From Bad to Good or Good To Bad: Seven Soap Characters Who Changed Before Our Eyes

September 8, 2008 By 15 Comments

Melissa Claire Egan

Thinking Fans Comment Update Sept. 9:  Sina nominates Maxie Jones … Greg would include Vanessa Chamberlain …  Aaron misses Annie Dutton … and more. See Comments below. 

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By Patrick Erwin

It’s been interesting to watch recent scenes with Melissa Claire Egan as Annie on All My Children. Once a good girl, Annie has turned into a manipulative witch. She may not be a nice person anymore, but Annie no longer comes off as a Greenlee-wannabe and is far more interesting to watch.
 
Most soap characters serve a purpose and stay in their designated slot: heroine, villain, rouge, or temptress. But every once in a while, a character will undergo a major metamorphosis and make a dramatic change, redeeming their wicked ways or shedding their goodness to get in touch with their inner bad seed.

Here are seven examples of characters who radically changed in front of our eyes.
 
1.  Annie Dutton, Guiding Light: Speaking of Annies, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this one. When she was [Read more...]

Filed Under: All My Children, As the World Turns, Days of Our Lives, Guiding Light, One Life to Live, PATRICK, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Young and the Restless’ Surprising Mother and Child Reunion

September 1, 2008 By 8 Comments

Elizabeth Hendrickson

Thinking Fans Comment Update Sept. 2:  Bob thinks the twist makes sense … Jonnysbro thinks EH is paydirt … but Chris thinks the writers won one and lost one. See Comments below. 

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By Patrick Erwin 

By the time you read this, Young and the Restless will have just revealed a major plot point — that fashionista Chloe, Lily’s adversary, is actually Kate, Esther’s daughter!

There are many times where I have written about soaps and have had to be grumpy about what’s happening on screen, or be the bearer of bad tidings. So I’m really happy to ring the bells about this revelation and RAVE about it. I think this is the [Read more...]

Filed Under: PATRICK, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , ,

Do You Love or Hate it When Soaps Repeat Their Histories?

July 30, 2008 By 13 Comments

Thinking Fans Comment Update July 31:  How to repeat soap histories? Melanie counts the ways … James cheers the Reva/Josh movie wedding … while esther is generally unimpressed by retreads … and more. See Comments below.  

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By Patrick Erwin  

Each of the eight daytime soaps on American network TV these days has a substantial history. The Bold and the Beautiful is the youngest at 21, Guiding Light the eldest at 71. Collectively, this is a rich history. And I’m all for calling on the past to inform current storylines.

But there’s a curious trend emerging this summer, and I’m not sure what to make of it. A few shows have gone beyond revisiting history — they actually seem to be reliving the stories in a way we haven’t really seen before. The stories we’re seeing are often [Read more...]

Filed Under: All My Children, Bold and the Beautiful, General Hospital, Guiding Light, One Life to Live, PATRICK, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

On the Soap Shrink’s Couch: The Young and the Restless’ Kevin Fisher

July 6, 2008 By 1 Comment

By Damon L. Jacobs

Kevin Fisher came blazing into The Young and the Restless‘ Genoa City five years ago with rage in his heart, fire in his eyes, violence in his fists, and chlamydia in his … well, you know.  He spent a significant portion of his time chasing after Lily, lying, manipulating, setting fires, breaking mirrors.  As his violence escalated, it became more and more clear there was a tortured young man inside who was acting out his hatred against himself more than anyone else. 

We soon came to understand what drove Kevin, played by Greg Rikaart, to such extreme acts.  From an early age he was physically and verbally abused by his father Tom, who consistently communicated that Kevin was no good, not worthy, nothing more than a “cockroach.”  He was beaten with [Read more...]

Filed Under: SOAP SHRINK, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , , ,

Say What? The 2008 Emmys Had No Class

June 23, 2008 By 19 Comments

By Marlena De Lacroix

The star of the 2008 Emmys was a body part your mother blushingly called your “backside.”  Stars couldn’t stop talking about derrieres, and wound up acting a lot like them.

“Oh, oh, I love your butt,  what a cute little butt, I’d take that cute little butt,” All My Children’s Rebecca Budig (Greenlee) squealed as she checked out Bryan Datillo’s on the SoapNet Emmy PreShow, which Budig was co-hosting with Ricky Paull Goldin (Jake, AMC).Tyra Banks

And then there was Tyra Banks’ acceptance speech for Best Talk Show:  “When you have a dream, there are going to be many people that tell you that you cannot do it, that you are not good enough. And I want you to tell them to kiss your dimply, fat, juicy, booty-licious, skinny, jiggly, saggy, fat ass.”

Marlena isn’t ordinarily a prude about language.  But these are the Daytime Emmys, the once a year gathering that is supposed to salute excellence and reward the very hard work talented people do in daytime drama every day.   Generations of producers, performers and journalists have fought to make sure the Daytime Emmys remain respectful both to the soap world, and intelligently inviting to the outside world, where soaps are  [Read more...]

Filed Under: All My Children, General Hospital, Guiding Light, MARLENA, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Marlena’s Emmy Picks in 2008′s Humpty Dumpty Soap World

June 18, 2008 By 11 Comments

emmy

By Marlena De Lacroix

I’m not overly excited about this week’s Daytime Emmys. I could be fluffy and say it’s because they moved the ceremony  to L.A. several years ago and I don’t get to go and to buy a dress, and to me (I attended here in New York 23 years in a row) the Daytime Emmys was always about The Dress.  But the truth is, daytime drama, which I’ve spent most of  life my loving,  is a collapsing industry, and I just don’t feel very celebratory.  Glitz and glam be damned, wouldn’t the time and money spent on the Emmys be better spent gathering everyone in the industry together to meet and intelligently discuss  finding a way to put Humpty Dumpty back together again?

Oh well ,brighten up,  Marlena! Friday night is the Emmys broadcast (8 p.m. EDT on ABC) and you must make award picks.   As Irving Berlin wrote [Read more...]

Filed Under: All My Children, As the World Turns, Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, Guiding Light, MARLENA, One Life to Live, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

10 Merry Mid-Month of May Questions

May 14, 2008 By 13 Comments

By Marlena De Lacroix and Patrick Erwin

1.  When you saw John-Paul Lavoisier as Rex in his recent pre-wedding scenes on One Life to Live, wandering around a bar drunk, shirtless, and disheveled with a wild head of hair, didn’t he remind you just a little of Bamm-Bamm from The Flintstones?

2.  Have you been lost in the maze of brunettes on As The World Turns? When we watched Noelle Beck as nuLily, she looked a lot like Marie Wilson (Meg). Who also looks a lot like Julie Pinson (Janet).  Janet also has a [Read more...]

Filed Under: All My Children, As the World Turns, Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, Guiding Light, MARLENA, One Life to Live, PATRICK, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Daytime Emmy Noms 2008: The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same

May 1, 2008 By 20 Comments

emmyBy Marlena De Lacroix

I first attended and wrote about the Daytime Emmys in 1980 and I should be over them by now.  But I continue, year after year, to be exasperated by the fact that two things never change.  1) No matter how many times they have been revised or have been updated over the years, the nomination and award processes are still inequitable and unfair.  2) There is always one irritating thing that happens along the way with either the nominations or awards that’s so egregious, Marlena explodes with rage!

This year it happened right away, as the nominations were announced on The View.  The person interviewed on the show as a daytime awards expert/prognosticator wasn’t anyone from the soap press or a soap publication or blog.  Instead, he was a senior writer from People magazine.  I’m sure Marc D’Agostino is a capable  guy, but does he dedicate 100% of his working time and career to the soaps, the way soap journalists do, day after day, year after year, decade after decade?  Marlena, who has moved on to teaching, was born and bred in the soap press and has great respect for young soap magazine writers and editors who have full-time jobs doing interviews and other reporting on soaps. They deserve the spotlight!

This is not the first time ABC has gone for a big time magazine writer over a poor soap press scribe in publicizing its show.  Years ago [Read more...]

Filed Under: All My Children, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, Guiding Light, MARLENA, One Life to Live, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

More Emmy Noms 2008: How ‘bout a Little Self-Respect?

April 30, 2008 By 5 Comments

By Patrick Erwin

Basketball may have its March Madness, but the soap world has its own spring madness ritual — the Daytime Emmy nominations. The discussions about this year’s nominations have come fast and furious since they were announced yesterday. Marlena gave her take on the whole process, and I had a few thoughts of my own I thought I’d like to share.

Most Confusing Nomination: The three younger actress nominations for The Young and the Restless. Look, I know everyone has their own favorites, and their own likes and dislikes. And as far as these performers go (Vail Bloom, Emily O’Brien, Tammin Sursok), I have nothing against any of them per se. But even the most ardent Y&R fan has to admit all three of these performers played characters who were unpopular with viewers, and have been in very unpopular storylines. For all three to be rewarded with a nomination defies logic.

The “Guiding Light Survival Raft” Nominations: All of the acting nominations for Days of our Lives. Like GL, Days has been the subject of cancellation rumors [Read more...]

Filed Under: General Hospital, Guiding Light, One Life to Live, PATRICK, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

When Cliché Stories Go Startlingly … Right!

April 15, 2008 By 5 Comments

By Patrick Erwin

Soap fans and critics alike complain loudly when we encounter the overused soap plotline. We can see most of them coming from a mile away!

We know, for example, that one woman, plus two men, multiplied by a short period of time = ”Who’s the daddy” story. It seems like a good third of all soap characters have discovered heretofore unknown children, and some lucky lottery winners (Guiding Light‘s Reva, One Life To Live‘s Viki, All My Children‘s Erica and As the World Turns‘  John Dixon) have found more than one along the way!

And yet, every once in a while, even the oldest cliché in the book really works as a story. Recently a  few shows have put a new shine on old chestnuts, with entertaining results.

Back from the Dead: Jesse, AMC. Characters coming back from the dead is one of the oldest soap clichés, and one that often doesn’t work. AMC tried to revive the formerly-dead Maria, then Dixie, with far less success. And I couldn’t imagine a character less likely to be revived than Jesse, who had been “dead” for more than 20 years.  We saw die on screen!  And yet, despite all those potential negatives, this story just worked beautifully  for several reasons. One, of course, was the great performances by Darnell Williams and Debbi Morgan. The writing was also beautiful and historically accurate (and as Marlena has theorized, was perhaps guided by [Read more...]

Filed Under: All My Children, One Life to Live, PATRICK, Young and the Restless Tagged With: , , , ,
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