Serial Drama

A Small Concern

Look, she's a pretty girl, which perhaps is the biggest problem here. I'm trying to understand why, at the ripe old age of 28, Jacqueline McInnes Wood has felt it necessary to have this much work done?

I'm not mad, I'm just worried, y'all.

The silver lining is that it's highly likely that we're only dealing with a little collagen here and a little botox here, both in ways that are reversible. But it looks like she's had such serious lip injections that her upper lip cannot touch her lower lip without stress. At rest, it's just riding up and poking out there.

Worst-case scenario, however, is probably the thing we're all thinking: there has been a bad influence in her life acting as a mother figure. Or, you know, literally playing her mother. Said influence is probably a very, very wonderful person, and I feel guilty even bringing it up because I'd bet she wishes some of her choices in this arena were reversible.

It's important to have good role models, people.

(Side note: I recently caught an awesome bad Lifetime movie she starred in. I think it was called Her Husband's Betrayal but that's pretty much just spinning the Lifetime Title Wheel, so I could be off. If you're a trashy-Lifetime-movie junkie like I am, I highly recommend it if you haven't caught it already. Every cliche and trope is there, as well as some excellent double-crosses.)

Daytime Emmys: Live Blog

7:53pm:  Who's ready?

8:00pm:  They're doing a sketch about Ellen DeGeneres and Matt Lauer, which mostly seems about how they definitely will not show up for this thing. I mean it's for charity! That's the nicer thing. "Charity," unspecified. 

8:03pm: Tyra's hosting, it's real! This is the first time she's ever hosted an awards show, and is nervous about her lack-of-weave. In her childhood, they watched GH and Y&R. Tyra is basically overdramatically wonderful. She is rapping. Should she rap? I don't know about that.

8:08pm: Steve Harvey is presenting, and requests that the producers stop filming the losers' faces. 

8:09pm: Outstanding Actress! Finola, Elizabeth, Linsey, Amelia, and Lisa. Even Finola Hughes's clip made made me weepy. But, she did not win. Amelia Heinle won. She's insanely pretty. But she is not Finola Hughes. I feel crazy right now. 

8:13pm: Something about a game show? At least everyone seems awake. Outstanding Entertainment News Program! Entertainment Tonight wins. I outright did not know this was still a thing, but I do not claim to be on the cutting edge.

Who's here? Is anyone actually watching? Are you drinking to get through, or just suffering alone in some more healthy manner?

8:16pm:  Fan favorite award! Favorite talk show... audience? I don't even understand this award. I voted, but I don't remember being asked about an audience. Can we get Serial Drama readers an award now? If this is how things are working now, I'd like that very much.

8:20pm:  The hostesses of The Talk are presenting, and mostly Aisha Tyler is really, really, really, really tall. And they're joking about audiences. Because they're about to give an audience award, and I'm still confused. Did they trick me into voting in this category? Sara Gilbert is staring to look almost exactly like her wife. But, Craig Ferguson wins. I still don't understand the category, but my dog has farted in protest.

THERE IS BETTY WHITE. So no matter what anyone says, this show is the most important thing on television right now. Because Betty White is there.

8:25pm: Kirsten Storms and Ryan Paevy present Outstanding Morning Program. CBS Sunday Morning wins, because it is a thing on the air. Some old white men accept the award and speak awkwardly into the microphone.

8:26pm: They show clips from the Best Bitch Slap nominees. I actually saw none of these when they happened, so this is a bit of a delight. (Brooke looks like she deserved it?) Oh hey! B&B won for Quinn slapping drunk Brooke!

8:30pm:  Tyra is wearing very little, and now my dog is literally just standing in front of me, staring. She must be baffled as to why I'd be watching this. They're doing a video package of some fifth grade teacher. (I see some comments are coming in. soapbaby is with us!) Anyway the teacher is there and is crying and looks so beautiful and I love it!

8:34pm: They've already cut show clips for Outstanding Supporting Actor. That was fast! Chad Duell wins for General HospitalI! Good for him. Who can help but get behind him in Michael's new Sonny-hating mode? Truthfully, he's very good but this past year has given him a more generous showcase than the past sad-sack material. He thanks Ron Carlivati, Frank Valentini, Kristen Alderson, and God. Twice. Oh, Jesus made the cut, too.

8:36pm: Someone is singing "What I Did For Love" and they're doing a montage of actual soap scenes. ACTUAL SCENES. You guys. Among a hundred other things, they did the "Sonny sees Brenda outside the church in the rain alive" scene. And I actually really like this. No snark, y'all. None at all. Though I would still rather see nominees' clips.

8:40pm: Mario Lopez is presenting Outstanding Morning Program: Spanish Language. Una... nope, sorry, I did not understand the title of the winner. But AC Slater presented, so all is well! The dimples are all happening. My dog keeps shoving her face into my keyboard.

Glamorous life of a soap blogger: my dog has just pooped on the floor.

8:45pm: BETTY WHITE IS GETTING AN AWARD, EVERYONE SHOW RESPECT.

Those track suits do not bedazzle themselves, you guys.

Charo and Regis and Fred Willard and Marie Osmond are on hand to introduce her. Y'all. Betty White. Betty White. What is there to snark about? She is human perfection. Shut up. I'm not crying, your face is crying! 

Okay, I'm crying. The tribute was a bit odd, though. Nothing from the past 35 years?? Aww, Fred Willard is acknowledging her time on B&B and her fantastic work in animal rights. And Charo says Betty is the one who "put the coochee in the coochee coochee coochee."

So Betty White, the world's most wonderful human, accepts her Lifetime Achievement Award. She loves the award, but she's not quite as hot for it as she was for the anatomically-correct SAG dude. Well, what's to say? Nobody can make fun of Betty.

Oh, O42 has joined us in the comments, hooray! Who else is playing along?

As a New Yorker, I do have to remind you that the Subway Series is happening right now, so this is totally unfair in every way. Currently: Yankees 3, Mets 2.

8:59pm: Tyra introduces Miss J, and Tyra is wearing a one-shouldered onesie of some sort. B&B recently had its 7000th episode, so they're there to celebrate. Jacob Young, Karla Moseley, and Linsey Godfrey (on no crutches!) are there to be adorable. Godfrey gets a bit choked up. She's so cute.

9:01pm Outstanding Younger Actor goes to Freddie Smith, who plays Sonny on Days. Aww, I like him and all the people crying for him! 

9:04pm Outstanding Younger Actress goes to Hunter King for Y&R. Was she the one who sounded like she had laryngitis? 

Commenter Anne understands that Finola was robbed.

9:08pm: I confess I got distracted and I have no idea what these people are introducing. Oh! Outstanding "Informative" Talk Show goes to Steve Harvey. I wrote a play about a dating expert and I read Think Like A Man, so.... that is my context. I do not recommend his dating advice if you were born after 1900. If you were born before that, you are freaking awesome.

9:12pm: Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host goes to Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan, who are not there. I have just poured my first glass of wine. 

9:13pm: Fan Favorite for wedding disasters. Not going to lie, I voted for Franco's "hell no," but I foolishly had not yet seen Ridge fall out of a helicopter.

What do you guys think of this Queens of Drama show?

9:17pm: Okay, so the cast of that show is there. WHY IS CRYSTAL HUNT INVOLVED?? Can I get a "what the....???" from my OLTL people?

Anyway, Outstanding Directing Team goes to The Bold and the Beautiful. I mean, sure! If Ridge is getting pushed out of a helicopter, we care about your mise-en-scène.

I feel like I missed the Matt Lauer joke. Who caught why they're doing this?

9:21pm: Alan Thicke, for some reason, presents the writing award, which goes to The Bold and the Beautiful. Um. Okee doke? I know it's sort of my job to be meanest to the writers, but I'm a writer and sometimes it's....well, you get it. But still. B&B?

9:24pm: Outstanding Game Show goes to upstart Jeopardy! Who'd have guessed? I'm so proud of them. They really are the Little Game Show That Could.

I see commenter C is in the house! (Can we talk about Kyle and Fish now???) (Y'all know I remember your particulars if you're regulars here!)

Okay, seriously. How did I miss the Matt Lauer thing??

Oh, thanks, soapbaby! "Charity!"

9:28pm: Outstanding "Informative" Talk Show Host goes to the hosts of The Chew. Hrmph. Still bitter!

I am now thinking maybe I got out of the late-night dog walk since she pooped on the floor? (Alas, life does not work that way.)

9:32pm: Outstanding Culinary Program goes to Barefoot Contessa. My day job has a legal relationship with her. THAT IS ALL I KNOW.

9:33pm: 50th anniversary of Days! Hell yeah. Oh dear. I might be a little teary-eyed. Thank god they covered demon Marlena!!!

9:40pm: Joan Rivers tribute. I will be quiet now.

Crystal Hunt is still on my screen. Not okay. 

Yes, C, let's talk about Kim! Were you so sad when she got the Mindy Project boot?

Oh, the In Memoriam always makes me sad! Oh gosh, Matthew Cowles. My heart hurts for the spectacular Christine Baranski.

Is it nuts that they showed acting clips on literally only one category? Come on, y'all!

9:50pm: They are giving the fans a vacuum cleaner. What the eff year is this?

Are we feeling like this is not actually ending in 8 minutes?

9:53pm: Outstanding Talk Show "Entertainment" goes to Ellen because Ellen and so obviously she is not there. Did you guys see Amy Schumer on her show? Can we talk? And laugh?

Um, I think we're going to run long, y'all.

9:56pm: Uh-oh, some suit is there to convince us that daytime is in great shape. Outstanding Lead Actor. Anthony? Billy? Jason? Christian? Well, it's Anthony Geary.

I will let you guys comment.

10:02pm: Outstanding Lead Actress. Is it Laura? Peggy? Maura? Alison? Gina? Well, of course it's Maura. Multi-network love. She is so happy and I love it.

Seriously, we're spamming now?

Carvilati? I feel like people keep saying this.

10:09pm:  Pretty sure Tyra just said "Gene" Francis, so here we are.

Whoa! A tie! Days  won. For one.

Y&R won for the second!

10:13pm: That wasn't too far over! And y'all? I still love soaps. So flippin' much. Thanks for still playing with us!

(Daytime Grammys?)

Okay, I walked my dog. Thank you guys for hanging out, whether live or not!

Google Searches Make Even a Blizzard Enjoyable

I was raised in California.  I did not have a backyard; I had a beach and a dock.  I tell you this not to sound like a spoiled brat (though I probably was that), but to help you understand why the fact that I am currently halfway through shoveling nearly 30" of snow off my front porch, walkway, driveway, car, and sidewalk is driving me to the brink of a nervous and physical breakdown. 

I needed a pick-me-up.  I needed to laugh.  I needed to feel a sense of superiority to at least a few other people in the world, preferably those who live in year-round warm climates.  I turned, of course, to the Google searches people use to find our little slice of the internet here at Serial Drama.  Mission accomplished.

could i date the girls of serial drama?

That depends.  I need more clarification about the verb "date."  Like, as you would a large tree?  I can save you the ring-counting:  I am at that point in my 30s at which I've stopped saying the specific age and just say "mid."  Mallory, on the other hand, is only barely able to drive legally.

If you intended the more obvious usage of "date," then your query prompts additional ones, including:  Both of us?  What website did you think Google might send you to that would answer this particular inquiry? Is it wrong that I'm slightly flattered by your search?

love issues: uncle and niece dating

Also, "congrats" to Days for having more than one storyline that led to this disturbing search actually correctly leading someone to our site to explore this issue in more depth. (And hey, since Max is coming back to town, we might have more uncle-niece romances to document.)

bob guza must be destroyed

I like the way you think.  His role tends to be that of destroyer, not destroyee, but if we work together perhaps we can expand his destruction repertoire.

As the Scalpel Cuts: Not That We Mean To Imply Anything With That Title

Seeing Hunter Tylo at the Daytime Emmys reminded me of an article I read recently, the brilliance of which I had to share with you.  However, before we begin, let's assess how we all feel about Ms. Tylo's appearance of late, shall we?   Here she is at the Emmys. 

more at twiigs.com...

So, I had never previously read Soap Opera Weekly, but I recently picked up a copy (for research!), and...is it always this awesomely, slyly bitchy towards unlikeable stars?  I might have to subscribe. 

Let me back up for a second.  Neither of us here at Serial Drama watches The Bold and the Beautiful (Please don't bother commenting to tell us how we should therefore shut up about anyone on the show, because have you ever read this site before?  Shutting up is not what we do here).  But, both because of her [thankfully] brief tenure as Marina on Days and because she is all over the soap press, through the years we have nonetheless been exposed to Hunter Tylo.  Promising Ingénue has explained some of the reasons Ms. Tylo is a bit of an oddball (please especially note "agent of the devil" reference).  So imagine my delight when I saw on the cover of SOW that Ms. Tylo appeared to be coming clean about her myriad nips and tucks!  That kind of candor could make me get past the whole seems-to-be-a-whackadoodle thing.  But alas, the headline "Hunter Tylo:  Surgery Snafu" was about no such confession -- how silly of me to have misunderstood what was clearly not an attempt by the magazine to get in a dig at Ms. Tylo!  Here's the article itself:

As the Scalpel Cuts: Beware Botox

...okay, it may be more like "Beware Excessive Face Lifts," but I prefer alliteration.  I thought about not doing this post, because I know that actresses are under tremendous pressure to look young, and I think that's amplified in daytime.  So I didn't want to seem like I was attacking one particular actress for reacting poorly to treatment that's despicable.  But, not to sound all PSA up in here, if we can keep even one more actress from doing this to her face, it will have been worth it.

This post is basically brought to you by disappointment. You see, last week Monica Quartermaine's husband of nearly three decades, the father of her children, died. She must have been very upset. Devastated, even. But that was difficult to tell, because the woman playing her has lost the ability to move almost all of her face thanks to ill-advised cosmetic surgery.  It was so disappointing to see Leslie Charleston, who is actually quite a good actress, be unable to shine when she rightfully should have.

Let's steal a photo from Promising Ingenue's recent post and take a look at how cute Leslie Charleston was:

A Less Botox'd Brady Bunch

Something fascinating has been happening over the last couple of months. Roman Brady's forehead has begun moving again! Hallelujah! Since I previously mocked Josh Taylor for whatever it was he was doing to his face, I feel it's only fair to point out that he's looking much more natural lately. Now, if only he could chat with his on-screen mom . . .

Screencap courtesy of Days of Our Lives 2.

- Evil But Twinless

As The Scalpel Cuts: Pre-Halloween Horror

It's October and that means that Halloween is coming and with Halloween comes all sorts of terrifying horror movies or haunted hayrides. But I know something that will be even more horrifying, even more terrible:

A Google image search for Hunter Tylo.

I've never watched an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful, so it may be a very good show (I question the taste level of any show that employs AC Slater AND Lorenzo Lamas at the same time AND invites Alan Thicke for a guest appearance), but I don't think that I could sit through an entire half hour of it, even if it was brilliant, because the sight of Hunter Tylo scares me so much.

For starters, I am moderately sure that she's clinically insane. Her Wikipedia profile seems to hint that she's a stealth crazy, what with the imagined sexual advances made to herself and her husband, her hypocritical affair, her messy not divorce, etc. And what about the time she referred to Kimberlin Brown as an agent of the devil? An agent of the devil. You know who says stuff like that? Crazies.

Besides, I am fully convinced that only someone with a legitimate form of psychosis would wake up looking like this one day and say to themselves, "You know, I'm really pretty. This needs to change, and fast!" before hustling down to a plastic surgeon's office and requesting the Mangled Mongrel special.

And seriously, did she get her work in an alley behind a dumpster? Lips aren't supposed to look like that. Is this some elaborate way of making fun of Lisa Rinna, who got her Melrose Place role after Hunter was fired and if so, isn't that sort of a really permanent way of getting in someone's face? Wouldn't wearing an "I Slept With Harry Hamlin And All I Got Was This Lousy Case of Crabs and a Bottle of Aquanet" t-shirt do the trick just as well?

And I know that if I got breast implants, I'd specifically ask for them to be enormous and rock hard looking and so low on my torso that it looks as though I have two concrete circles sitting on my stomach. I'd also do my best to accessorize with sunglasses last seen in 1983 and a smile befitting the Joker or William Devane.

I know that some people are just wackadoos and that I shouldn't use my energy trying to figure out WHY especially if it leads me to night terrors as this project has, but honestly, why would one want to look like this unless one were employed by a year round haunted house?!?!?! If you have an answer, I'll be rocking in the corner, whimpering, so just let me know.

-Promising Ingénue

As the Scalpel Cuts: The Botox'd Brady Bunch

Peggy McCay is a good actress. Let me just get that out of the way right now. Back in the 80s she did a Who's the Daddy? storyline and made it seem like something other than the most tired cliche in daytime. She was a great matriarch to the Brady clan, which quickly became one of Days of our Lives' core families. She soldiered through that whole "Roman died but not really he came back as brainwashed Roman who was taller and had a totally different face but as it turned out that Roman was actually John Black after the original Roman came back and then it turned out John was really royalty and/or a priest and this mess was all a huge waste of time because Wayne Northrup was never going to hang around anyway except then he came back but as a psychotic doctor out to stalk the woman who all the viewers remembered as his wife and she was his wife but he wasn't Roman he was still the crazy doctor so he was a different husband and he wanted to kill everyone and he couldn't be RealRoman because meanwhile Chris Kositchek had come back without explanation as Roman and oh my god now I know why so many of the Irish are alcoholics" thing quite well. She is also likely a lovely person. I've never seen an interview with her, so I'm just guessing, but come on, I'm sure she's adorable.

How.Ever. I cannot abide someone going from looking like this to, after a brief and borderline acceptable moderately surgeried transitional period, ending up looking like this. That is not okay! Not even on Days, where we're supposed to believe Deidre Hall and Lauren Koslow are naturally ageless, or that better yet Marlena is capable of an unintended pregnancy!

There is also no excuse that it's not possible to age gracefully on soaps. We need look no further than her fellow Days matriarch for an absolutely gorgeous example - and Frances Reid is in her NINETIES, for goodness sake! Please stop, Peggy. The latest brow-lift/botox cocktail has just taken things to a new level of unacceptable. Stephano isn't even going to recognize Caroline the next time he returns to town to terrorize her and her children. Will nobody think of the children?!

Speaking of Caroline's kids, can we talk about the current Roman Brady? Now, I must again start with some kind words for the actor, Josh Taylor. I loved me some Valerie aka The Hogan Family, because there's little to hate about a show that brings Jason Bateman into a teenaged girl's living room once a week. And hello? He was not-really-dead-until-that-time-he-really-was Jack McKay, father of Dylan McKay, the world's oldest teenager on 90210. Perhaps that is where his age confusion began.

You see, Josh Taylor currently is attempting to shave years off his age by, as best I can tell, literally shaving skin off his face. How else to explain this look? If the Salem PD ever actually solves a case, I will assume it is because the defendant looked at Captain Brady's forehead and promptly confessed out of sheer terror.

Screen caps courtesy of DaysOfOurLives2.

-Evil But Twinless

Donna Martin Nauseates

On SoapNet, they repeatedly air a commercial for Beverly Hills 90210 during pretty much every commercial break that talks about the many hairstyles of Donna Martin. It goes something like

Her high school hair was long and blonde. Her sorority hair was short and platinum. As a career woman, she's painting the town red

Nowhere in the commercial do they state that Tori Spelling got horrifically ugly with each hairstyle. Unless they thought it was patently obvious and didn't need to be mentioned.

When 90210 first premiered, I figured that Donna would be my favorite character. I wasn't allowed to watch the show because it was "too racy for a seven year old" (what Puritans I lived with! I also wasn't allowed to listen to New Kids on the Block), so I got all of my scoop from Teen Bob magazines borrowed from friends and I found out that Tori Spelling had my birthday and was exactly ten years older than me. Awesome! She also seemed normal looking from the pictures in the magazines which featured trick photography or her face obscured by Blossom hats, big hair and/or sunglasses, like so:

But as I matured, I grew more aware of the lies Hollywood was selling me, like how Tori didn't get the part of Donna handed to her, despite being the producer's daughter; no, she auditioned under a stage name and got the role! How fortuitous! I don't think "Bitch, please" was in the vernacular at the time, but I know I thought whatever the mid-1990s version of that phrase was.

Ms. Spelling is naturally curly-haired, and before every household in America had a flat-iron, straightening curly hair was tricky, which is why the long, blonde high school hair looks like it hurts. But when she cut it, it didn't get any better and emphasized her...um, unique facial features:

(Before you're all like "But that's a bad angle and expression!", please keep reading and understand that that's one of the more flattering ones)

Apparently, Donna was given a trip to a salon for her gradution present, because she went to college with a short, peroxide 'do

The salon also covers extensive elective surgery from the looks of it, because her entire face is different. The nose is, dare I say, Michael Jackson like, and her cheekbones are frightening.

I also encourage you not to look at the enormous cavern in between her breasts because once you do, you will not be able to stop. Honestly, what is that? Did she have her implants done in a back alley somewhere?

She also began to drop massive amounts of weight, which led to her being a 105 pound nag. Honestly, she nagged everybody, ever, about everything and NOT ONE of them--not the allegedly badass Valerie, not perma bitchfaced Clare, not even Steve (yes, the same Steve who started balding in the second season)--ever said "Why should I listen to you anyway? You're just a virgin who can't go out in public lest children run screaming in the other direction".

Hilariously, it is at this point in fug that Donna was swept off her feet by the hot fireman Cliff, now playing Lucky on General Hospital, who saved her when she and a deer fell down a hill during a fire. That sentence is no more ridiculous than the idea that someone who looks like Cliff would like Donna on a physical level

♥ ?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I'd have an easier time believing him, and a far easier time respecting him, if it had turned out that he was trying to get his freak on with the deer.

She then dyed her hair red and it looked sort of awful short. She went through a period of time when she would scrunch it, and it was so awful that no pictures of it exist; the internet was kind enough to sacrifice all physical evidence of it so that we can keep our sight.

Brian Austin Green hates himself so much in that photo, and I am sure that he needed workers comp to deal with injuries sustained while hugging Tori's rock hard implants.

I have no words to describe that. Whatever that may be. I just...no. As the show ended, David and Donna got married and she actually was able to pass for a human being. Coincidence? I don't think so.

The saddest thing is that none of the above photos even come close to rivalling the horror of Tori Spelling's current look, which works well with her evil skank personality.

-Promising Ingénue