramatic goings-on? And how have they restrained themselves from, like, telling Phyllis to take it down a notch or ten, or writing Jack suggestive notes on the cocktail napkins at the GCAC? These are the things I think about when I get bored during this show which is regrettably often these days, but I am getting ahead of myself. Monday's episode was notable, because we got to hear from a random Genoa City resident and what we heard from him was so beautiful that it made the angels sing!

Kevin: You saw this woman?

Usher: Definitely.

Kevin: All right, who was she with? Uh, what did she do? Did she say anything? Did she look scared?

Daniel: Did you see her leave here?

Usher: No.

Kevin: So you don't know whether or not she left alone?

Usher: No idea. Hey, is there a reward?

Kevin: "Is there a reward?" My wife is missing. You're asking me about money?

Daniel: Hey, it's okay.

Usher: Maybe she bolted because you're a tool, huh?

"Maybe she bolted because you're a tool, huh?"

"Maybe she bolted because you're a tool, huh?"

"Maybe she bolted because you're a tool, huh?"

It gets better every time!

And, in fairness to my new hero, not everybody pays attention with freakish detail to everything they encounter over the course of the day, unless they happen to catch a marathon of Law & Order and then become convinced that odds are they will at some point be a witness to a crime and will be interviewed by the police and in order to be useful, they should start paying close attention to everything they see, just in case, so whatever, Kevin!

This will probably be the first and last time I exhibit any degree of interest in the Kevin/Jana/Ryder/Daisy storyline of boring boringness, because the lack of caring I have about the entire scenario is so profound as to be indescribable. The only part of it that IS describable is the part with the Ouija board and that can best be described as, "WTF? Did I seriously just watch people use a Ouija board for eight hours? I wish I were dead."

Sigh.

It's Hard To Think Of A Pithy Title When You Are Filled With RAGE

THINGS THAT I HATE LESS THAN I HATE SONNY, JASON AND THE SHOW'S INEXPLICABLE NEED TO PORTRAY THEM AS THE GREATEST PEOPLE TO EVER DO GREAT THINGS IN GREAT WAYS. AND IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME, YOU KNOW THAT I HATE THESE THINGS WITH A PASSION, SO FOR ME TO HATE SONNY, JASON AND THE GH WRITING STAFF MORE THAN I HATE THEM IS SAYING SOMETHING. SOMETHING BAD, SPECIFICALLY.

1. The new commercials for Jay Leno's return to The Tonight Show that play "Get Back" by The Beatles, specifically the line "Get back to where you once belonged", which is just so needlessly mean (and which so needlessly taints an awesome Beatles song) that I can't even. 

2. Evgeni Plushenko, Evgeni Plushenko's reaction to losing the gold medal to Evan Lysacek and the hilariously melodramatic article Elvis Stojko wrotetaking up Plushenko's cause (if you haven't read it already: RIP Figure Skating!).

3. The media's obsessive coverage of the Kardashian sisters.

4. People on the highway who come to a full stop before making a right turn onto their exit.

5. Kirk Cameron.

Just to recap, we watch a show where a mobster shoots an unarmed, undercover cop in the chest, and he is the one we're supposed to be feeling sorry for. And we're also supposed to be appreciative of the mobster's devoted hitman sidekick, because if the hitman had been the one to kill the undercover cop, he'd have done it in a less heinous way (because there is a complex scale of what kind of murder is actually bad, I guess).

Sonny: I was cheated! My son never got to know me as his father. The damage is on you!

Jason: Dante was supposed to die. I made all the arrangements. I was going to kill you, even though you saved Lulu. Because you're a rat cop who came after us.
Lulu: Yeah, but  you wouldn't have done it the way Sonny did, standing point blank in front of you. He didn't even have a gun!

At least it's my job to watch this pile of vomit television show. I don't know what your excuse is!

Apparently I Have More than Just GH Episodes to Catch Up On

Sure, catching upon a week's worth of GH was important (well..."important"), but there are other things -- mostly related to mob warfare, physics, and general common sense -- that I have apparently fallen even further behind on.

Because based on Friday's General Hospital, apparently it is completely logical and not guffaw-worthy for an unarmed guy with a bad accent to intentionally step into the middle of a gunfight among mobsters (which takes place in the midst of huge wooden shipping containers, which are always conveniently just stacked on Port Charles' dock for exactly this purpose), bullets flyings, and ask them to stop with a quip about one of the participants being his cigar connection?

I guess I should at least be glad that for once the shooting wasn't set to romantic music.

Our Column in the 2/23 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

In our latest My Take/My Take Too column, Mallory takes the bold and possibly insane position that All My Children and General Hospital each do at least one thing very well and could school the other, while Becca pretends like she actually knows fictional characters in real life and takes Days of Our Lives' Hope and GH's Elizabeth to task for their recent behavior.  Bonus:  The Editors' Choice column has some deservedly high praise for the Lucky vs. Liz and Nikolas confrontation scenes. 

And this seems as good a time as any to ask:  Can we pool our resources and get some internet access for the people who write into the Ask Us feature asking SOD about pressing issues along the lines of whether someone on As the World Turns ever appeared in an episode of the Brady Bunch or if a side-by-side photo comparison of a soap actor from the 80s and an American Idol contestant will reveal previously unknown doppelganger status?  IMDB and Google Images, people!  They are things.  Look them up.