What is in a name? In this case, quite a bit. Mercury is not only a fast moving planet whose zodiacal influence is that of communication and lightening quick changes, but also a chemical element that is reflective, consolidated, reactive to external stimulus and absolutely poison if you mess with it. Our newest PC columnist, Sherry Mercurio, embodies all of those wonderful attributes and more. If you haven't been following her columns in our GH Muse Writer section over the past year, then you have definitely been missing out on a good read. Sherry now will have her own column On the Soap Box and I very much look forward to her submissions. I know you will as well. Welcome, Sherry!!
Katrina Rasbold
Eye on Soaps Web Woman
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Let me start with a small disclaimer: I enjoy PC a lot and watch as often as I can, but there have been times when that has been less than I’d like. Obviously this means that there is the potential for me to have missed things here and there, so I ask that you be gentle with me and know that I am fully aware that I’m not an absolute expert on Port Charles. I welcome your comments and hope to learn about anything I’ve missed that could be clouding my opinions J! Lets dive right in…
Rafe: “You were sleeping and I thought I could run out for a few
hours…”
Alison: “…People run out to get
milk or to gas up the car, not running up to Heaven to hunt around looking for
hints on perspective dead people…
Stop getting so crazy about this killer chair…”
Seriously, does
dialogue get any more interesting than that?
It’s really fun to just suspend belief with this show and ride with the
flow. Not to mention how downright
hysterically funny the dialogue itself is sometimes. Soaps have a way of making us talk about things that would
make us sound crazy to someone who isn’t a viewer, and that’s half the fun
for me. And on that note, lets just
get right into …
Who will fill “The
Fifth Chair”? I have to say that
this arc has kept me fairly in the dark for most of the time.
I find I’m figuring out the next secret not long before it’s spoken
by the character, and sometimes not until it’s uttered.
That’s what makes this soap work right now (or maybe I’m particularly
dense these days!); we are constantly trying to figure something out which
translates to continued interest for most people.
The logical assumption to make is that it will be someone linked to the
dark angel whom we now know is Amy. So
that makes Eve, Ian or their baby the most likely targets.
Since she’s in love with Ian, and they better not kill the baby, that
leaves Eve. Because she suddenly
became happier than she’s ever been…well, I don’t see that as a good sign.
Inevitably, when a soap character is walking on air something bad is
gonna happen! The bride/groom runs
off, someone’s sleeping around on them, vampires or something equally
threatening is coming…whatever it may be, it won’t be good.
So due to the foot of air under Eve’s shoes, I’m going with her.
Ian is a close second though, and even if either one is the “seat
filler” that doesn’t mean that they won’t be around after this arc, after
all half the characters are already dead right now.
How cute are Rafe and
Alison? I liked Jamal and Alison
together quite well and I feel terrible for Jamal right now.
And since Rafe and Alison got together very quickly and under not so
great circumstances, you just know a great triangle is going to develop.
There’s no way Alison is really over him already, though she’s doing
a good job of hiding that these days!
Personally I don’t
really miss seeing Lizzie and Jack, I’m not a really big fan of theirs.
And they were so much the focus of the vampire stuff that I was really
ready for a break. I don’t really have a problem with their acting; it’s
more just a preference for other characters I guess.
Like Chris, I do miss seeing more of him – I’m hoping to see an arc
entitled “All about Chris – with a few others thrown in sometimes!” soon!
But that’s obviously a personal preference.
I am impressed with the actors they picked for the angels, while not one
of the characters is all that likeable being that they are messing with our
lovely PC residents, you still don’t hear that many complaints about all the
newbies. I miss the regulars
I’m not seeing but at least I know I have a shot at seeing more of them at the
end of this arc, which is a positive compared to other soaps where you have no
idea how long you might have to wait to see someone who’s been back-burnered. It’s early yet in the “arc” experiment, but they seem
to be trying to rotate who is the main focus.
With a half hour show, it’s hard to get enough of anyone to begin with
so… we’ll see how it goes with the next arc!
Okay, that scene
where Lucy was watching Kevin stroke Paige’s cheek and listening to him say
“So beautiful, amazing”, etc? Obviously
we knew what was going on but if I were Lucy I would have been doing a lot more
than pointing to my ring and talking about being the “wife here, married and
ring and stuff”! I’d have been
slapping him out of that mesmerized state he was in.
On the other hand, she handled the next issue quite well – telling him
to get painting so they could get rid of her.
Casey and Ricky
don’t really interest me much either. With
Gabby gone Ricky is probably another good candidate for the chair.
He’s not really very integral in anything else except I guess as story
for Jamal while he and Alison are apart. I’m
sure there is some secret there that I either missed or don’t see coming!
By the way, hasn’t Ricky ever heard of lying?
I mean if he was that worried about getting medical treatment that he
obviously really needed, he could have just made something up about getting
mugged or something so he didn’t get into trouble with his parole.
Not that I’m trying to negatively influence a youngster, but c’mon
– he should run over to GH’s Sonny’s house and get a quick lesson on how
to receive medical treatment without incriminating yourself.
It’s got to be better than bleeding to death!
I’ve heard some
people commenting on the angels and how they aren’t really very angel-like.
And I’d have to agree with that, who knew angels were running around
causing as much trouble as these are. So
if Paige tempted Kevin, and he wanted to have one of those chats with his little
shoulder devil and little shoulder angel, how exactly would that go?
The devil saying, “do it” and the angel saying “yeah, do it right
now”?? Hopefully we are supposed
to assume that our own personal guardian angels are a bit more on our side than
this group is!
Let me close with my
praise of Ed. I’ve been waiting
awhile to get to say this! I love
Ed. Just love him, and I wish they
could find a way to keep him around longer too.
If Rafe gets to stay on earth then I think he needs a full time
supervisor available at all times – Ed, of course!
I love the command both actor and character have over every scene he’s
in. His scenes with Rafe
especially, are lots of fun. If
he’s leaving at the end of this arc, I’ll be sad to see him go.
But the positive side of that is there’s always the next great
temporary addition to look forward to, Charles Keating and Michael Easton were
fun to watch too and I’m sure that PC will keep giving us a chance to see some
great actors in some really fun roles. Roles
they may not have taken if they were longer term, so I’ll be happy with what I
get to see of them!
Well, that wraps up
my first try with this J
Please feel free to let me know how I’m doing; I’d love to hear your input!
Take care,
