Serial Drama

General Hospital: The Contenders

As I was ruminating about on our Facebook page earlier, we really haven't weighed in on Duh Faces Of The Year in a while. This hall of fame/shame is an important one. Having lost Steve "smell the fart at the end of every scene" Burton a while ago to the wilds of CBS Daytime, there hasn't been quite the competition that there used to be. Luckily today Sonny and Morgan shared several scenes together. 

It's like a festival!

In the interest of fairness, both actors were completely up for the scenes. They just both have resting duh face and it's often a good time.

Speaking of facial expressions....

I don't even know what that's all about, but it's a delight.

Speaking of delights, Laura and Kevin!

What is WRONG with Dante?! (and Other Pressing Questions)

That seemed to be the question of the day. Hilariously. I can't help but watch these episode in light of the recent full court press by the General Hospital cast and staff (and the soap press in general) to get people to tune in to the show to keep it on the air. What if someone's just peeking in for the first time? What must this look like to them?

Based on today's episode, they must have an awful lot of questions. For instance:

- This Sonny guy has dimples and is all dark and handsome and he's really nice to that Kate lady! Why is she so nervous about making him happy? He's such a swell guy, what could he ever have done that would have made her nervous or sad? This sure is a couple to root for!

- Why does this Jason fellow end every scene with the same facial expression?

Serial Drama's Best and Worst of 2009

"Were there any real bests this year?"

"There were...some?"

"But lots of worsts."

"Yes, lots.'

"Should we just do the Worst of 2009 list?"

"That would just reinforce the image of us as hypercritical nags who hate everything."

"Right, which would be...bad? And we shouldn't do it."

"Yeah. Unless we can't come up with any bests, and then we might be forced to."

Okay, perhaps that's an overly pessimistic behind-the-scenes look at how we compiled our Best and Worst of 2009. There were soap highlights; they were overshadowed by the myriad lowlights, but they were there! So while it was a bit difficult to remember them, remember them we did and bring you our picks, because we love tradition, especially when tradition involves listing things!

Before we begin, we'd like to mention a notable best of the year: Best Readers! Thank you so much for reading, commenting, emailing, Facebooking and generally being fantastic. Here's to 2010 and, hopefully, improvements across soapdom. Fingers crossed!

And our usual disclaimers: we only watch All My Children, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless; Louise watches One Life to Live. Therefore, these are the shows that our Bests and Worsts come from. We're sure that As the World Turns, The Bold and the Beautiful and the late, lamented Guiding Light have many worthy nominees for the following categories and you can feel free to share them. Also: these are only our opinions. We don't expect all of you, or even many of you, to agree with our choices. Feel free to dispute and make your own nominations in the comments!

Best Story: The Baby Switch, Days of Our Lives

Initially, we hated that Days was going to the dry baby-switch well.  And the story didn't start off terribly interesting.  But great performances by Arianne Zucker, Allison Sweeney, and James Scott, plus ample hotness by Scott, Galen Gering, and Eric Martsolf -- not to mention the most expressive and adorable baby in daytime, who plays Sydney -- combined to overcome some tedious writing and breathed new life into an old cliche.  It wasn't outstanding, but it was the best overall story arc on our shows.  Plus, the story played out over a full year, which is pretty much the only truly soapily paced thing in Salem, but we'll deal with that later.

Worst Story: Stuart's Murder, All My Children

Remember when Stuart would make his handful of appearances over the course of the year, all sweet and adorable, and clad in Cosby sweaters? And how Adam loved him more than anything in the world. Well, we're glad you have those memories, because 2009 saw Stuart violently murdered...by Adam.

Everything about that sentence is horrifying, and horrifying is an apt description for the entire debacle of a story. Adam, under the influence of drugs administered by David without his knowledge and wanted dead by all of Pine Valley, shot his brother. Kendall, for some boneheaded reason, confessed and planned to go to prison for the murder, which she did not commit. Annie became the focal point of the story (and, eventually, Mrs. Adam Chandler). Marian was turned crazy and institutionalized, just for kicks. Charles Pratt half-assed the story from the beginning (a dark and stormy night, with random people showing up--without weapons!--to kill Adam? PUH-LEASE) and only became worse as it dragged on.

Best (New) Couple

It says a lot about soaps today that we have been scratching our heads over which couple to give this title to for weeks.  Beccawanted "Kristian Alfonso and Crystal Chappell's eyebrows."  Mallory wanted "All My Children and the fast-forward button."  Louise finally prevailed, because her show actually has couples viewers consistently want to root for.  Who knew? 

Somehow this pair was being called "Kish" on message boards months before they even came close to getting together.  And sure, they took a cliched path by making one half of this same-sex, star-crossed pair ashamed and closeted, but once he was out, he was out, and they had regular old daytime-serial-couple-obstacles after that.  And even before the couple got together, we saw same-sex makeout sessions without trumpets and fanfare -- a neat trick that made it so once Oliver Fish and Kyle Lewis actually got together, we were watching for them, not for "daytime history being made."  Instead of a statement, we saw an old-fashioned love story, with through-the-roof chemistry coming from two daytime newcomers.  Brett Claywell (Kyle), the more seasoned and nuanced actor, and Scott Evans (Fish), who feels his way through his role with a constant-exposed-nerve approach, have colored the small moments in this essentially-B-story romance with a depth that invites all of us to imagine all-night talks and exciting dates we just didn't see.  [I'm afraid to say this next bit because I think some of us believe there are a number of ABC execs who just didn't realize this was even happening but....]  And in the final episode of 2009?  They made daytime history anyway.  The two men finally consummated their relationship in a scene just as hot, steamy, romantic, and sweet as any major couple's first big love scene.  It's hard to imagine not going gooey at that.

Worst Couple: Erica and Ryan, All My Children

 

There's something profoundly disturbing about Erica falling for Ryan, the father of her grandchild (oh, sorry, we should have phrased that as "the father of her daughter's son"), who her daughter was still sleeping with as of this spring. First of all: EW. Second of all: I think Erica can do about ten times better than Ryan "I have literally zero redeeming qualities" Lavery. And third of all: EW.

Best Triangle: Bo/Nora/Clint, One Life to Live

A good old-fashioned triangle in which no one was completely unsympathetic.  It's over now, and while it's unlikely anyone really was a massive Clint/Nora 'shipper, no one wanted to see Clint hurt.  The writers worked a little "duh" magic (why don't other shows get this?  Especially when dealing with brothers?) by having Bo and Nora confess their love to one another but make the decent choice to stay away from each other's beds in celebration until they'd faced the music with Clint. A lot of us were screaming, "No, no, don't marry Clint!" at the same time that we were yelling, "No, no, don't break Clint's heart!"  Good stuff, where everyone's perspective was valid.

Worst Triangle: Elizabeth/Lucky/Nikolas, General Hospital

Add "Write a compelling story about a woman torn between two brothers" to the list of things that Bob Guza cannot do. There was no organic buildup to Liz and Nik falling for each other, and less than no explanation for why Liz would sleep with Nikolas and then immediately go accept Lucky's marriage proposal. And when you factor in the complete lack of chemistry between Becky Herbst and Tyler Christopher, and the oodles of chemistry between Herbst and Jonathan Jackson, it gets even more confusing.

Best New and/or Newly Aged Character(s): Kristina Davis, Michael Corinthos and Dante Falconeri, General Hospital

We like to think of the hiring of Lexi Ainsworth, Drew Garrett and Dominic Zamprogna as General Hospital's way of saying, "Totally our bad about how awful Sonny is. Would it make you feel any better if his children all turned out to be awesome?" Slightly, GH. Slightly.

Serial Drama's Best and Worst of 2008

We are two girls who love lists.  We have been known to make up projects just so we can create to-do lists and check off each item.  It's so satisfying!  And if you can also incorporate color-coding?  Consider us blissful.

So why, then, did we not jump for joy at the thought of doing this year's list of best and worst happenings on our shows?  Well, it probably has to do with the fact that the number of soapy happenings entitled to "best" status in 2008 is roughly equal to the number of world capitals that Britney Spears can name off the top of her head.  It was, overall, a dreary year in our corner of soapland, with the notable exception of Night Shift.  If we're talking about all soaps, even those lucky enough not to have us as viewers, apparently on One Life to Live troubles melt like lemon drops and birds fly over the rainbow (except when gang rapists secretly romance their amnesiac victims!).  But since we don't watch that show, we can refuse to acknowledge its goodness and maintain our general tenor of bitchy dissatisfaction.  It works for us.

We did work up the stamina to compile a list of bests and worsts, but we feel compelled to issue our usual disclaimer:  We only watch All My Children, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, Night Shift, and The Young and the Restless.  So yes, there was that whole bear thing on The Bold and the Beautiful, As the World Turns is probably super progressive with the Noah/Luke couple, One Life is curing ebola, and Guiding Light is down to, like, four actors and location shoots at a strip mall in rural New Jersey.  We don't care.  Okay, that's too harsh.  We totally care, we just don't...no, "don't care" pretty much sums things up.  We're way happy if you guys are consistently entertained by those shows, though!  We wonder what that's like.

Best Story: The Death of Babe Carey, All My Children

For years, Arabella Carey Cramer Chandler, also known as "Babe" also known as "the character who left trails of death, destruction and disease in her wake in a way that is only rivalled by World Wars", also known as "The Serial Drama Readers Choice For Worst Character in Daytime", irritated, outraged and appalled the ever-dwindling AMC audience.  Until the fateful day that a tornado made its way to suburban Pennsylvania and KILLED HER.  And it was amazing.  It's possible that the writers intended for the loss of this young wife, beloved daughter and occasional mother to be a gut-wrenching affair and, um...they missed the mark there.  But the euphoria that this story brought, however unintentional, was truly a soap highlight of 2008.

Worst Story: Michael Gets Shot in the Head, General Hospital

The idea that a child being shot in the head during a botched hit on his father's life somehow qualifies as entertainment is baffling enough but for someone to actually state, in a national magazine, that this shooting is a justly deserved punishment for said child buying a gun?  Is so ludicrous that between the two of us (who are prone to hysterical, profanity-laced, rage-filled rants), we can't fully express the depth of our sheer hatred for that someone. 

Also, it led to Limo Sex, which . . . EW. 

We cannot un-see that.  We've tried.

Best Couple: Patrick and Robin, General Hospital

We've been accused of showing an unfair bias towards Robin, Patrick and Robin and Patrick as a couple, being described sometimes as "fangurls", which is worse than being an ordinary fangirl?   We don't know.  What we do know is that Robin and Patrick are endlessly adorable, compelling and root-worthy throughout all manners of repeated conversations, wacky blog shenanigans and limited screentime.

Worst Couple: Chelsea and Daniel, Days of Our Lives

There are couples that don't quite click, and then there are ones that are so wrong from the beginning that you have to be either emotionally disturbed or intentionally trying to make the audience hate you by putting them on the air.  Guess which category was-just-18-last-year Chelsea and early-40s Daniel fell into?

It is also worth noting that while together, they have bad hair.  Case closed.

Truly a Reason to Give Thanks: A GH Episode That Was Not Terrible

Before anyone complains about this looong recap and me fawning over Patrick, bitching about how ugly Robin's shirts are, and drooling over Becky Herbst's bone structure, please remember that a slight majority of you sort-of asked for this. 

Thank you.

We open with Patrick hotly arriving home from the hospital to Robin, who seems gloomy, prompting Patrick to hotly question "Baby, what's wrong?"  She's just new-mom exhausted, having not had time to clean the house or change her clothes or remove the eau de baby spit-up that Emma gave her.  They adorably cuddle on the couch while Patrick hotly tells her he had a day from hell, including a 10-hour surgery on a little boy.  Robin has had a busy day and rattles off a litany of things, including Mac calling about having bought a huge turkey (aw!).  Robin asks what Patrick would have been doing over the holidays in his bachelor days, and while he says he'd have been someplace tropical, Robin points out that she met him in December and he was very much not in the tropics, in fact she walked in on him in the hospital shagging a nurse.  He says she should have knocked.  Ha. 

Patrick looks like he is going to fall asleep sitting up while Robin gets all deep:

Robin:  You know, sometimes it's crazy to think that just one decision can change your entire life.  Like if you turn left then one thing will happen ... I don't know, there's ... I know there's a name for it, I just can't think of it right now.
Patrick:  It's the Butterfly Effect.
Robin:  I'm in love with a really smart man.
Patrick:  Yes, you am.  They say when a ... lay down [Robin cutely puts her head on a pillow in his lap] ... they say when a butterfly flaps its wings in China, it changes the weather in New York.  Some people call it fate; that destiny is inevitable.  And if you're meant to love someone, you will love them, no matter when or how you met.

As Robin dozes off, we get the classic tingly sounds and fuzzy screen that let you know we're in a soapy dream/alternate reality. 

Epiphany, Kelly, and Lainey greet Robin, who has just arrived from a visit to Paris yet inexplicably is wearing a hideously ugly top.  Robin is laden with gifts for her roomies, Lainey and Kelly, and for Epiphany.  I should focus on something else, like how different must Epiphany be in an alternate reality to deserve a gift from Paris, but I am fixated on this shirt.  Oh, Alternate Reality Robin, you disappoint me. 

This thing is equal parts maddening and confusing.  It's like Gunne Sax tried to make club wear.

Robin wants to know what's new, and what's new is a neurosurgeon named Patrick Drake.  He is "smokin' hot" according to Kelly, and we know she is correct because 1) even a broken clock is right twice a day, and 2) her variable group by which to measure hotness is enormous.  Lainey and Epiphany fill in that he's also an arrogant horndog, but Kelly is stuck on the hot part.  As she always . . . No, you know what?  I'm not going to make the easy slut joke there.  I'm taking a stand!

Robin checks herself out in the locker room mirror and somehow manages not to rip that hideola top right off her tiny frame.  Perhaps given another minute she would have, but she's distracted by giggling coming from the shower. 

Of course, Patrick is in there with a nurse.  Leyla, to be precise.  Kimberly McCullough demonstrates reason #178 she is awesome with this Expression Hall of Fame-worthy "Leyla?!"

A shirtless and kind of douchebaggy Patrick is all "we're a little busy in here."  Let's focus less on the douchebaggy, more on the shirtless, shall we?  And the hotness.

The regular credits play, to remind you of the shitfest you have to suffer through every other day of the year to get this one holiday-themed mob-free nugget of soapiness. 

Who Spiked the Water Supply With Bitchiness?

The Young and the Restless has been so relentlessly boring lately that I've actually contemplated self-injury, just to liven things up a little bit. I have never seriously thought about stabbing myself, not when I spent six weeks (SIX WEEKS!) with Frida's "I Know There's Something Going On" stuck in my head on endless repeat, or when I was stuck in line at Banana Republic behind a woman on the phone with a friend who repeatedly called John McCain "John McVan" which...how is that mispronunciation even possible, unless you are a blind, deaf Amish hermit? But Y&R has been so terribly dull that it nearly drove me to harm myself.

I just...to put it politely, I don't understand the choices the powers-that-be have been making lately. I know that the show has had a strong business focus for years, but it's never been this...dry, and it's usually been balanced by soapiness.  But the past few weeks have been nonstop talks of boardrooms and mergers and lawsuits and if I wanted to watch a show about the inner workings of a corporation, I'd watch a documentary on CNBC, which would probably be less dull anyway.

Today's episode, though, was actually sort of entertaining because it seems like everybody in Genoa City came down with a massive attack of nastiness. It was kind of exciting because, as you may know, I enjoy nothing more than snotty comments and sneers.

A Family Affair

If, when I grow up, I decide to have children, I really hope that they inherit my more stellar attributes (keen sense of style and awesome memory, for example) and not my, um, less fortunate characteristics (ginormous head, zero hand-eye coordination and distressing fondness of terms like "Holy cannoli").

I can only imagine that Liz had a similar crisis when she was pregnant with her boys. Would they inherit her flawless skin and stunning hair? Or would they get the lameness gene that floats around the Webber family, that Liz was lucky enough to avoid but which has her sister Sarah in a death grip?

Thankfully for Liz, Cam, Jake and the audience at home, the boys seem to have inherited her most AWESOME attributes, chief among them adorability and the best facial expressions this side of Drunk Sam. Following in the footsteps of Liz's great sneer/raised eyebrow combo and Cam's historic "Bitch, please", Jake has given us some brilliant facial expressions, none more brilliant than this, courtesy of Cheap 21 of Second Chances via longtime reader Beth R.

That baby is aching to administer a smackdown! In this specific instance, Sam was on the losing end of his glare (with good reason, since she allowed him to be babynapped and scared his brother with hired thugs), but I can see this being a very versatile "Come again?!" look.

"Come again, you tanorexic babynapper?" "Come again, you shrill, screeching harpy?" "Come again, greasy weeble?"

It makes me marvel at the power of Liz's greatness, because there's no way Jake got that particular kind of awesomeness from either of his daddies, depending on where you fall in the nature vs. nurture debate. As Becca noted, it's bizarre that Jason could father a child with such masterful facial expressions and Lucky's facial expressions run the gamut from a to...long a. This is totally Exhibit A in my "Why Liz Rules, Even When She's Annoying The Hell Out of Me" case (Exhibit B is her hair and Exhibit C is her handbag collection. Maybe I need to become a nurse with financial problems to get such cute purses...).

What Fresh Hell?

Far be it from me to praise anything even tangentially related to Brad Carlton, BUT! The other day, the moment when Brad announced to Victor that he is petitioning to get custody of Victoria's fetus led to the greatest facial expression of Eric Braeden's career, and perhaps the single best greatest facial expression since Cameron Webber's "Bitch, please" with his now beloved "What fresh hell?"

It's hilarious, because it's the perfect blend of horror, anger, confusion and utter, utter depression, which is the exact blend of feelings I have when watching this show!

General Hospital Week in Review

Maybe it's because I spent most of the week pondering my scathing speaking ways, but GH continued to occupy "meh" territory for me.  Nothing outwardly offensive, nothing soapily fabulous.  I think the powers-that-be are relying on the apparently upcoming mob war to make things interesting, which will at least give me something to write about (hint:  not positively).  Until then, some random observations for you. . .

I'm sure I was supposed to feel for Elizabeth and admire Jason for coming clean, but I could only sit and laugh myself into an unattractive snort-fest as the usually uncommunicative hitman revealed to Liz the list of people who thanks to him know the "secret" of Jake's paternity:

• Sam
• Amelia
• Sonny
• Spinelli
• Lulu
• Diane
• probably Emily

Hee!  It was like the "secret" that the two of them had slept together in the first place, but better, because one of the characters actually stood there and rattled off the list of secret-knowers.  Awesome. Well, "awesome," in that it was unintentional comedy, but I'll take awesomeness where I can get it with this mess of a soap.

Their scenes together in the barn (is there a more fabulous cliché in all of daytime than the romantic barn?) were pretty good.  Becky Herbst and Steve Burton have great chemistry, and Liz and Jason as a couple is a long time coming, I suppose.  But I swear, if they don't write Jason out of the mob before pairing them up I will . . . well, there's nothing I can do, but I'll be even more critical than usual. My friends and family have therefore started a Jason Leaves the Mob letter-writing campaign.

Seriously, I Love This Kid

I'm going to just go on the record and say that Sam's scheme to hire goons to terrify Elizabeth was brilliant. BRILLIANT.

For starters, it's been ages since someone on this show had a revenge scheme that made any sort of sense. This was no "I'm going to make you famous and then threaten to take all of that fame away and embarrass you publicly! Or I would embarrass you publicly, if you had any sort of sense of shame whatsoever! So chew on that while you count your money tonight!", or "Since you meddling kids foiled my Metro Court hostage crisis, I'm going to force you to pretend to be dating!" it was deliciously evil and sort of insane. Please don't think that I condone paying someone to scare the crap out of a woman and her adorable sons because that's, you know, unhinged. But all things considered, this plan worked perfectly, which is more than you can say for any other Port Charles revenge seeker.

Secondly, it led to the delicious scene where Maxie confirmed her awesomeness by not worshiping Jason. When was the last time a female encountered Jason without immediately throwing herself at his feet, speaking in tongues and offering up her uterus to shooters? I honestly cannot recall. So the fact that Maxie was like, "You? Seriously? Whatev" made my day. Moments like that go a long way in making me forget the insipid Logan sex bet. More Jason hating and less cheating on Coop, please.

(But Kirsten Storms, should you be reading this: pleasepleaseplease have a piece of cheesecake. Or you can come over and I can make you an ice cream sundae, or eight. Because you're really terrifying me right now, and it's sad to see someone so pretty and so talented waste away. I am telling you this because I love you.)

Thirdly, it confirmed that Lucky is, in fact, a whole new brand of stupid. "Uh, so you never used to talk to me before and now I'm like your new best friend, and my wife, who you hate with a passion, was threatened by people looking for Jason, and you really hate my wife a whole lot and blame her for everything that's gone wrong in your life, and even though you scared these attackers away with a gun, now you're afraid that they're going to come after you and you need a bodyguard and you want it to be me? Well, golly gee, that sounds like a great idea to me! What could possibly go wrong?"

But perhaps most importantly, it confirmed that Cameron is the undisputed MVP of this show. He makes any episode instantly better. For those of you who missed this plot unfold, I will allow Cam to do the honors of recapping for you:

"So, my mom and I were playing in the dangerous-ass park when these guys came out of nowhere and were like--

'We're going to shoot you!' And my mom and I were like

'AHHHH!' and then the lady with the leathery skin who is always yelling and lurking in our bushes came and saved us. Now I want a grilled cheese sandwich."