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 … [Read more...]
Marlena’s Emmy Picks in 2008’s Humpty Dumpty Soap World
June 18, 2008 by 11 Comments
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, … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
Daytime Emmy Noms 2008: The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same
May 1, 2008 by 20 Comments
By 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 … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
The Young and the Restless: How Latham Tried But Failed to Reinvent the Wheel
March 20, 2008 by 9 Comments
By Patrick Erwin I confess I was glued to my TV last week for the soap opera that was The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. The governor, once praised as a smart, brave man, was stripped of his title in a very public and humiliating way. And the reaction reminded me of "schadenfreude" -- a German word that describes when someone is joyous and … [Read more...]
The Young and the Restless: Katherine Chancellor, Always!
January 31, 2008 by 5 Comments
By Patrick Erwin The Young and the Restless has a long history of being a solid hour of soap, mostly unmoved by trends or the fleeting fancies that other shows have lived (or died) by. But in the last few years, Y&R has undergone some substantial changes -- changes in writers, in producers, and in the pace the story unfolds on screen. Fans … [Read more...]
On Soaps, Multiple Suspect Murder Mysteries are So-o-o Done!
January 28, 2008 by 21 Comments
By Marlena De Lacroix I have grown so tired of the soap opera convention known as the multiple-suspect murder mystery storyline. Of late, they've become meaningless, predictable or, even worse, totally incomprehensible. The multiple-suspect murder plot was only done to perfection on the old full-time soap mystery show Edge of Night. But the … [Read more...]
Rape Stories: Days of Our Lives Shows That “No” Really Means “No” This Time
January 17, 2008 by 6 Comments
By Patrick Erwin For all its onscreen and offscreen turmoil, Days of Our Lives seems to have a few stories working for it right now. One of them is Chelsea and Stephanie and the sorority girls dealing with the aftermath of the campus rapist, Ford, who raped Stephanie and Cordy and threatened Chelsea. Initially, the story didn't seem too … [Read more...]
