Likes and Yikes - 2009

This is my version of a best and worst list for the year, as some things I’ve enjoyed and others make me shake my head in disgust and/or confusion. Just like TV Guide’s Cheers and Jeers, which at times had cheers within jeers and jeers within cheers. It is not comprehensive, but just my general feelings on random topics that I can’t elucidate into a 500 or more word essay at this point. As with soaps some stories are still underway, I am planning on writing a "year in review" post later this week about the general trends of 2009.

GH: Lulu Dante La Bohème

General Hospital’s Lulu and Dante (otherwise known as Dominic) went on their first date this week. Dante lived up to his promise of taking her to the opera, even if Lulu hadn’t remembered his vow.

The Serials - Part 1

One of my big projects for 2010 is a summary of a book called The Serials -- Suspense and Drama by Installment, which was written by Raymond William Stedman. This non-fiction book was published in 1971, and focuses on the history of serials (movies, radio and television.) Since the book was written so many years ago, later soaps won't be mentioned in it, but I think it will be fascinating to read about the evolution of soaps from radio to television.

Christmas in Soapland 2009

This is a write up about the holiday episodes that aired the week of December 21 for All My Children, As the World Turns (December 24 & 25 only), Days of Our Lives, General Hospital and One Life to Live. For many of the characters, Christmas wasn't merry or bright and nary a mention was made of other winter holidays like Hanukah and Kwanza. If more holiday celebrations took place the following week it is not included in this blog entry and if any character is not included or there are any typos the blame should be placed upon spell check or me. I have listed my comments on each of the shows in alphabetical order.

ATWT: Canceled

Earlier this week, it was announced that “As the World Turns” was canceled. The show, which was created by Irna Phillips, premiered in 1956 on CBS, and was produced by Procter & Gamble (now TeleNext). It will end its run in September, with taping to end before summer.

OLTL: Natalie's Loss & Jared's Death

Natalie has lousy luck with men. This is the second time in her young life that her husband has died. Faced with this loss, she has to find the strength to move on, while saying goodbye to Jared and the dreams that they shared, which would never come to pass like having a family.

GH: World AIDS Day

December 1st is World AIDS Day. It is a day to recall those who've been lost to this disease, those who are living with it and preventing its spread. General Hospital was the first to have a long-term core character become HIV positive, Robin Scorpio, over a decade ago.

Mad Men: Season Three

Mad Men is one of the shows most recognized for its quality on television today. The period drama set in the 1960s has a large cast and continuing stories, but somehow escapes the "soap opera" stigma. Each year, the program, which airs on AMC in the US, gives us 13 new episodes to ponder. This entry was begun in November, but made available in December.

GL: Looks and Reactions

This entry was started back in September, a few days after the last episode of Guiding Light aired, but completed in November, as real life sometimes gets in the way. The old saying a picture tells a thousand words is one that I'm reminded of when watching soaps. A simple facial expression can illuminate the motives of a character.

Happy Birthday, Sesame Street

Apologizes for the major digression, but like many, I grew up watching Sesame Street, and its stars Big Bird, Grover and Oscar the Grouch. Elmo was after my time as a viewer, but who can forget the Tickle Me Elmo craze of the 90s, which rivaled the Cabbage Patch Kids one of my childhood. Forty years is a long time to entertain youngsters, and some of the people involved in the show like Bob have been on since the beginning.

Web Soaps: Fad or the Future

With so many web soaps in production, I wonder are they a harbinger of the future, a natural progression or just a fad, and a fun way for actors to show their creativity? I doubt this blog will help me decide where my feelings lay on this topic, but I wanted to get them out into the universe.

OLTL: The Cancellation Rumors

With the news earlier this fall, that One Life to Live won't be going HD filming, the sounds get louder towards a cancellation. Is there anything that realistically can be done to keep the show on the air? Is the lack of talk about this situation an indication that people don't care?

AMC: The Dance Marathon

Last week, the dance marathon for charity, which lasted over two weeks, finally concluded. This All My Children stunt unlike others was to save money instead of spend it as everyone wore the same outfits and limited sets were used. It also capitalized on the fact that Cameron Mathison and Susan Lucci were both contestants on Dancing With the Stars in prior seasons. So did anything happen of interest, well it depends on ones perspective.

GH: It May Not Be the Nurses Ball

Twice in recent months the denizens of Port Charles have partook in Karaoke at Jake's, the dive bar in town. While I miss the Nurses Ball for its humor, good times and music, these sing-alongs have in some ways replaced it especially they continue to occur on a semi-regular basis.

OLTL: Fish, Kyle and Nick

Oliver Fish, Kyle Lewis and Nick Chavez are one of the newest triangles in Llanview, Pennsylvania. The most unique thing about this story is that it is involving three men. As a viewer, I appreciate that so far, these guys are being treated just like any other triangle. We're getting to know why Kyle is torn between Fish and Nick. The biggest difference is we are seeing how Fish deals with accepting himself.

GL: Echoes and Ripples

How do you say goodbye to something that's a part of you? Well I'm really not sure how, as if something lives inside you even if you can never see them again, they still persist. With Guiding Light over, I'm not going to stop talking or thinking about it. While it may happen less regularly, after being on-line since the mid-90s discussing the show, it isn't going to flutter away as easily as a bramble on a windy day. I'll continue to write about it when the feeling hits, as there are a lot of things that can be discussed even if they can never be changed.

Thoughts on the 2009 Emmy Awards

This entry was started on August 31, 2009, but only completed on September 4. Another year, another Daytime Emmy broadcast. With the show airing on The CW, ratings expectations were low, and sadly there is a decent chance we won't get them aired in 2010. The Daytime Emmys for me are a celebration of the television shows I've watched for more hours that one should admit, but I have feel no shame.

OLTL: The Double Wedding

Asa's plans were thwarted and the double weddings of Viki and Charlie and Nora and Clint were held. The banner he had sent from the great beyond with Viki paired with Clint and Nora with Bo did not change anyone's minds. Surprisingly a drunken Dorian agreed with Asa as she told the couples that they were making a huge mistake. While I can see Charlie and Viki being happy together for a long time, Nora and Clint may not make their first anniversary. So how are the couples different and why should Clint and Nora ultimately fail?

GL: Thoughts on the Cancellation

A lot has been and will be said about the last few months of Guiding Light and its cancellation. Regardless of what the ending is, it will be bittersweet to me as there are very few things in media that have spanned generations. This entry is not about what could have been versus what actually was, where and why it went wrong, and ultimately who is to blame. That said this is not going to be a sonnet of praise to the powers that be, a treatise on the "death of the daytime serial"or how the serialized format is used in other genres. Any of these topics would be fine for discussion, but I do not feel the need today, not with the last of taping being this week. This is more about coping with the end.

GL & Boycotting

With Guiding Light's cancellation, I've seen numerous people state they will either give up CBS and/or P&G products. From the outside perspective this may look somewhat daft, but as someone who has done this it really may not be. When it comes to P&G products, I started boycotting them in the mid-90s.

Gilmore Girls reruns on SoapNet

As someone who recently completed the seventh and last season of Gilmore Girls on DVD, I was thinking about its inclusion on Soapnet and the show in general. While I find it to be serialized in nature with continuing stories and cliffhangers, I'm not 100% against its inclusion as part of the network's programming schedule. That said, if it was my channel it would be a very different kind of station. While I'd try to make revenue, I'd at least spend a few hours a month on classic soap programming that doesn't fall into the category of Ryan's Hope reruns, not that they aren't enjoyable, but to provide variety to the audience.

Gilmore Girls is a good show to have on your schedule if someone is in flip around mode, as they may stop changing channels when they recognize the program. I preferred watching it without advertisements on DVD as in syndication or runs on cable episodes may be ran out of order. So how does it fall into the soap realm and why would someone like it?

SoapNet: Love it and Loathe it

I must admit SoapNet is one of the stations I TiVo the most, but it doesn't mean that I think it serves the soap viewing audience. I've had the channel over eight years, so I've seen it evolve from a station many replays of current episodes and a huge amount of 80s and early 90s dramas to one with less replays, reality shows and some prime time series from the last ten years.

SOW 20th Anniversary GL Cover Voting

As a procrastinator, I never got around to voting for my favorite Guiding Light cover. Soap Opera Weekly posted twenty different covers and asked us to choose our favorite. According to their website there would be an additional round of voting, which is why I visited the site to see if I could do that, but no such luck. Looking at the covers, caused a mental stroll down memory lane, which I decided to post for the June 30th anniversary. I'm mainly going to discuss the issues that came out prior to 2000.

OLTL: Langston and Markko Make Love

On prom night, Langston Wilde and Markko Rivera spent the night together and made love. This was the first time for both, and unlike many couples they didn't just jump into it. They weighed their options and dated two years before moving their relationship to the next level. This was surprising considering how teen couples tend to be written for in daytime.

AMC: Stuart Chandler's Murder

Woah...Woah... What was All My Children thinking? As someone who was not exactly overjoyed with the decision to kill off Stuart the funeral touched my heart.

Thoughts on the 2009 Emmy Nominations

This isn't going to be about who should have been nominated, but my thoughts on those who were chosen. Granted some performers I know little or nothing about, and I'll cop to that when I get to them as I don't watch anything on CBS daytime regularly except for GL. What is kind of sad is that only one episode (two if it is B&B as it is a 30 minute show) is all that was used to judge any performance. Just about any actor on any show with a dash of talent can eke out at least one good episode a year. And like last year there was only one round of voting, which stinks as people who didn't choose one of the five people nominated in a particular category really had no vote.

OLTL: That was a wedding?!

While soaps don't have the budget they once did, Natalie and Jared's wedding was unbelievable -- two seconds with barely a vow. When the best part of it was the priest being Another World's John Hudson (David Forsyth), there is a serious problem.

Product Placement -- Ads within a Show

For those of us who record programs or flip around the stations while watching live, viewing numerous shows at a time, product placement is a way to advertise without commercials. This has been going on since the early days of television and even earlier on the radio. Sometimes it is subtle and sometimes its not. Increasing revenue and subverting the time shifters seems to be the main reason for these ads.

Days: Story Arcs and Minor Climaxes

One of the things I've been noticing on Days recently is the addition of minor climaxes within story arcs. With all the cast changes, some due to purging of older players along with the departures of some younger ones, the show is undergoing a major change. Instead of trying to fix things with stunts, they are doing it with the "tune in tomorrow" aspect that is so lacking in daytime. Having minor climaxes and cliffhangers on nearly a daily basis is a great improvement.

Chuck Season or Series Finale?

Being stuck in a job that is beneath you, not living up to your intelligence, lacking self-esteem or wishing for something different? All of those things could be said about Chuck Bartowski (my parents may say the same things about me, but I digress) until the day a super computer called the intersect was placed in his head by his former best friend Bryce, played by soap alum Matt Bomer (who played Ben Reade on GL aka why I checked out the show, that and Adam Baldwin who plays Casey one of his handlers as I was a fan of Firefly).

Signing Out: ER's Finale Episodes

ER used to be appointment television for myself and others in the 90's. Watching parties or going to hang out to see the show was the norm. Fifteen years later, ER ended its run on NBC.

AMC: Frankie & Randi Get Married

Last year, AMC introduced the character of Randi Morgan, as Frankie's new love interest. I admit I was skeptical and wondered if they would be this generation's Chuck and Donna (a well-known couple from AMC's past, he was a doctor and she was a whore). I didn't understand why I should care about this woman or her problems. Why should Frankie either, as she didn't want his help to escape her abusive situation? Slowly my opinion changed, and I started to feel sympathy towards Randi, which morphed into liking her with Frankie.

Veterinarian's Hospital: My First Soap?

One of my hobbies is watching older television shows on DVD. One of the programs I have in my collection is "The Muppet Show". What does this have to do with soaps? The answer in two words: Veterinarian's Hospital.

Goodbye Kyle XY

Kyle XY was a hit for ABCFamily until it was benched. Now all those of us who watched it are just left without answers, even if a producer filled in what may have been. The program while not a traditional soap had many elements that one has like continuing stories about relationships between family, friends and love interests.

Days: Steve and Kayla's Uneventful Goodbye

February 17, 2009 was the last day of Steven Earl "Patch" Johnson and Kayla Caroline Brady Deveraux Johnson. Instead of leaving town or dying, they just will no longer be seen. Even nearly two weeks later, my feelings are muddled on this one. Steve and Kayla were the first couple I ever cared about in daytime, so my heart is kind of heavy and unlike many I never became actively involved in a community to discuss them.

AMC: Annie and Aidan--Pine Valley's Newest Couple?

A wonderful surprise has been the burgeoning relationship between Annie and Aidan. Who would think trust would grow within the walls of Oak Haven? I was skeptical with how Aidan checked himself into the institution to look after Annie. What was his agenda, was it to cover himself for helping Annie when Di had Emma or something pure?

Soaps and the Icebox Test

The famous film director/producer Alfred Hitchcock had the belief that if one watches a movie and buys into the story while watching it and only hours later realizes the plot holes then he was successful in the storytelling. In soaps, the viewers have to put up with a lot of plot holes and sadly many aren't just noticeable hours later when we go to the refrigerator (icebox) to get a snack.

Why is it that soap watchers (myself included) put up with ludicrous and/or outrageous things that defy logic? I can't answer that, but I can write about some of the standard soap conventions that fail this test like coming back from the dead, missing twins, and Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.

Days: Ciao to John and Marlena

On Friday, January 23 John and Marlena waved goodbye to Salem. Was it for good? We shall see.

GL: Beth and Coop's Surprising Affair

Note: This entry is about Beth and Coop through the January 9th, 2009 episode.

New Year's Resolutions: 2009

(At least when it comes to soaps)