Serial Drama

Don't Tell Todd the Babysitter's Dead

Well, at least they mentioned there being a babysitter at all -- considering for the most part Starr and Cole have made infant-rearing and teen parenthood look like no biggie.  But alas, the babysitter is dead at the hands of Eli, yet another person we've never met being killed by someone we're supposed to fear (okay, yes, Eli has actually finally been pretty threatening recently -- he killed Wee Ross!).

Today we got the treat of Todd waxing poetic about what it's like to welcome your children into the world.  How your heart is full and how they are so vulnerable and innocent.

Todd: You don't know yet what it's like to hold your kid in your hand for the first time.  It comes out and it's just this... I don't know, this little ball of humanity.  It's just so... innocent and helpless.  And then you realize it's yours, it's your flesh and blood there.  It's your joy, of course, but it's your responsibility.  And it's just this limitless potential for heartbreak.  I mean just the thought, the very thought that someone would harm this creature, this person who wouldn't be here if it weren't for you, it just, well, it makes you want to do things and feel things that you've never felt before.  And of course you realize you would gladly step in front of an oncoming train if it meant saving their life.

Oh, sniffles.  Correct me if I'm wrong (and I mean that sincerely, twenty-five years of this show in my weak memory bank leads to mistakes and I'm sure some of you are far better scholars of the show than I!), but... I would've liked for them to show a flashback of Todd welcoming one of his children into the world and it changing everything because he was so moved.  Because: when the eff did this happen?  He was presumed dead during the birth of Starr, Spencer delivered Sam while he was hiding Margaret, Tea gave birth to Dani in Tahiti and said she was Ross's child.  So far, absent for 3 of 4.  And yes, he was present for Jack's birth but was so far from moved (granted, he didn't know Jack was his son, as if that's some acceptable excuse) that he ultimately paid David Vickers to kidnap (aka "get rid of") Jack and hand him off to who-knows-who and force a new mother to grieve the non-death of her child.  So I've missed these birth moments in which Todd is full of love for a vulnerable and innocent baby.  And I've missed the scenes where he even realizes this in retrospect, as he has so much respect for the sanctity of a new child and its bond with its parents that he planned to kidnap his own daughter's baby as a "gift" to his rape victim. (Seriously, typing all that out in one paragraph is hilarious.  God I love soaps!)

I think the one thing they've been very consistent about as far as Todd's fathering instincts is that he will indeed step in front of an oncoming train if it'll keep one of his kids from being taken away from him (either by custody suit or kidnapping).  And there were actually times years ago when his relationship with little Starr was actually quite lovely, and there have been flashes of some sort of love for his children that goes beyond just "but it's mine!" but man, it's been a long, long while.  So I did have to laugh today.

Oh and Natalie's really a saint for expressing sympathy to Todd.  Honestly, the fact that either of his nieces can run into him at any point and not spit in his face is a true testament to their absurdly forgiving natures.  (Or to the short-term memories of the story editors.  Your guess is as good as mine.)

Queen Victoria really is back! Today, she had this juicy morsel to say about Echo:

VIki: She's nothing but a two-bit poseur; she's nothing but a distilled con artist who has seen better days.

Love it.

Putting the Ass in Classic

When The City was canceled and ABC had a half-hour to fill for a few months before the premiere of Port Charles, a genius person had the idea to run classic episodes of the ABC soaps during that time slot. I think I speak for us all when I say "That's the last time ABC Daytime did something that could be described as genius" and also: AMAZING. Because it was! At several points that spring, due to spring break and illness, I was home from school with nothing to do but watch TV and got an awesome soap education; I clearly remember seeing the episodes of One Life to Live where Karen Wolek admitted to being a prostitute, and also All My Children's Will Cortlandt murder mystery. Again: AMAZING.

That happy soap time was the very first thing that came to mind when ABC Daytime announced their plan to air repeats of their shows on Wednesdays in an effort to "enhance current story and give fans the opportunity to see episodes they really loved and have wanted to see again". "It's just like that time in the late 90s," I thought to myself. "Except...this will probably be terrible."

And oh, how right I was. The first classic AMC episode airs on October 27th and...

Episode #8927 (original air date 8/31/04) --Ryan first confesses his love for Greenlee, and she is both shocked and thrilled when Ryan gives her an engagement ring and proposes. Zach is short with Maria when she says she's committed to her marriage. Kendall has many drinks and blows up about Greenlee and Ryan to Ethan. Pine Valley gets ready for a "Game of Chance" party at Zach's casino.

This certainly isn't an episode we loved and have wanted to see again, which means this is an effort to "enhance current story", which means we are officially in for a Ryan/Greenlee retread, which means that I am shaking my fist at the sky angrily and wailing "RYLEE!"

Present-day AMC doesn't have me acting out with such rage, but it is making me peevish, thanks to its boringness.

On the plus side, though, the return of Erica (and Jack) means that I can play my favorite game: "What Ridiculous Thing Is Erica Wearing?" I need to make my own fun sometimes.

First, she wore a shockingly appropriate top.

 
Thankfully, this did not signal the beginning of a new, tasteful era, as she wore it with leather pants.

Then, she paired an adorable dress with at least three bump-its.

 
Obviously, she believes in the motto "The higher the hair the closer to God". Although she'd probably amend it to "The higher the hair, the closer to Ryan"... 

It's Like Middle School Again, But With Better Clothes and No Braces!

At one point, I had a lot to say about today's episode of General Hospital.

Something clever and hate-filled about Sonny acting so hugely affronted by Dante suspecting that he was behind the car bomb fiasco (...that he actually WAS behind! Go talk to Brook Lynn about how totally annoying it is to have people accuse you of doing things that you really did, jackass), followed by a paragraph or so scolding Robin for going to Sonny's to urge him to woo Brenda instead of immediately running home to snuggle her adorable daughter and at least a sentence or two marking my shock that Carly was the voice of reason in a conversation with Dante, which has never happened before and will likely never happen again (with the requisite comment about Laura Wright's perfect hair). And then just HORROR at Tony Geary's sorry attempt at an Irish accent, which was more like a ghastly cross between Scottish and Texan, but then came the last ten seconds of today's show and every complaint I had vanished, replaced by cartoon hearts and swooning.

 

 

And I just*... 

The fact that it takes so little to please me makes this show's inability to do so regularly even more appalling.

*As I swooned, I did hear a small voice warning me, "It's probably not wise to get invested in something the writers have demonstrated time and again is not even a thing as far as they are concerned." But I couldn't really hear said small voice over the sound of my 13-year-old self saying, "TAKE THAT, ANTI-CLIMACTIC AND KIND OF LAME SONNY AND BRENDA REUNION! TAKE THAT!"

Close the Deal, Eli!

Oh, was that not what we were supposed to yell out at the end of today's show when Eli pointed a loaded gun at Todd?  I get easily confused.

So today Ross finally found out that Eli isn't just his deeply flawed but loyal brother -- he in fact had Tea "killed" and had no intention of letting Ross keep his beloved daughter Dani.  In fact, Ross had enlisted Eli long ago to help him get custody back, and the only solution Eli could think of was to kill of Tea, give Dani to Ross, make Todd buy Dani back, and kill Ross.  Obviously.  Even though Evil Eli is all-knowing and all-seeing and totally, totally magic, this was the only solution.

But it didn't work out, so naturally he shot his brother.  Conveniently it was on a dock near the water.

Poor Li'l Ross.  Betrayed and shot by his own brother! And then tossed in the water.

Gone forever!  I mean, of course in that soap opera way of being "gone," meaning Totally Not Dead, or at least they haven't decided yet if they want to bring back the character so they're leaving it open-ended. 

Of course it was crumbs, but I did appreciate that Ross "left" as not a completely evil guy.  He just wanted his daughter back, just like Todd.  Right?  (I don't know.  I got a private message from a viewer the other day informing me that everything bad that's currently happening to anyone on this show is completely Blair's fault, so I don't know a damn thing, apparently, since that doesn't make a lick of sense to me.)

Oh but then!  Todd showed up and Eli pointed the gun at him, hotly.

Do it, Eli, do it!  Pull the trigger, close the deal! 

Yeah, I know.  I'm not new.  Todd will win, because he is such a complex anti-hero.  Cough, cough.

Meanwhile, stupid people did stupid things all around town.  Spectacularly, while Starr was pretending that she'd been keeping Ford-the-Middle's bullet-on-a-chain, the show actually leadenly winked at us that her argument to Natalie could apply just as easily to the possibility that Natalie is carrying her sister's fiance's child.  No, really!

Starr: Well yeah  mean not all the time... it just... sort of... happened?  I know it sounds weird but have you ever gotten stuck with something of some guy's -- you don't mean to end up with it but you do and you can't just throw it away

Natalie (knowingly, significantly): Yeah, actually I do.

Aww.

And across town, Natalie's erstwhile rival Marty was leaving her confidential patient files out in the open in the home she now shares with a crazy person. 

A banner day in Llanview!

 

Non-Mysterious Mysteries and the Joys of 1983

As always for those of us committed to our life sentence in Llanview, there are ups and there are downs.  Maybe it's that there are only downs, and I deliriously impose "ups" onto things that are actually "downs" because... well, all I see here are these shadows and the cave is no longer just an allegory.  It's possible. 

But any day we can get 80s hair and 80s shoulder pads is a good day in my book.

 

You see, there are joys to be had!  I had mixed feelings about Kim Zimmer joining the cast, but I confess I now (foolishly) have high hopes for this story.  It means we see the vets!  It means we get flashbacks to 1983 (and this from the show that routinely brings us flashbacks from the day prior or even earlier in the very same episode)!

And of course, it means we get the Return of the Queen (Victoria, that is).

Kickin' it old school.  'Cause really, the 1983 and the 2010 expression is virtually identical in its awesome imperiousness.

This really does have the potential to be fun.  Which is why I'm sure they'll soon find a way to incorporate Dani or the Fords into this storyline.  Because why let us have fun?

The rest of the show so far this week has given us scene after scene of a hysterical Tea (and not the fabulous version of hysterical Tea), scene after scene of an overly sympathetic Blair.  Something about Ross.  And Dani.  And blah blah blah.  Oh and a handful of characters whose lives did not heretofore revolve around Dani... well, their lives now revolve around Dani.  Ford made good points, which was disturbing to say the least (that was nice of Dani and Nate to turn multiple people into criminals on their behalf).  And in general, everyone acted as if Dani being in Tahiti for a year and a half until she turns eighteen and can be wherever the hell she wants since her biological father has more money than God is THE END OF THE WORLD.  As if they can't talk to her every day on MyFace.  Tahiti is not a Moroccan prison the last time I checked.  I understand that to a teenager, a year and a half feels like forever, but the adults around her really need to provide some perspective.  And her big sister needs to learn to give more helpful advice.

The Pains and the Great One

Maybe not daily, but definitely weekly, I am asked "Why on earth do you watch General Hospital if you hate it so much?"

Depending on the tone used by the asker, I have offered answers such as: habit, addiction, "Well, if you fast forward most of it, you sometimes find something that's not so bad", morbid fascination, low self esteem and "BECAUSE YOUR FACE", a retort I unintentionally picked up after teaching middle schoolers that, while obnoxious, is also surprisingly effective.

On days like today and weeks like this week, though...I have a hard time coming up with an answer. I mean, yes, the show's one highlight continues to be reliably great, but the rest of it?

HO-

Jason: You want me to get you an escort?
Michael: Yeah, it seems like a good way to get experience...[...]That's exactly why I need to be with a woman I have no feelings for so I don't feel bad about hurting her or rejecting her.

-LY

Brenda: If I stay here, I will be destroyed, and it will end. And it always ends for me.

-JASON

Sonny: I'm just saying to you that if want to press charges on me now for something that [PAUSE] you know [LONG PAUSE] [LONG PAUSE WITHIN A LONG PAUSE] i-i-i-i-it just doesn't make any sense it's--it's--it's just it's useless.

This show is not right.

Where to even begin? Let's begin with the last face we saw today: Claire, known in some circles as "THE WORST".

Since Dahlia Salem came to Port Charles all "I am ACTING! Like a PROSECUTOR! Watch me be all LEGAL-ISH. See this smirk? It's a PROSECUTOR smirk!", this character has worked my nerves in a major way and the writing for Claire did her no favors, as she went from career-focused to baby-focused to atrocity-focused with no rhyme or reason, and certainly no character development.

Following the national embarrassment that was the mile-high club incident, Claire swanned around Port Charles, high on the power of Sonny sex and alarmingly proud of herself for getting Sonny into bed.

Look at that smug face!

It's especially embarrassing because she's proud of doing something that, oh, EVERYONE has done. That's like running around town bragging about receiving the census. "Yeah, I got mail from the government today. They're really interested in getting my take on issues. Sorry, I can't say any more than that--national security and all".

All My Loathing

I saw The Social Network on Friday and loved it more than I can even say. I'm now officially obsessed with Andrew Garfield when, before, I was just obsessed with Andrew Garfield's hair (it is HUGE), and I've spent the past few days reading every article published about the movie, including this one in The Washington Post (I first typed "pot", as in smoking, and if you continue to read this sentence, that typo becomes all too apt) about the way that they filmed the Winklevoss twins. When talking about Josh Pence, who is basically a stand-in for Armie Hammer, the writer proclaims:

"It was shocking at first," says Pence, 28, whose real face resembles the shining morning sun.

Whose real face resembles the shining morning sun. That is poetry; cheesy, over-the-top poetry. GENIUS, even. "Whose real face resembles the shining morning sun"! Needless to say, I became fixated on these eight words. I pledged, with the passion of Scarlett O'Hara vowing not to go hungry again, to incorporate that phrase into every conversation I have from this point forward, and I was excited to introduce it to the blog! I eagerly sat down to watch All My Children and then realized...

Nothing about this show even remotely resembles the shining morning sun. It resembles...gloom. And doom. And HORROR.

The major stories getting play today?

• Damon's job search: now, I am predisposed to react to any Damon story with irritation at best because Damon is the unholy trifecta of useless, obnoxious and smug. But having to put up with an episode (really, I should be thankful that it was just one, shouldn't I?) about Damon whining about his lack of employment immediately following his GED? No, thank you. And then Liza offers him a job, in exchange for getting updates for how Colby is doing, and his first, snotty question is, "So it would be grunt work?" Granted, I am a hugely bitter recent grad school graduate, so I may be taking this too seriously, but...HATE.
• Greenlee and Kendall dishing on Rylee and Fusion. Kendall's community service was moderately amusing, but any conversation that includes Greenlee alluding to the "connection" she and Ryan shared during his visit and the exchange:

Greenlee: I'm not saying she isn't someone special, but Ryan and I are...
Kendall: Soulmates?

is a conversation that should be burned with fire. To be fair to Kendall, she did explain to Greenlee that the Ryan/Greenlee saga is currently a mess; she loses points, however, for making it seem like Greenlee is the only one at fault there--as if the dead-eyed douche canoe played no part there!-- and for not denouncing this entire wretched coupling with a few expletives and some well-timed projectile vomiting, for an added flourish.

• Ryan's seduction skills: "Obviously, words aren't convincing you, so I'm just going to have to show you". Grossness.

All I wanted was the chance to use a fun new phrase, and I got an hour of television that was both boring and awful! Sometimes I hate all things.

Presented Without Comment (Unless "GAG" Counts As A Comment)

Were you...naive, let's say, enough to hope that the greatness of the Stone and Robin scenes was a signal that General Hospital was in the midst of a creative upswing? Because that's so adorable.

But, um, not to be a murderer of joy or anything--and I'm sorry that people who watched Friday's episode have to see this again, because you've probably been trying to repress it, although with viewers leaving in droves, it's safe to assume that not many people did watch it--it's just...that is not the case.

It is the opposite of the case, actually.

Celebrating Four Years of Semi-Professional Complaining

We are in surprisingly fantastic moods this morning. It's Friday, it's October (the official month of all things pumpkin) and it's our blogiversary!

When we started Serial Drama four years ago--on Blogger, and with anonymous nicknames!--we envisioned a place where we'd complain about soaps to each other and assumed that it would remain mostly unvisited, except for the occasional hit from people who had Googled "Why does Hunter Tylo's face look like burning?". 

But to our surprise and delight, our experiment in soap bitchiness has thrived. Since 2006, we've written 1,450 posts, received a completely unexpected and awesome column in Soap Opera Digest, gained a fabulous new blogger and have been consistently amazed by our readers, who are smart, loyal and all-around fantastic. We can't thank you enough for reading, commenting, linking to, Facebooking and emailing us. Even when the emails are kind of mean--nay, especially when the emails are kind of mean.

So what happened over the course of the last twelve months? Let's take a look back at Serial Drama's fourth year.

There was some major casting drama. Eric Braeden let his contract negotiations play out very publicly and very crankily. Chad Duell suddenly replaced Drew Garrett as Michael Corinthos, while Christina Bennett Lind, Stephen Nichols and Billy Warlock also got in on the recast action. Some boldfaced names made their returns to soaps, from Jonathan Jackson and Vanessa Marcil to Rebecca Budig and, um, David Hasselhoff. Kish was written off of One Life to Live and thousands of hearts broke in the process. And David Canary chose to leave All My Children, which continues to be unbearably sad, although Adam Chandler leaving Pine Valley alive was more than we dared to hope for!

And there were other some sad losses. As The World Turns came to an end after 54 years, and the soap world lost James Mitchell and Frances Reid, who were the recipients of beautiful memorial episodes.

There were also the usual soapy shenanigans: Weddings, vow renewals and non-weddings, doppelgangers, soapy smackdowns, scene stealers and Sonny shooting his own son in the chest (but it's totally okay because he didn't know he was his son). Sonny, Victor, Todd and Ryan gave us even more reasons to hate them, and Bob Guza said a lot of things that we hate.

All My Children celebrated a birthday of its own, marking their 40th anniversary with a pretty fantastic episode and a spot in The New York Times Arts & Leisure Weekend (as always, Mallory is incapable of talking about this without stressing how tiny Susan Lucci and Rebecca Budig are. And now non-aging Debbi Morgan is. If we didn't love her, we'd have to hate her). As a present, they received the gift of common sense and finally (FINALLY) showed Charles Pratt the door.

The Daytime Emmys...well, they happened.

The vampire craze hit our corner of the internet with our coverage of True Blood.

One Life to Live did a few musical episodes and ABC Daytime discovered this thing called "the internet", giving us a series of webisodes wondering what would happen if some of our favorite characters met.

This was also the year of James Franco, which we are still having trouble coming to terms with. Remember how it started off with giddy glee ("OHMIGOD WHAT OHMIGOD! James Franco on GH? OHMIGOD") and then morphed into unintentional hilarity? Then there was an hour of television so warped and terrible that it resulted in the brutal end of a decade-long crush. What can't GH ruin?!

And it still blows our mind a little that Heather and Jessica of Go Fug Yourself mentioned us in Marie Claire!

All in all, it was a crazy year here, on-screen and off, and we are excited for four more years and more!