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My Take
By Becca Thomas

I am not anti-villain. I love a soapy bad guy or girl. I have adored DAYS OF OUR LIVES’ Victor Kiriakis and his malevolent deeds since acid-washed jeans were popular the first time around. And one of Victor’s worst enemies, Stefano DiMera? Who doesn’t root for him, at least a little bit, every time he comes back from the dead to wreak havoc? Then there’s GENERAL HOSPITAL’s Helena Cassadine, who is a kidnapper, brainwasher, and murderer many times over. Yet I love her! I could go on for pages with examples of my solidly pro-villain stance. And I also understand that even good guys have to have some villainous qualities now and then, to keep things interesting. But lately with Luke Spencer, GENERAL HOSPITAL has replaced what was a layered and interesting sometime villain with an unrepentant jerk who has lost all rootability in my eyes.

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

My Take
By Mallory Harlen

During many dark days, when watching and entire episode of ALL MY CHILDREN and GENERAL HOSPITAL was physically painful (that sounds like a melodramatic thing to say, but I swear that those shows caused some killer headaches), I said to myself, "At least I have Zach/Kendall and Patrick/Robin. They could never disappoint me."

I suppose it's my fault for putting that out into the universe, because the writers seized upon that like a dare. "You'd think that, wouldn't you? But you'd be so very wrong." It's gotten so bad that I involuntarily shudder when I see either of those couples mentioned in the episode description on my DVR.

Zach and Kendall imploding, again, after some random, ridiculous threat to their marriage is worse this time than it usually is, and since I've spilled a lot of ink complaining about how bad it usually is, this is saying something. Zach, put off by the fact that his wife wasn't her usual self after coming out of a coma during which Zach fathered a child with her sister, and killed her brother, seemed to resent being in the same room as Kendall. Kendall, for her part, fell headfirst into one of her Ryan obsessions and became a curly-haired bundle of neuroses and desperate declarations of love. Throw in Zach and Liza's sleazy dalliance and you have a recipe for viewers tuning out. Charles Pratt seems to have an understanding of some Pine Valley residents--his writing for Adam and Erica is truly inspired and, unlike his predecessors, he's giving Aidan actual storylines, which is nice to see, but his writing for Zach and Kendall is bizarre. Why he decided that these hugely popular characters just weren't cutting it and needed to be rewritten is completely beyond me.

Our Column In The 6/2 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

The latest issue of Soap Opera Digest is on newsstands now and features our latest My Take/My Take, Too column. This month, Mallory recalls the pain of two of her favorite couples in all of soapdom being ruined by All My Children and General Hospital because of the writers' ineptitude, while Becca compliments GH and Days (for real!) for their expert character rehabilitation and is grateful that Sam McCall and Sami Brady are watchable again.

Also in this issue: a summer preview, interviews with David Canary and Julia Barr, a retrospective of Stuart Chandler's history in Pine Valley and an amusing look at soap characters born in May, made all the more hilarious that AMC's Amanda and Colby, and Y&R's Adam were born in 1992, 1999, and 1995, respectively. Oh, SORAS, you crazy devil.

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

SOD editor's note:  This month, we asked the My Take columnists to watch shows they normally don't.  Here's what they had to say.

My Take
By Mallory Harlen

GUIDING LIGHT has been broadcast for more than seventy years, and it has a great cast—a great cast that it actually utilizes.  Imagine that!—and yet all I could focus on at the beginning of my experiment watching it were the horrible production values. The cheap-looking sets, random outdoor scenes and handheld cameras look, at best, like a public access channel and at worst, like home videos filmed by a toddler with a shaky hand.

Once I got over that, and the accompanying motion sickness, I was impressed by the much-buzzed-about Natalia/Olivia relationship.  Part of it is a love of all things Crystal Chappell-related, sure, but I also think it’s well-written and realistic.  I also found myself really enjoying Shayne and Dinah. Something about the tried and true “two damaged people bond over being damaged” trope works when strong actors are involved.  And Jeff Branson, in a handful of scenes, already got better writing here than he did on ALL MY CHILDREN.

The rest of the show is sort of all over the place.  The pacing is a mess; so long was spent dramatically gearing up for Philip’s trial and talking about Philip’s trial and then the trial lasts a whopping eight minutes? O…kay.  Mallet and Marina bring new meaning to the word “boring” and the less said about Reva’s pregnancy, the better.  Kim Zimmer is certainly a force of nature (that’s diplomatic, right?), but the story is so poorly written.  

Our Column in the 4/28 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

Our latest My Take/My Take, Too column is on newsstands now, and this time around, our editors asked us to do something a little different and take a look at the rest of the soap world.  Probably on the off chance we could find uniformly nice things to say about a show.  Aren't they cute?

Anyway, Mallory tried out The Bold & The Beautiful and Guiding Light, while Becca watched As The World Turns and One Life To Live.  Did we gawk in horror at the production values on the Procter and Gamble soaps?  Did Mallory find B&B cheesy yet perfect for short attention spans?  Will Becca incense internet-dwellers worldwide by not nominating the OLTL writers for sainthood? Are we capable of being anything other than overly critical and unduly bitchy?  The answers to all these questions should be clear, but check out the column anyway, please?

So make sure to pick up a copy of SOD to see our verdicts, and check back over the next couple of weeks for some Soaps We Don't Watch recaps here on the blog. 

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

My Take
By Mallory Harlen

I can't make it through a full episode of AMC without hearing a crazy line of dialogue or seeing an offensive plot twist. Actually, that's being generous; there are some days when I can't make it through a full minute without bad dialogue and plot twists. My respect for the tremendously talented cast grows every day because I'm quite impressed that they manage to film their scenes without laughing or breaking the fourth wall and apologizing to the audience.

The biggest problem of late has been forsaking the show's history to facilitate quick plot twists. Zach fathering Gabrielle behind Kendall's back has generated a lot of discussion amongst AMC fans, but for all the wrong reasons: It was another insane obstacle for the already-tortured Zach/Kendall pairing, and the list of obstacles they have already faced is long enough to defy reason. It ruined Kendall and Bianca's deep bond, which was one of the most fascinating relationships on any soap. Remember their bonding over Miranda, and Kendall sacrificing herself for her sister? And on top of all that, it was just...creepy. Remind me again why Bianca was so desperate to have another Cam bias baby. She is aware that the family's gene pool includes a rapist and serial murderer, right?

Our Column in the 3/31 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

Be sure to check out the March 31st issue of Soap Opera Digest, on newsstands today, as it features our latest My Take/My Take, Too column. This month, Mallory wonders how All My Children can get so much so wrong and counts her blessings that The Young and the Restless is around to ease her soap-related pain with its awesomeness. Becca updates her "Things Days Of Our Lives and General Hospital Cannot Do" list and adds, "write off characters in believably and/or soapy ways".

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

My Take
By Becca Thomas

I tend to try to do a hundred things at once and lose focus.  (A friend once told me I am a “smart airhead,” which I decided to take as a compliment, because I am narcissistic like that.)  Anyway, before I lose track, here is my point:  DAYS OF OUR LIVES is utterly unfocused, and not in an endearingly airheaded kind of way.

I say this as someone who had not been a fan of theirs in at least a decade:  John and Marlena’s send-off was ridiculously lame.  I watched it and tuned in the Monday after, assuming there had to be more to it.  But no, after more than 20 years, that half-hearted partial share of a single episode was truly it.  The writing team had two months to plan for it, and that was the big farewell?  What were they focused on instead?  Oh, I know: Characters that weren’t even on the canvas two years ago. 

Examples abound, but let’s start with Melanie.  I like the idea of Melanie.  I think she’s supposed to be kind of like Maxie on GH, except unlike Maxie, Melanie is one-dimensional and so instead of being delightfully bitchy she’s just…bitchy.  And her storyline is ridiculous.  An 18-year-old is suddenly an executive at Titan?  What?  If Victor weren’t so busy commenting on Chloe’s “big bazooms” (side note: a little part of me died when poor John Aniston had to utter that line a few weeks back), he would put a stop to that insanity.

Our Column in the 3/3 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

Our latest My Take/My Take, Too column is featured in the March 3 issue of Soap Opera Digest, on newsstands now. This month, Becca takes on the utterly unfocused Days Of Our Lives and wonders about the characters of Melanie, Chloe and Nicole. Her questions include lots of anguished "Why?!"  Mallory has problems with All My Children and General Hospital relying on stunt-casting and, adding insult to injury, not doing stunt-casting well, and suggests that they watch The Young and the Restless to see how it's done.

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

Sorry to have delayed a couple of weeks in posting this column.  We were just so swept up in the amazing sweeps storylines on our soaps that we lost track of time and . . . Okay, no.  We were just kind of twirly and totally spaced. 

In this latest column, Mallory wonders how in the name of Agnes Nixon All My Children has screwed up a lesbian romance and pregnancy, and why the GH writers seem determined to drive a stake through the heart of every memory of old school General Hospital with Nadine and Nikolas's story about effing plow patents along with the yawn-worthy on-again-please-be-off-again-soon Jax and Carly "romance."  Meanwhile Becca, who was apparently still drunk from New Year's when we wrote these columns in early January, got all weirdly positive about a couple of characters on Days of Our Lives and General Hospital.