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.

At Least This Is More Interesting Than the Show...Though Not by Much

Well, it looks like Days of Our Lives will have yet another head writer.  According to at least one online source, Dena Higley is out.  I have assumed she is the one who's been responsible for the last several snooze-inducing months of Days, including the cringe-inducing Daniel/Chelsea relationship, the yawn-inducing Morgan/Phillip/Chloe/Lucas/Sami/EJ/Nicole hexagon, the head-scratch-inducing ascent of Max Brady to central character status, and the fast-forward-inducing autism storyline, in which case I say good riddance.  But apparently her spin is that she hasn't actually been writing the show in ages, so who knows. 

Days has gotten a lot of undesirable attention from the WGA lately -- perhaps the showrunners ought to reconsider how they handle issues with the writers?  Speaking of which, I found this part of Nelson Branco's post especially interesting:

Executive producer Ken Corday is said to be trying to seize control of his series, and is hoping to position Higley back at the helm.

Um, doesn't "executive producer" sort of imply that one should already be in control of the series?  You know, being the executive in charge of the production?  If not, they should totally change that title.  It's way misleading!  And as to the second point:  What?  Why?!  I think there have been some good high points during Higley's tenure, but the show has been more uneven than my balance after five Kettle Ones, and the ratings are in what I think people in the biz refer to as "the crapper."

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this story shapes up, and more importantly who the new head writer is and whether s/he can finally rescue Days.  In the meantime, I'll continue watching (sort of), yawning (definitely), amassing the world's largest collection of screencaps of EJ's hotness and Kate's insane hair and wardrobe, while blogging about the episodes I really care about -- from 20 years ago.  Good times.

Update:  Soap Opera Digest is reporting that Higley is still in as head writer.  Weird!

Maybe He's A Really Big Charles Schulz Fan?

So Ingo Rademacher and his fiancé  had their baby, and we extend our congratulations to them. We love Jax, and we love Ingo and we're very happy for him.

There's just one little thing:

GH's Ingo Rademacher and fiancé Ehiku welcomed son Peanut Kai Rademacher into the world on July 11. The baby weighed in at 7 lbs, 6 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long. "Dad, mom and baby are all great," notes a show spokesperson. "The cast and crew of GENERAL HOSPITAL are very excited for Ingo, Ehiku and the entire Rademacher family. We wish them all the best during this important milestone."

That...is not a name. That is a legume.

It's not even a particularly nice sounding word, you know? Peanut. I just spent a couple of minutes thinking of the various ways you can mock someone named Peanut (because I have the mentality of a twelve year old) and there's, like, a lot.  

On the bright side, though, he'll almost certainly never have a classmate with the same name, so, um...at least he'll be spared years of having to be known as "Peanut R". That's kind of a bright side, right?

Forgetting Amber Moore

Since this is from the New York Post, I am going to take it with a grain of salt, but several things crossed my mind after reading this gossip item:

JASON Segel may have bared some flab in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," but that's not stopping him from pulling the ladies. Segel was hanging out at Bar Marmont in LA last week with "The Young and the Restless" starlet Adrienne Frantz, and they proceeded to make out to the amusement of onlookers. "It didn't look like he'd be forgetting her anytime soon," laughed one spy.

• Forgetting Sarah Marshall was so good, you guys. Jason Segel was awesome, Kristen Bell was charming, Mila Kunis is uber pretty, Russell Brand was hilarious and Paul Rudd played a stoner named Kunu. What could be better than that?
• Why does everything ever written about Forgetting Sarah Marshall have to mention either Jason Segel's full frontal nudity or the fact that he doesn't have washboard abs?
• I really hope that the success of this movie means that people will be interested in Jason Segel and start watching How I Met Your Mother. It saddens me greatly that this show is always on the verge of cancellation but According to Effing Jim gets eight seasons to pollute the airwaves.
• Seriously, According to Jim is the worst thing Courtney Thorne-Smith has ever been a part of and the woman spent years of her life in an onscreen relationship with Billy Shue, who emotes with all the passion of a piece of chalk. Think about the gravity of that sentence.
• Remember when Adrienne Frantz dated the guy from the Goo Goo Dolls?
• Why does the guy from the Goo Goo Dolls have the same haircut as Meg Ryan?
• Between her invitation to the Oscars and the gorge gown that came with it, and making out with a member of the Apatow gang, I am officially jealous of Adrienne Frantz.
• If I made a pledge to stop hating on Amber every time I mention Y&R, do you think Adrienne Frantz would use her Apatow connections to introduce me to James Franco? I have zero integrity when it comes to James Franco, so I would totally make ten posts a week all "DID YOU SEE HOW AWESOME AMBER WAS TODAY? <<<3333Amber<<<333" if she wanted me to.

Apparently There Are People at ABC Daytime Who Don't Find Violence Sexy

... maybe they should drop some knowledge on the people who run General Hospital. 

My friend just sent me this link (and rightfully questioned why they're still using the "dreamy" modifier for this guy).  Holy crap!  Regular readers know I don't watch One Life to Live, but I did see that one episode and I thought Nathaniel Marston was kind of hot.  But it turns out he's kind of an unbalanced rageaholic.  (Isn't that always the way?  It isn't?  I need to expand my social circles.)  Anyway:

Troubled soap opera star Nathaniel Marston has been dumped from "One Life to Live."

Marston, who played dreamy Dr. Michael McBain on the ABC soap, was facing trial in February for allegedly attacking three people and brawling with the city cops who tried to arrest him in Manhattan.

. . .

Speculation began building that Marston would be forced to hang up his stethoscope after the 32-year-old was arrested Oct. 20 on charges of assault, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest.

A 6-foot-3 former amateur boxer, Marston appeared to be crazed on cocaine when he allegedly screamed, "I'm going to get you!" and assaulted his victims with a metal crate, breaking one man's leg at 45th St. and 10th Ave.

Good god.  I hope the victims are recuperating well. 

And They Don't Call Cabs Because . . .?

What is going on in Hollywood?  Another soap star gets in on the drunk driving trend:  Sean Kanan got arrested for DUI (his second). 

Maybe he's just going all Method and trying to get the role of AJ back?  If so, he should really be careful around meat hooks, and his passenger should be on the lookout for symptoms of a serious head injury, which include:  becoming excessively attached to t-shirts and leather jackets, expressing emotion through elaborate blinking patterns, and deciding to kill people for a living.

(Like Mallory, I feel the need to apologize for reading TMZ.  But if you ignore the ridiculous headlines, the regular inaccuracies, the general writing style, and the inane comments, it's a decent source of celeb news!  And where else would you see the phrase "fetus fib" used in a sentence?)

Oh, Kirsten

Kirsten Storms was busted for DUI over the weekend. Not cool, Kirsten. Not cool.

(Also, I know that soaps are considered, like, the ghetto of high culture [although that should probably be reconsidered, what with the Rock of Love and Who Wants to be a Superhero shows out there], but would it have killed them to fact check and see what show she's actually on now?)

(And! I feel dirty admitting to reading TMZ, but TMZ has a copy of the police report and it says she's 5'3" and 110 pounds, which can't possibly be right. Maybe when she actually was on Days, but not so much now...)

Waglear = OTP

Ohmigod, you guys! In what could possibly be the greatest real life coupling ever (at least until I have confirmation that Jason Thompson and Kimberly McCullough are dating in real life, because, hello, adorable), rumors are swirling that Heather Locklear is dating Jack Wagner!

Heather Locklear and Jack Wagner turned heads when they showed up holding hands at Dreamworks chief Jeffrey Katzenberg’s The Night Before party at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Feb. 24!

“They looked very much like a couple - they seemed very comfortable together,” an observer tells Star. “They stayed close to each other during the party and they even left hand in hand.”

Locklear, 45, and soap star Wagner, 47, go way back. They were co-stars on the hot 90s prime-time soap, Melrose Place. Locklear dated comic David Spade after her breakup with rocker Richie Sambora last year. Wagner was married to soap opera actress Kristina Wagner, but according to reports, he has been separated from his wife since 2005, when they filed for divorce.

It's just...awesome. I mean, if Frisco and Felicia can't be together in real life, I am TOTALLY okay with Peter and Amanda dating. Truly.

- Promising Ingénue

Real Life Drama!

Like something out of a bad James E. Reilly storyline, Days of Our Lives's own Drake Hogestyn was attacked by a crazed maniac and in true John Black fashion, he turned the tables on his attacker.

Hogestyn, who was on a ladder painting his house, says Cheney grabbed and pushed his wife backwards on their patio stairs. At that time, Hogestyn "grabbed him by the hair, spun him around, delivered a right cross to the chin that sent him down the stairs." According to the restraining order the struggle continued for 10 minutes until Hogestyn and his 25-year-old son Ben were able to subdue Cheney by duct-taping the intruder's hands and feet until police arrived.

!!!

!!!

If he still had a mullet, this paragraph could probably be mistaken for a script circa 1989. Badass!

In all seriousness, that's a truly terrifying event and I am glad that Drake and his family are safe. I also feel that I should admit, in the interest of full disclosure, that I feel the same about Drake Hogestyn that many people feel about David Hasselhoff. He's so cheesy and uncomplicated that it makes me smile. He's the best kind of awesomely bad that there is.

- Promising Ingénue