Soaps By Remote

I offer you some Beefcake with this rant

Why yes, my first post in some time, and my first post about Days in an age, is going to be a rant.  

And what’s more a rant about an obscure largely historical point rather than anything actually on the show yet.  So, you’ve been warned.

So Days, which has lost/thrown out/is losing most of its under-25 characters – to go with having thrown out half of its over-45 characters – has cast a new Horton lad for the beginning of summer.  

We all know how that’s going to turn out.  

(By the by, isn’t it kind of amusing that the safest characters on the show seem to be the over-70s and the 30-somethings, the two demographics that for all intents and purposes didn’t even exist on this show two years ago?)

Anyway, we will now welcome Nathan Horton.  A character who, I suspect, we will be expected to enjoy due to his (a) supposed Horton-ness; and (b) abs.  Not necessarily in that order.

Well I am sorry, bringing on Hortons may be a good idea and abs may be good for many things, but neither are going to distract me (for long) from the fact that this is A MADE UP CHARACTER.

For Nathan Horton is apparently supposed to be the child of classic 80s pairing Pete and Melissa.  

I am sorry, but no.  

Nathan could certainly be Pete’s child – although he’d need to be named Charlie and there wouldn’t be any point anyway – or he could be Melissa’s child from after she left town.  In fact bringing on a child of Melissa’s, a grandchild for Mickey and Maggie, would be a sterling idea (memories of their attempt at Jeremy Horton notwithstanding).  

However, the idea of him being Pete and Melissa’s child is just stupid.  It reeks of “let’s flip through the Days history book of couples that got the patented Days supercouple treatment and bring on their child”.  Without ever looking to see if (a) they actually had a child on-screen; or (b) it was in any way likely that they had one off-screen.

Pete and Melissa certainly got the patented Days supercouple treatment.  They were the teen/young couple of the moment when I first started watching – after Hope and Bo, before Jennifer and Frankie - so 12 year-old me had quite an affinity with them.  Good rich Horton girl, boy from the wrong side of the tracks.  Sound familiar?  Runaway teens, drug-related misunderstandings, gangs!, kidnappings, major obstacles in the form of him having to marry the other girl he got pregnant, (adulterous) summer on the run, big wedding.  

Of course, their story did have a couple of unique elements.  Most importantly his secret career as a stripper at Beefcakes, and the fact that they ultimately broke up because she left him for Lars, possibly the wettest catalyst for permanently breaking up a major couple in the history of this show.  

But still, Lars and his leg warmers are important in all of this, because he’s part proof of why Pete and Melissa having a child makes no sense.  Melissa and Pete broke up over Lars and Pete left town to go be with Ivy and their kid.  Melissa stayed in town for, small break for recasting aside, the best part of 6 years afterwards and then made various other appearances for family events over the ensuing years.  She had a series of boring, bad or downright horrid relationships: Lars, in-love-with-Kayla Jack, Emilio, Brian Schofield (he was the in a band with Keanu brother, not the John McBain brother, right?).  She was ultimately responsible for knocking off Emilio and his mullet.

She morphed from a “dancer” into a “singer” and moved to Nashville where she was later reported, I believe, to have married a doctor.  Which was, I assume, an in-joke about the fact that the original and returning Melissa, Lisa Trusel, was/is in real life married to the actor who after leaving Days played Dr Tom Hardy on GH, a part also played of course by Matt “Jack Deveraux” Ashford because soaps are a small world.  But even if that was a to-be-ignored-later in-joke, it doesn’t mean that they can just say she moved to Nashville and married Pete, because if she had she would have said something!  You don’t have a character come back occasionally for funerals and christenings and not throw the audience that kind of bone.

Therefore, I say, this Nathan person should not have been defined as Pete and Melissa’s child.  Nope.  Just wrong.  Melissa’s child, fine.  Pete and Melissa’s child, not fine.

And that’s even before I get on to the fact that no matter the parental permutation, his surname shouldn’t be Horton.  Pete’s surname was Jannings.  Melissa married “Dr Unspoken Surname” but I’m willing to bet that unspoken surname wasn’t Horton.  And Melissa herself may have been Mickey and Maggie’s adopted daughter, but she was always Melissa Anderson, not Melissa Horton.   The slapping on of the Horton surname just seems to be further proof of the plucked out of a barely informed someone’s arse nature of this character.  When Nick was introduced they didn’t feel the need to give him a Horton surname to make him part of the family, so why the need now?  

Ahhhh.  I feel better now. (And perfectly content with dwelling on the past. I am a child of 80s Days, and I am proud. And fond of parentheses.)

And to make you feel better too, relive the most important part of the story, Pete the Beefcake (also featuring Calliope):

Courtesy classicdaysof80s, which you should absolutely check out not only for a lot of Melissa and Pete’s history, but lots of the rest of the show’s classic storylines.

Y&R Spoilers = Consternation

I'm still quite enjoying my return to Y&R but some lurking spoilers/rumours are causing me concern. 

Rampant speculation after the jump for anyone who doesn't mind being spoiled.

Will this inspire actual creativity?

So, if the the recent news (or "news" as the case may be) in relation to All My Children's cast changes comes to pass, I can't help but thinking it may actually force the writers to do something creative.

We know that Babe is departing in some form or another in the coming weeks.  Now news indicates that Alicia Minshew has been given several (thoroughly well-earned) months off to get married, so pre-taped scenes or no pre-taped scenes that would also have Kendall off canvas for a slab of time.  Then there's the very realistic (and understandable) possibility that Rebecca Budig will not extend her contract beyond a year, so goodbye Greenlee as well.

Therefore the show's three leading female characters under 40 for the last several years - for better or worse - will be gone from the canvas for a lengthy period.

Add to that calculation that the show has systematically over the last couple of years also killed off or sent away several other women in this age range (or sent them bat-shit over Ryan) - Dixie, Simone, Erin, Di, Julia, etc - and suddenly there's a big hole mid-show.

Sure, into that gap will be coming Bianca and Reese (that's the name of Tamara Braun's character, yes?), and recently Taylor has come into the picture as well.  But when Kendall, Greenlee and Babe are replaced by a lesbian couple and someone with a military background, I can't help but think that the writers are actually going to have to start writing something new and interesting for all the characters in this age group, because they won't have the same worn out couples, triangles, quadrangles etc to play with.  And maybe, you know, give Amanda a decent story.

As always, we shall see.

Heat Things Up, Love, Stalk, Die

This post contains some GH spoilers that you don’t care about.

It would be the height of erroneousnessessess to suggest that I am actually watching General Hospital at the moment.

Keeping the corner of half one eye on it, certainly, mainly for the purpose of determining whether there’s anything coming up that I actually want to watch. The answer to that being, remarkably: Yes, Night Shift Season 2.

There are so many, many things wrong with GH at the moment that have already been catalogued here, there and everywhere that I have no desire to go into many of them again (though the idea of a Top Ten Reasons Not To Watch GH is somewhat appealing). In other words for this post I will pick just one thing that’s currently wrong with GH and attempt to stick with it.

Today’s topic of whinge: the fact it has become abundantly apparent that Guza and Co. cannot write for male characters under 30.

With the imminent “departure” of Logan Hayes the previously emerging pattern becomes undeniable. The steps are simple:

1. introduce a new hot young guy, preferably with a dangerous streak

2. pair him up with an ingénue with whom he has genuine chemistry and give everyone hope

3. fast-forward their relationship into a hole

4. have the ingénue move back to step 2 with the next guy arriving at step 1

5. leave the guy with nothing to do and little air time ignoring all sorts of story possibilities

6. turn him into a stalker out of nowhere

7. kill him off pointlessly

Bonus points if it can all be achieved in less than a year (Coop). Extra bonus points if you can do it twice over (Diego).

The other option is, of course, the unmentioned fade out, which seems particularly applicable if the character is tied to a core family and therefore can’t be quite so easily turned into a serial killer (so far, anyway).

On a basic count, in the last 5 odd years exactly 2.5 men under 30 have been able to maintain any type of presence on GH: Patrick, Spinelli and Dillon Part 1. Which is not to say that the writers can actually write for any of these – witness Patrick’s endless versions of the same conversation with Robin, and Dillon’s ultimate degeneration into a member of the 3 stooges and subsequent fade out – but just that they’ve hung around a bit and avoided being turned into killing machines, would be, perceived or otherwise.

But look at everyone else: The unnecessary prototype otherwise known as Zander. Lucas, Jesse, that guy who was there for two weeks during the Sage period, Steven Lars, Diego, Coop, Logan.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that all these characters should have stayed around, or stayed around with the same actors or that they should have existed in the first place. But really, out of that whole list, and probably others I’m forgetting, we should not wind up with only two characters left on the canvas. How does that build a next generation? Though, of course, I don’t think they actually have any interest in doing that on this show.

It appears to me that the writers simply have no ideas in this area just as they clearly have no ideas in so many others. They introduce the character with one note and then - no matter the possibilities that are readily apparent to the audience - get bored and utterly without a single notion of what to do with them so they do either nothing or evil. They can't even be original in the way they write them out.

The 2.5 characters who have survived to any degree have perhaps done so because they have been introduced with more than one note, but beyond that haven’t fitted to any formula. Dillon was a member of a core family, at the vanguard of a new teen scene that continues to form the heart of the otherwise decimated younger set, was given a few distinct personality traits and played by a good actor. And even he got shafted in the end. Patrick was a doctor, tied to some kind of show family history, and paired with Robin in a way that didn’t appear to be the coupling equivalent of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if it sticks. Plus, super hot good actor. Spinelli is, of course, different. Ultimately I think his survivability comes down to two things though: he was never intended to last so they never went down the formulaic romantic path with him, and, of course, good actor.

When you look at it, being able to sneak under the radar Spinelli-style appears to be the only way to have a chance at the moment.

If you add “males under 30” to the already massive list of characters Guza can’t write for (which, arguably over the last couple of months in particular may in fact include “everyone”), it’s no wonder no one wants to watch this show.

I think it’s such a waste to lose Josh Duhon and Logan Hayes in this manner. There were plenty of stories to tell with a character who was the son of a long-term character, with plenty of “issues” and chemistry with both Lulu and Maxie. There was a period before Lulu and Logan got together and the stupid bet happened that I could have got behind him and Maxie. There was another period during the 1.5 weeks it took their relationship to run its entire course that I loved Logan and Lulu. And that wasn’t even taking into account the fabulous family history tied up in Luke’s daughter and Scott’s son being involved. And yet, here we are again. Lulu has been unwatchable for months, Maxie’s playing hooker again and Logan gets the you stalk, then you die treatment.

It is such an utter waste.

Again.

So if I were Brandon Barash, I’d be looking over my shoulder now that Jason Cook is arriving in town. Because, let’s face it, Cook is a “name” and Johnny is prime serial killer material…

Give and Take

I am back.

I’ve actually been back for a few days but thanks to some massive storms in New York on Saturday night my journey home took about twice as long as was planned (typical that I’m in the city for the heat wave and it then decides to break the night I’m leaving and delay my flight by 8 hours). I do now have a close personal relationship with the bloody mary station in the British Airways lounge at JFK terminal 7 though.

Anyway, I have been recovering from that journey by catching up on the backlog of One Life to Live – ratings continue to go up, justifiable praise continues to spread far and wide, I notice – eagerly anticipating the awful Emmy fashions to come, and wondering at the current Jekyll and Hyde mentality of GH/Night Shift.

Post-sweeps lull, what post-sweeps lull?

I’m not sure if it’s just a hang-over due to the real writing team coming back mid-way through sweeps and wanting to catch-up, but I really can’t accuse OLTL of slowing down in the post-sweeps period.

I mean in the last two days we’ve had the following events/reveals:

- Jared is not a Buchanan
- Jared is sleeping with Natalie
- Charlie is Jared’s father
- Charlie is not Rex’s father
- Rex has a inkling that his wife is lying, and a little bird pushing him further towards that conclusion
- Dorian has taken over BE
- Nash falling to his death
- Charlie being rendered drunk to the point of serious alcohol poisoning and Viki finding him
- Ramsey holding a mystery woman in his Penthouse while she recovers from something with the possibility it could be either of the two returning characters though I presume it’s Marty with the Mendorran jewels being a Tina-related red herring

And tomorrow we have the promise of Viki being clued in to the full Jared/Charlie reveal, and next week the return of both Marty and Tina.

That’s a pretty sustained pace.

And yet, even with all that, they’re still managing to throw in more flashbacks to two days ago than I would like.

I haven’t felt this “I really can’t wait for tomorrow” about a soap in ages.

That said, this is likely my last post before heading off to New York later in the week to rejoice in the weak dollar while buying shoes for work. I'll return well in advance of the Emmy fashions (because who cares about the awards themselves?), or if there's any interesting news while I'm away, or if I happen to manage the rest of my Days catch-up while spending 20 hours each direction on a plane.

Of all the shows to rip off...

Right, a pause in regular programming for a giant WTF?!?

Discussion of a Days spoiler after the jump, so do not jump if you’re unspoiled and uninterested in being so.

Merry-go-round

That casting merry-go-round is now spinning so fast I've been flung off and landed on my arse in the sandpit.

Okay, so now Arianne Zucker is coming back to Days.

Nicole is one of those characters who was mainly of the era I didn't and/or couldn't watch, but what I did see of her, I liked.

Overall I think this is a good development, not least because Nicole - much like Chesty LaRue - is not related to anyone and therefore does not suffer from Billie Syndrome (that is having the best chemistry with her ex who she can't get back together with and one of her many brothers).

However, the whirlygig that has been Days casting over recent months makes me even more certain that the end is nigh and this is just turning into one a lengthy parade of the past prior to the grand finale. Which on the plus side could result in Eugene stepping out of his time machine any moment now.

In the last few months we have the following, just off the top of my head:

Gone or Going: Billie, Adrienne, Shawn, Shawn, Belle.

Gone and Returned: Victor, Lexie, John.

Appeared and Gone and Returned: Anna, Tony.

Appeared and Gone: Jeremy, Jett, Colleen.

Returned or Coming: Chloe, Nicole.

Going and Returning: Lucas.

Coming and Going: Kimberly.

Appeared: Morgan, Crystal, Ava.

Who the Hell Knows: the Writing Staff.

It's enough to cause head spins. And I suspect I've forgotten a few.

Spin, spin, spin.

Conflicted

To weigh in on Brandon Beemer – Martha Madison firing news, I’m as conflicted as pretty much everyone else.

On the one hand, nothing about Belle and Shawn or any triangle or quadrangle they’re involved with interests me, and hasn’t since the charming flip several years and recasts back of having Shawn marry Mimi and actually be happy for a while.

On the other hand in recent weeks the writers seem to have been building actual momentum in their story and have rendered them more interesting than for at least the last year. They’ve reintroduced Chloe and with her hints of Shawn having a personality, they’ve SORASd their daughter, and they’ve broken up the couple in a manner that should not result in them sailing off into the sunset together in the near future. Which I guess is what will now happen, even though it makes no sense at this particular time. Plus the two of them should never be let anywhere near a boat, figurative or otherwise.

Then there’s the actors themselves. One’s been doing a pretty decent job, and seems to be relishing the character getting a few extra layers, and the other is a well chiselled block of wood. I’ll let you decide which is which. So I definitely think they’re losing something with sending both off at the same time, when just one would have done.

Finally, there’s the canvas. To describe the Days canvas as being in a state of flux is rather an understatement. Actually, the whole soap casting world is clearly in a state of flux, with Days being the heart of the vortex.

When I have a little more time, I’ll comment further on all the comings and goings – amazing how quickly this post is out of date – but in the meantime I’ll just note that this leaves no one in the real twenty-something age group except for Phillip and Chloe, and lord knows what the plan for them is now. Otherwise we leap straight from the college set with their slightly older boyfriends to the married with kids early thirty-somethings. Odd. Holey.

Turn, turn, turn

Beware, mainstream media Days spoilers and speculation ahead.

The Days casting round-about is interesting. Alternatively exciting, sadly understandable and inexplicable.

John is back, Shirley Jones is in, Crystal has a three year contract, Morgan has a one year contract, Billie is gone, Adrienne is gone. Lexie’s already gone too, I gather.

Starting with John, on the one hand this annoys me no end, on the other hand I’m really quite excited. It annoys me for fairly obvious reasons. John’s death was done so well, and it’s so rare, especially on Days, to have a death that is both well done and means something. We’re so used to people coming back on this show – the most ludicrous example among many, many examples being Jack’s return from the dead after they’d harvested all his organs for transplant – that it has particular meaning when they don’t.

I can certainly understand why the powers that be felt that portraying John’s “death” in any way other than the way they did would have had us all counting the days until he returned, because none of us would have believed he was actually gone. Even though I understand that, I’m still annoyed. I’m probably more annoyed that I would otherwise have been, in fact. Because there's a very thin line between "misdirection" and "ratings stunt".

But I guess we have proof once again that in order to stay dead on this show you need to be either (a) a bit player like Willow or Ford; (b) Izzy B; or (c) Zack. Otherwise we’ll be seeing you again shortly.

Putting that annoyance aside, however, I am kind of excited about where they seem to be going with this. Putting it at the heart of the Bradys and DiMeras could be exciting. But what really makes it exciting is the news that Shirley Jones is joining the cast, because there are only so many people she could be playing. While I’m not actually spoiled in this regard it seems fairly obvious that the options are Colleen Brady (when she went off that cliff did we think she was dead? We did not) and John’s mother, or, most likely, Colleen Brady AND John’s mother. Which could be great on any number of levels.

Also thrown into the mix is the fact that this is a character they didn’t know what to do with for four-fifths of last year, which perhaps doesn’t bode well when combined with the pattern that has emerged recently of characters returning with a flourish and no follow-up (see below: Carver, Alexandra and Kiriakis, Adrienne).

So, annoyed and excited at the same time on that one.

Now, I know that winning So You Wanna Be Soap Star or whatever that show is called gets you a 13 week contract, but they’ve signed the actress playing Chrystal up for 3 years. That’s inexplicable to me on several different levels. I haven’t seen enough of her yet to make any call on her acting ability, and obviously the character is tied up with the DiMera stuff, but it does seem an awful lot like jumping the gun to put an untried someone at the beginning of strike-era story on a 3 year deal. But we shall see.

I am pleased to see that the actress playing Morgan was put on a 1 year deal though. I’m not sure quite what they’re going to do with her, but I think she was a key to making the sorority stuff work to date, so I’m pleased she’ll be around for a while longer.

Now to the sadly understandable portion of the post. I’m really sorry to see Julie Pinson go, but I understand why. I’ve really liked her as Billie but it’s been woefully apparent for a long time that they don’t have anything to do with her. There is literally no one in her age bracket – younger than the Brady siblings, older than their kids – on the show, they’ve struggled and then given up on trying to create a viable love interest for her, and so really all that’s left is running around playing detective, having inappropriate chemistry with at least one of her brothers and shaking her head at the antics of her mother. And we’ve already got plenty of other people also doing both the first and last of those. It’s a waste. So while I’ll miss her and I think she’s been painfully mis- and/or under-used for at least a couple of years, I understand why Billie’s time is up for now.

Also falling into that category are Adrienne and Lexie. When Lexie came back last year it was great fun for a day and a half, then it was odd, and finally it was entirely apparent that they had no plan for her other than “Ninja Lexie Trapped in a Cave!”. And while I will always appreciate Ninja Lexie, if there was no plan beyond that I would have much preferred that they left the character in limbo until they had an actual story for her. Was she dead? Was she alive? Instead we had some nice scenes with her at the bedside of the brother she never even knew and now she’s in Mickeyland. I really hope that “still in town but doesn’t turn up to family events” Mickeyland is at least somewhat like Disneyland, because otherwise I can’t see being there amounting to much fun.

Finally, Adrienne. Again, the idea of “let’s bring Adrienne back to rescue Steve from the loony bin” (despite the fact that Jack is the far more experienced of the Johnson siblings in that regard), clearly had no further plan for the character attached to it. If anything this is a more egregious waste than that of Lexie’s return. They had an easy, easy way of doing what they wanted without then leaving the character out to dry. Adrienne moved to Texas with Justin and the kids years ago. There was no reason at all that Adrienne couldn’t have flown in from Texas to have the family reunion and rescue Steve, and then gone home again. She could then drop in for family events, and you’d have a second ready excuse any time Stephen Nichols or Mary Beth Evans had other commitments; Steve and/or Kayla could be visiting Adrienne and Justin in Texas, or Jack and Jenn in London. Further, there would have been an explanation as to why Justin and the boys were never to be seen. Instead we got this hybrid where it appears they were living in Salem but we never saw them – i.e. they’re in Mickeyland – and Adrienne became no better than a day player in the sorority story line. So, again, while I’m sorry to see Judi Evans go, I understand why.

What I don’t understand is how they didn’t handle it better in the first place.

What do you think?

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