Serial Drama

The Serial Drama Daytime Emmy Awards Awards

From:  Mallory
To:  Becca
Date:  Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 8:06 PM

Subject:  Oh...my god

Oh...my god.

When a show inspires that reaction in its first six minutes, you can be sure that it's going to be a rough two hours.  We survived, barely, and decided to give back to the Emmys, if you will, by giving out our own dubious awards to the 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards.  It's the least one can do.  Well, no, the least one could do is what the people in charge of the ceremony's production last night did, but this is the least we personally can do.

We have already bestowed our Best and Worst awards on last night's fashion choices. In case you missed them: our Best Dressed and Worst Dressed lists. 

MOST CREATIVE USE OF THE WORD "INFORMATIVE"
Tyra Banks winning "Outstanding Informative Talk Show"

She informs people about what, exactly?  How to wear fake hair?  How to make everything about you? How to shriek for no real reason? We can't help but feel like being in this category and deemed informative is going to make her smugger than ever.

"Yeah, that's right, I educate people. I teach people, I mold young minds, I am an inspiration!"

MOST UNCOMFORTABLE THREE MINUTES OF THE TELECAST
The Fashion Show

First of all, it started with Tyra's introduction, informing us that "Daytime has always been on the cutting edge of fashion."  Which proved yet again that Tyra can't stop lying.  But then, it got worse!  Watching random pairs of cast members from each of the soaps preen, vamp and shake their groove thangs for a fake photographer was...

...well, it ended, is the good news.

MOST DISTURBING SEGUE TO SHOWCASING THE GOOD DEEDS OF A CHARITY
Susan Lucci Stalks From The Fashion Show To A Speech About Feed The Children

La Lucci weirdly pranced and catwalked her way over from the above fashion show right to the microphone, where she launched into a solemn tale about the importance of the Feed The Children charity.

The clip package that followed, showcasing her trip with Tony Geary and Kelly Monaco, to Africa for the charity was amazing and emotional, but, really, they couldn't have put a commercial break in between the cheesy "fashion show" and the legitimate charity? Well, we guess that they actually literally couldn't, since they quite nearly ran out of time as it is, but still!

MOST HEARTBREAKING
Feed The Children

Mallory: I'm crying.
Becca: I am ashamed to have been totally moved by something these manipulative producers specifically designed to move me, but come on, I have a functioning heart.  I totally teared up when Tony Geary and Kelly Monaco did!
Mallory: I think my heart just broke into a million pieces at the sight of those children. Especially when they were in their little uniforms!

MOST HILARIOUS HEIGHT DIFFERENCE
James Scott and Jay Kenneth Johnson

It's funny because JKJ is wee!

P.S. James Scott is a sex god.

Daytime Emmys Recap: The Night's Worst Moment

We know that you're probably asking yourselves, "How is it possible to pick ONE moment that stands out as the show's worst?" And you're right, it's a tough decision, because virtually everything about the 2009 Daytime Emmys (save anything to do with muppets), from the awful red carpet to some undeserving winners to the truly shitty production, can be summed up as terrible. But which of these horrors was the most horrible?

poll by twiigs.com

Daytime Emmys Recap: The Most Awesome Moments

The 2009 Daytime Emmys were an even bigger mess than we had anticipated but, over the three hours of pure badness, there were some nice moments. Yes, this is one of those times in which "some" is really an overstatement because what you really mean is "two, maybe three", but nobody ever said overstatement was a bad thing.  Just ask Stacy Haiduk, who wore a taxidermy cat to the ceremony!  That's right, the best moments of this year's Emmys were much like a dead cat.  Wait, this whole comparison has kind of gone off the rails.  What we meant to say is that we'd like you to pick your favorite of the handful of good things that happened last night (keeping in mind we are assuming you have very tiny hands).

poll by twiigs.com

Daytime Emmys Recap: Worst Dressed

If you've been reading us long enough, you know that what we like even more than pretty ensembles are baffling ones, not only because it allows us the chance to broaden our vocabularies and learn new words to put in our mocking arsenal, but also because our reaction to them is usually totally reasonable and not at all OTT dramatic and hypercritical.  Well, one of those things is probably true.

As they do every year, the Daytime Emmys brought us a boatload of fug that went from run-of-the-mill visually unappealing (of the "you have money and access to tons of stuff -- though admittedly to a lesser extent than people at Real Grown-Up Network-Based awards show -- so why do you look so meh?"), to the "HOLY GOD MY EYES! MY EYES!" sartorial travesties.  Our picks for Worst Dressed of the 2009 Emmy Awards are below.

Rachel Melvin

RACHEL! You are young, thin and gorgeous. You chose the one dress in the universe that could possibly make you look bad.  Not just bad: insane. The ginormous flower, the tulle bustle, the beaded tulle in random places, the earrings, the fact that it appeared on camera to be both the color and texture of mold...we could go on, but we don't have the bandwidth to list every single fashion don't in this ensemble.

Gina Tognoni

The color is beautiful on her, but that bow, and that hair, and those earrings! Dreadful.  Becca actually yelped when she saw the hair, and it launched junior high flashbacks that lasted throughout the evening.  They were somewhat counterbalanced by her mother's 65-year-old boyfriend walking through the living room, catching a glimpse of Gina's coif, and exclaiming "Last of the Mohicans"!  So hilarity ensued, but so did mid-80s flashbacks, Ms. Tognoni, and those are rarely good.

Ashley Jones

From the print, which is surely a favorite of kindly old ladies who play canasta and/or the cushions on rattan couches in Florida, to the random beading and ugly back, this was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Daytime Emmys Recap: Best Dressed

You are all probably observant enough to learn a few things about us over the years, dear readers. We're both bitter, for example. We have foul mouths. And we also have a deep and abiding love for things that are pretty.

The Daytime Emmys, for all of its faults, did give us a whole lot of pretty last night. Below, the Serial Drama Best Dressed List for the 2009 Daytime Emmys.

Tyra Banks

Do you know how strange it feels to be complimentary of a Tyra Banks outfit, let alone put her at the very top of our Best Dressed list? It feels VERY FOREIGN, let's just say that. Just a short year ago, we deemed her "just the worst" and she was the overwhelming pick for worst dressed. So to see her looking so chic and gorgeous is unsettling, to say the least, but we have to give it to her: she looks spectacular.  (Fortunately, later in the evening Emmy voters once again encouraged Tyra's delusion that she is both informative and the next Oprah by giving her another damn award, so overall we had a night of love-hate balance with Ty-Ty.)

Marcy Rylan

Mallory: Maternity adorability!

Becca: She looks adorable, but like she's due yesterday, and possibly with a human/giant hybrid.  I worry about her center of gravity.  And OMG, the poor thing in that heat! Let's give her an award just for showing up, let alone looking so cute.

She looks cute and comfortable, and the hair and makeup are impeccable.

Tamara Braun

Gorgeous!  She looked like a million bucks from head to toe, and the contrasting earrings were an especially fabulous touch.

Open Thread: The 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards

Yes, it's time for the big show itself! Let's see if the real Emmy voters have any overlap with the Serial Drama faux Emmy voters, who think that the following people deserve to go home with an award tonight:

Outstanding Younger Actor: Blake Berris

Outstanding Younger Actress: Kirsten Storms

Outstanding Supporting Actor: Jeff Branson

Outstanding Supporting Actress: Alicia Minshew

Outstanding Lead Actor: Peter Reckell

Outstanding Lead Actress: Debbi Morgan

You all have obviously been burned before, because the only time you thought the most deserving actor would actually wind up winning was in the case of Kirsten Storms!

Come on in and join us for a blow-by-blow discussion of daytime's biggest night (related: who here misses the Soap Opera Digest Awards?), hosted by Vanessa L. Williams and featuring the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award to Sesame Street, which thrills us both so much that we have nary a snarky comment to make.  We'll be updating the list of winners, after the jump!

Open Thread: The Daytime Emmy Red Carpet!

Join us in the comments for all of your "I love that dress!", "What the HELL is he/she wearing?", "I don't know who that person is..." and "Ronn Moss's formal mullet looks divine!" observations!

Countdown to the Emmys: Day 7

Now it's time to take a look at the nominees for Outstanding Daytime Drama, a category as notable for its omissions (no Y&R? Boo! No GH? Ha!) as its nominees.

Soap Central has a look at the episodes submitted by All My Children, The Bold and the Beautiful and Days Of Our Lives that stood out to voters as the year's best:

All My Children

A series of tornadoes steamrolls through Pine Valley, leaving devastation and death in their wake. The storm collapses Zach and Kendall's beach house, leaving Kendall missing among the rubble and a pregnant Bianca fighting for her and her baby's lives. Elsewhere, Babe and her son, Little A, are trapped under a beam and Babe must make a life-and-death decision.

The Bold and the Beautiful

Due to the fact that it is a 30-minute show, The Bold and the Beautiful submits two episodes. These episodes revolve around Storm's decision to take his own life so that his heart may be donated to his sister, Katie. The reel is topped off with a dramatic flashback of black-and-white home movie-style memories of the Logan kids. In another room Brooke, Donna and others hear the sound of a gunshot. When they rush to see what happened, they learn that Storm has taken his own life

Days Of Our Lives

A plane carrying several Salem residents loses fuel and plummets towards the ground. Steven Johnson and John Black struggle to find a way to regain control of the plane. In the rear of the plan, Shawn Brady refuses oxygen so that the others will be spared. The plane eventually crashes and loved ones await word on the fate of those aboard the plane.

We don't watch B&B, and AMC is horrendous, so by default and with much regret given its overall boringness, we're both all about Days Of Our Lives this year. What say you, Serial Drama readers?

poll by twiigs.com

poll by twiigs.com

The Emmy ceremony is tomorrow night and our coverage will be a bit different this year. Becca is currently visiting family on the West Coast (CONVENIENT, isn't it, that she is in California at the precise time that Jason Thompson and James Scott will be in formalwear in a known location?). For some reason, the Daytime Emmys aren't considered important enough to air live on both coasts, (it's like they don't consider a ceremony that has called General Hospital Outstanding Daytime Drama in the past and often has the production values of a third grade play relevant or something!), so we won't be able to do our traditional tag-team liveblog. We'll allow you a moment to mourn.

We WILL however, have a Emmy roundup post after the show has aired in both time zones bringing you the handful of highlights and myriad lowlights that the show is sure to provide us. To satisfy your real time snarking needs, we will be having two open threads, for both the Emmy red carpet pre-show, which starts at 7, and the show itself, at 8, so you can all discuss the show to your heart's content, and we will both be joining as well. Three cheers for maddening, cheesy awards shows!

These Days, One Life To Live

Guest blogger Louise shares her take on OLTL these days, and all of the soapy goodness that comes with it. A good ABC soap? Our minds are blown.

It’s spent much of its life languishing at the bottom of the ABC Daytime ratings (that is, since the retirement of the pre-AMC half-hour slot once occupied by Loving/The City/Port Charles). It’s suffered from some seriously embarrassing missteps (Eterna, the city beneath Llantano Mountain; out-of-body adventures; not one but TWO lengthy time-travel storylines in just the past two decades). It’s rewritten some of our most cherished show memories (Viki and Clint’s first child wasn’t really such a joy-- Jessica was actually Mitch Lawrence’s daughter and Viki’s naughty alter actually came out to give birth to Jessica’s twin-by-a-different-dad-we-swear-it’s-medically-possible Natalie!). It’s somehow survived some of the most bizarre re-castings in history (Blair was originally Asian-American and now she’s a tough-talkin’ Texan blonde?).

It’s also been wildly overlooked at times, despite spectacular moves like regularly casting Broadway stars and other thespian greats and sweeps stunts that don’t include giant mob shootouts or hostage situations or bad weather crises (okay, there was that one tornado that crashed down on a mid-coital Kelly and her stepson), but instead showcased their talent (who caught that live week? That was amazing!).

But I’ve noticed the critics and the fans alike have started to really make it known that One Life to Live is currently one of the best things daytime has to offer. Women over forty are allowed to be leading ladies, racial diversity is allowed in this fictional soap town, major events have an impact that lasts more than a week, no one is glorifying violence, and history doesn’t get rewritten or forgotten on a daily basis. The canvas is chock-full of this weird little thing that there’s not much of in ABC Daytime these days: flawed but sympathetic characters. People who are human, not superhumanly good or superhumanly evil. And no one, thankfully, who randomly does a complete turnaround overnight in one direction or the other.

So now that I’ve put my bias out on the table and made it clear that it’s just not possible for me to write a hilarious, scathing missive lamenting the show’s demise (it’s better than it’s been in years – and I’m willing to forgive relatively-new Head Writer Ron Carlivati for that time-travel story since he has since given INSANE payoff to long-time viewers in myriad other ways) let’s talk OLTL in the current day.

Introducing Our New Guest Blogger, Louise!

Yes, One Life to Live coverage on Serial Drama. Let it never be said that we don't listen to your polite requests! It might just take us...a really long time to listen to them. Give a warm welcome to Serial Drama friend Louise, who will be sharing her thoughts on the current goings on in Llanview!

 

Louise started watching the ABC soaps back in 1985 when Tracy James and Stick planted a bomb in Llanview that ended up only killing themselves. She knew she was hooked for life when Tina, Viki, and Dorian discovered the letters Victor Lord left for each of them in Llanfair’s secret room (one of many). She generally gets out of trouble at work by insisting that she has D.I.D., but recognizes it’s harder to pull off when you don’t have a name that easily rhymes with several other names.

Her likes include long-distance trains, big cities, dogs (especially boxers), baseball, Kate & Allie reruns, conveniently timed bouts of amnesia, fried tofu, scary movies, hair metal anthems, summer camp, really funny plays with no intermission, the B train, triple weddings, VH1 dating shows, mockumentaries, and ale. Dislikes include tourists who stand blocking intersections and take 10 minutes to make a decision, winter, golf, camping, Michael Vick, mobsters and their hitmen, pretentious people, tapered pants, and the smell of cat litter.