Guiding Light – The new format leaves me cold. The show now feels like some surreal version of a bad reality show. Imagine standing next to two people whose conversations include statements like, “You mean she had herself artificially inseminated just to trap Billy Lewis into marriage?” It sounds just as odd when GL characters say it. The glory days of daytime were about glamour and fantasy. The ‘reality’ version of GL steals that away from the show. Now the characters just seem like whacked out wankers who are divorced from reality and sadly think they’re part of a campy soap.
The Bold and The Beautiful – Anyone named Logan. Too much too soon? Absolutely. The problem is that only one face is familiar even if the names are the same. Even worse is that the return for each Logan has been carelessly contrived. Beth Logan’s stroke? She’s lost a son to suicide, as he killed himself to ‘give’ his heart to the sister he shot. Her husband accepted a 5 million dollar bribe to make her daughter believe that he was dying of cancer. Her daughter and granddaughter have had children with the same man and are praising him as ‘goodness and light’ (and he’s now interested in another of her daughters). Her first lover has married her oldest daughter and had children with her, and is now married to another daughter. She’s concerned that her stroke would be too much for HER CHILDREN to bear? She should be avoiding them for all sorts of reasons that would be considered rational and understandable by almost any breathing life form. This storyline makes them all look just a tad bit off center.
The writers took what fans loved about the original Logans, that they were halfway normal and decent people compared to the Forresters, and trashed it to hell. They’re still higher on the evolutionary chain than the Forresters, but not by much. The writers made sure of that.
All My Children – anything. There’s not one storyline or character I care about right now. (Ok, I do want to see more Angie and Jesse, but I just can’t wade through the bull crap to get to them).
General Hospital – See AMC. Kristen Storms has finally found her groove as wicked Maxie, but I’d have to watch too much garbage to catch Maxie’s 5 minutes of airtime.
Days of Our Lives – John Black offers us a new ‘forehead of thought’ (DOOLs vets get that reference, I’m sure). Directors, writers, producers, take control, NOW. Between the wrinkle and raised brow and the ‘dark knight/chippendale dancer’ whisper, I’m laughing AT, not with. John Black is now a caricature of his former self. You usually have to recast to get that level of character shift. Add the new ‘Frankie the Genius’ and his genius father and this show is one step away from anime- with subtitles.
1- I wouldn’t have such a hard time buying him as a genius if he wasn’t dating his niece, and
2 -I’d like to extend my apologies to Anime fans. The writing is clearly better in that genre than in daytime.
Exhibit A showing the general suckiness of DOOL: um, because violence against women is so cool? Because the writers know what fans tune in for? Oh, sure, the clip is old, but it was such a clear indication THEN of what was to come, just a reminder:
The begging, the pleading, the being pushed around… that John, what a ‘sexy’ assassin. I totally bought it, didn’t you?:
As for the Dimeras, namely EJ? Pfffft. How can such a hot actor be stuck with such an asshat role? The writing for the character borders on insanity. I’m reserving the right to change my mind if EJ ends up with Nicole and becomes halfway human – I can tolerate them, they’re birds of a feather. I was pretty disgusted that the writers pushed the Ejami storyline for so long, knowing how many fans were turned off by that relationship after EJ’s extortion sex with Sami. Romantic? Sorta’ like that, only not.
The Young and The Restless – Gloria. Wait, let me take that back! There’s no part of me that wishes I could care about this character. How long are the writers going to drag out the poisoning storyline? The only mistake they could make, that would be even bigger than trying to make her Gloria a heroine in the first place, is having us find out that she was wrong – that her actions didn’t cause that poor woman’s death. Don’t do it, PTB, don’t throw away your last bit of credibility on this character. Don’t absolve her of her actions after everything else she’s done.
As The World Turns – Sophie, Emily, and any other demented damsel in a distress of her own making. When it comes to daytime crazy, these women have big shoes to fill, and so far they’re slipping size 6 feet in to size 0 shoes! Compare them to characters like GL’s Sonny/Solita or Annie Dutton. Annie carried a dead child in her womb for weeks waiitng for the perfect opportunity to set up her husband’s ex wife in order to send her to jail and keep her from interferring in their lives. Even after she was found out, she pretended to be the ex’s long lost sister to save herself from being sent to prison. Damn I miss Annie. As for Sonny/Solita, I still get chills when I see portrayer, Michelle Forbes.
One Life to Live – Jared and Natalie, Cole and Starr, Todd and Marty. No MAS! Outside of that? This show is as close to soapy perfection as any soap ever was. Two words: GO TESS! Two more: KICK ASS! Ok, ok, four more: THEY’VE GOT IT COMING!
Coffee At Cafe Russe 
Hi Norrth! Great column, however, I have to disagree. I think the children are to absorbed in Eric’s private life. I think the need to remember the could have been scandals of their own. Ridge and the imfamous email boink, Thorne and his drunken wife/daughter of the competition. Thorne and his sick competition between Karen and Macy boinkathon, Thorne shooting his brother . . . Felica working for the competition . . . Felica not knowing who the father of her baby was . . . Felica dancing drunk on the tables in Europe . . . Kristen married to a corporate spy . . . Stephanie hiding Eric’s child Angela . . . (talk about secret children) . . . not to mention that Ridge said he was going to get one of the Logan girls, it didn’t matter to him, on the set of the TV talk show when he gave Donna the Gone with the Wind kiss. Thorne nearly married Donna himself. Ridge and Thorne sharing the Logan girls and the Hamilton broad. Ridge working for the enemy himself, trying to crush FC, taking away their “shelf space” causing the TV Price is Right of Fashion on the HSN . . . Ridge walking out on Eric when his true identity (another secret Stephanie kept close) come on . . . the Forrester children have little room to talk about loyalty and leading puritan public lives. These very same children, who when it was their lives, booked no interference from their mother, and got nothing but support from their father. I don’t buy this one, Norrth. In the day when fashion designers and celebrity shrink at nothing . . . the more bizarre . . . the better the publicity . . . negative or not . . . I think this is a case of grown adult children wanting their mommmy and daddy together and resenting the fact that their dad hooked up with a young beautiful trophy wife . . . time for these children to grow up and put on the positive for their “legacy” and not the negative.
I also think there is far too much involved of adult children into the personal lives of their parents (and vice versa). I can understand their concerns about the company, but they really need to leave the Eric-Donna stuff alone. They should also face up tot he fact that their father is an unfaithful skirt chaser! Eric never takes the hit he deserves from his children. It’s always some woman’s fault he’s such an idiot.