Tabitha Redux

Who does Chuck think he is, James E. Reilly? Opal was always kooky and one could stomach her occasional "visions", but this tea leaves-reading nonsense and impending doom for Greenlee is lame! This is what Tabitha did on Passions. Nobody batted an eyelash because it was Passions. Nothing had to make sense in Harmony.

Speaking of Greenlee, someone please take all dialogue-writing privleges away from Chuck. His dialogue is paint-dry dull! Today, Greenlee told Ryan, "I want our wedding to be perfect." Duh! Greenlee would not say she wanted her wedding to be something as vanilla as "perfect". She would say she wanted her wedding to be "fantabulous", or "the spectacularest wedding in the galaxy", or, simply, "marvy".

And to all a goodnight!!

Who else was ready to jump off a bridge after the "special holiday episode" of AMC, 23 December? It was dreadful! Gone are the days of warm, fuzzy, special scenes like the magic gift box of the early 00s, or Myrtle's tryst with 'Santa Claus'...sort of lame, but better than fires and fights and falling off the wagon! I loved when the show would air its Christmas episodes (and Thanksgiving, and New Year's Eve) on the actual days, instead of the "encores" they show now. This year? On Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, we got the uplifting tornado shows again! I miss the dopey mini-stories (like Santa + Myrtle), dusting off the Martin house set so everyone could gather Joe & Ruth's, the end credits set to a holiday song. Nope - this year, on the Christmas Eve Eve episode: Amanda manipulated JR into taking a drink after around 400 days of sobriety; Greenlee left Ryan, telling him they can't be together; Annie and Aidan are locked up in Oak Havenl; Kendall is in a coma and Rebecca knows this will be her last Christmas; Tad is lost in the Congo; Krystal's grief over Babe's death overcame her and she tore through her living room, destroying decorations and presents and knocking over the tree. She then stumbled off, fell and hit her head, lying unconscious as the tree caught fire on a felled candle. Thanks, Chuck! Merry Christmas!

Bugger off, Charles Pratt Jr!

I really don't like this new head writer, Charles Pratt Jr. He seems so plucky and annoying in interviews in Soap Opera Weekly, and his writing is average at best. I miss the snappy quips of Megan McTavish...she could be outrageous, but she knew the characters and wrote them well. Everyone had his or her own voice. Now, everyone has Charles Pratt Jr's voice.

Soap operas have a reputation for being boring and trite...in the last few years (late 90s to mid 00s), there have been fresh storylines, great dialogue, truly moving monologues...even if the stories were way overdone (baby-switching...), they were written well, so nobody cared. Lately, I've rolled my eyes so many times at the boring crap we're supposed to "identify with". I don't feel anything for Randi, who has the personality of a soggy tampon. Icky analogy, but she's a hooker...she's supposed to be icky, but with all the humanising and personal journeying the writers want, we should be able to see her as a good person. It's not working. There's nothing original, interesting, or inspiring about her.

Brot shared a memory of a traditional Thanksgiving, with turkey and stuffing and cranberries and pumpkin pie! Yawn. Giving such a bad actor such a trite story was horribly painful to watch. Why go with the same old boringass crap that everyone's heard (and experienced) a million times already? They're writers! Make up something interesting, some unusual experience from Brot's past.

Annie falling into the psychosis of believing she's Emma is the biggest eye-roller of every episode. Melissa Claire Egan always gives neat, polished performances and convincingly delivers inane lines, never going to over-the-top, but this whole story is so drippy!!

Today, we met Reese's ex-fiance. He told us all about their meeting at work and falling in love. The monologue was so choppy and the actor playing Simon was so wooden that they might as well have just had the whole boring speech up like a title card in old silent movies. Who else kept yawning? On a show like 24, where the plots are so complicated and convoluted that viewers' heads would explode trying to process even more information, boring, simple character stories are good. But on a SOAP OPERA, a genre that is not truly about plots and stories, but about relationships and characters, we need to see originality, special things about characters' pasts, NEW and novel ideas that people aren't used to. If Chuck can't find his characters' voices, hearts, and true personalities (and give us interesting ones for new characters), then perhaps he should seek a new day job. And not in daytime!!!

Meh

I was underwhelmed by the October 2008 tornado. The 1994 tornado was dramatic, exciting, and novel! Last year's was fancier, with the F/X and things, but I'd prefer a jet engine fan blowing around cardboard walls if the story is good. And the stories of 1994 were infinitely better.

Awhile ago, I found the 1994 tornado scenes dubbed in French on YouTube. For some reason, they dubbed over the screams as well. Make sure to watch around the 1:00 mark, when the door blows in on Tad. In the American version, he didn't make any noise. The French version adds an amusing "OOF!"

Death In The Valley

In July, dumbdumb Annie got the honour of killing Richie. She whacked him with a flat-tyre-fixing-thing and he inexplicably flew over the hood of the car and rolled down to his death in 3 seconds.

AMC used to do dramatic, haunting exits for a leaving actor. Maria going over a cliff in the aeroplane crash, Leo flying over Miller's Falls, Chris Stamp getting shot (which I've put below), Ryan finding Michael Cambias's blue, icy body hanging in chains on a hook in a meat locker.

Recently, they've killed off major characters in majorly insulting ways - Edmund bludgeoned pointlessly with a shovel in his stable, Julia dying of a gunshot wound...remembering Noah, with whom she (and the show) made so much entertainment history with their relationship? No, she was muttering about what Kathy's favourite colour is and that Kathy- whom Julia had adopted for, like, a second and a half- only likes smooth peanut butter. The shows KNOW how invested people get in characters, especially ones who've been playing a role forever, and we don't want to see someone who brought joy to many of our days fall in a heap and flatline after eating poisoned pancakes.

I found Chris's death scene, from early 2003; I don't remember why he was shot or who that is shooting him, but his death was built up for weeks and the scene was executed very well, under the Moby song, crosscut with Edmund & Mia's panic after Maddie disappears.