June 17, 2004

Life has been cah-razy around here, and my brain cells seem to have scattered in as many directions as the kids did once school was out.  I’ve finally caught up to date on soaps, and I’ve spent considerable time trying to come up with an angle from which to write the column but to no avail.  So the theme this week will once again be:  “An Exercise in Randomness”.  That theme has major support from funerals, VCR “issues”, children that don’t seem to understand the words “Don’t turn the channel, I’m taping!” and weather related interruptions.   

Speaking of those, I want to encourage all of you (particularly if you are in Michigan, because I’ve decided they are the worst offenders I’ve ever seen) to speak up and let your local affiliates know when you don’t feel the constant interruptions are warranted.  Hey, we’ve had some scary weather lately and I know we’re not nearly the only ones, and I’m all for early warnings and all.  Problem is, it seems they’ve forgotten how to use the button that starts the little scroll thing at the bottom of the screen.  So now, instead of getting our warnings and seeing our shows too, we’re getting full out interruptions while we stare for five minutes at a radar screen.  Hello?  If I want to read the radar screens I’ll go to meteorology school, just put the little icon up in the corner, run your ticker along the bottom and we’re covered!  I swear the other day, One Life to Live was interrupted no less than six times, sometimes just minutes from the last interruption.  Good grief, when a new county is added to the severe thunderstorm warning just turn it yellow like the rest of ones on the map!  I can completely understand the interruption for tornadoes or other imminent threat, but if we’ve got to have play by plays of T-storms, there’s a problem.  Anyway, since they already quite know me and my email address, lol, I want to encourage everyone to take the three minutes required to look up the affiliate’s site, email their comment line or whatever, and tell them that you expect them to treat daytime viewers as they would nighttime viewers.  I’ve compared it, and lemme tell ya, if it’s storming at 8pm, you’ve little to no chance of missing the basketball playoffs to watch it progress slooowly across the state on radar.  I think I must be the only one complaining since they’ve gone from politely taking my thoughts under consideration to flat out ignoring me.  *Sigh* 

GH has serious timeline issues, there’s no doubt.  Granted, with the frequency that characters fly off to another country in order to have the same argument they could’ve had at home, only to fly back (separately, of course) five minutes later, real-time storytelling isn’t gonna cut it either.  Unless airplanes can get OnStar so that conversations between characters can go on uninterrupted that is.  There must be some sort of happy medium though, and lately way too many people can make it across oceans and into different time zones faster than Sonny’s speeding bullet (yeah, the one that has a picture of his wife’s head on it).   

So now that we know that Ned hardly ever visited Brook since he apparently didn’t even know she could sing, what do we suppose he was doing every time he was off “visiting” his daughter?  Hmmm.  Maybe Ned has a secret life we know nothing about!  He’s usually good about keeping us in the loop when he runs off to start secret careers and sleep with family members and all, but you just never know.  It’s great to see Ned involved in anything frankly, so I’m not complaining.  NuLois is still on trial with me so I won’t comment (much), except to say that it is great to have a story happening in the Q house that is based in history.  Much better than watching the mansion be used for dead cop traffic, that’s for sure.   

Brook Lynn is working out quite well so far!  Adrianne Leon can act, her singing doesn’t annoy me like the singing of some others I won’t mention (*cough*Sage*cough), and I happen to just like her whole look and attitude.  I can completely buy her as the product of Ned and Lois!  I enjoy the interaction with Dillon, and it’s refreshing that (I mean sheesh, I hope anyway!) there won’t be a romance cooking there.  GH needs more friendships, and this could be a good one.  It definitely harkens back to a time when GH worked on keeping those threads going for later use (Emily/Lucky, for example), and I’m all for it.  

How convenient that Nikolas’ first memories are of GH’s most recent self-proclaimed “Cataclysmic Event”!  They should really watch out, Nikolas has most definitely strayed toward the commercial, by being the first to bring OnStar to GH when he whacked his head on the OnStar button in his OnStar equipped GM vehicle during that horrible auto accident a few weeks ago and now by reminding us all of the grandeur of the CE… “and don’t forget there was a real helicopter”!!  Probably if Sonny lives through this latest attack on his blessed life he’ll have to suffer through a fever or two while recovering and we can relive that awesome moment when Sonny and Carly fell through the burning floor as well.  Why can’t more people flashback to a Nik or Lucky shirtless scene anyway?  Conspiracy maybe? 

Did Emily mess up for a second there and forget which love of her life lost his memory?  Why would Pixy Stix (and I found that spelled in every variation…but I’m going with that one) trigger something in Nikolas?  I thought Zander was Emily’s King of Pixy Stix?  Poor girl.  It gets confusing, cheating on husbands, having husbands cheat on you, etc.  I guess it all sort of runs together.  Unlike Emily’s makeup, which never runs, because she’s never actually crying when she sniffles.  Don’t let her fool ya. 

Courtney and Jax are working for me.  I’m not sure I want romance, but for a nice diversion from the gunfire and angst, it’s working.  Jax is a conceited ass most of the time, but he has a certain charm and I must admit it does seem to work best when he’s working at slight odds with the girl he’s after.  I’ve no idea why the ended up in Italy (blame the Detroit weather men maybe – must’ve been important that I instead see their prowess with that pointer thing that can draw big white circles all over the map!) but I do like a little international flavor in my soaps, so I was happy with it.  If Nikolas has OnStar in his truck, I’ll bet Jax has it PLUS a personal relationship with each and every female operator.    

Carly was actually funny while being a complete pain in the butt in Italy.  I’ve accepted that Carly (as I see her) is gone, now all I ask is that the writers, producers and whoever else has a say in it, open their collective eyes and see that the only way Carly works nowadays is when they let her out of Sonny’s shadow and allow Tamara Braun to play it comically.  Carly will never have the depth she once had, nor will she be the threat she once was.  But there can be a place for Carly (something I’ve doubted more often than not over the last few years) if they head straight for the quirky, spoiled little child aspect that Tamara’s Carly purveys.  The catch is, it cannot be played daily and she cannot be the “heroine” of the show, it doesn’t work that way.  Watching Carly stomp around because Jason and Courtney aren’t doing her bidding actually works when it’s used at a minimum and the rest of the characters involved are allowed to call it like it is rather than calling her “brave” when she’s being an idiot.  Kudos to all involved in the Italian jail stuff because it was all very silly, but it brought a smile to my face when I least expected it.   

Poor Carly!  It seems that only the people she really doesn’t like show up at her club.  Her friends and family seem to have too much to do elsewhere I guess.  When she walks in the door and has to look around with disgust at all her customers before deciding which one to toss out first, there’s a problem.  That was one heck of a fall Faith took though!  Carly’s been stalking around looking for a fight for days now (which is actually quite true to character given her personal situations of the moment) and I was glad to see they played it like that.  It would be a bit more believable if she spent a little more time at the club, it seems those that don’t much like her know that it’s the best place to go for a quiet evening since it’s the one place you don’t find Carly!    

Hey look!  Sam finally put on a maternity type top just in time to fake a miscarriage!  Poor Sam, always a day (or week or month) late, and a dollar short.  While I haven’t disliked Sam and Jason so far, it hadn’t really hit me as much either way until yesterday.  I felt it a bit yesterday.  Watching Jason face the fact that he has spent untold time trying to make Sonny’s life perfect and maybe it had just all been for nothing was almost riveting.  I’d love to see GH have Jason truly step back and look at his life and all he’s done, it seems to be the only thing that brings emotion out in Jason.  There is truly a lot to mine there, if someone were so inclined.  That would require our viewing Sonny’s world in a more realistic manner though, and I’m not sure some of TPTB can part with the cushion that they’ve placed Sonny’s butt on.   

As for Sonny’s shooting, it would seem it would’ve been MUCH more appropriate if that statue of Mother Mary he was whining to would’ve just toppled right over on top of him and pinned him down.  It’s about time the saints and deities get a chance to fight back against his incessant yapping anyway.  Though this is GH so probably the statue was equipped with OnStar and Lord knows Sonny probably has “people” at OnStar just waiting to bail him out of a jam for the right price.   

That’s okay though.  What goes around comes around and sooner or later, Sonny will push that button and hear “This is your OnStar operator.  It’s time for you to choose Mr. Corinthos, are you coming to us for help or are you going to God?  Because you cannot have both!  You must choose!  Choose!  You will not continue to betray us by turning to others!”   Oh what a tangled web…and all that. 

Thanks to all who wrote last time, I really enjoyed hearing from you!  I’m so thankful to have the privilege of writing for Eye on Soaps and to have the opportunity to meet such interesting and fun people through this column.  I’m really looking forward to the Fan Club Weekend and I hope I get the chance to meet a few of you!     

Always love to hear from you!

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