Serial Drama

Night Shift's Second Season Premieres Tomorrow. Are You Ready?

We have stocked up on booze, because optimism doesn't usually pay off for us, and at least one of us has confessed to really looking forward to this new season of Night Shift.  Are we crazy to think the new powers-that-be might actually be able to turn this show around?  Are we delusional to think that the combined hotness of Jason Thompson and Antonio Sabato Jr. can overcome almost any level of badness?  Are we suckers to believe that Robin might actually be treated well and get a storyline related to her pregnancy that doesn't involve her being a harpy and/or Patrick being a slimeball? 

The answer to all of these questions is probably "yes."  But we have to think positively, because we are staring down almost three months of weekly recaps of this show and if we don't start off with a positive attitude, can you imagine what our posts will be like come September?  Just expletives and exclamation points, probably. 

They've switched around the scheduling on us, and that in combination with some other behind-the-scenes changes means we won't be able to swing the almost immediate recaps that we did last year.  This time around, the episodes will air on Tuesday nights, and our recaps will go up on Thursdays.  We cannot guarantee that our positivity or objectivity will continue past the first five minutes of the first episode, but we're going to try to give this thing a fair shake, and not be overly harsh just because it previously stank to high heaven and is associated with a show that makes us want to take hostages on an almost daily basis.  It's a whole new approach we're trying out.  You have been warned.

So in our last poll, an astonishing 84% of you claimed to be looking forward to Night Shift 2: Allegedly Soapy Spin-Off Bugaloo just like we are.  The question is, what is the source of that optimism?  By which we mean, what or who will carry the burden of all our soapy hearts and dreams, most likely while descending into the pit of crappiness into which almost everything related to modern-day General Hospital ultimately falls?  (Shoot, sorry; old habits die hard.)

poll by twiigs.com

Vintage Suds: Days Rings in 1989

What better than a late-1980s holiday episode of Days of Our Lives to kick off our Vintage Suds feature?  If you loved Days in its heyday, or aren't a Days viewer but want to remember what soaps were like when they weren't mind-numblingly boring/awful and you weren't ashamed to tell your friends you watched them, read on.

Steve and Kayla run down from the loft's bedroom to the living area and banter/frolick as they were always known to do.  (Kayla, by the way, is in a peignoir and strappy nightgown.  From watching soaps, I thought every woman had dozens of those, and wondered why my mom was so unglamorous.)  Steve knows there's something Kayla wants to tell him, so she drops a mini-bomb: "I want us to have a baby."  Steve looks shocked, then dubious, then happy.  Over the span of three seconds.  Because Stephen Nichols has never not kicked ass, you guys.

DETOUR:  I know I've mentioned this before, but I spent a decent part of the 1980s coveting Mary Beth Evans' hair.  Her bangs, at least as Kayla, were spectacular.  In this scene they aren't that high, but they're still amazing in their improbability (since she was supposed to have just rolled out of bed).

Also, it is worth noting that I could post current screencaps of Steve and Kayla and you'd have trouble distinguishing them from these.  I don't know what deity or gene pool or surgeon Mary Beth Evans and Stephen Nichols have to thank for that, and I don't care.  It's just further evidence of their awesomeness.

Enough fawning; back to the show:  April is at the community center (man, I miss that set!) with her younger brother Julio when Mike arrives.  Michael Weiss as Mike, to be specific.  To me, even though he was Mike Horton #73, he is the Real Mike.  Anyway, he greets her:

Mike:  It takes your breath away:  April "Boom-Boom" Ramirez, in all her resplendent glory.

I found him totally charming at the time, but now with some distance, doesn't that line sound a bit Spinelli-ish? Oh god, I can't believe I just typed that.  Erase-erase-erase.

(I had forgotten that Mike ever had an acid-washed denim overcoat, but since I got past the fish ties, I suppose I can get past this too.)  Mike gets progressively more charming as he convinces April to go to the Kiriakis New Year's party later that evening (although it turns out he didn't even need to turn on the charm, because contrary to what he thought, she's actually happy to go).  Swoon, a big party!  Why don't soaps do those as much anymore?  That is a soapy staple I truly miss.

DETOUR:  You'll start to get sick of this, but I was in awe of April's hair.

At some point after this Lisa Howard got a cut with layers around her face.  In a fit of boredom resulting from the biology class I had to take at effing summer school to avoid having to take driver's ed at 7am in the fall semester (unnecessary additional evidence that a teenager will do anything to avoid getting up early in the morning), I tried to give myself that haircut with my mother's sewing scissors.  I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that it did not turn out well.

Back to the show.  Jennifer is on the pier and runs into April's brother Emilio. 

New Feature Alert: Vintage Suds

We are so terribly bored by our soaps these days, and find blogging about them so taxing, that we decided to go back in time to try to recapture our enthusiasm for the genre.  We therefore announce the launch of a new feature, Vintage Suds, in which we recap episodes from our shows when our love/hate relationship was more on "love" and less on "hate."  Not surprisingly, we had to go a looong way back.  Well, also the tapes that Becca found in her basement during a fit of OCD-like cleaning are NBC shows from the late 80s and early 90s, so that was a time-determining factor as well. 

Maybe you have more recent -- or even more dated, for that matter -- episodes you'd like one of us to recap?  Head on over to our Serial Drama Dish forums and post a link to the ep online, or email us if you'd like to arrange to send us a tape. 

We're so excited about this new venture that we've sprayed our bangs high, padded our shoulders wide, and applied our makeup with a trowel.  We're nothing if not committed.  Well, we're not really committed to our shows these days, but we're committed to being enthusiastic about detailing the many ways in which our shows used to be much, much better than they are now. 

This Is the Best They Can Do?

Since assuming the job of headwriter of The Young and the Restless and eventually becoming co-head writer with Hogan Sheffer, Maria Arena Bell has given a number of interviews touting the awesomeness that is to come on Y&R. I'm a pretty patient person by nature, but I'm starting to get a little antsy and want to know when, exactly, the awesomeness is going to come. Soon? Next year? When there is yet another new headwriter? I need to know what I am up against, here.

Because I certainly hope she doesn't mean that what we are seeing onscreen NOW is what she "swear[s] will blow [our] socks off". I mean...something's blowing, that's for sure. But what the hell kind of flimsy socks does she think we wear if we are supposed to be impressed with some of these storylines?

Nick: Never a dull day at Restless Style

That is a blatant lie, Mr. Newman.

Everything related to Restless Style continues to either bore, defy reason, boringly defy reason or defy reason boringly. It's especially distressing, since Jack, Sharon and Phyllis are three of my favorite soap characters (and Nick's not so bad), and all of their screentime is consumed by this story which...is kind of terrible.

FOR EXAMPLE, and I know getting irritated about this is kind of petty since there are much bigger issues with this show, but Phyllis and Nick specifically mentioned Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall as the inspiration for Victoria's cover shoot. Now, let's not even dwell on the fact that a random Wisconsin heiress/businesswoman is going to be the cover model for a magazine. I'm not even going to go there. I want to know how on earth Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall get translated into this:

Question mark, question mark, question mark???

In the words of GOB Bluth, COME ON! No one on the staff of this show could point out that this is an homage to the 20s? Are there no fact checkers in this business? I don't even mean that it has to be their actual job title, couldn't some random person, even just a guest visiting the set that day, have corrected that line?

ALSO, and this pains me to say since I love Jack (to put it mildly), but...he wants Restless Style to be uber successful and he decides to change Adrian's story about Sabrina to make it more salacious and sell more issues.

Jack: No, it's not just a Matter of working hard. It's about. . . it's about getting attention, about drawing a crowd, about somehow setting Restless Style apart from the rest of the pack. We need to make a splash.

Yeah, I don't think Jack and I are on the same page about what a splash is.

I don't doubt that Adrian's story was boring, because, well, it's Adrian and boring is what he does. But let's be real here: you're waiting in line at the grocery store, flipping through a magazine (probably after picking it up and idly wondering "Who's the girl on the cover? Did she win a contest?") and you come across a story about the newlywed wife of a business mogul who slept with an artist while she was a curator. Do you say "Wow, this is some fascinating stuff, I simply must know more" and buy it, or do you get bored halfway through the first paragraph and read the latest story in People about, like, dogs saving children who are stuck in wells? THIS is Jack's plan for a successful magazine?

Stupid.

Our Column in the 7/22 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

Our latest My Take/My Take, Too column appears in the July 22nd issue of Soap Opera Digest, on newsstands today. Our editors asked us to give our thoughts on the Daytime Emmy Awards and, remarkably, we were able to do so without swearing. We wonder what some Emmy voters were thinking, question the production values of the pre-show and ceremony and weep again over the fact that General Hospital was named Outstanding Daytime Drama.

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?

It's Official: ABC Hates Scorpios

ABC/SOAPNet hates the fictional Scorpio family.  There is no other logical explanation for the minimal screentime given the talented portrayers of members of that clan, nor for this....thing:

I watch General Hospital every day.  Kimberly McCullough may not be on-screen nearly enough for my liking, but I am certain that when she is, she has neither a double chin nor a wonky eye.  And Tristan Rogers is not, as I recall from his five minutes of screentime a year or more ago, a reanimated corpse.  Why then, does this promotional tool, presumably designed to make people actually want to tune in (to a show that can't exactly rest on its storytelling laurels), convey the opposite impression on both counts?

Also -- and I can't believe I actually have to encourage SOAPNet to cater better to viewers' base instincts -- if you have Jason Thompson and Antonio Sabato Jr. as your two male leads on a show whose target demographic is straight women and probably gay men, you put them AT THE FRONT OF THE AD.  Hell, you make your ads just shot after shot of the two of them in various states of undress and/or Blue Steel poses.  They are hotness in stereo.  Turn up the volume, ABC!  Even you shouldn't be able to screw this up.

I Heart Schadenfreude

I wish that I could explain my blogging absence away by regaling you with stories about the interesting things I've been doing, but...I don't know, do "working" and "devouring the either awesomely bad or just plain awesome Pretty Little Liars series" and "being bored to the point of literal physical pain by soap operas" count as interesting?  No? Oh. Okay. Sorry.

I had been so uninspired by All My Children that I kept putting off actually sitting down and watching it and then I realized I had, like, seven episodes to watch and then I did that thing I do where I occupy myself with minutia rather than subject myself to the combination of boring and awful that AMC excels in, but I couldn't avoid it forever, and I wound up watching them all in a row (foolish!) and it was kind of painful, to put it mildly. I'm still bitter that they recasted Colby and I don't understand why Randi takes up so much screen time and Babe having the audacity to complain AGAIN about the fact that Kendall and Greenlee do things like treat her, their employee, as an employee made me almost apoplectic, and, of course, I hate that they killed Richie off, because he had the potential to drive years and years of story, but I'm not quite ready to talk about it yet. Maybe once the mourning period ends...

But! What better to bring me out of my blogging hiatus than the brilliant, beautiful moment where Ryan Lavery had to hear, even for a moment, that the world does not revolve around him? And that no matter how long he pours his heart out for, his whims over who he loves today don't actually matter? I literally busted out with a Nelson Muntz HA-HA.

Greenlee: I love you, Ryan Lavery. I love you. For saving me for Aidan.

HA-HA!

HA-HA!

I mean, yes, we were subjected to an interminable amount of Ryan/Greenlee flashbacks in an attempt to--well, I guess they were trying to remind viewers of how great their love was. It merely made my headache even worse.

And, no, no human being would actually speak the worlds "I love you. For saving me for Aidan", because nobody outside of Danielle Steele novels talks like that. In any other situation, it would be a shoe in for The Day's Dumbest Dialogue. Who wouldn't say "Thank you for saving my life, because I kind of didn't want to die"? ESPECIALLY Greenlee! And even if they did say "Thank you for saving me, because now I can spend my life with my significant other", they wouldn't say it in such a horribly stilted way.

But in response to Ryan? Who now has to consider the fact that she is choosing someone else over him? It's as close to someone saying the words "Suck it, Lavery" as we are ever going to get on this show.

Positive Feelings About General Hospital? This is Completely Foreign to Me

I can't give the unholy union of Brian Frons, Jill Farren Phelps and Bob Guza much credit for anything, but I will give them this: they really know how to surprise you.

More often than not, of course, the surprises are terrible and include murdering Quartermaines and undead serial killers, because it is General Hospital that we're talking about and these three create crap the way that Godiva creates deliciousness, which is to say effortlessly. It's practically an art form.

But sometimes, the surprise is so genuinely great and delightful that the only appropriate response is to squeal aloud and quote a model from America's Next Top Model (there's something about their combination of bitchiness and vapidity that contains a surprising amount of wisdom), which is exactly what I did when I got an email from lovely reader Beth R. informing me that Genie Francis is making a brief return to General Hospital in August, leading me to exclaim to an empty office, "Shut your mouth and say it ain't so!"

It's only a short appearance, true, and even in extending this invitation to her, the GH brass managed to be a bunch of classless morons who don't understand how much Laura matters:

"I would stay on, but `General Hospital' honestly doesn't seem to want that relationship with this character at the moment," said Francis. "They want little short doses during sweeps periods. It's not entirely up to me.

But still! A little bit is better than nothing, right?

Let's take a moment and Eeeeee! our excitement: Eeeeeee!!!

And another moment to ponder how sad it is that she had to confirm with the powers-that-be that they weren't bringing Laura back just to kill her off. On a sadness scale of 1-10, that's...like a 23.

Of course, because I am inquisitive, I got to wondering...why would Genie do this to herself?

poll by twiigs.com

The Day's Most Awesome Dialogue: Introduction of the Go-Back and Re-Do

There is something you should know about me.  I can rationalize virtually anything.  (Especially purchases.  I rationalize buying another pair of black heels, when I have 20 at home already.  I justify buying additional handbags even though I don't even have enough space to store the ones I have.  My abilities even extend to other people's shopping; I have friends who will call me, knowing I will make them feel better about an otherwise seemingly insane consumer decision.  I believe a 60" flat screen TV is the current winner, at least in terms of dollar amounts.)  But even I have never rationalized infidelity.  I must therefore admire Ms. Carly Benson Quartermaine Corinthos Corinthos Corinthos Alcazar Corinthos Jacks' ability to justify screwing her ex-husband and characterizing that as perfectly acceptable while berating her current husband for briefly kissing another woman.  I bow down to the master.

Carly's side of this conversation was truly awesome because it went so far into hideously, heinously, horrendously hypocritical that it went through some kind of vortex and came out as hilarious perfection.  Because obviously, the writers have realized how awful a character Carly has become, and that she's lost all shades of gray and is perma-set on "judgmental harpy," and they're just sending one big wink in our direction.

Carly:  Jax kissing Kate of his own free will is the problem.  And he didn't expect me to find out, and now that I have, he's trying to tell me it's all my fault.
Jason:  How?
Carly: 'Cause he felt hurt and shut out, or something.  No excuse at all.
Jason: That was the night you and Sonny took Michael to the institute.
Carly: So?
Jason:  So that -- that was the night you and Sonny had sex!
Carly:  That doesn't count!  Sonny was a go-back.  Like a re-do. [I'm totally stealing this.]
Jason:  Are you serious?
Carly: Sonny and I were in an emotional place, that we fell onto something familiar.  [Well, you did.]  It was wrong, but nothing we hadn't done before.  Jax kissed Kate for the first time.  Which means he totally meant it.  Which means he was totally unfaithful.
Jason: ::awesome, Expression Hall of Fame-worthy WTF expression, complete with actual head-scratching, that I will upload as soon as I find a screencap::
- commercial break -
Jason:  If you had sex with Sonny while you were married to Jax, that's cheating.
Carly:  Well yeah, if you want to get technical.  [!!!!!]  But Jax and Kate kissing is far worse.
Jason:  How?   
Carly: Jax kissing Kate is a new thing -- that's messing with our future.  But Sonny, you know, we just happen sometimes, Jason.
Jason:  H-h-happens?  You didn't mean to have sex with him?  [Steve Burton's delivery throughout this who convo was brill.]
Carly: We had just went [sic] through the worst night of our lives.  [Worse than when he shot you in your head while you were in labor?  Damn.]  I mean, we regretted it two seconds after it was over.  But that's just who we are.  It doesn't mean we're getting back together.  But Jax and Kate kissing -- she's after him, he knows it, and he kept the whole thing a secret.
Jason:  Oh, okay, so did you tell Jax that you slept with Sonny?
Carly:  No, I did not.
Jason:  ::another ridiculously awesome exasperated expression::

See, if that scene had been written by a team that routinely demonstrates an inability to see Carly -- no matter how awful her behavior -- as anything other than a plucky heroine, or that makes a concerted effort not to have Carly ever have to pay for any of the terrible things she does to people she purportedly loves, I might have been nauseated and excessively pissy after watching it.  Because then they might not have intended the whole conversation to make clear what a terrible wife and person Carly is, and they might actually think Carly's argument is reasonable.  But since -

Oh.  Oooooooh. 

I have to go throw some stuff and curse now.