Am I Taking Crazy Pills?
I'm usually pretty good at writing away some of the more absurd parts of the soap genre as pleasant fluff. People coming back from the dead? Whatevs. People who have been married upwards of ten times? It happens. So it's not like I'm expecting the soap writers to be the next Mary Shelley or even Mary Higgins Clark, but there are times when I wonder if people are actually writing lines and scenes, or if someone is wasted and doing Mad-Libs and hands that to actors in lieu of scripts.
EXAMPLE #1 Drucilla, The Young and The Restless:
She's trying to provoke me into doing something stupid so she can call the po po
Okay, the line itself is hilarious and I'm willing to bet that Victoria Rowell improvised it because it's more awesome than any so-called snaps characters utter these days. But I don't understand why Dru is willing to risk her family and her career to go to jail over Carmen "Trife Heffa" Mesta. It doesn't make any sense. Is she intimidated by Carmen's school marm outfits? Is she on some sort of medication that has a bad reaction to Carmen's unique brand of boring? If a smart character is going to put a woman, however lame and poorly dressed she may be, in a headlock despite a restraining order, I want there to be a good reason for it.
EXAMPLE #2 Babe, All My Children:
He found me naked in a kiddie pool on the Fusion roof
So many things wrong with this line and the story it is a part of. Why is there a kiddie pool on the roof of a cosmetics company? When did JR become dumb enough to buy the excuse that Babe got so hot at work (in Pennsylvania in October) that she had to strip down and wade around in a kiddie pool? Note to all soap writers and anyone planning on cheating on their husband with an aborted fetus: think of a cover story in advance, just in case your husband manages to find you naked in public. Perhaps create a mental defect like blackouts where you have no idea what happened or why you're where you are.
EXAMPLE #3
Ghost of John Abbott dressed as Jacob Marley on The Young and the Restless. Sometimes all you can do is become a teenager with a myspace profile and say OMGWTFOMGWTF?
EXAMPLE #4 General Hospital's newest attempt at the Greatest Love Triangle Ever: Sonny/Carly/Jax.
Why is this even a question? I know Sonny keeps trying to tell anyone who'll listen that Jax hurts women and is evil, but I can't come up with an actual example of that, except when he dumped Skye for Brenda, but you can't expect me to think Sonny gives two shits about Skye.
I guess there was the time that Jax left Brenda at the altar and had Jason dump her for him. Oh, no, wait, that was Sonny.
What about the time that Jax knocked Sam up and moved her right across the hall from him and his wife and made her be his kept woman? Oh, no, Sonny again. Sorry.
Oh, I know. There was the time that Jax caused the death of someone's child by refusing to allow a mentally ill woman to get help which led her to go nuts and run into the road and cause an accident? Sonny again? For real? Huh.
Oh, duh, there's the time that Jax shot his wife in the head while she was giving birth to his child. ...still Sonny?! Damn.
How about the fact that Jax is a good six inches shorter than Carly, hasn't showered since the Reagan administration and needs to wear a bra?
I totally see why we're supposed to root for a criminal with zero redeeming qualities and a history of abusing Carly to get back together with her. Totally.
So listen up, writers: I don't ask for much. I ask for very little, actually: soapy dramatics coupled with the occasional catfight and a man going shirtless for no apparent reason. You actually have to try and screw that up and it seems like you're doing that. Often. Please stop.
*Screencap courtesy of General Hospital Happenings, your source for all things GH
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