Monday, March 23, 2009

Getting Better (Weekly Commentary)

I admit it, OLTL is slowly getting back to being very good. To think, just two weeks ago I was fast forwarding through almost entire episodes because the show was that bad. There was plenty of GOOD to talk about this week so lets get the complaining out of the way first.

Most Evil Character Ever?????????

So this week Farah Fath and John Paul Lavoisier have been extremely vocal about their current storyline. They have gone on record commenting about the character of Stacy Morasco, in fact Farah has been quoted several times saying "Stacy is the most evil character in the history of soaps, ever" and "I predict she will be the most hated character ever." REALLY???? Is this for real????

I hate the character of Stacy, I have said from my very first blog that this is a totally useless and unnecessary character and she is flat out boring, but seriously that judgment by Farah and John Paul is slightly misguided, a LOT misguided. Stacy is what you call a TYPICAL soap vixen. Is she evil? Is she hated? Is she useless? Yes, yes and yes, but I will tell you what she is not, she is NOT the most hated and the most evil character to ever hit daytime. The fact that JP and Farah seem to think that Rex and Gigi are the be all and end all of the soap universe to the point that anyone that causes them any trouble is the worst thing to hit the soap world is not only naive but also a bit ridiculous. Stacy is on the show, THAT my friends is how Rex and Gigi got another storyline, because lets be honest here, before Stacy came knocking, Rex and Gigi were back burned.

Calling Stacy the most hated character in daytime is absolutely ridiculous. No offense intended, I may not like Rex and Gigi but I have met both actors and am very fond of them. Stacy is not even CLOSE to being the most evil character on daytime, I have a boatload of characters that are a thousand times worse than Stacy. Todd Manning anyone? How about Viki's alters like Tori, Jean and Nikki, those three inflicted a whole lot more pain than Stacy will ever come close to. How about Tess and Bess? They are attempted murderers, have drugged people, are kidnappers and baby thieves, surely that is much worse than anything Stacy has done. Then there is Asa Buchanan. What about the biggest villains to hit OLTL like Spencer Truman, Victor Lord, Carlo Hesser and oh yeah Mitch Lawrence, who is possibly the biggest of them all. How about other daytime bad boys like Sonny Corinthos and Jason Morgan? Lorenzo and Luis Alcazar? How about Adam Chandler or any number of the other bad guys on other daytime shows. Seriously Stacy cant even begin to compete with any one of these people so to Farah and JP I would say, I realize you love your characters but really folks, tone it down a little, people invariably root for the person everyone tries to force them to think is the worst thing ever.

Who Is The Serial Killer?

So John is investigating the killer. Did I somehow miss the episode in which he rejoined the force? I should expect this though, John has a habit of sticking his nose where it does not belong. The sad thing is, John is a horrendous cop when he ACTUALLY IS A COP. I wont even start on Michael giving confidential reports to this jerk who had no business having them. So now I assume McBoring will fall back in love with Marty just in time for Blair to wake back up and want her man back. Really I could care less about John McBain and his complete uselessness. This is one character that really needs to go because he literally brings the show down. I will just continue to hit that FF button when I see him.


Starr and Schuyler!
YUCK! YUCK! YUCK! Seriously how is this a good idea on ANY LEVEL? Starr has made such great judgements so far in her life so lets give her yet another one, was that the idea behind making this girl even more irresponsible than she already was? She has made one bad decision after another, one bad judgment after another and now she want "more" with her teacher? This has to be a sick joke.

On with the good!


Good and Bad!

Every story has the good and the bad right? I like when different stories intersect because I think Ron Carlivati does a good job with it. Like Matthew's paralysis and Shane's cancer. I wont even pretend that I care even a little about Rex and Gigi's new drama but I have to admit that the Rex and Bo scenes this week were made of all kinds of awesome.

Bob Woods and John Paul were brilliant, I have always like Rex and Bo together, it's just went you inject Gigi with Rex is when I hit that FF button. Bo and Rex's pain over their children was incredibly evident and the scenes were heartbreaking good. Kudos to the actors and writers for this.

On the other side of this coin was Gigi. I love Farah Fath, and I think she is fantastic with light hearted and comedic stuff but drama is not her strong point at all and it pains me to watch her version of a "grieving/heartbroken" mother/woman. It is just NOT good and unfortunately TPTB insist on sticking this woman with the kind of material that she cannot handle. It's not fair to her and honestly it is not good to watch. I wish they would just let Farah do what she is best at, and that is comedy, romance and overall light hearted material.

Chloe/Hope!

So now Jared and Natalie pretty much know that Chloe is really Hope and that Jessica's baby is really dead. I have to say as much as I was not on board with this storyline, so far I am liking it. I like when SL's connect several characters and this one connects a whole lot of them. Starr, Michael, Marcie, Cole, Marty, Jessica, Natalie and Jared are all involved and affected by this. I am surprised though that this storyline seems to be as heavily revolved around Jared and Natalie as it does Starr and Marcie, while Jessica just seems to be a bit on the outside right now. I am not complaining though because I think Jared and Natalie are fantastic and I want them on screen.

I liked the scenes of Jared and Natalie coming to this terrible realization that baby Chloe is really Starr's baby Hope. John Brotherton and Melissa Archer were great with their reactions, Natalie had a down right disgusted look on her face when she realized Bess had switched Jessica's dead baby for Starr's healthy one. It is also clear that Natalie is very much affected by this as well, Natalie and Jared have really bonded to baby Chloe and now they are afraid they are going to lose her. Starr and Marcie's pain is just as obvious and all 4 of these characters are going to suffer from this secret but it makes for great drama.

I realize that this is a soap and there is no way that this secret is going to come out to the rest of the town now, no way. This secret is going to be dragged out and milked for all it's worth, in typical soap fashion. I am ok with that though, because I feel Jared and Natalie are likely keeping this secret to protect Jessica who is just about the weakest, most pathetic character in daytime. Seriously the TPTB do a fabulous job of making this nut job incredibly weak and pathetic, the girl cant handle anything life throws at her and she belongs in St. Ann's.


Standout Performance!
Once again the performer of the week was Hillary B. Smith. She has been absolutely mind blowing with all this stuff with Matthew's paralysis. I LOVED her lashing out at Marty for a second time, telling her what a terrible mother she has been and that she practically drove her son to take drugs. It is true, Cole was already dealing with Marty's amnesia and having lost his daughter and girlfriend and in a time where he needed his mom more than ever, she was too busy shacking up with strangers and feeling sorry for herself to be bothered with being a good mother. Then when Nora broke down and started weeping, that was just an incredibly powerful scene and I have to say Hillary B. Smith has turned Nora into must watch once again for me.

She has knocked every scenes straight out of the ballpark. I loved when she walked into Cole's room to arrest him and found out that he had went to visit Matthew. I thought Nora was going to slap Marty when she was screaming at her telling her she did not care about what Cole "needed" since he put Matthew in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Cole needs Matthew's forgiveness???? Uh yeah, Matthew needs his legs but he wont have any use for them for a LONG time now will he?

On a final note, Good for Tea, she dumped Todd like a bad habit. She should have. I am really enjoying Todd so much more these days then I did just a few months ago, but lets face it, he is a lunatic and Tea SO does not need that.

3 comments:

  1. Another great column. Could not agree more about Starr and Schuyler, that is so wrong on so many levels.

    I had no Idea that is what Farah Fath is saying, wow I cannot say anything except D-E-L-L-U-S-I-O-N-A-L.

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  2. OMG, JP and Farah are just way over the top with all this, it is like they are getting desperate. When I read Farah's interview in SOW with her saying some of these things, all I could think was WOW they must really be bombing in this dumb storyline.

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  3. Hillary B Smith has been so amazing, I can't stop watching her scenes. She better get an emmy nomination for this stuff it is just amazing.

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