OLTL Experiment - Day One

Monday April 28, 2008

Okay, so it wasn’t all that hard to figure out what was going on, because everyone used everyone else’s name repeatedly and some stories/relationships were telegraphed. That was a positive for me being a first time watcher, but I hope they just sensed I’d be watching this episode and wanted to help and/or it’s the tail end of the writers’ strike showing its impact, because if they’re being so ‘helpful’ everyday, it’s going to get mighty annoying, mighty fast.

That said, soapy goodness.

In my very first episode we have snogging, pregnant teens, a quadrangle that may actually be pentagon or even a hexagon – I can’t tell yet – talk of corporate take-overs, pre-sweeps-wedding shenanigans involving bringing someone back from the “dead”, and classic coitus interruptus with some type of falsely incestuous twist.

So far, so good.

Let’s break it down. At the centre of Monday’s episode was Days alum Farah Fath having shifted from playing Mimi to playing Gigi (pronounced annoying as G-G, which is going to bother me, but that may just be an Australian thing because we tend to pronounce the name the French way down here and everything else sounds wrong), and to bantering with Rex from, well, talking endlessly in a James E. Reilly inspired loop with Rex. Different Rex, but a Rex nevertheless. Though I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the OLTL version didn’t come from outer space.

Moving on. I always liked Fath over at Days, and I like her here, though I am rather disconcerted by the way she’s clearly playing much older than her age. Given that she doesn’t look much older that her age (24, barely). Quite simply she is not old enough to play Shane’s mother. Unless G-G had him when she was 12. Which I’m going to assume she didn’t given all the talk of G-G’s ten year old fling with Rex and that supposedly presumed dead Brody of the Navy Seals muscle shirt hasn’t seen her for ten years either. Neither of these points are suggestive of a pre-teen pregnancy. However they do, together with G-G’s dodging of all questions about Shane’s father, send one’s soap spidey sense a-tingling.

G-G likes Rex, Rex likes G-G. I knew this before G-G, in particular, said it out loud. Or before Shane - who I am trying really hard not to call Boxey with that dated haircut – started drawing pictures of Rex’s fiancé Adriana as an evil comic book villain.

So Rex and Adriana are getting married in two weeks (smack bang in the middle of sweeps, oddly enough) but Rex is busy almost kissing G-G and asking questions about Shane’s father, dun, dun, while Adriana is off in a dive-bar with her mother Robin Strasser effectively paying off Shane’s supposedly dead father, dun, dun, to come to town to see G-G and Boxey. Charmingly soapy.

At some time or another in the recent past G-G was also kissing Jared, who is now getting down to it on a desk with Natalie, who is resisting unconvincingly in true soap fashion and taking advantage of an interruption to proceedings by her mother and his father – who also appear to be together – to back out of the tryst. The twist here appears to be that Jared is pretending to be, but actually isn’t, her uncle? WTF? Who does he think he is, Max Brady? And does she know? I hope she knows, otherwise we might as well be watching Passions.

I am happy to be left with questions after my first episode. I just didn't expect them to be of quite this nature.

Finally we have our pregnant teen Starr (oh dear), who looks realistically like a teenager, accepting her boyfriend Cole’s suggestion that they run away together with fake IDs and get married. Which obviously cannot turn out well. Especially as her father is apparently the boyfriend beating-up, bodyguard hiring type, and I suspect that’s before he knows about the pregnancy.

Oh, and a lot of people appear to work for a living in quite corporate surroundings. Which is also promising.

Verdict, day one: not bad. The show delivered romance, nothing about the pacing or the dialogue sucked, people seemed to have jobs and meaningful familial relationships, I detected some decent chemistry, and I’m interested to see what happens next.

Comments

[Cherries]

Good luck with the experiment and thank you for giving OLTL a chance! Out of the 4 soaps I watch (Y&R, AMC, and GH are the others), this one is my hands down favorite right now and that has never happened in the 20 years I've been watching these soaps! The May 2 episode was particularly good and I'm happy to see Carlivati "back in the saddle." Cheers!

[Becky]

*Smacks self in the head* I totally forget about Rex and Mimi on Days. Hee!

It is fun to "see" the show through new eyes.

[Dandesun]

This has been a very fascinating read for a lifelong OLTL viewer like myself. It's always fun to see the show through new eyes.

Just one word, as ridiculously soapy as Starr's name is, we did see her get the name before she was born in a scene that was poignant and heartbreaking and lovely.

Langston I have no excuse for.