Serial Drama

Talk About Your Manic Mondays

This Monday's General Hospital was pretty much terrible.  In some ways it was even worse than usual, because due to some weird FIOS glitch, the audio on my recorded episode trailed about a second and a half behind the video.  Ugh!  As if you want to see and then hear, being doubly punished, crap like:  Kristina's icky relationship, Lulu and Ethan on an adventure with Lucky (you know, the loser cop brother) nowhere to be found, Claudia of all people having the ability to blow apart the Dominante thing, Nikolas totally inexplicably telling Robin about Liz cheating on Lucky with him, being reminded that Carly and Jax are going to be forever linked by a kid, Carly's talking dream-fetus, and Olivia breaking up with Johnny.  Although there was Molly being all precocious and knowledgeable, which is one of my new favorite things on TV.  It's not enough to compensate for the rest, though. What could?

But last Monday's GH?  That was some pretty good soap, people!  (And it followed a good old-fashioned Friday cliffhanger.  What in the name of Gloria Monty is going on when GH turns in two consecutive good episodes?)

"I now pronounce you not husband and wife."

These are the words I'd been longing to hear!  Rejoice!  Maxie is not permanently joined to Spinelli!  There shall be dancing in the streets.

And yeah, allegedly for him it was all about "oh, this is proving how deep my love is and blah blah blah" but let's get real:  The headpiece spooked him.

I still can't get over that thing.  Sex and the City (the movie) was on cable the other day and this thing gives Carrie's bird-hat a run for its money in the fugliest wedding headwear category, which I didn't think was possible.  Pat Field will not stand for being trumped!

But even if Spinelli got past the hat, the dress wasn't much better. 

As my grandmother used to say, boys don't marry lasses with big bows on their asses.  I'm pretty sure that's what she used to say, anyway.

Our Column in the 10/6 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

For our latest My Take/My Take, Too column, our editors asked us to share our thoughts about the Daytime Emmys. You may remember that we had thoughts--lots of them. After a substantial amount of time turning sentiments like "RAAAAAAGE" and "What is she weari--OH MY GOD, MY EYES" into actual sentences, excising curses and cutting our marathon list of complaints down to 500 words, our latest columns appear in the October 6th issue of Soap Opera Digest, on newsstands today.

Daytime Emmys Recap: Worst Dressed

If you've been reading us long enough, you know that what we like even more than pretty ensembles are baffling ones, not only because it allows us the chance to broaden our vocabularies and learn new words to put in our mocking arsenal, but also because our reaction to them is usually totally reasonable and not at all OTT dramatic and hypercritical.  Well, one of those things is probably true.

As they do every year, the Daytime Emmys brought us a boatload of fug that went from run-of-the-mill visually unappealing (of the "you have money and access to tons of stuff -- though admittedly to a lesser extent than people at Real Grown-Up Network-Based awards show -- so why do you look so meh?"), to the "HOLY GOD MY EYES! MY EYES!" sartorial travesties.  Our picks for Worst Dressed of the 2009 Emmy Awards are below.

Rachel Melvin

RACHEL! You are young, thin and gorgeous. You chose the one dress in the universe that could possibly make you look bad.  Not just bad: insane. The ginormous flower, the tulle bustle, the beaded tulle in random places, the earrings, the fact that it appeared on camera to be both the color and texture of mold...we could go on, but we don't have the bandwidth to list every single fashion don't in this ensemble.

Gina Tognoni

The color is beautiful on her, but that bow, and that hair, and those earrings! Dreadful.  Becca actually yelped when she saw the hair, and it launched junior high flashbacks that lasted throughout the evening.  They were somewhat counterbalanced by her mother's 65-year-old boyfriend walking through the living room, catching a glimpse of Gina's coif, and exclaiming "Last of the Mohicans"!  So hilarity ensued, but so did mid-80s flashbacks, Ms. Tognoni, and those are rarely good.

Ashley Jones

From the print, which is surely a favorite of kindly old ladies who play canasta and/or the cushions on rattan couches in Florida, to the random beading and ugly back, this was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Daytime Emmys Recap: Best Dressed

You are all probably observant enough to learn a few things about us over the years, dear readers. We're both bitter, for example. We have foul mouths. And we also have a deep and abiding love for things that are pretty.

The Daytime Emmys, for all of its faults, did give us a whole lot of pretty last night. Below, the Serial Drama Best Dressed List for the 2009 Daytime Emmys.

Tyra Banks

Do you know how strange it feels to be complimentary of a Tyra Banks outfit, let alone put her at the very top of our Best Dressed list? It feels VERY FOREIGN, let's just say that. Just a short year ago, we deemed her "just the worst" and she was the overwhelming pick for worst dressed. So to see her looking so chic and gorgeous is unsettling, to say the least, but we have to give it to her: she looks spectacular.  (Fortunately, later in the evening Emmy voters once again encouraged Tyra's delusion that she is both informative and the next Oprah by giving her another damn award, so overall we had a night of love-hate balance with Ty-Ty.)

Marcy Rylan

Mallory: Maternity adorability!

Becca: She looks adorable, but like she's due yesterday, and possibly with a human/giant hybrid.  I worry about her center of gravity.  And OMG, the poor thing in that heat! Let's give her an award just for showing up, let alone looking so cute.

She looks cute and comfortable, and the hair and makeup are impeccable.

Tamara Braun

Gorgeous!  She looked like a million bucks from head to toe, and the contrasting earrings were an especially fabulous touch.

General Hospital Week in Review

Greetings, readers!  After a very long absence, the Week in Review is making a hopefully triumphant return.  My work schedule has been completely insane for at least six months so poor Mallory has been shouldering almost all of the blogging, but things have calmed down and I'm planning a return to normal.  I've still been watching GH over these many months, which I'm sure contributed to my near-nervous-breakdown state, so I haven't missed much.  There's even been a few things that have been so consistent that I've learned to find them somewhat soothing.  They include:

• Rick Hearst getting screwed over
• Patrick's hotness
• Sonny being an awful [fictional] human being
• Mallory's hatred of Jason, Spinelli, and Bob Guza
• My mind wandering while watching GH to the extent that I miss entire plotlines (and am subsequently grateful)
• The increasing use of spray tan and teeth whitener that appears to have coincided with the introduction of HD
• This show being, generally speaking, effing terrible

But let's be all analytical and take a look at some specific things that are terrible.  And one or two that aren't.

Casting is really the one area that throughout GH's descent into mediocrity and then awfulness remained strong.  GH consistently casts talented newcomers, kids that look like their onscreen parents, and non-daytime actors who fit right in on a soap.  But this is a huge misstep:  This man

is supposed to be the son of this woman.

Let me have some of my favorite Port Charles' denizens express my opinion about this:

 

Yeah...WTF?  Did she have him in the second grade?  Screw that, they could have been in the second grade together.  I am actually surprised that Maurice Benard hasn't up and quit in outrage, since he was long rumored to not want Sonny to have adult children, and all of a sudden he has one that checks the same age box on the census form that he does.

By the way, wasn't Olivia and Dante's first scene as mother and son a breath of fresh air, totally lacking the usual GH taint of violence and general disregard for anyone with ovaries?

Yeah.

I have no other explanation for that, other than, you know, the usual:

A Professional Stylist Was Responsible For This. One Who Gets Paid Real U.S. Dollars.

 

Redhead.*
Magenta sweater.
Red handbag.

I'm just going to let you sit and rearrange those words at random and decide if they are ever acceptable in the same vicinity as each other.

(They aren't, but I like to let people figure out that I am right in their own time.)

* With bad roots.  What the hell is wrong with the [inexplicably] Emmy-winning Days hairstylists?  Speaking of which, did I hallucinate or in the preview for today did I see a James Scott haircut?  Praise be!

Vintage Suds: GH Christmas 1996 in May 2009

Exhausted by another week of the show currently masquerading as General Hospital?  Want to be reminded of how seriously, staggeringly, immeasurably better this show used to be?  Read on.

(I know what you're thinking -- Dude, you're just now getting around to recapping the SOAPNet Christmas marathon?  The answer is yes.  You have my permission to be disappointed in me, or amazed by my slackerdom.  As my penance, I've provided extra screencaps.  Plus this post will be almost entirely free of bitchiness.  Except about Miranda.  And Tom.  And maybe some hairstyling and fashion issues.  There is a limit to how nice I can be, even when trying to curry favor.  Sorry.)

It’s Jax and Brenda’s first Christmas together!  (That “Eeeeeee!” you hear is Mallory, at the mere mention of Jax and Brenda.)  Jax brought Brenda a whole box full of Christmas decorations from Australia, which he bursts into his penthouse with, forcing her to scurry and hide something (presumably his gift).  Brenda hadn’t gotten a tree because she wasn’t sure Jax would be back in time, but of course he would, because he’s dreamy.  So they’re off to get a tree.  Jax jokes that he’s going to cut down one in Edward Quartermaine’s yard.  Ooooh, the Jax/Q family rivalry!  Remember when there were rivalries on this show that didn’t involve hitmen and “coffee importing”?  Sigh.

Query:  Why did I find Ingo (and Jax) so damned hot when he had outfits and a haircut like this?

The draw of an Australian accent is a remarkable thing.  It is truly a wonder how I managed to maintain my Mel Gibson hate for so many years (long before he publicly became an epic ass, I mean).

Vintage Suds: Days of Our Lives December 1988

I have been in a soap funk lately, hating GH and being bored by Days (though on the latter point there has been positive progress – more on that in the coming days).  As a result of that funk and a crazy work schedule, my posts here have all but disappeared.  So I thought, what better way to get back in the mood than to watch an episode of the first soap I ever watched, from the era in which I fell for it?  Therefore, I bring you a recap of a Days of Our Lives episode from December 1988.  (I previously blogged about the episode after this one, but then found this old tape (I only have like five soap tapes, so the odds of sequential episodes are low), and figured it was worth recapping.  Particularly since I assume everyone has already forgotten about the last one!  Except the video about Kayla’s wardrobe.  Because nobody can forget that.)

Fair warning:  This post will contain many mullets and shoulder pads.  Reader discretion (and, if applicable, ability to mock things you unironically wore in the 80s) advised. 

Everything About This Show Is Terrible

I had a busy day at work yesterday, but I managed to get home at a reasonable hour and make dinner.  Then, for the first time in weeks, I sat down and had time to watch both my shows on the day they actually aired.  I was excited!  Then I remembered that one of those shows is General Hospital.  Oh, optimism.  You never pay off.

Virtually from start to finish, yesterday was a bad day.  And if something stands out as being a bad episode of this show, that's saying something.  That we've had two of these terrible episodes in four days is not the best sign of where we're heading in this allegedly higher quality month of sweeps.  (Is it sweeps?  I'm so confused, because I thought February was sweeps, especially given the Toxic Balls nonsense, but it wasn't, so they just busted out with a re-tread of other sweeps storylines because . . . it was a month with 28 days?  I don't understand.)  Anyway, this show is terrible, and here are some specific examples of why.  Not that you needed any.

Things started off with Claudia suggesting that she and Sonny "consummate" on a regular basis.  I have never in my life wished more for a retroactive fast-forward button on my Tivo.  For the love of all that's right with television (George Clooney back on ER), who allows this crap on the air?

Maxie:  . . . If you leave, I'm just going to end up hooking up with Johnny.
Spinelli:  Surely I'm mistaken.  No doubt high emotions have led to a misunderstanding, or actually a literal mishearing of your proclamation?
Maxie:  You heard me.
Spinelli:  How can Maximista say that The Jackal's tragic yet unavoidable departure could cause her to have carnal relations with the mob prince?
Maxie:  It will be like the night of blizzard, except this time I might not be able to stop myself.  I saw you, with Winifred, at the Metro Court.  Johnny had just had a fight with Lulu and I crashed my car.  He rescued me and took me to this abandoned garage and we had a few beers.  One thing led to another and --
Spinelli:  Surely nothing untoward occurred?
Maxie:  It was like we were playing a game of chicken.  Daring each other to keep going.  Before I knew it we were, um, seriously making out and well on our way to hooking up.
. . .
Spinelli:  What about the original blond one?  I mean, surely you wouldn't deliberately and willingly obliterate Lulu's heart?
Maxie:  Johnny feels like he doesn't deserve Lulu and that he should just break her heart and get her out of his life.  And maybe that's right.  But if you leave, and I hook up with Johnny, then technically I would be doing Lulu a favor.

So much wrongness, so little blog space.

I don't know why the writers find this difficult to remember, but:  Maxie is NOT AN ASSHOLE.  She is supposedly to be a delightfully bitchy bad girl.  Threatening to sleep with Johnny to intentionally hurt Spinelli is arguably in character for her these days, given her rather insane dependence on him, but it shouldn't be, and this "I would be doing Lulu a favor" crap?  Throwing the details of her near-hook-up with Johnny in Spinelli's face?  Being so self-centered that she would rather Spinelli risk arrest thanks to her emotional blackmail than, god forbid, leave town?  There is already character who behaves this selfishly and assholishly on a regular basis.  Her name is Carly.  And oh, if you like your blond selfish assholes a bit younger, there's Lulu.  Leave Maxie alone!  Why must this show RUIN EVERYTHING?

Also, I know this is not a new complaint, but I never promised you a rose garden, or originality in my bitching . . . I'm not actually supposed to want Maxie to have a romantic relationship with this cartoon of a character called Spinelli, am I?  Like, seriously, as a viewer in this show's alleged target demographic, am I supposed to have my fingers tightly crossed that things work out for the feisty fashionista and the mobbed up guy who can't complete a coherent sentence or comb his hair?  For real?  As I have said before, NO HUMAN BEING TALKS LIKE THIS, and it would be fine (I guess) if he was just on for comic relief a couple of times a week, but he's on ALL THE TIME and he's dragging Maxie permanently into the mob and I'm beginning to move from barely tolerating him to fully HATING him and wanting to reach through my screen and SLAP SOME SEMBLANCE OF NORMAL ENGLISH into him.

It's make me INCREDIBLY YELLY and now I'm like that Agent Raynor dude and oh, that reminds me, I HATE HIM TOO.

(P.S.  Kirsten, sweetie, those extensions . . . please fix, 'k?

Things That Are Not Okay in Salem (Hint: "Everything")

Mallory and I have an ongoing email conversation about which is worse, General Hospital or Days of Our Lives.  (And I mean "ongoing" in the broadest sense of the word, since this particular debate has been going strong since 2005 or so.)  Over the years, GH has generally taken the crown, since we were almost always able to say something along the lines of "Sure, Days is incredibly [boring/nonsensical/ridiculous], but GH [killed 17 people yesterday/fed a Quartermaine to lions/had Sonny and Carly have disgusting sex in a limo]."  Lately, though -- and it's entirely possible this is due to GH's high concentration of attractive people because please remember we are shallow first and foremost -- Days has been taking the title.  It is unbelievably boring and poorly written, and the boring and poorly written lines are said by characters that you either don't give a crap about or that weren't even on the canvas two years ago.  I don't know what's going on with the ratings, which I heard are actually up (?!?!?), because I almost have to be forced under threat of violence (and/or cranky blog comments) to watch it.

Anyway, as is probably obvious by this point, there isn't a whole lot in Salem that's setting my world on fire in any kind of good way these days, so I am compelled to focus only on the negative (much to my obvious and heartfelt dismay, obvi).  Let's take a closer look at the many things that are, using one of my favorite super-sophisticated analytic phrases, very much not okay, shall we?

Not okay:  Chloe as devoutly religious.

I'm sorry, this was hilarious.  Something about Nadia Bjorlin's way of just rolling her eyes toward the ceiling sent me over the edge into outright giggling, which is probably not exactly what the writers were going for.  (Not to imply that they are going for anything in particular, because I've seen no evidence of that.)

 

 

I cannot stop laughing.  For real.  I've looked at those screencaps at least a dozen times, and I laugh every single time.  I am easily entertained.  Which makes this show's inability to do so all that much sadder.

While we're talking about Chloe, I must discuss another thing that is not okay, specifically her hair (spoiler: bad hair is going to be a theme today!).