You know the old writers’ insult, “Monkeys banging on typewriters could do a better job!” Imagine if you not only handed a room full of monkeys a set of typewriters (uh, keyboards), but you then locked them in. Well… that’s ONE way to force them to concentrate on completing your scripts, but watch out! Locking them in a room might add insult to injury and monkeys are pretty vengeful. They also have a pretty wicked sense of humor. Make sure you READ the scripts before you film and then air them for long suffering fans.
One Life to Live
Bitchy Marty, Bitchy Tea, Bitchy TeBessica… ‘effin.love.them.all.
Jessica apologizing and groveling at Natalie’s feet? No thanks. I felt sympathy for Nat “the outsider” for about 10 minutes. I’m over it. She’s still sleeping with the man who cost her sister’s husband his life. An accident? Sure… after months of deceiving him and destroying everything he’d built for his family. I’m hoping Tess and Bess have teamed up to finish taking Nat and Jared down – without plotting anyone’s death, by the way. Abject misery is enough for me, thanks. Tea taking guff from Blair? I don’t think so. Tea and Blair live different realities. Tea is a badass by nature. She’s shown tremendous growth and change and I love how spunky she is. Blair? Badass, on occasion, doormat more often than not. The woman slept with Spencer Truman just after Todd, the ‘great love’ of her life, was sentenced to execution. Despite every reasonable warning to the contrary, she made Truman a part of her children’s lives. My money is on Tea. Marty Saybrooke being left alone with Janet Ketring/Lee Halpern? Seriously, were the monkeys also STONED when they banged out that moment? Writers, keep an eye on the script monkeys, they’re making you look bad!
It’s annoying enough that Bo and Nora’s situational ethics drag every other living Llanview resident through the muck, but Bo and Tahlia leaving JK/LH alone with an angry and self-destructive Marty? The woman tried to force Todd to commit suicide for what he did to her (with JK/LH’s help). So they let her confront JK/LH, alone, wearing a coat which could very well have contained a weapon, and carrying an uzi sized purse? They actually LEFT the motel? I have to say, violence isn’t my thing, but I got a chuckle out of JK/LH cracking a vase over Talia’s head and taking off. Too bad Bo didn’t get one of those, as well! You’d think JK/LH was a witness for the defense for as careless as they’ve been about her safety. It must be nice to be pals with people like Bo and Nora. They use their offices to go after people you don’t like if you’re a friend, no matter how flimsy the evidence, nor the cost to the good folks of Llanview.
Oh, and locked-away-typewriter-banging monkeys? Less smug from Antonio and Nora, please. They’re on the side of RIGHT, and they leave me wanting to see Tea wipe the smug off of their faces – unless that’s what you wanted and then I feel played (well done). If I’m wrongfully faulting you and it’s the choices made by the actors, please speak to the director and ask him to handle it.
The Bold and The Beautiful
Bridget is a designer now? You magnificent vengeful monkeys, you! You really did get the last laugh, didn’t you? I wish I could laugh with you, but I can’t. It hurts. Did you have to pay the writers back at the viewers’ expense? An accelerated undergrad preMed program, supposed ‘years’ of study in medical school. Internships, Residency, saving lives, bringing babies into the world, bringing her aunt Katie back from the dead, saving her brother from jail following Phoebe’s death… and Bridget wants to give it all up to start designing for the company that just ripped off her father’s and brother’s newest collection. Bridget… giving up medicine for THAT!
She’s doodled haute couture gowns for years and was just too afraid to tell anyone? Her work is even better than life-long designer Clarke Garrison… stuff she sketched when not practicing medicine 23/6 and no one knew? Uh, because despite the fact that EVERY one of her adult sibs, her nieces and nephew, and BOTH of her parents work in the fashion industry, she was too afraid to tell them she has a passion for fashion? Ok, works in your universe, but typewriter-banging-monkeys, if the writers don’t feed you, refuse to type out scripts on an empty stomach. It makes you a little loopy.
This wouldn’t hurt so bad if it weren’t a follow up to the “fabulous Paminis”… Pam Douglas, insta-designer with a CROCHET technique so secret that only Pam can churn out the one of a kind hot yarn bikinis… So what is Bridget’s Auntie Pam kicking out? 20 a day in the Forrester sweatshop? Monkeys, explain yourselves! Is there something in the air at FC that makes anyone who passes through the hallowed halls a genius in the design world (all except Clarke it seems)?
Guiding Light
Alan wanting revenge against a cheating Beth? I get that. For once in his life, Alan is as devoted as he’s ever has been to a woman, maybe the most faithful he’s ever been. (Beth hasn’t been faithful to anyone since she was a teen) She gives birth to his child, while still raising his grandchildren and making him part of their lives. Then she cheats on him. He now knows that he’s met his match in Beth. No one loves Alan as much as he loves himself. Ditto on Beth. He’s sleeping with his mirror image and it’s driving him mad, life is a cruel mistress, Alan.
I WANT Alan to make Beth miserable, and not for his sake, but because Beth is supremely selfish and sucks as a person. BUT…Alan grabbing the letter opener, TWICE (something TPTB aired when the scenes picked up with a third and fourth time during the next day’s episode, too)? Good mercy. Giving the audience the impression that he would just as soon plunge the opener into her heart because his heart was broken? YIKES!
I don’t remember Alan being violent with women, especially not to the point of contemplating a brutal death for one. He likes owning and controlling women, but he likes owning and controlling everyone. He usually shows more finesse. The old Alan would have had Coop arrested on some trumped up charge, claimed ‘Company’ for himself – leaving Buzz penniless, and set Beth up to think she was going crazy again just to get custody of Peyton. He would have done it all before lunch! He actually would have kept Buzz on at the restaurant he stole from him and had Buzz SERVE him lunch. Alan is psychotic, but he’s no thug.
Monkeys, you owe the GL writers an apology for what you’ve done to their beloved Alan Spaulding. Shame on you.
All My Children
Zach. Killing Josh. Fathering Gabrielle. Eye-boinking with Reese. Expecting Kendall to understand. Vicious little typewriter-banging-monkeys… You’ve outdone yourselves. I actually like the potential fallout from this one. No criticism, here. This is all soapy goodness. AMC was lucky to have you on staff when you wrote that part of the plot. Kendall, forgive Binks, Reese, and Zach. PRICELESS!
While you’re at it, write that script where David Hayward is loving and unselfish, Adam Chandler has sworn off manipulating the people he loves, Erica Kane gives up designer clothes and all other perks of fine living, and JR Chandler stays sober! See how silly it all seems that anyone would expect forgiveness from Kendall? Whatever she does to them, they’ve got it coming. Maybe Zach should keep a picture of his happy parts in a safe location. The doctors will need it when they’re working on the reattachment and reconstruction!
I can’t give you a pass on Amanda’s pregnancy, however. Does anyone remember the last daytime pregnancy where the mother knew who her child’s father was (Binks excluded, of course) and there was no scandal around the pregnancy? (Whoops, Binks back in!) Why another contested paternity? It’s not like there’s been a shortage of them.
Then again, you’ve been writing for Annie and she’s freakin’ wonderful, so it all evens out in the wash!
There are times when I want the writers to ease up on the ‘femme fatale with a heart of gold’ twist on this character. It can wear on you. It’s almost impossible to believe that Nicole has so much anger and hatred for Sami Brady when they’re so alike in so many ways. You’d think they would be best friends, tearing Salem apart, instead of arch enemies. Then there are times when being a femme fatale, with or without a heart of gold, works for her.
Nicole has – not even his own father. That she puts his happiness ahead of her own is both an improvement, and a setback for Nicole. Other than her brother Brandon, Nicole has been written as a woman incapable of putting anyone else’s feelings first. It was just never in her nature. She’s fought to survive the hardships life has thrown at her (a psychopathic father who kept her drugged so that she would shoot porn videos, allowing HIM to profit). I’m waiting for her to be punished by being dumped by Ej, even though her actions were motived by her love for him. EJ is obsessed with Sami, the woman he raped and has now twice impregnated. He’ll see Nicole’s faked pregnancy as the big issue that has to be addressed, not the fact that Sami’s plan was to give the daughter he knew nothing about up for adoption.
Something in her relationship with Jason made her too motherly for such a young character. She was too busy defending and protecting him. There was no character development for Robin and the character fell apart. The cute kid with the big smile became a lightening rod for fans, seemingly turning off as many fans as she delighted. She’d become clingy, needy, and self-righteous. She’d lived her life in a bubble and that bubble was shrinking, having only enough room for her, and Jason.
Not only did I want to hug the poor child, I couldn’t believe that the writers haven’t thought to have Anna and Robert around to try to help her. I want to see the heartbreak in their eyes, knowing neither of them was around long enough help her gain the confidence she needs to help herself and Emma. Neither has raised a child from infancy to adulthood. I want that Scorpio family moment 
A lovely poster on the SoapOperaNetwork’s message boards posted a ‘create your own soap’ thread. The only instruction? You’re not limited by the format/structure daytime uses now. WOWZA! Great idea. So many of us are unhappy with the current storylines offered in daytime (and repeatedly offered) that we want something different. Daytime is clinging to a dead model, in my opinion and has focused on all the wrong changes to bring fans back/or keep them around (GL’s disastrous Peapack shoot, for example).
There should be varying levels of income (I think what sucks about daytime is that everyone has to be ‘rich’ and that those how aren’t eventually become rich or scheme to become rich, or spend a LOT of time hanging out with the fabulously wealthy as if that could happen – because there’s nothing rich folk like more than hanging out with people who don’t have money. Don’t you read ‘People’?).
— an unconventional HIV storyline. An older woman whose unfaithful husband contracts the disease. What would happen if this woman unknowingly ended up in a support group for women with AIDS/HIV with her husband’s mistress and neither knew who the other was, at first?
I imagine the character in my soap battling with forgiving her husband; befriending, hating, and then working on forgiving the mistress who knew about her life with her family and slept with her husband anyway; dealing with HIV, and becoming an advocate for other women living with the condition. My soap would treat her condition as chronic, as General Hospital has done with Robin Scorpio, or with AMC’s Cindy Parker, wife of Stuart Chandler, before she died. (Trivia buffs, it might interest you to know that Cindy Parker was played by GL’s current EP, Ellen Wheeler!)
There’s so much I love about this show (see below). Then there’s the Todd/Marty rape-is-romance storyline. Why the writers won’t just cut their losses and drop the Manning pursuit is beyond me. Are they sending Todd to prison or is this another exercise in futility?
By the way, why are Talia and Tonio allowed to work together? Come on, writers, we all remember that Bo has had to reprimand Tonio more than once, now he’s letting Tonio work with the person who is most likely to let him have a free reign? Clearly the man needs a partner who reminds him that being a cop is not about nursing his grudges or trying to be a superhero. Any guesses as to whether one of Antonio’s stupid moves helps Todd go free, again?
You’re a great beauty, a marvelous actor, and probably one of the most fan-friendly celebs around. So what’s going on backstage? The hair department loves you – obviously. The wardrobe department? Not so much. Whatever you’ve done to offend them (walked off with the last bottled water, accidently crushed a car bumper, forgot to invite wardrobe to your last big party)… don’t do it again! When everyone goes home for the night, steal that goshawfulmakesmyeyesbleed blue sweater and burn it. While you’re at it, grab “Tea’s” grey coat, “TessBessica’s” institutional chic lounge wear, “Brody’s” gray t-shirt and sweats, John’s black shirts/pants/socks/shoes/belts/coats/t-shirts/ and burn those too.
Carly Corinthos Jacks. The moment Sarah Joy Brown stepped foot on stage, I became a Caroline “Carly” Benson-Roberts (…Quartermaine Corinthos Jacks)” fan. Carly is a character who is so good, she practically writes herself – and by “good” I mean good at driving people crazy with her half-baked schemes. 
knights has been painful to watch. I’d given up hope that the man could ever find true love. To have Carly choose him gave me a glimpse of the old Carly. It’s about time some woman realized that Jax was the much better alternative to a life of gunshots and death threats – hard to believe it’s taken so long. 
By the way, I was wrong, I said that I couldn’t get worked up over yet another GH disaster storyline. The commercials have me hooked. Of course, it was disappointing to see Jason MORGAN there, calling shots and taking control yet again. BASTA! Enough already. Let’s hope the doctors are the centerpiece heroes in this storyline about a MEDICAL crisis.
Fine, that’s not a picture of Liz and Lucky, it’s a gratuitious shot of Maxie and Spinelli (Maxelli). GH has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to it’s younger couples. Couples at midlife? Not so lucky. In GH’s younger set there’s Robin and Patrick, Sonny and Claudia (for now), Jax and Carly (for now), Lulu and Johnny (for now), Jason longing for Liz and vice versa (for now), Lucky and Sam (for now), Maxie and Spinelli (sorta’).
–Carly had to betray Jason and sleep with Sonny – something she would NEVER have done, just to give Jason cause to turn to Liz. Carly’s love (or obsession, you choose) for Jason was so great that she risked jail time and death just to be near him. No matter how much she loved Sonny later, it was easy to see that Carly still regretted that the one thing she couldn’t give her son, Michael, was Jason’s DNA. Her great regret was that his brother A.J. was his father. Sex with Sonny? Completely out of character for Carly. It was, however, the beginning of his turning to Liz for help during his dark times. It was also the beginning of the writers stealing back Lucky’s hard earned place as a true GH hero.
I’d like the writers to restore the LnL2 history. I’d like to see Liz try to figure out what her attraction to Jason has been when he’s so unlike anything she’s ever wanted for herself and her children – yes, despite the fact that both of her sons have biological fathers with criminal histories. 
I don’t know how they did it. BnB writers gave us a ton of characters who disliked Rick and had every reason in the world to want to see him taken down. He’s been handed everything on a silver platter and it’s never been enough for him. The more you give him the more he wants. WOW! It makes PERFECT sense that Rick would be the one who sets his family up for a fall and moves on to help his father’s worst enemy take his family’s company down. We were misdirected when the real villain was under our noses the entire time. If a single plot was enough to earn a show an Emmy, the Emmy clearly belongs to the Bold and the Beautiful. 
1. Ridge Forrester. Ridge’s reported ‘breakdown’ wasn’t as big a break as fans thought. He heard that Steffy was supposed to drive off with Rick to pick up fabric and panicked. He removed her from the car, calling her Phoebe in the process. Ridge has made it clear that he hasn’t fully forgiven Rick for his role in Phoebe’s accidental death. To have Rick then try to drive off with another of his daughters? No way, no how.
2. Thorne Forrester. He’s betrayed his family before and jumped ship to the ‘competitor’ (though how Spectra or Jackie M’s can be considered a competitor given their constant ill fortunes.) Has he done it again, now realizing that he’s been passed over for Ridge AND Rick and that even the Logan women have nice offices compared to his dark, dank, basement dwelling? How did Thorne lose the office he had when he served as FC’s President under both his mother AND his father? How did Owen – the man his father caught cheating with his new wife, rate a much nice office than Thorne?
3. Felicia Forrester. She could have easily sent those designs to set Rick up as well. I liked the snark in an earlier meeting when she commented that the company’s President wasn’t even aware of what was going on with the competition. So why is Rick even President?
4. Stephanie Forrester. If Forrester fails, because of a stolen collection, Stephanie could use that to argue to Eric that since he’s brought the entire Logan clan in (and his son with Brooke as President) nothing has been the same. She could argue that her children with him have always been loyal to the company. He’s a dunce. He’ll forget about the fact that all three (Ridge, Thorne, and Felicia) have worked for Spectra in the past and tried to ruin Forrester Creations with their new found power at Spectra.
Cricket and would never violate her self-righteous/moral principles. Sure, on some other show but this is the BnB! What if Katie’s disgust was feigned and she used it as a way of throwing Nick off track. Maybe she wanted to find out what he thought of his benefactor before revealing herself.
6. Owen Knight/Marcus Walton. Both are new, both have reasons to worry about the Forresters, and worry about their own position in ‘the family’. Knight is worried that he’s expendable and soon on the way out. He hadn’t counted on a relationship with a Forrester heir, and may have decided to try to secure a position for himself in the fashion industry before falling for Bridget. By the way, why does a Private Investigator now have so much interest in the fashion biz? I’m still not getting it. Is there more to Owen’s story? Was his investigative work linked to corporate espionage before? It would suck for Bridget if Owen is guilty, but it could make for a great drama as he works to earn back her trust and help the Forresters, in the end.
Marcus lost his first real love to his lying, manipulative sleaze of a cousin, Rick Forrester. We’re assuming that Marcus doesn’t know what’s going on, but how could he not? Steffy loved him madly, deeply, truly, before Rick put a move on her. Now she wants nothing to do with him. Rick, who if he was written with an ounce of conscience, wouldn’t run around skipping and smiling at a time like this, he’d still be too depressed from watching Phoebe die in her father’s arms after fighting with Rick about how poorly he treated her. Maybe the writers will make Marcus more perceptive than he has been in the past. It could be that Marcus wants to carve a place out for himself, and his mother, who – given Eric’s erratic (not erotic) behavior, has shown that the people he loves are disposable. Marcus could finally be the person who gets the upper hand on the Forresters! Though, again, why would he want to be a kingpin in the design industry, it’s not really clear.
1. Get rid of the ‘live from Peapack’ shots. Daytime is about fantasy, escapism, and about the impossible becoming plausible. I have no doubt that Peapack has many homes with lush interiors filled with fine furniture, open floor plans, hardwoods, crown moulding, stainless steel appliances, and custom cabinetry. It makes sense that the show’s budget doesn’t allow for location shoots in those environments. Instead, the current interiors are shoddy, and frankly – they’re depressing. I’ve jokingly referred to Springfield as the land of cheap knotty wood paneling and faux stone. It’s no longer a joke to me. I’m distracted by the bad decor and dark interiors when trying to focus on the characters and dialogue. 
If watching someone like Remy (solidly upper middle/upper class) live in such squalid conditions, think about what it means to see the fabulously wealthy Spauldings live in roughly two cramped rooms, or Olivia live in a tiny farmhouse, or the Lewises wandering from place to place because they have no where to live at all – that we’ve seen. The exception is Bill Lewis, who lives in a tiny hotel room. From Remy to the Spauldings to the Lewises – all are living in spaces that are the sizes of what should be their clothes closets.
3. Allow characters to behave as if they live in the same town. Either that, or stop having them talk about how much they value family. Why, dear writers, has Beth put more effort into planning a romantic getaway with her boyfriend than into helping her daughter heal after her kidnapping ordeal?
4. Recognize that imitation is not always the sincerest form of flattery. Guiding Light is working on solving one of it’s biggest problem – the shedding of old school characters and replacing them with newer characters who were meant to serve the same function, but somehow fall flat. In the mad dash to win over the 18 – 24s who were never planning a mass defection to daytime, great characters like Edmund were cut loose to make room for pale imitations like Kane Manera’s Grady Foley. Manera is a brilliant actor. His choices are instinctual and highly consistent. I like the actor, I just hate the writing for him. Between the writing and the direction, there was never any hope for Manera’s Grady to become a likable character. Where David Andrew McDonald’s Edmund was far more nuanced, and more choices about the character appeared to be placed in the actor’s hands, Manera’s Grady was more of a caricature of Edmund and every other GL bad boy.
5. Don’t turn strong storylines and characters into ‘gimmicks’.
Coffee At Cafe Russe 