Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2009, Serial Drama readers!  We hope you had fabulous New Year's Eve celebrations.  Did you drink chamgagne, like Jax and Carly did on General Hospital?

No?  Well, better luck next year!  (You have to appreciate how committed GH is to failing on every single level.)

We know many of you are heading back to work after lovely holiday breaks, so if you need to catch up on all the 2008 year-in-review stuff -- not that any of you would ever do anything like that at work -- here are some quick links:

• Best and Worst of 2008
• All My Children:  2008 In Review
• Days of Our Lives:  2008 In Review
• General Hospital:  2008 In Review
• The Young and the Restless:  2008 In Review

It was a little sad looking back at 2008, since in terms of soaps it was a pretty crappy 12 months across the board.  So 2009 really has to do little to improve upon its predecessor, but improvement isn't really what our shows do well, so . . . hope springs eternal!  Our fondest wishes for 2009 include:

• that James Scott get a haircut
• that Days of Our Lives and General Hospital get new writing teams
• that Agnes Nixon stage a coup and take over All My Children, leading it back to the brilliant soap it once was
• that The Young and the Restless give us a Victor-free episode
• that someone, somewhere, involved with any of the soaps on the air remember what the hell a soap opera actually is and try their hardest to produce one (Oh wait, for that we have Night Shift!  For a mere few weeks, months from now!  Yay?)

As we kick off another year, we want to be sappy for a minute and thank you all sincerely for continuing to read our rants and gripes.  The support and the links to us are completely mind-blowing for a couple of girls who couldn't even get their friends to read this thing at the beginning.  Most of them don't even read now.  So thank you, and please bear with us as juggle our real lives and our posting schedules, and we'll try to pay you back with decent posts.  Or at least entertaining screencaps.

xoxo,
Bec and Mal

Comments

[spike]

No Night Shift, kids. Sounds like that's over with. Damn the economy!

[steph]

The posts that you ladies write are always a joy for me to read :). It's nice knowing that there are others out there who are also very annoyed and upset in how these soap operas are being written. Please continue writing your posts well into 2009 and beyond!!

You girls ROCK!!!

[S]

Sorry to say, Night Shift has been canceled.

[Rene]

I figured I was the only one to recognize the "Chamgagne!" Of course, the end rhymes with "Gag Me" and Lord knows that's what GH does to me these days, so I guess it's appropriate.

Thanks for a stellar 2008, and I look forward to reading more in 2009 as I KNOW you won't lack for material. Sigh....

[Hillary]

Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that General Hospital's writing staff would manage to misspell champagne. It should, but it doesn't. With the terrible storytelling going on these days, spelling should be the least of their worries. You know, maybe spelling is the reason for all the violence on GH. You know, the person typing up the script or plot outlines could put "Lucky shot" when in reality it's supposed to be "Lucky's hot" (or something along those lines).

[Blair Provence]

Looking back over my year, I did enjoy Night Shift a bit. I watched some early ATWT and some OLTL. I tuned in for Myrtle's memorial and Robin and Patrick's wedding. But even the good stuff I saw was mixed with enough bad that I never got back into the daily habit.

I have to tell you, the people who remember what a good soap actually is aren't writing here in America. They're in Germany, writing Verboten Liebe, and it is FABULOUS! (And I can tell people I'm refreshing my German knowledge, so it is both entertaining and educational.) It's subtitled on YouTube for all your viewing pleasure, and it reminds me of mid-80s DOOL.

[Corey]

I am not sure if you guys know but Nelson Branco at TVGuide CA.com confirmed through Soapnet that there will be no season 3 of "Night Shift." Just shows you that you can call a network by a title that has basically now nothing to do with it's programming and they are not interested in it. With this and their refusal to air the Emmy Awards when it was them who did the red carpet pre-show before the actual awards, I have completely given up hope that Soapnet (cough! Frons. cough!) could live up it's name. In the beginning, when they were airing re-runs of "Ryan's Hope," "Another World," "Santa Barbara," "Dallas," "Dynasty," and "Knots Landing" and showing the current shows in prime time, the network had the perfect gimmick for a specific demo and was blowing my mind at the possibilities of one day having many other re-runs of shows I did not watch like "The Edge of Night," "Capitol," and one I did watched and loved, "Loving." They could have shown a 13 week cycle of story from one show and then begin another one from a different show and keep switching in between the cycles to keep things interesting and not investing everyday into a whole other soap but feasting on bits and pieces of a few at time. Anyway, I hearted "Night Shift 2" so much and to think that we are not going to get another 13 episodes of Scorpio/Drake magic and family and the Greek chorus at the nurse's station and Kyle and even the "Izzie" character (Kyle's faghag) from "Grey's Anatomy" whose name escapes me because that is how memorable she was but still she was part of the family. There was more heart and soul in thise 13 episodes then there have been in 4 years on GH. It is a truly sad situation. Now, we will just have to pray the GH uses them more and with the kind of depth they had from Robin and Patrick's first try at the wedding through the birth of Emma to the second, glorious pre-ceremony talks and actual vow saying. Anna, Robert, Mac, Robin, Patrick, Maxie, Spinelli even and all the actors who play them acted their butts off and gave the writing an even richer sub-text, historical context and organic touch of mastery that elevated those pre-Xmas, Christmas and wedding some of the best scenes for the show of the entire year which means they will probably win Best Emmy Show for one of them. Wouldn't that be ironic when the one year that Y&R and OLTL created the art of soap opera in the way it actually should be for the most consistent of years of any of the soaps and then GH steals it for the one palatable, emotional episode that they produced all year long. Because the best of GH this year was on "Night Shift." Anyway, here's to AMC, ATWT, GL, DOOL, GH and B&B to have a much improved, better written, heavenly dramatic (on screen not off, Corday, Frons, Bloom, Goutman, Wheeler) and more successful 2009's. Because it can't get much worse then the horrible drivel that all of these shows produced for 356 days of 2008.

[Simone]

The cancellation of Night Shift is disappointing, but really not surprising. Guza made the first season crap which probably helped lower the ratings of the excellent season 2. I with that Sri Rao who did season 2 would join GH.

[Becca]

I had not heard about the Night Shift cancellation and now must curl up into the fetal position and sob dramatically, because the one soapy thing I was looking forward to in 2009 won't happen. Bastards!

[Scrubsfanforever]

I read over on Soaps.com that a decision hasn't been made whether to go with NS or not. I hope it's a go, love my Scrubs.

[soapunk]

I hate to say it yet again.......But OLTL is the closest thing you are gonna get to a real soap these days!

[Charlie]

Well, Blair, while you are watching German soaps on YouTube (which I will state for the record is the greatest website ever) I am watching New Zealand based ones-or rather the only one. It's called Shortland Street and it's like GH but if they tried.

It's set in a hospital...they focus on doctors and nurses...the one gang on the show are actually treated for the criminals they are and not heroes...the women are smart and funny...the minority characters get actual screen time and have depth. Scary, I know. It may not be the greatest soap ever but at least its' a hell of a lot better than GH-and it's in English too.

You can find it on YouTube as well and I'll check out the German soap whether it has subtitles or not (hey, I watch telenovelas without subtitles so it's all good to me). Ah, the joys of international TV.

[Lauren, teh OG]

Oh for fuck's sake, they canceled Night Shift?!

HATE.

[JC]

1st - soaps.com is not a credible source, and yes Night Shift will not be coming back.

2nd - the misspelling on the bottle is not the writing teams fault - That would be the prop department.

[Rene']

Yes, it was the fault of the prop department, but not ONE SCHMO ON THAT WHOLE SET noticed it was spelled wrong? Down to and including the two actors?? Sorry, GH is suckage all around.