Serial Drama

Llanview's Halloween Makes Good (And Bad... So, So Bad)

Oh, Afternoon Television Program, how you toy with me! How you break my heart and fill my heart and anger my heart!

Sweet mercy, what a rollercoaster today's episode was. Should I start with the good and the awesome because I'm super-giddy about it and can't wait to talk about it? Or should I start with the bad so I can get the ranting out of the way and leave you all (well, and myself as there's certainly no guarantee you derived joy from the same things I did) with a little happytime joy on this Halloween night?

Honestly, if this isn't your first time paying a visit to Serial Drama you probably already know what I loved and what I am mad about. I hate being so predictable! Wait! I didn't totally hate the whole business with Aubrey and Rex and Cutter and Stigi. I didn't love it either, but...

Oh it's hopeless. I'm falling right in line with my usual point of view, so why don't we do it the way that feels better at the end and start with the crap.

Ford. Oh, Ford. Saint Doofus of the Martyrdom was on full display today. Y'all, did you know that Ford is a wonderful man? Did you know that he'll do anything for his son?  Did you know how magnanimous he is? Did you know that he stands up to mean old bullies who have the nerve to hate him for sexually violating their daughter and preventing her from getting help for her mental illness? Did you know that he rescues the neighbors from flaming bags of dog poo? Did you know that he's so blandly flawless that he's basically a perfect man?

Today was seriously enough to make me puke. And not in a fun too-much-Halloween-candy sort of way (wait, I'm just not realizing I had no Halloween candy. Not cool, world, not cool at all!), but in a every-line-of-his-dialogue-sickens-me sort of way. 

And again I need to point out that this isn't about thinking Ford's past sins make him beyond redemption. I don't think that at all. It's about the laziest redemption in history. One day he was a player who was blackmailing serial killers and breaking crazy ladies out of mental hospital, and then next he was a saccharine-sweet, naive, guileless, Dudley Do-Right who never says or does anything wrong because he is just super-duper. You know, I half feel like this is a desperate effort to rehab him with the section of the audience who hates as much as, oh, say, I do. (Because I am on the internet, I know he has a fan club. A huge one. One that thinks he needs no reworking to set him up as a viable and interesting character. I'm not talking about this fan club, as they are more than taken care of already.) I don't mean to overthink how much they actually sit down and try to plot out how to win us over with this guy, but I can't help but feel like they looked at the complaints and thought, "Fine, we'll no longer give them anything to criticize!" and that is just so wrong-headed it makes my stomach turn. No one enjoys Blair or Tea or Clint or Natalie or Todd or John or Dorian (or whoever it is on this show that people like) because they're perfect. Depth, flaws, complications, contradictions. Did Todd catch on as a character because one day he woke up feeling super-guilty about all of the gang-raping and terrorizing and assaulting and accidental-killing and immediately turned into a swell, nice, smiley, schmoopy-goopy Blandy McBlanderson?

I assure you, he did not.

It Gets Cuter

Seriously, what is wrong with me that I am so enchanted by the One Life to Live babies and toddlers? (Shh, don't tell my parents, they'd given up hope of my giving them grandchildren long ago and we do not  need to encourage false hopes!)

There's just so much cheek-pinching to do. Y'all? They dressed Liam as a baby seal.

I cannot take it. And with his "daddy?"

I mean when the situation is that cute? It's tempting to root for Brody's secret to stay secret. He's fighting for something so adorable, how could it be wrong?

Tell me again why this man has to go all Crazy-Eyes and threaten people and lie just to get a wife and child? 

The Sense To Nonsense Ratio Is Depressing

I'm sorry, I just cannot.

I know we, as General Hospital viewers, are expected to suspend massive amounts of disbelief, basically on a daily basis and that this week alone, we were asked to just roll with the notion that weeks in a coma would give Lisa the strength of a comic book superhero, among other equally ridiculous things. And I know that Franco's times in Port Charles have been downright offensive in how little mind they pay to logic and entertainment value and acting talent, so what's with one more I am SO sure moment? But I just can't buy that Franco could hide under Jason and Sam's bed in Hawaii, with the Morgans none the wiser.

I mean, REALLY! Forget about how these two people with dangerous lives should be naturally suspicious in any circumstance but especially so when they know they are being targeted (again) by a murderer/artist: based on what we know about Franco (specifically that he is obsessed with Jason and also terrible), there is no way he'd be able to be in Jason's presence for even a few seconds without giggling or panting. So yeah, GH. Not buying it.

That's just one of many things on General Hospital right now that I am having a hard time swallowing. There are more. Many more. Including...

• Ethan's newfound role as the Spencer family expert and the show's continuing rewrite of Spencer family history that leads to more elaborate metaphors about how home life imprisoned Luke.
• Joss not having already filed the paperwork necessary to become an emancipated minor.
  
  
  Yes, she is still a toddler, but she's a highly advanced one! I don't see why she hasn't hauled ass (in those adorbs little sneakers) to the town hall to legally extricate herself from her mother's web of crazy.
• Michael NOT being this show's hate-to-hate villain.

There's Not Much To Say When There's Not Much To See

There's this temptation ask a ton of questions about today's episode. How would Hannah perform one of Starr's songs? Isn't she in prison? Why can't Natalie even pretend to not be disgusted by the man she's voluntarily marrying? Why would anyone in town give a crap what some fifteen-year-old writes in a newspaper about his own sister? Why, although I love seeing Marcie, would they bring her back to town just to run about being super-judgey? Why weren't any of the good storylines on today? When is Tina going to meet Morris? And of course...

When will Princess David Vickers meet Morris?

But really, none of this is worth it. Today's dull, limp episode really just boiled down to two things, and both are about hope:

1.) First of all...

The Ford brothers are all going to be involved in this music video. This gives me tremendous hope that the music video will be such a massive, inexplicable world sensation that the three of them will immediately relocate to mansions in the Hollywood Hills and leave Llanview forever.

2.) Second of all...

 

It's a Mystery (And Not Just The Ongoing "Why Do I Still Watch?" Mystery)!

It's a tried and true soap trope: hated character is KILLED and everybody has a MOTIVE. Someone is ARRESTED and put on TRIAL and then it turns out that the real killer was a DAYPLAYER. I think we know exactly what we're going to be seeing on General Hospital over the next few weeks or, god forbid, months, depending on how long it takes the writers to get distracted.

Lisa is missing and probably murdered, although I am wary of making any pronouncements on how we are finally rid of her; the show adores Dr. Niles so much that I wouldn't put it past them to kill her off and then bring her back as a zombie. The party yacht is basically a boat of horrors, with dead bodies strewn about and some people grappling with memory loss while others have bizarre wounds. The shockingly inept PCPD (seriously, shouldn't it be fairly easy to distinguish between blood and nail polish? Although it should be fairly easy to at least mimic basic human speech DELORES, so maybe I am just expecting too much) is on the scene to find clues, which they will then interpret in the most insane way imaginable before arresting someone completely random.

The Great Pumpkin Comes Bearing Gifts

I'm really just not able to speak rationally about One Life to Live when they throw things like this at me. I get all warm and fuzzy and gooey and giddy and just lose my critical eye altogether.

I wonder if this is how this is the show sustains itself when I'm bored with it. Do you think people who are really hardcore fans of, say, Rex and Gigi, were warm and fuzzy and gooey and giddy with no critical eye during all those months where they were a driving force of the show and I was miserable? I guess all the Nate and Dani fans thought the show was absolutely on fire at times that just looking at the screen made my head hurt. Ford fans probably think the show is at its best when Ford is being what I assume to some is absolutely adorable and schmoopy while I am trying to hold down the bile.

While I realize that all of this is obvious to anyone who can think rationally and realize why soap operas have a lot of stories that fans disagree on, but I'm just extra-aware of it during these times when I lose all ability to fairly evaluate something. In general, I've spoken a lot about Tina's very presence (and mind you, I'm talking Andrea Evans' Tina's presence, I would not be so warm and fuzzy about some of the others I'll skip mentioning just to spare us all the unfortunate memories) rendering me useless in the snark department because she and her wig just make me so damn happy. And we know I've been flying high on alternating days since Roger Howarth's return. But this business today? 

 

Y'all, I mean come on! Tina and Todd bickering over money? And then fighting over a bowl of candy, and Viki having to play mediator? Too cute. And I just... look at that picture. It's not just Tina and Viki and Todd sharing a frame. It's Andrea Evans and Erika Slezak and Roger Howarth sharing a frame. I think this is the first time? It's like I've died and gone to soap heaven.

Uh, Wardrobe? We Have A Problem.

And that problem's name is Jessica Brennan (yes, that's still her name and you can't make me stop using it!).

It's... I don't really even know what to say about it. It's not that it's so awful, and I won't sit here and pretend to know anything about current-day fashion. But I do know a thing or two about character, and this really makes no sense on an insanely wealthy mother in her thirties, does it?

I really don't get it.

And it's not like this is a one-day aberration. This is Jessica's look now.

Every day. An almost-sheer white baggy off-the-shoulder top with some sort of image on it, with skinny jeans or leggings or stirrup pants or whatever they are.

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

Our Soap Opera Digest column is still goin' strong! The October 25th issue featured our recent thoughts on General Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful. Read on if you missed it!

My Take
by Mallory Harlen

GENERAL HOSPITAL has tried mightily in recent years to build a reputation as a soap that’s not a soap. “Don’t believe the stereotypes about cheesy love scenes and diabolical supervillains—we’ve got none of that here!”, you can almost hear the producers pleading to new viewers. And they’re right! There is none of that. Unfortunately, that means that there’s not a whole lot of story going on either.

One of the biggest problems with career criminals being the romantic, heroic, moral centerpieces of the show—I mean, the biggest problem aside from every single word in that sentence—is that there is no real dramatic conflict on this show. We know how every story is going to end: with the designated Bad Guy, often of a rival mafia family who is totally different from Jason and Sonny because…because Jason and Sonny say that he is, being defeated and then, usually, brought back months later for a tired retread of the exact same story. Where is the entertainment in that? I long for the days of real soap villainy because the rogues gallery GH has assembled right now really isn’t cutting it.

Things Best Left In The Past

It's a bit of a double-edged sword, I know. I want characters on The Bold & the Beautiful to mention Hope's harrowing ordeal of being trapped in a gondola and having to watch her ex-boyfriend marry her half-sister on top of a mountain in Aspen. I want them to mention it as much as possible. In fact, the more hysterically overwrought any sentence that includes the word "gondola" is, the happier I am. (Today, Brooke's "If Hope hadn't been stuck in a gondola like a caged animal...!" made me simply gleeful.)

But there's a tiny little problem with recalling the incident. Sometimes, you see, sometimes flashbacks happen. And with flashbacks? We're exposed to....this.

That horrifying wedding ensemble Steffy wore! The length! Those awful boots!

The train! (Ooooh, but Aspen is so pretty!)

Shlock and Awe and Negative Attention To Detail, Sense

General Hospital has never exhibited a real concern for factual accuracy or medical soundness. Or continuity or character development. Or...you know, that sentence could probably go on indefinitely and everyone reading this blog could list their own suggestion for aspects of quality television that General Hospital does not even consider a thing, so the following isn't surprising in a "But this show is usually so logical and detail-oriented!" way, because I'm not blogging from 1997, but it is surprising, and saddening, in a "What if THIS isn't even the bottom of the barrel? What if this barrel HAS no bottom?!" way.

Lisa Niles, boring doctor turned stalker turned SUPERVILLAIN, spent some months in a coma after stabbing herself in the chest with a syringe containing cleaning fluid following a tense/ridiculous/overly long hostage situation which stands out in my mind as both ridiculous AND as a memory of the good old days.

Then she woke up from her coma and seriously? She's fine. Actually, she's fucking bionic. Because while some people experience muscle weakness or other ailments following time spent comatose and require extensive physical therapy, this girl is like a death squad of one, knocking people out left and right and barely even getting winded. Like, I'm not sure how it's possible that the same drain cleaner that put someone in a vegetative state could also strengthen their muscles and improve endurance, but here we are!

After a reign of terror that saw her attack random GH and yacht staffers and stab assorted mobsters, Lisa snuck up behind Elizabeth, chloroformed her and THREW HER OVERBOARD.

BECAUSE THAT IS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE FOR SOMEONE WHO JUST CAME OUT OF A COMA, WHAT THE HELL?

Maybe I'll give her the benefit of the doubt here, because Elizabeth IS bitsy. But what about ROBIN?!

Sure, Robin is also teensy, but she's the daughter of superspies! COME ON!

Although it seems like not even all the Devane-Scorpio DNA in the world is a match for Lisa because she was also able to overpower Patrick who, remember, was standing when he encountered her and is also a good half foot taller than she is.

Then, after chloroforming him (or injecting him with something; she likes to play with rags and syringes and seems to have a steady supply of both with her), she dragged him over to the bed and tied him up. Although it's possible, given her superhuman strength, that she tossed him onto the bed with ease, like one would throw a Nerf ball. Who knows? It's not like we saw it onscreen! Yes, that's right: we didn't get to see Lisa take Patrick down. Because it was more important for Olivia and Steve to talk some more about how he is secretive and about the time she hurt herself on a stripper pole, and for Maxie and Spinelli to continue to have the same exact conversation about Liz being a skank on an endless loop. Since nobody, anywhere, finds any of that entertaining, I have to imagine that the writers deliberately swept it under the proverbial rug. I hope they are filled with shame. I know I am...