Sherry's Jubilee!! By Sherry Mercurio

March 3, 2004

Well, I’m way behind on the day-to-day soap stuff, so I decided rather than working to come up with something catchy to talk about I’ll just throw out the random things from my notes. Honestly, for some reason, I’ve been working overtime at doing just about anything but writing about soaps. These shows are neither entertaining me nor irritating me. It’s all just kind of there at the moment. Just like in high school when the worst comment my best friend and I could make about someone’s hairstyle was that it was “just there”, both shows might consider that if you’re gonna have hair, you’ve got to wear it big and proud…er, or something. See? Even talking about them at the moment makes me veer off into parts unknown and untranslatable. (Is that a word? If I had an editor, I’d ask her…wait, is the editor the one that fixes those kinds of errors? I’m thinking it’s a terrible sign that I do not for certain know the answer to that.)

Anyway here they are, my random comments, some of which are from weeks ago so you have my apologies in advance. I’m laying into my knuckles with a ruler as we speak!

David Vickers and Dorian is the absolute best thing EVER! I love them. I loved the Aunt Betsy scenes with David…and well, I just love David period. They give him the best lines, he’s the most fun to watch, and I will seriously be hanging onto the back of his shirt if he ever tries to leave again.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well Marty’s return went. Her interaction with Todd was great, her testimony was riveting, and I fully appreciated the use of history. I was disappointed in her conversation with Blair because I found it hard to believe that someone who works with rape victims would be trying to tell anyone who obviously thinks she’s been raped that maybe she doesn’t remember correctly. We know now that Blair wasn’t remembering correctly, but that entire conversation was rather off-putting and unnecessary.

Apparently, once in awhile Jessica generates enough brain cells to trigger her hand to move her hair out of her face so she won’t run into walls. That about covers her spontaneous thought process, but aren’t we lucky that at least she’s still pretty to look at instead of having a black and blue face? All hail the power of Jessica’s brain. Isn’t it amusing though, that even when her mind is controlled by someone else, it still seems to perform pretty much the same?

I like Riley (okay, I LOVE Riley) and his dad. I’m glad they aren’t spending inordinate amounts of time on them, but I enjoy the interaction and look forward to future story from it. Two generations of “substance abuse now in recovery” has all the makings of the perfect soap family.

RJ and Evangeline have finally gotten some down time! It’s great to see them just hang out and smile on occasion. They are cute with the baby…and how convenient is it that so many people have claim to that child so we can pass her around to whoever needs softening at the moment?

Troy? Trrrrooooooyyyyy…come back! :( And by all means, bring your pecs with you.

NuKelly is growing on me. She’s a good actress; it’s just been an adjustment to see Kelly as the simpering victim all the time. She’s starting to find a niche again though and I look forward to her settling into it. I’m glad Paul is being recast since from what I can tell, the one we have is made out of wood. Don’t know who decided Sage should cross over to OLTL…oh wait; my notes say her name is Shannon. Hmm, interesting.

Hey Antonio, it’s Shirley Temple calling and she wants her hair back.

I’m still unsure about this whole Al and Marcie thing. I didn’t find the “reunion” all that convincing since I’m unclear as to what exactly happened with the whole thing, but I am glad that NM is still around. It’s actually very good that he’s a doctor now (or that he’s Michael who is a doctor now…whatever); it’s nice to have familiar faces dealing with the medical traumas of Llanview once again. I’m also really enjoying Dr. Jordan Kingsley. I hope he sticks around. Kevin Mambo seems very comfortable in the role and the character doesn’t have that stilted or forced that feel newbies often have.

I love the way OLTL ties its story threads together. I know I’ve said that before, but I appreciate it enough to say it again even! Having Vangie and RJ discuss Todd’s case, then moving to a Todd or Blair scene directly afterwards just gives me the feeling that I’m watching a town that is intertwined. In some ways, I guess that could be viewed as contrived, but to me it feels natural and familiar – it feels like a soap should feel.

I guess my jury is still out on exactly how I feel about the whole Todd/Blair thing as well. I’m not surprised that he didn’t do it (no spoiler - I’m just assuming he didn’t, what with that pesky brain tumor pressuring Blair into false accusations…get it? Pressuring? *Sigh* That’s how bored I am with everything lately, lol.), but I’m waiting to see how this plays out before I comment further. I’m really interested in other’s reactions more than Blair’s…like Dorian’s (who I think already had her moment of clarity and pushed it aside) and Nora’s, for example.

Roxy’s eulogy was priceless! In fact, the humor and one-liners on OLTL lately have been downright perfection. I honestly haven’t felt much either way for John McBain, but he’s managed to pique my interest a bit more lately with his comedic sarcasm.

The Music Box Killer story is starting to wear thin. It’s had its good moments, and Matthew Ashford has been fine as Haver, but the whole thing is feeling a bit drawn out at this point. I was completely confused for a few minutes there when Haver caught Rae in his office, and she and we both knew that he was the killer, and then suddenly she was in a little room demanding that the killer show his face and such. Uh…Rae, you’ve already seen his face! All that voice distortion being piped into her little cell seemed rather pointless. Then he enters the room with the lighting all messed up so we can only see his shadow…? Was I supposed to pretend to be surprised again or something? I don’t know what I missed there.

Jen/Rex/Lindsay are somewhat interesting. Jen has (wincing) grown on me a little. She’s much more palatable when she’s not pretending that she’s not pretending to be something she’s not…got that? Whatever it is, she’s improving. Why Rex would want her over Lindsay is beyond me, but to each his own.

All in all, OLTL is still my favorite to watch at the moment, even with the occasional letdowns. It sort of feels like everything’s kind of in a holding pattern at the moment after the “big” sweeps reveals and it also feels a bit like the stories are running the character’s instead of the other way around. Hopefully that will be temporary and even if it’s not, you can bet David and Dorian will be running this wedding because nothing runs either of them, ever!

This has nothing to do with GH, but it is somewhat annoying so I thought it would fit here (heh, heh). Someone hit a poor bunny rabbit on our road during the night last night. It unfortunately met its demise at the end of our driveway and, not to sound snobby or anything, but, well, ew. Since I’m pretty certain that there is someone whose job it is to come around and give just such unfortunate victims a proper burial (or something like that), I got the phone book out and started making calls. Animal Control informed me that they pick up feline and canine victims (that’d be the victims of vehicular petslaughter, apparently). She said that the County Road Commission picks up deer, horses, cows, and anything of the like. “Tiny Road Kill”, she informed me, is my responsibility. Tiny road kill? I swear that’s what she said. I muttered something about the ground being frozen and where would I bury it, and she ever so kindly informed me that a trash bag placed out with my regular trash is what is apparently considered a “proper burial”. I vented to two friends and received two wonderful suggestions. A) Tell them that the rabbit is HUGE and we cannot even get in the driveway so “Tiny Road Kill”, it is not…banking on the fact that once they’re here they’ll scoop him up anyway or B) Tell them it’s a dog. I haven’t formulated which approach to take yet, I’m still busy wondering why my tax money is being used for what was probably the several meetings required to establish exactly *what* constitutes “Tiny Road Kill”. Ugh. And by the way, do you see now just how hard I’m working at not talking about soaps? I don’t know what the deal is; my mind just will not stay on the subject at hand. “Hmmm, what did I think of Courtney this week? Oops, that reminds me, there’s a dead bunny at the end of the driveway so I better make some calls first!” What are ya gonna do?

How can Alexis “run this family” when (at the time) there was just she and Helena left? Honey, there is no family, look around you!

So Nikolas just waltzed back home after spending days in a smoldering building? Give me a break. That was the dumbest thing I’ve seen in awhile, and since he didn’t land in the hospital it’s not like the rescue workers even found him apparently. He just…what? Somehow got the strength to make it out when he couldn’t before? Maybe things just burned down around him enough so that he could finally escape, huh? Good grief, talk about a stretch.

Skye and Luke’s conversation about trust was wonderful. It felt real, and made sense. Her drinking didn’t really make sense, but the feelings did so I’ll let it pass I suppose. She’s now a fair-weather recovering alcoholic I guess. Maybe Mike is her sponsor since he’s a big proponent of picking back up on your addiction when everyone around you seems incapable of writing something that’s about feelings and crap like that. Whatever, I like Luke and Skye and I am even enjoying their silly escapades so far. RC is looking more beautiful than ever and TG is much more toned down in the presence of a story that isn’t about Luke diving into the dark side for the umpteenth time. Good stuff.

“Oh Courtney, you saved me, you saved my dog, you remind me of my daughter”, a dead daughter no less…somebody pass me the oxygen, the air is a little thin up here on this pedestal. The least she could’ve done was apologize for beating up the messenger, she and the old lady both just watched him crawl away! Isn’t it convenient though that the lady had a company to give that just requires one person behind a desk? Convenient for several reasons, not he least of which is that if Courtney had to hire someone, we’d all be looking at yet another newbie since she has no onscreen friends that would work for her. I’d have felt bad for her that all her papers got shredded, but I figure she never had time to look at all of them anyway, what with all the entertaining she’s doing in that office. I doubt she’ll miss what they ruined. Oh well, all’s well that end’s well, and all that. I figure this is the “huge, turned upside down; everything changes” thing…Courtney controls the docks. I understand that she wants to confine the gunfire and crime to the times when she really needs to use them herself, but God help us if she drives Sonny, Jason and Faith into discovering over-the-road Semi-Truck transit. I mean seriously, if they aren’t confined by port locations…well, we could be in serious trouble in this country. You think Sonny and Jason pervade your television a little too much now? Soon you could be honking and waving to them on an expressway near you.

Anybody else cracking up at both Sonny and Carly making statements like “I need to come across as having a safe and stable home”? LOL, it’s not like either one actually wants anything to with such utter nonsense; they just want to show the perception of it. What a joke. I’d comment further on the custody battle, but I just utterly do not care who gets those kids, or why they’re awarded them. Wake me when it’s over.

Why in God’s name would Sam agree to run over to Carly’s to tell her that Sonny was leaving with the kids? Is she stupid? What woman would seriously agree to do that? That was idiotic. Sam is a complete waste of space. I liked Kelly Monaco on PC (Livvie was terrible most of the time, but the acting was okay) so I’m willing to concede that much of the problem is writing (though, I do wonder if they’re writing (*breathy*) before every line or if they’re just suggesting she take sedatives before each shoot, or what) but whatever the root of the problem, it’s really getting out of hand. Sam is just a waste of space, and I cannot stand to watch the character run around town discussing her “no ties” affair with everyone who will listen. She actually just announces it to whomever she happens upon…it’s bizarre.

This whole Georgie and Dillon thing has become tiresome, sad to say. Tracy is perfectly capable of doing something so underhanded as pushing a fake pregnancy on her son, but there’s no logic to it in this case. Why wouldn’t she just want Dillon to run along with Georgie and be happy and out of her hair? Or better yet, what better way to keep Dillon quiet about Edward than to threaten his happiness with Georgie by suggesting she’d probably dump him if she knew that he had kept the truth about Edward’s condition and information about the fire to himself, even for a short time? I really hate it when it feels like every character has to work overtime to provide some other character a reason to still exist. Sage can go now. She’s unnecessary.

I’m thrilled that Felicia is back. It brings to light further the utter ridiculousness of her being gone all this time (great that Maxie made the comment about not bothering unless she’s gonna stay, though), but it’s mostly just good to see her back. I’d be thrilled to see her spend some time with Bobbie or Alexis – how about another of those “sit around and eat pie while dishing men” sessions? I could go for that.

I love Carly’s hair, and this way she won’t stick out like the lone sore thumb in the row of long-lost love pictures on Sonny’s mantle. I’ll bet he already photo-shopped her new hair onto all their wedding pictures as well.

Lucky is hot. Just thought I should share that.

Much to my surprise, I’m enjoying Jed Allen as Edward so far. I love John Ingle, and he’ll probably always be my favorite Edward, but I’m thrilled for him that he’s hopefully found a place that will appreciate his abilities. Edward is integral to the Q family and we need him on canvas. Jed Allen’s age is obviously wrong and I’m cracking up at all the “father, daughter, son, grandfather” stuff going on during the transitional “you’re looking at Edward, just in case you missed a few days” time, but other than that I’ve got nothing negative to say. I’m a tough sell with recasts (not that I don’t think they’re necessary, just that I have a hard time dealing with them), and I’m pleasantly surprised at how well this one is going so far. JA obviously has the chops to pull off the comedic timing of Edward, and I’ve spent very little time thus far speculating on how the previous actor would’ve done or said something (something I still find myself doing with Carly). I very much appreciate that he’s basically playing Edward straight for the time being, and once I’ve adapted to him completely I’ll not mind him making the character his own. I give credit to GH for finding an actor capable of playing it straight (you can read that as copying the previous actor…I don’t think that’s a bad thing for awhile provided you’re a good enough actor to do it). With the recent misses in casting (Sage #2, for example), I’m grateful for what we ended up with on this one.

Well, on that positive note, I think I’ll call it a day. I’ll be back soon!

Photo Credit: Cataz's Daily Picks! (Visit for lots of great OLTL snappies…they’re hard to come by!)