Serial Drama

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

The October 19th issue of Soap Opera Digest featured our latest column and our thoughts on All My Children, Days of Our Lives and General Hospital. Mallory takes on all of AMC's recent casting changes and makes a public plea for the return of David Canary, while Becca wonders if she's on crazy pills because she's not at all enjoying some of the popular stories on Days and GH.

My Take
By Mallory Harlen

Even though I temper it with criticism, I do have to give credit where credit is due, and lately that credit is directed at ALL MY CHILDREN. Perhaps the powers-that-be tuned in to their own show and, like the audience, found themselves asleep before the opening credits. Or maybe they read an episode synopsis and thought to themselves, horrified, "This exact thing has been happening for weeks on end! How do I make it stop?" How they came to the conclusion that something needs to give isn't important; I'm just grateful that they are making some changes. And, naturally, because I'm the helpful sort, I have some advice for them while they're making these changes.

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!

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

In case you missed the September 28th issue of Soap Opera Digest, read on. This month, Becca picks apart the storyline problems Days of Our Lives and General Hospital have been having, while Mallory remains nervous about the big returns of Brenda Barrett and Kendall Hart Slater to their respective shows. 

My Take
By Becca Thomas

I have repeatedly extolled the virtues of a slow-burn storyline – particularly if it involves total opposites who fall for each other against all odds, because who doesn’t love that? – but there is slow burn, and then there is how-has-this-tiny-flame-not-extinguished-itself-by-now-and-if-it’s-still-going-is-it-because-of-a-gas-leak-and-is-that-what-has-affected-the-writers’-brains-burn. The latter is, unfortunately, par for the course lately on DAYS OF OUR LIVES.

I haven’t whined, at least not on a prolonged or detailed basis, about DAYS in a while, because it’s been pretty good. There’s been good cast interaction, including decent use of veterans, the daily dialogue has been pretty strong, and unlike GENERAL HOSPITAL, DAYS doesn’t make my shoe-throwing hand twitch. But over the last couple of months, all that goodness has come to a near halt as the pace of stories has become slow even by soap standards, which as any longtime viewer knows allow for even the simplest thing to drag out over months.

I had to catch up on several weeks’ worth of DAYS recently, and seeing that many episodes in a couple of sittings really drove home how little has been happening. I realize I am prone to shallow fashion critiques (at one point a couple of years back at least six months went by with me criticizing Carly on GENERAL HOSPITAL for nothing but her parade of hideous and ill-fitting tops, and there were certainly more substantive things I could have focused on, because it’s Carly for Pete’s sake), but this is a comment about clothes that is not shallow: Characters should not be wearing the same outfit for an entire week’s worth of episodes, let alone more. And this has happened a lot lately on DAYS. (On my more characteristically shallow note, some of the ensembles have been truly unfortunate, which of course makes the underlying writing offense that much more serious. Sami was recently in a color-blocked Lycra dress and cardigan for five days. I went through several bottles of wine just trying to relax my retinas.)

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

Apologies for our lateness in bringing you our column in the August 10th issue of Soap Opera Digest. It's just that SOD is so small and it sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of the...um, let's just say "many" instead of giving an actual, embarrassing number. It sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of the many, larger magazines we subscribe to. This issue wound up inside Marie Claire! Anyway, read on for our thoughts on General Hospital and Days of Our Lives. --Mal and Bec.

My Take
By Mallory Harlen

GENERAL HOSPITAL's cast is one of the best in all of daytime, and my respect for all of the actors grows every day because I am so impressed that they manage to film their scenes without breaking the fourth wall and apologizing to the audience or holding up little "Help me!" signs. Can I be blunt? The show is a mess.

2010 has been a wretched year for Sonny Corinthos: In a move that was a poor knockoff of a much better story, he wound up injuring his daughter with a car bomb intended for his rival. He also participated in a cover-up that directly led to his teenage son being sent to prison and, you might remember, shot another of his sons in the chest. One of those stories could have been compelling, but THREE of them? That crossed the line from "soapy" into "this kind of off-the-wall ridiculousness is why people make fun of soap operas." And it's not like we got anything like character growth or introspection out of these various traumas: no, Sonny is still the same angry blowhard we all know and abhor, just with new messes of his own making to rant about on-screen every day, every week, every month.

Our Column in the 7/13 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

The latest issue of Soap Opera Digest is hitting newsstands now and in it is our latest My Take/My Take, Too column. This month, Mallory takes on All My Children and wonders what the deal is with repetitive dialogue (did you know that Tad thinks Damon's not so bad, and that everyone thinks Ryan is just the greatest?), unlikable characters, and Marissa in general. To the surprise of no one, she consulted a thesaurus numerous times to find synonyms for "boring". Becca, meanwhile, congratulates Days of Our Lives for the stellar send-off they gave Frances Reid and also talks about General Hospital. The words "congratulate" and "stellar" are notably absent in that section.

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

My Take
By Mallory Harlen

I've spilled a lot of virtual ink complaining about how little the writers of GH know about the legal system. The only thing they manage to get right is that trials have a judge and a jury, and even that they seem sort of shaky on (seriously, Coleman sitting on Sonny's jury is so ludicrous that it doesn't even deserve a sarcastic comment). And I complained early and often about Sonny's trial and its complete lack of suspense. It seems unnecessary to focus so much attention on a story where we can already figure out the ending. It also seems unnecessary to have so many characters knowingly and willingly commit perjury as if it were a noble action, but that's a rant for another time.

So it may seem crazy and hypocritical to be disappointed that the show turned down the chance to have another trial, but I am: Kiefer dying and not facing any repercussions for his abuse of Kristina is a seriously lame move. Why does everyone who leaves Port Charles exit in a body bag? And how have the writers lasted so long in the soap genre without knowing the word "payoff"? The audience watched this story brew for months, in brutal detail, and now we're cheated out of seeing actual justice for Kristina. Instead, we're given Alexis in another vehicular manslaughter story. I know I always ask for more Nancy Lee Grahn; I guess I should probably make sure that I include the phrase "in good storylines" when I make those wishes. Whole Grahn and Lexi Ainsworth (Kristina) have been completely stellar, I feel that they'd be equally compelling in a story where Kristina got to confront Kiefer for his abuse and have him admit to beating her. But the writers, as they so often do, opted out of being entertaining and just chose the easiest way out: killing someone off and then checking in on how it affects Sonny.

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

My Take
By Mallory Harlen

There was a time, not so long ago, when I ended an episode of Y&R feeling seriously disappointed that I’d need to wait a full day before the next episode. Today, I still end each episode with profound disappointment: disappointment over how much this show is missing the mark lately.

On paper, Y&R should be miles ahead of my other soaps in terms of quality and entertainment value. After all, the powers-that-be have not made violent mobsters the moral center of Genoa City, and veteran characters are actually allowed to appear in front of the camera (cue GH viewers shouting, “Is that even possible?!"), the show has a hugely talented cast, and yet sitting through a full episode feels like a chore.

The show finally answered one of wishes and decided what kind of a character Adam really was. Unfortunately, they decided that he’s rotten to the core. Terrible, terrible move, Y&R! For starters, it’s so unfortunate that the show completely wrecked the character of Adam/Victor Jr., who came to the show a blank slate with an appealing backstory (fun fact: Hope and Victor’s relationship in the mid-90s was the last time Victor was tolerable). I wish that they had made him complicated and explored his tense family connections without jumping immediately to mustache-twirling, fake-blind evil. And what a waste of a talented actor! Even as Adam was faking an infant’s death and driving Ashley crazy, I still didn’t fully hate him which, considering how much I hate most things, is saying something.

Our Column in the 4/20 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

Yes, this post is nearly a week overdue.  We've been sitting on our hands, trying to let enough time pass that we were no longer tempted to make a lame 4/20 joke.  Like about how that day must be really significant to the ABC daytime executives who see something totally different on their screens than we do on ours -- oh crap, even with those extra days we couldn't resist.  Bad us.

For our April column, Mallory dedicated her whole half to lamenting how quickly The Young and the Restless' quality has nosedived, while Becca uncharacteristically took a slightly positive tack and announced the end of her grudges against Days of Our Lives' Dr. Daniel Jonas and General Hospital's Sam McCall.  Check it out while it's still on newsstands.

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

My Take
By Mallory Harlen

Thanks to a promotional campaign that saw GENERAL HOSPITAL advertised on every possible channel, pretty much everyone I know saw the ads touting the soapy excitement of Sonny shooting his own son. All of them questioned the wisdom in explicitly spelling out a plot twist like that, and the ones who are familiar with GH questioned how Sonny could possibly come out of this situation smelling like a rose. One friend asked if Maurice Benard was leaving the show, and if a prison sentence would be Sonny’s exit story. I actually laughed at her, which I admit was rude, but how patently hilarious is that? Sonny, in jail! Too funny. When I tried to explain this to her, and all I could offer was a lame, “He won’t go to jail because he’s Sonny and, jail would be…bad for him? And he’s good? Even though he shot an unarmed cop in the chest,” I started to realize that the joke was on me.

Like so many things on this show (the return of Helena Cassadine, the character of Matt Hunter—he’s still a thing, right?), this story actually could have been really good.  All of the major players are capable of giving us powerhouse performances, especially Dominic Zamprogna (whose awesomeness I cannot overstate) and Lisa LoCicero (who plays the fiercely protective mother role to perfection).  On top of that, Sonny shooting Dante had storyline implications for almost everybody on canvas: Sonny, Olivia, Dante, Lulu, Jax, Carly.  Even the poor souls at the hospital were guaranteed a few cameo appearances while tending to Dante!

Our Column in the 3/23 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

So, it turns out that we are pretty terrible at PR! Our latest My Take/My Take, Too column appears in the March 23rd issue of Soap Opera Digest, which has been on sale this week and which got to subscribers even before that. We'd have realized this sooner if our copies hadn't been at the bottom of the large mail stacks we let pile up, under junk mail and multiple copies of Us Weekly (seriously, can someone explain that rag's fixation on The Bachelor?!).

At any rate, this month, Mallory decided to do what so many "bad" mobsters have done: taken on Sonny Corinthos, asking how in the world this tool is still the show's hero after shooting Dante in the chest (we know, we know, he didn't know it was his son! That makes it okay!). Becca, meanwhile, wonders who set Days of Our Lives's drama-meter up to eleven. Between Carly, Melanie and Sami, it's all over-the-top shrieking and crying all the time.

Also in this issue: an interview with Alicia Minshew, and photos of her daughter Willow who is just the cutest ever. Ever!