Serial Drama

2014 Daytime Emmy Nominations Announced Amid Zero Fanfare!

Y'all! I forgot this was even happening today. Mostly because I haven't been able to really watch much daytime TV lately and because I figured my beloved and twice-dead favorite show would be shut out completely. But that's not how this played out! (Not that there were many other surprises.)

So what does everyone think?

OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES

The Bold and the Beautiful

Days of our Lives

One Life to Live

The Young and the Restless

 

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

Eileen Davidson, Days of our Lives

Katherine Kelly Lang, The Bold and the Beautiful

Heather Tom, The Bold and the Beautiful

Arianne Zucker,  Days of our Lives

 

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

Peter Bergman, The Young and the Restless

Doug Davidson, The Young and the Restless

Christian LeBlanc, The Young and the Restless

Billy Miller, The Young and the Restless

Jason Thompson, General Hospital

 

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

Melissa Claire Egan, The Young and the Restless

Jane Elliot, General Hospital

Amelia Heinle, The Young and the Restless

Elizabeth Hendrickson, The Young and the Restless

Kelly Sullivan, General Hospital

 

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

Bradford Anderson, General Hospital

Steve Burton, The Young and the Restless

Scott Clifton, The Bold and the Beautiful

Eric Martsolf, Days of our Lives

Dominic Zamprogna, General Hospital

 

OUTSTANDING YOUNGER ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

Kristen Alderson, General Hospital

Linsey Godfrey, The Bold and the Beautiful

Hunter King, The Young and the Restless

Kim Matula, The Bold and the Beautiful

Kelley Missal, One Life to Live

 

OUTSTANDING YOUNGER ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

Bryan Craig, General Hospital

Chad Duell, General Hospital

Max Ehrich, The Young and the Restless

Chandler Massey, Days of our Lives

Daniel Polo, The Young and the Restless

 

OUTSTANING WRITING TEAM IN A DRAMA SERIES

The Bold and the Beautiful

Days of our Lives 

The Young and the Restless

 

OUTSTANDING DIRECTING TEAM IN A DRAMA SERIES

The Bold and the Beautiful

One Life to Live

The Young and the Restless

'Tis The Season

Big week for soaps! There was that thing that happened on Monday, and today we have the Daytime Emmy nominations announcement.

Shall we take a look?

OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES

The Bold and the Beautiful                                CBS
Bradley P. Bell, Executive Producer
Rhonda Friedman, Edward J. Scott, Supervising Producers
Ronald W. Weaver, Senior Producer
MarkPinciotti, Coordinating Producer
Cynthia J. Popp, Colleen Bell, Casey Kasprzyk, Producers

Days of Our Lives                                                 NBC
Ken Corday, Executive Producer
Lisa de Cazotte, Greg Meng, Co-Executive Producers
Janet Drucker, Tim Stevens, Coordinating Producers
Albert Alarr, Producer

General Hospital                                                   ABC
Frank Valentini, Executive Producer
Mary-Kelly Weir, Michelle Henry, Mercer Barrows, Producers

One Life To Live                                                   ABC
Frank Valentini, Executive Producer
Suzanne Flynn, Senior Producer
Jackie Van Belle, Coordinating Producer
John Tumino, Leah Weber, Producers

The Young and the Restless                             CBS
Maria Arena Bell, Jill Farren Phelps, Executive Producers
Jay Gibson, Consulting Producer
Sally McDonald, John Fisher, Tony Morina, Supervising Producers

 

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

SUSAN FLANNERY, as Stephanie Forrester
The Bold and the Beautiful                                           CBS

PEGGY MCCAY, as Caroline Brady
Days of our Lives                                                         NBC

MICHELLE STAFFORD, as Phyllis Summers Newman
The Young and the Restless                                          CBS

HEATHER TOM, as Katie Logan Spencer
The Bold and the Beautiful                                           CBS

 

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

PETER BERGMAN, as Jack Abbott
The Young and the Restless                                            CBS

DOUG DAVIDSON, as Paul Williams
The Young and the Restless                                            CBS

MICHAEL MUHNEY, as Adam Newman
The Young and the Restless                                            CBS

JASON THOMPSON, as Patrick Drake
General Hospital                                                             ABC

Top Reasons NOT to Watch the New AMC and OLTL

Y'all, it's literally less than one day away.

Oh wait, I shouldn't watch. Here's a poll that I developed after combing the internet and finding the most popular reasons that people are not going to watch the revived All My Children and One Life to Live and I think you'll all agree that this is how we should live and think and we should totally not watch. Vote now on why you absolutely will not watch! Check your pick!

_ I refuse to pay to watch soaps, even though you absolutely can watch them for free.

_ I watched a 118-second promo video and I can already tell that THEY HATE THE FANS AND DON'T CARE ABOUT THE VETS!

_ I base all my viewing decisions on routine entertainment litigation and obviously Prospect Park is a super-evil production company and the first to ever sue a television network and therefore it is my moral obligation to refuse to watch a show that, actually, earns ABC money if I watch it.

_ Prospect Park told us we'd keep AMC and OLTL online and it would happen in January of 2012 and it didn't happen because they couldn't put the money together and that is just wrong and they are mean and cannot be trusted so I will not watch the shows that they literally brought back from the dead later than they had hoped.

_ Serial drama is just dead, forget it. The proof is in the pudding, which is something like 400 serial dramas currently on TV.

_ There are only four episodes a week. SACRILEGE. I'd rather have no soaps than a 20% reduction in story content!

_ I am sub-human and I do not like David Canary or Erika Slezak because, really, who would?

_ I do not have the internet, despite the fact that I am currently on the internet reading this dumb poll.

_ My favorite couple is not together, so obviously everyone hates me AND WANTS TO RUIN THE GENRE.

_ I do not like joy.

I may have had a little freakout the other day on Serial Drama's Facebook page about this. I'm going to get up SO EARLY tomorrow. To watch. For free. Because that's how it works. THAT IS HOW IT WORKS.

Quick Suggestion To Benevolent Ghosts Of The World

It sure is nice of various spirits to roam the Earth and remind the living that they are powerful or safe or being watched over or loved or... something. And ghosts are usually plentiful in soap towns (even ghosts that aren't real because they are ghosts of Not At All Dead People, like Robin or... oh hey, Anna was a ghost too, I guess ghosting-while-not-dead runs in the family), but it's high time someone gave the ghosts some tips.

Seeing dead people is startling. I once accidentally dropped my dog's leash because a rat ran out in front of us. Sometimes a noise makes me jump. It's best not to be holding anything fragile or liquid when one gets a shock, because said fragile item might drop and shatter or said liquid item might spill and stain the carpet with a deep burgundy stain, which sucks because red wine can really stain unless you get some salt on it pretty fast. Wait, what?

The point is, be careful when you first appear as a ghost to a loved one. 

Here's one suggestion of what might be a bad time to make your debut apparition appearance to your son.

You know, WHEN HE'S HOLDING AN INFANT.

That kid is liable to drop that smaller kid!

All right, I guess he wasn't too shocked. And Danny's all, "What. WHAT. This ain't shit, lady, you should see what I've lived through already. What do you think, I was born yesterday?"

Also, apparently you can get knocked up pretty fast in the spirit world. Did she look that preggers when she got offed? (I realize the actress is really pregnant, but c'mon. Cover it up a tad!)

It's That Time Again... As The Pool Gets Smaller And Smaller

So the pre-nominations for this year's Daytime Emmy Awards come out a week from Wednesday (February 27th), so shall we take a look at the... pre-pre-nominations, just for funsies? Here's what we know about the four major acting categories:

Lead Actress

Heather Tom (Katie Logan, The Bold & The Beautiful) 
Deidre Hall (Marlena Evans, Days of Our Lives) 
Peggy McKay (Caroline Brady, Days of Our Lives) 
Finola Hughes (Anna Devane, General Hospital)
Kelly Monaco (Samantha McCall, General Hospital)
Kelly Sullivan (Kate Howard/Connie Falconeri, General Hospital)
Laura Wright (Carly Jacks, General Hospital)
Kassie DePaiva (Blair Cramer, One Life to Live)
Sharon Case (Sharon Newman, The Young and the Restless)
Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor, The Young and the Restless) 
Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki Newman, The Young and the Restless)
Michelle Stafford (Phyllis Summers, The Young and the Restless) 

Lead Actor

Don Diamont (Bill Spencer,The Bold & The Beautiful) 
John McCook (Eric Forrester, The Bold & The Beautiful) 
Ronn Moss (Ridge Forrester, The Bold & The Beautiful) 
Galen Gering (Rafe Hernandez, Days of Our Lives) 
Joseph Mascolo (Stefano DiMera, Days of Our Lives) 
Maurice Benard (Sonny Corinthos, General Hospital) 
Jason Thompson (Patrick Drake, General Hospital) 
Roger Howarth (Todd Manning, One Life to Live) 
Peter Bergman (Jack Abbott, The Young and the Restless) 
Christian LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin, The Young and the Restless) 
Michael Muhney (Adam Newman, The Young and the Restless) 

Supporting Actress

Katherine Kelly Lang (Brooke Logan, The Bold & The Beautiful) 

Kristolyn Lloyd (Dayzee Forrester, The Bold & The Beautiful) 
Judi Evans (Adrienne Kiriakis, Days of Our Lives) 
Lauren Koslow (Kate Roberts, Days of Our Lives) 
Suzanne Rogers (Maggie Horton, Days of Our Lives) 
Ari Zucker (Nicole Walker, Days of Our Lives) 
Julie Marie Berman (Lulu Spencer, General Hospital) 
Kassie DePaiva (Blair Cramer, General Hospital) 
Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis Davis, General Hospital) 
Carolyn Hennesy (Diane Miller, General Hospital) 
Rebecca Herbst (Elizabeth Webber, General Hospital) 
Jen Lilley (Maxie Jones, General Hospital) 
Lisa LoCicero (Olivia Falconeri, General Hospital) 
Robin Mattson (Heather Webber, General Hospital) 
Judith Chapman (Gloria Fisher, The Young and the Restless) 
Jessica Collins (Avery Clark, The Young and the Restless) 
Melissa Claire Egan (Chelsea Lawson, The Young and the Restless) 
Liz Hendrickson (Chloe Mitchell, The Young and the Restless) 

Supporting Actor

Scott Clifton (Liam Spencer, The Bold & The Beautiful) 
Jacob Young (Rick Forrester, The Bold & The Beautiful) 
Blake Berris (Nick Fallon,Days of Our Lives) 
Shawn Christian (Daniel Jonas, Days of Our Lives) 
Brian Datillo (Lucas Roberts, Days of Our Lives) 
James Reynolds (Abe Carver, Days of Our Lives) 
Greg Vaughan (Eric Brady, Days of Our Lives) 
Bradford Anderson (Damian Spinelli, General Hospital) 
Brandon Barash (Johnny Zacharra, General Hospital) 
Sean Kanan (A.J. Quartermaine, General Hospital) 
Eric Valdez (Trey Mitchell, General Hospital) 
John J. York (Mac Scorpio, General Hospital) 
Dominic Zamprogna (Dante Falconeri, General Hospital) 
Robert Adamson (Noah Newman, The Young and the Restless) 
Jeff Branson (Ronan Malloy, The Young and the Restless) 
Billy Miller (Billy Abbott, The Young and the Restless) 
Peter Porte (Ricky Williams, The Young and the Restless) 
Greg Rikaart (Kevin Fisher, The Young and the Restless) 

And there we have it. What does everyone think? Before anyone panics with furious "so-and-so was robbed!" or "so-and-so is terrible, how dare they get a nomination?!" comments, the above is just a list of who submitted. If somebody is not on this list, it's not because someone else snubbed them. And if somebody god-awful is on this list (and you know they are!), it's not because someone else decided they were incredibly talented.

I haven't been able to dig up all the info on what scenes each actor submitted, but Michael Fairman did post some of them on his website for Supporting Actor and for Lead Actress. Fill us in if you've got the dirt on any of the other submission scenes!

Living In Carly's World

Wow. I've always known I was pretty jealous of Carly and in general anyone like her who is so into their own awesomeness and point-of-view that dumb little things like paying attention to things that other people say or do, or basic human empathy, or brutally honest personal feedback, etc., do not in any way pierce the self-involved un-self-aware bubble that they live in. Wouldn't that be an easier way to live? To just always think your perspective is the right one and that you are wonderful and never, ever be able to experience anything that contradicts that because you are simply not listening?

Yesterday's discussion with Starr really brought Carly to new levels of tone-deaf and self-absorbed and hilarious. Shall we re-visit? (And much of this is actually what was said, and I think you'll agree that with the rest I've at least captured the essence of what was said.) When Starr asked if Carly gave any serious consideration to Todd's "let's run away together" option...

Carly: Do I wish I would have uprooted my life to run away with your father? To never see or talk to Michael or Morgan again? For them to never see their little sister? To throw my business into complete chaos, to duck and cover and in and out from dirty old motel rooms for the rest of my life? Ha!

[Hahahahaha, so true, Carly! Abandoning your two sons and forcing your toddler daughter to live life on the run before her life has even begun all for a guy you boinked one time is HILARIOUS!! I can see
how it was tempting!  --Ed]

Starr: You really gave that a lot of thought.

Carly: Oh, yeah, I pondered. I have. I never really considered it. I mean, as much as I care about your dad, and I really care about your dad, what the hell am I supposed to do?

Starr: You did the only reasonable thing that you could do, but a lot of people do unreasonable things for the right reason.

Carly: Oh, not me! I don't know if you know this or talked to people, but I never do unreasonable things.

Starr: (laughing) I don't blame you for walking away. My mom had to do the same thing. She couldn't deal with all the things that my dad had done.

Carly: It's different with me, though. Todd's no angel, but neither am I.

A Visit to TV's Beverly Hills

I don't have the faintest idea what's possessed me to do this instead of writing about today's General Hospital or The Bold & the Beautiful but... wait, I do. More Sandy coverage meant they didn't record and I have to watch them online, and can I just whine about all the pausing I have to do to take notes while watching an episode on the computer I'm using to take said notes? LIFE IS SO HARD. 

So instead, I'm sitting down to something that did record. And hey, it's a soap, so I'll write about it. I don't know how many of you watch 90210 (as in the new version, not the original decade-long parade of bad fashion and smug behavior and general awesomeness), but I admit it. I do. It was god-awful for the first two seasons and then it shifted somehow and stopped trying to be something it wasn't and embraced its ridiculousness. And then another weird shift happened where I started loving the characters I had hated (Naomi and Ivy, for instance) and loathing the characters I'd loved (Silver and Adriana, for instance). Sometimes I hate-watch, sometimes I snark-watch, and sometimes I actually find myself being genuinely entertained.

Now the embarrassing truth is out there. Monday nights don't offer much amusing television, and tonight's How I Met Your Mother decided to stop being a rough copycat of Friends but with a fun gimmick and better continuity and mythology and turn into Friends, Part II with just not even a hint of an attempt to hide it (okay, I did like the little dog). So here I am, sitting down as Naomi, Annie, Ade, and Silver sit down to some salads. Naomi's talking about how she has to get a Brazilian before hubby Max returns in two hours, which seems like not enough time to let the burning and swelling go down but whatevs. I hear waxing in Bev Hills is magic! Ade and Dixon, apparently, are going to start focusing on their careers again so at least there will be something to fast-forward soon! 

Apparently Silver's little nude photo session has gone viral and some dude sends champagne over to the girls, which by process of elimination means Annie has to be the one to go say hello to this guy. Poor guy. He didn't know!

Liam apparently has a supermodel for a professor. This supermodel is very unimpressed with him, so I wonder how long till we see some gratuitous scene of Liam dry-humping her up against a chalkboard.

Something's going on with Adriana and Dixon and their "career," which somehow involves that dude Adriana was boning when Dixon got rammed by an eighteen-wheeler, which is about as exciting as... nothing. But I think his name is Taylor?

Silver is all offended that the nude photos of her are out there, so she gets all smug and pious about it because she is Erin Silver and it's kind of her thing. Her sister went through that phase, too, but at least her sister had unfortunate haircuts and smugmeister Brandon as things to blame.

At least Silver has nice hair this season. 
Colin, the dude from the bar, uses his fancy computer skills to remove all of the nekkid photos of Silver from the worldwide web. And yet Annie still turns him down for a date!

How Happy Is This Girl??

SO FREAKING UNBELIEVABLY HAPPY! That's how happy!

I am the busiest person in the world at the moment and can't write the fourteen-paragraph festival of glee that I'd like to write right now, but I couldn't not stop by and mention this. Because today, General Hospital gave me a gift I've been waiting for for decades. Plural. It's big. 

Swiss Doctor Lady: I'm sorry. It must have been difficult for you, seeing Miss Devane struggle like that. I know how much you care for her.

 

Which is already great because you know at that moment every unspoiled viewer dug into their memory banks and thought of several possibilities. But even though I have wished for this, I did not see it coming.

(I'm putting the next screencap after the jump, just in case anyone who's just browsing hasn't seen the episode yet.)

 

The 2012 Daytime Emmys Live-Blogging Extravaganza

The biggest night in daytime television is here and I'm not quite sure how to feel about it. I feel dread, obviously, because I've been doing this long enough to know that the following two hours will be filled with random winners, celebrities of yesteryear and song and dance numbers so oddly staged and weirdly placed that we'll all feel like a fever dream. But I also feel excitement (I actually cheerfully answered a "Any weekend plans?" question with "The Daytime Emmys are on tomorrow night!" I...don't think that person will be talking to me anymore) because it could be fabulous. Or at least fabulously bad. Probably fabulously bad. But at any rate, it's here and I am here to liveblog it with you (Louise is off doing something fabulous and sends her regrets. I even think she was genuine when she said she's sorry she's missing it!).

8:00: And we're off! At the site of a murder-suicide, which I hope is not an omen of things to come. We open on the highest of high notes with the ever-charming Anderson Cooper and the iconic, amazing, perfect Oscar the Grouch (the Muppets are flaw-free and I will hear no arguments on the contrary). Anderson is excited to honor the best that daytime has to offer, which upsets Oscar, who is only there because Elmo had a prior engagement. Here's the first song of the night and while I'd normally be huffing and puffing, it's OSCAR THE GROUCH. Oscar asks Anderson to tell him anything good that's ever happened on Daytime; examples include Luke and Laura's wedding and Tom Cruise's couch jump o'crazy.

8:03: Really, though, Anderson Cooper is too adorable for words. He introduces the lads up for Outstanding Younger Actor who are here to hand out the Emmy for Lead Actor. They do the annoying thing where they all take turns talking about the perils of being a lead actor. I have to say that Nathan Parsons has never annoyed me less than he did just now.

8:06: And the first Emmy of the night goes to Anthony Geary. Sigh. Darnell Williams was ROBBED. ROBBED.

8:07: It takes him forever and a day to make it to the stage. The GH cast gives a standing ovation and the rest of the audience seems to be completely over it. He gives a really long speech that I didn't entirely pay attention to (I'm sorry! I am already falling down on the live-blogging job), but I did hear the shout outs to Bob Guza and Jill Farren Phelps and I gagged a little bit. Or a lot. But he ends with a really nice thank you to Jonathan Jackson, Julie Marie Berman, Nathan Parsons and Jane Elliott, which was sweet because three of them are stellar and deserving of all of the awards themselves.

8:12: The cast of The Talk is here, all dressed in black except for the personality-free Julie Chen who is in a sparkly green sack. Do you think they hate her for being married to the network boss? I would. I guess I do, kind of. They do some shtick about how similar their show is to The View that gets a lot of laughs from a very easy audience and present the award for Outstanding Game Show Host. As soon as Ben Bailey is even mentioned as a nominee, the crowd goes crazy. What are they drinking? Todd Newton, host of something called Family Game Night on something else called The Hub. I am learning all of these new channels tonight. I feel so sheltered. He is very appreciative and thanks the great television hosts who came before him.

Special Programming Note: The Daytime Emmys Are Here!

It's that time of year again--that special night in June where we sit, transfixed, by a televised awards ceremony that is ostensibly meant to spotlight the best in the world of daytime but instead serves as both a thinly veiled advertisement for a tourist trap and as an ode to the random. Yes, the Daytime Emmy Awards are tonight and I will be here, watching and live-blogging and, I'm sure, rolling my eyes.

Join me here tonight, at 8 PM, to watch the ceremony LIVE on HLN, which is a channel (I kept reading it as HSN when it was announced that the show would be televised and I could not for the life of me figure out why a Home Shopping Network would air an awards show and wouldn't that make the home shoppers mad?). We'll talk about Ronn Moss's formal scarves, the deserving people who were utterly robbed, the (fingers crossed) deserving people who did manage to catch lightning in a bottle and walk away with an award and the bizarre musical numbers that will make up the bulk of the evening. I know when I write it out like that it doesn't seem fun, but it could be! Maybe! This is why I am not in advertising.