Cady McClain's Dixie REALLY Killed Off "All My Children"

[KennyD]

I understand that Babe or Kendall will be killed off tomorrow or early next week . I'm kinda thinking it will be kendall ... don't care as she's becoming a bigger bitch than her mother , Erica ..

 

[bluedragon4]

I understand that Babe or Kendall will be killed off tomorrow or early next week . I'm kinda thinking it will be kendall ... don't care as she's becoming a bigger bitch than her mother , Erica ..

I have seen all those soap opera digest spots but will one of them really be killed off or is there a trick to it? I also think it's Kendal if one of them really dies. Has anyone heard if the actress wants out? She has come full circle and losing her won't be a hard hit to AMC like it would have been even a year ago.And that Tad and dixie flashback reminded how hot Tad was!! I had forgotten! I just don't want JR or Ryan to get hurt. Damn they are hot!!! JR's chest hair was so distracting today!!!

 

[renegade_killerbee]

Neither Alexa Havins (Babe) nor Alicia Minshew (Kendall) will be dying from "All My Children." They're on the cover of ABC Soaps In Depth with a very misleading cover heading of "One Will Die" or something like that but that cheap imposter of Soap Opera Digest always puts out titles like that.

Plus, both ladies are eligible for Emmy nominations. Here's a complete list of the Pre-Nomination Ballot:

Outstanding Lead Actress Pre-Nominees

All My Children: Bobbie Eakes (Krystal Chandler) Alicia Minshew (Kendall Hart)
As the World Turns: Maura West (Carly Tenney) Martha Byrne (Lily Snyder)
The Bold and the Beautiful:Susan Flannery (Stephanie Forrester) and Katherine Kelly Lang (Brooke Logan)
Days of our Lives: Kristian Alfonso (Hope Brady) and Alison Sweeney (Sami Brady)
General Hospital: Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis Davis) and Laura Wright (Carly Corinthos)
Guiding Light: Crystal Chappell (Olivia Spencer) and Kim Zimmer (Reva Shayne)
One Life to Live: Kassie DePaiva (Blair Manning) Bree Williamson (Jessica Buchanan)
Passions: Lindsay Hartley (Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald) and Juliet Mills (Tabitha Lenox)
The Young and the Restless: Michelle Stafford (Phyllis Abbott) and Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor)

Outstanding Lead Actor Pre-Nominees
All My Children: Thorsten Kaye (Zach Slater) Michael E. Knight (Tad Martin)
As the World Turns: Grayson McCouch (Dusty Donovan) and Michael Park (Jack Snyder)
The Bold and the Beautiful: John McCook (Eric Forrester) and Jack Wagner (Nick Marone)
Days of our Lives: Stephen Nichols (Stephen Johnson) and Peter Reckell (Bo Brady)
General Hospital: Anthony Geary (Luke Spencer) and Steve Burton (Jason Morgan)
Guiding Light: Ricky Paull Goldin (Gus Aituro) and Ron Raines (Alan Spaulding)
One Life to Live: Michael Easton (John McBain) and Trevor St. John (Todd Manning)
Passions: Galen Gering (Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald)
The Young and the Restless: Peter Bergman (Jack Abbott) and Christian LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin)
* Passions opted to submit only one pre-nominee in this category.

Outstanding Supporting Actress Pre-Nominees
All My Children: Cady McClain (Dixie Martin) and Alexa Havins (Babe Chandler)
As the World Turns: Kelley Menighan Hensley (Emily Stewart) and Marie Wilson (Meg Snyder)
The Bold and the Beautiful: Lesli Kay (Felicia Forrester) and Hunter Tylo (Taylor Forrester)
Days of our Lives: Renee Jones (Lexie Carver) and Julie Pinson (Billie Reed)
General Hospital: Genie Francis (Laura Spencer) and Rebecca Herbst (Liz Webber)
Guiding Light: Beth Chamberlin (Beth Raines) and Gina Tognoni (Dinah Marler)
One Life to Live: Renee Elise Goldsberry (Evangeline Williamson) and Heather Tom (Kelly Cramer)
Passions: Cathy Jeneen Doe (Simone Russell) and Emily Harper (Francy Crane)
The Young and the Restless: Tracey E. Bregman (Lauren Fenmore) and Eileen Davidson (Ashley Abbott)

Outstanding Supporting Actor Pre-Nominees
All My Children: Jeffrey Carlson (Zarf) and Jacob Young (JR Chandler)
As the World Turns: Trent Dawson (Henry Coleman) and Paul Leyden (Simon Frasier)
The Bold and the Beautiful: Winsor Harmon (Thorne Forrester) and Lorenzo Lamas (Hector Ramirez)
Days of our Lives: Bryan Dattillo (Lucas Roberts) and James Reynolds (Abe Carver)
General Hospital: Rick Hearst (Ric Lansing) and Jason Thompson (Patrick Drake)
Guiding Light: Robert Bogue (AC Mallet) and Jordan Clarke (Billy Lewis)
One Life to Live: Dan Gauthier (Kevin Buchanan) and Tuc Watkins (David Vickers)
Passions: Eric Martsolf (Ethan Winthrop) and Ben Masters (Julian Crane)
The Young and the Restless: Greg Rikaart (Kevin Fisher) and Kristoff St. John (Neil Winters)

Outstanding Younger Actress Pre-Nominees
All My Children: Leven Rambin (Lily Montgomery) and Eden Riegel (Bianca Montgomery)
As the World Turns: Jennifer Landon (Gwen Norbeck) and Alexandra Chando (Maddie Coleman)
The Bold and the Beautiful: Mackenzie Mauzy (Phoebe Forrester)
Days of our Lives: Ashley Benson (Abby Deveraux) and Rachel Melvin (Chelsea Benson)
General Hospital: Julie Berman (Lulu Spencer) and Kirsten Storms (Maxie Jones)
Guiding Light: Stephanie Gatschet (Tammy Layne) and Marcy Rylan (Lizzie Spaulding)
One Life to Live: Kristen Alderson (Starr Manning) and Melissa Gallo (Adriana Cramer)
Passions: Heidi Mueller (Kay Bennett) and Danica Stewart (Jessica Bennett)
The Young and the Restless: Christel Khalil (Lily Winters) and Darcy Rose Byrnes (Abby Carlton)
* Due to age restrictions, The Bold and the Beautiful had only one pre-nominee in this category.

Outstanding Younger Actor Pre-Nominees
All My Children: Brent Weber (Sean Montgomery) and Michael B. Jordan (Reggie Montgomery)
As the World Turns: Van Hansis (Luke Snyder) and Jesse Soffer (Will Munson)
Days of our Lives: Blake B. Berris (Nick Fallon) and Darin Brooks (Max Brady)
General Hospital: Dylan Cash (Michael Corinthos) and Scott Clifton (Dillon Quartermaine)
Guiding Light: John Driscoll (Coop Bradshaw) and Tom Pelphrey (Jonathan Randall)
One Life to Live: Eddie Alderson (Matthew Rappaport) and John Paul Lavoisier (Rex Balsom)
Passions: James Stevenson (Jared Casey)
The Young and the Restless: Bryton McClure (Devon Hamilton) and Hunter Allan (Noah Newman)

~ Kevin in Tulsa

 

[scrapple]

killerbee, if there's any justice at all, Michael Park and Maura West will win for actor and actress. They were just awesome this year.

 

[renegade_killerbee]

I don't know, Scrapple. I don't and never have bought into the Jack and Carly pairing on "As The World Turns." Definitely not a fave couple of mine.

I ADORED Maura West when she blew into Oakdale in early 1995. WHAT A BITCH SHE WAS!!!

And all the horrible things she did to her sister Rosanna (then played by the very capable Yvonne Perry)?!? Wow! Up until West's 1996 maternity leave, I was mesmerized.

Then she came back in 1998 and had lost all her oomph. Granted she has collected Emmy nomination after nomination since then, I just haven't been so electrified by her anymore.

But back to "All My Children" (sigh): There's now speculation that Dixie's death was just a sweeps stunt. According to Marlena De LaCroix's newest online site. Check this out:

Last Tuesday, on the third official day of February sweeps, my friend Chris and I were watching an All My Children scene set in the emergency room in Pine Valley Hospital. Drs. Joe and Jamie were trying to revive Dixie, who had eaten poisoned peanut butter and banana pancakes originally meant for Babe. Because we read the same spoilers you do, we both knew Dixie was about to die.

"This is very fishy," Chris said.

"Something is rotten in Pine Valley," I said, mixing my soap opera and Shakespeare metaphors.

Because in a soap world where most characters who "die" eventually come back to life later on, neither Chris nor I were convinced that Dixie was really dead, or "dead dead," as real soap fans call it. Out of our combined 70 years of soap fandom, Chris and I came up with a list of reasons that All My Children was probably pulling an elaborate sweeps ruse on its loyal audience.

1. The big build up and then storyline interruptus! Dixie and Tad's long lost daughter Kathy (a.k.a. Kate) had just arrived on the AMC canvas after being talked about endlessly by Tad and Dixie and all the Martins for the past year. Why would AMC pull a storyline interruptus by killing Dixie within a hair's breadth of a mother and child reunion? In the episode we were watching in which Dixie eventually died, Dixie's ghost mouthed the word "Kate" as Tad hugged Kathy in a graveyard. This hurried storyline resolution wasn't a payoff after a year of build-up, it was a cheat to the audience.

2. They didn't have to be so nice! In print everyone was so complacent and downright nice about Cady losing her very high-paying job! That includes a magazine interview she gave in which she exhibited no bitterness whatsoever. Marlena has done a zillion exit interviews and no soap actor, even those let go under friendly circumstances, can resist the platform to expose the bad breath of a romantic co-star or a storyline that would have gone differently if they had had their way. So, is Cady really going away for good?

3. You've tried the rest, now keep the best! Cady McClain was by far the Best Actress on All My Children! I'm talking a real artist with extraordinary talent, who, like most real soap actresses, is forced every day to act with a bunch former swimwear models, muscle boys or just walking sets of eyebrows. Cady has two Daytime Emmys! You don't fire the Real Thing when your show is beyond bad!

4. On soaps, blood ties are everything. As illustrated in the historic clips of Dixie shown in the episode in which she died, the character Dixie has a long history and family ties with the core characters of All My Children. None of the Lavery babes or Annie can boast this. Cady left a real hole in the show the first time she "died." Why get rid of her again after fighting so hard to get her back?

5. Tad and Dixie were teacher's pets. My friend Chris, the only Megan McTavish fan on earth, says that one of Megan's favorite couples on the show has always been Tad and Dixie. Why would she want to destroy them again?

6. Murder TOO sweet! Peanut butter and banana pancakes as a murder weapon on a sophisticated soap in 2007? Gee! This is too bush league, so much so it would have been rejected even by crime soap Edge of Night circa 1957. It had to be a joke, and an inside one at that. There's precedent for odd ways of death on soaps. When I was watching ATWT in the early 70s, writer Irna Phillips (our Irna) killed off heroine Elizabeth Stewart by having her trip UP the stairs. In real life, Irma was angry because the actress Jane House, who played Elizabeth, was simultaneously appearing nude on-stage in the original Broadway production of Lenny.

7. A phony death déjà vu! Neither Chris nor I mean to impugn Cady McClain, who seems to be a very intelligent, very honest person in all her interviews, and a marvelous truthful actress in performance. But other soaps have pulled phony major character deaths to score big ratings during sweeps. When I was a soap magazine editor in 1983, Days of Our Lives infamously "killed" Dr. Marlena Evans, sparking a picket line at the studio by members of the Deidre Hall fan club. (They called me to cover it!) Of course, it turned out the woman really killed by the Salem Strangler was not Marlena but Marlena's twin sister. The ratings went up two points. Gotcha!

8. So, did All My Children really did kill off Dixie? We saw her "dead" body. But I remember seeing Patch's dead body on a gurney when he was first "killed off" on Days. I mean, if she's really "dead dead," something really is rotten at ABC Daytime. They've even stooped to exploit death, by choosing to show newly dead Dixie as a ghost, wearing an angelic white dress open to expose her suddenly enormous 3-D cleavage before a grief-stricken nation.

Extreme sweeps, indeed!




Posted by marlenadlc at 09:28 PM
Comments (4)

January 31, 2007
Extreme Sweeps, Part 1
During the five years I was away from writing about soaps professionally, I forgot how intense sweeps months can be in inspiring many showy, cataclysmic plot events aimed at hooking viewer attention. It's not quite February 1 yet, but for the last few days I've watched my first sweeps since I started writing Savoring Soaps last fall. Whoa! Who over the years speeded up into a frenzy the number of major sweeps plot events/stunts that occur per soap? Murders, car crashes, a poisoning, returns of veteran hunks, a terrorist takeover! Darlings, all of these have happened in the just last couple of viewing days!

When did the hubbub of soaps sweeps grow as fast and flashy as a NASCAR race? Will somebody out there send Marlena the crash helmet she needs to get through February?

Look at the casualty list I've toted up of all the soap character deaths that have occurred in just the last week: On One Life to Live, baddie Spencer was murdered by a mystery person. (My bet: Spencer's vulnerable little boy pal Jack.) On Young and the Restless, Paul's new love interest young detective Maggie was suddenly shot and killed by "Sheila." On Guiding Light, newly married Tammy was run over and killed by an agent of Alan Spaulding's. Today her grieving widower Jonathan and his baby daughter Sarah went off a cliff in a car, mirroring his mother Reva's famous "fatal" cliff dive years ago.

The weirdest and most disturbing death of all this week was on All My Children, as central heroine Dixie Martin died after being poisoned by peanut butter pancakes.

Seven character deaths in one week! That's beaucoup, not to mention excessive! And that's not even the half of what's promised to be up for sweep months. Today on General Hospital, a band of terrorists broke into the Metrocourt hotel in black ski masks, ready to hold such partygoers as Liz, Jason, Alan, and Lulu hostage in a backwards 24 style action/adventure sequence. (I already can't seem to follow it!) Yesterday, hunk Austin Peck (ex-Days) made his debut on As the World Turns as the new Brad Snyder, and one episode didn't go by before he ripped off his shirt. Today, suddenly long-haired Kyle Lowder (ex-Days) debuted as the new Rick Forrester on Bold and the Beautiful. Who told him Rick was a smirking rebel a la James Dean? His whole life up to now, Rick was an all-American good guy!

And today, veteran psycho Emily Stewart turned her first trick in a hotel on As the World Turns! How shocking and groundbreaking this descent into prostitution is for soaps! And I was embarrassed. I remember the day in the early 70s when Emily was born to Susan and Dan!

Speaking of shock, we are all supposed to be psyched for the biggest sweeps surprise of all on Passions. The Big Reveal will be, who is the secret "on the down low" gay lover of married Chad, who's been sneaking off to a motel for months! Does Passions feel its audience limits itself to Shirley Temples before dinner? You had to be little Shirley herself not to realize long ago that Chad's lover was a man!

What does this hyper onslaught of soap sweeps plots and events mean? I know a lot you will write to me and tell me that you love and glory in watching all this sweeps month action. Even I have been bountifully entertained so far. But what worries me about this nascent February sweeps stunt fest is that it makes soaps seem almost too desperate for viewers. Of course, with the ratings at an all-time low and the recent cancellation of Passions, soaps ARE desperate. But isn't this resorting to heavy duty stunts just a tad extreme? Killing a beloved heroine with peanut butter pancakes? Killing a month-old baby in an automobile cliff dive crash? Oh, please! And this is only Week One of February sweeps on (organ music) DESPERATE SOAPS!

Tune in tomorrow for Extreme Soaps, Part 2 as Marlena and a friend riff on the "death" of Dixie on AMC! It's a ruse, we say!


Posted by marlenadlc at 08:53 PM
Comments (2)

January 26, 2007
GL's Anniversary: Irna Knew Best!
When I woke up yesterday, the first thing I saw was "HOSTAGE CRISIS" blasted across my TV screen. "Who will live and who will die?" asked the announcer about this week on ABC's General Hospital.

I rolled over and moaned, "What action-adventure prime time junk! Why oh why did I ever start watching soaps again?"

I thought I was asking no one in particular, until an hour later when I knew Someone had heard me. Guiding Light's 70th anniversary episode, featuring the show's actors in a retelling of the soap's radio and television history, was being broadcast and I wound up cheering and even shedding a tear or two. Creatively and imaginatively produced, the episode not only showed insight into the show's history, but explained why fans like us love real daytime soap opera. Irna knew!

Irna Phillips of course was the creator of GL and in fact created the whole form of American soap. As "announcer" Ron Raines (anyone remember Hugh Downs?) sonorously explained at opening recreation of the show's first radio broadcast in 1937, "And she ruled with heart, soul and an iron glove." The episode then wove in and out of GL's history up through the 50s, showing the behind the scenes making of GL, recreating actual radio and TV scenes, live commercials and even sound effects. And in the behind the scenes stories we got to see actors and producers at work, cracking jokes, preening and even smoking cigs.

What fun! From Irna's first entrance into GL's radio studio, with Beth Ehlers done up like Myrna Loy in The Thin Man (in an expensive 1930s gray shearling hat and matching coat), most everyone in today's GL cast got to play a figure in GL history, who themselves were often playing classic characters. We saw Irna "writing" her show in her Chicago apartment, acting out every line as every word was faithfully taken down by stenographer Rose (Liz Keifer). From the fallible drunk Bill Bauer (Jordan Clarke) to the teary murderess Meta Bauer (recreated by Crystal Chappell) down through an absolutely hilarious Justin Deas as German-accented Papa Bauer (originally played by Theo Goetz), each character recreation was letter perfect. Shawn Dudley's period costumes were just stupendously right on the mark. I literally fell off my chair laughing when, as a tag, a suddenly stout Kim Zimmer showed up in a dowdy flowered dress and 40s hairdo in the GL radio studio in 1950 and said, "Hi, I'm Charita Bauer."

"She looks just like my grandmother in West Virginia did back then, when she listened to The Guiding Light faithfully," my husband Moose said when I watched the episode again later last night with him. "And those current GL actors look like they've never had as much fun in their lives."

Whoever wrote this episode must have gotten an A+ in Playwriting 101. To show that the making today's network shows mirrors the making those of decades ago, he staged several scenes over the years between Irna and a fictional supervising CBS programmer (wonderfully played by Robert Bogue). The network suit kept taunting her that her show wasn't like other soaps. Where are the glamour, the glitter, the high society, he demanded. But no one kept Irna in line! When he compared her show to another 40s hit called The Romance of Helen Trent, Irna exploded: "Who cares about who's dating whom and who owns what pieces of smart clothing! I'm writing about real life, real people. Real life is about war, religion, abuse and love! Life is a struggle and what I'm writing about is how everyday real people learn to live through the pain of struggle."

I stood up and cheered. Boy, Irna understood the human heart of the soap opera form she had invented! Hostage crisis at GH? What I'd rather see is a storyline in which Guza, Jason, Sonny and their guns and bombs are sent on a temporary sojourn to soap opera heaven where Irna would straighten them out about what soap operas are really about!


Posted by marlenadlc at 09:30 PM
Comments (7)

January 18, 2007
Darlene Conley: An Appreciation
When Darlene Conley debuted as Sally Spectra on Bold and the Beautiful in 1988, we viewers were finally able to catch a breath of fresh air in the stultifying upper class WASPY world of the Forrester family and their stuffy couture fashion company, Forrester Creations.

The brassy, outspoken knockoff queen, head of schmatte company Spectra Fashions, was first meant as a minor, temporary character. But there was nothing temporary or minor about Sally! Over the next 18 years, how we B&B fans adored and needed our Sal, Darlene Conley's over the top but always honest and truthful creation!

Because as much as Sally looked like a drag queen, underneath the red bouffant hair and Mae West vocal stylings, Sally was a real woman, a multi-layered person who brought a great deal of humanity to B&B. Conley was a real actress whose specialty was camp and comedy, but over the years on B&B portrayed an astonishing array of emotions: great tenderness toward (and deep grief over the death of) Sally's daughter Macy, and vulnerability for her sometime husband Clark, their son C.J. and various suitors like Eric Forrester. She showed love and support for just about everyone in the "Spectra gang," what Darlene always called Sally's family of characters (especially her devoted employees Saul and Darla.)

She was the perfect counterpoint to her enemy and eventual friend, the grand and sometimes grandiose Stephanie Forrester (the great Susan Flannery). Both actresses could have played their warring characters as cat-fighting cartoons, but they didn't. Sally and Steph were both played by two well-seasoned and wise actresses who knew how to play life as assorted shades of grey. Electric, entertaining and vividly alive, Flannery and Conley's characters showed definitively why the mature merit frontburner roles on soaps. They should be on all the time!

It's so sad for all of us that Conley passed away Sunday at 72. She came to soaps (where she also played Trixie on GH and Rose deVille on Y&R) with a full resume of movie and primetime television roles. I met Conley here in New York a year or two after she became Sally, and I was astonished at how unlike her character she was. She was far less gregarious but certainly more polished than Sally, and had the air of a total pro who had played everything and played it all over the world. After the interview, Darlene and I shared a cab to an awards ceremony. We went through the theater district quite slowly, as there was a lot of traffic. As we passed by each theater, she pointed and told me which plays she had done there years ago, and who her co-stars had been.

I don't know if today's Broadway would dim its lights for long ago character actress Darlene Conley. But we in the soap world loved her so. May she never be forgotten.

Tune in again next week for Marlena's thoughts on the cancellation of Passions, a show about which she wrote much over the years. Passionately!


Posted by marlenadlc at 09:49 PM
Comments (4)

January 11, 2007
Why Are GH Foes Still GH Fans?
I have a good friend from the old soap press who has called me every evening for the last twenty years. The conversation always starts like this: "Hey, did you see General Hospital today?"

And for the next ten minutes I can't get a word in as Jesse expounds on how awful the show is that he's watched literally since childhood. "Sonny, he's nothing but a murderer who never pays for his crimes," he sputters, lashing out in all directions. "And Jason, what a thug, I liked him better as a Quartermaine before he got his brains knocked out. That X?%#&!! Guza gives the whole show to the criminals! Marlena, why don't they remember there's lots of old viewers out there? They brought back Finola and Tristan and did nothing with them. And Sam? The only reason she is on is because someone upstairs craves a dive into her over exposed cleavage!"

Then Jesse curses the show's executive producer, and for good measure denounces the show's head writer again, throwing in an extra shot at the network's vice president for daytime. His diatribe always ends with the same line: "It wouldn't be like this if Gloria Monty was still running the show!"

Twenty years I've been listening to the same thing nightly! Finally, last week I screamed: "Jesse, if you don't like GH so much, than why the hell do you continue to watch it?"

Silence. Then he stammered: "My mother had her TV on and I just walked by. Marlena, I swear I only watched a little of it. Um. Er. It's not my fault that GH is on the monitor at Burger King, while I stand on line waiting for my fries. (Cough.) Okay, okay, I watch it for Jackie Zeman. She knows me! Her housekeeper actually sent me a sweet thank you note the last time I interviewed her."

Finally he whimpered, "In the end, I guess I still watch is because I know the people (the characters) on the show."

Oy! It's been my experience from having lots of soap friends who are chronic GH fans over the years that there are a whole lot of GH haters who continue to watch the show every day, just because, well, the dog ate their homework. Not only do they always find moi to complain to about GH, but after that THEY NEVER STOP WATCHING. Of course most people complain about their soaps. Bitching at soaps is at a record high since they invented a little thing called the Internet. But no soap is criticized as often or as virulently or as often as GH. Those GH message boards literally drip with venom day and night!

Considering that GH has managed to stay reasonably popular, in the upper half of the soap ratings over the years, I just don't understand the phenomenon of why GH viewers who don't like the show keep on watching. Help me!

Yes, you can help poor Marlena understand this weird GH phenomenon. If you happen to dislike GH and still remain an everyday viewer no matter what, I'd like you to write me and tell me why. My only rule is that you don't waste space enumerating WHAT you hate on the show (believe moi, Marlena already knows the painful problems of this show). What I want know is, if you hate it so much, WHY do you still watch it?

P.S. Just as you suspect, I got the idea for this column by watching Sonny come this close to shooting Carly AGAIN at the end of last week. (Instead, he hit Alcazar, who had drawn a gun on him.) It turned my stomach! I was outraged at Guza's gall! Marlena herself took a long hiatus from GH a couple of years ago after Sonny shot at Carly the first time, actually hitting her, while she was delivering baby Morgan. I have never been sickened more by an episode of a soap.

You may ask why I watch GH today. Well, I have this little critical column I have to write. But I'm lying! I still watch GH because the dog ate my homework!


Posted by marlenadlc at 09:15 PM
Comments (19)

January 09, 2007
Defending Spinelli
I just read a critical piece in a magazine that said the General Hospital character Spinelli, the college-aged computer hacker (played by Bradford Anderson), had no right to be on the show. Wow! Since when did soap critics gain the power to say "off with their heads" in print? (Zut alors, it must have been when Marlena was off in academe studying 18th century French history!) Even though there's much to detest right now on GH (see Thursday's column), I like Spinelli. Here's a supporting character who represents the long missing link in soaps: someone who provides comic relief from the daily sturm und drang and who appeals to the audience because he actually looks more the viewers than the parade of perfect bodies and cheekbones that make up today's soap casts.

But what I really love about Spinelli is how radically different he is from anyone on GH and anyone else on soaps: he's ugly! Some days, this greasy-faced dude even acts disgusting, too. Yesiree, but he has an exuberance and stoner sense of humor that subversively throws off the obsessive patter of everyday Port Charles conversations on babies and bullets. Spinelli has become renowned for his cute and apt nicknames of Port Charles girls: Lulu is "The Blonde One" and Sam is "The Goddess." The only time I've laughed at GH in the last year or so is when Spinelli had a meeting with Sonny and kept replying, "Yes, Godfather" and "No, Godfather," even though Sonny kept forbidding him to do so. (I also loved when Spinelli offered his stash to Alexis, who was in pain from chemotherapy. Even though the pot didn't ultimately help the lung cancer sufferer, this bit of storyline was a real soap original and a genuinely gutsy political statement by GH.)

We longtime soap fans know that humor and character roles like Spinelli were thrown out of soaps in the 90s like the proverbial baby with the bath water. Three or four such character specialists manage to survive on soaps today: Ilene Kristen as Roxy on One Life to Live and our darling Juliet Mills as Tabitha on Passions. Then there's Kate Linder, who has played maid Esther on Young and the Restless forever. And thank goodness, AMC is soon bringing back Jill Larson as Opal Cortlandt, the best soap humor character ever. Her New Wave sensibilities exactly match transgender character Zach/Zoe's and the poor murder suspect (I told you so!) certainly can use some quips along with loving support right now!

As you can see, funny girl Marlena just adores comic characters on soaps. (My all-time favorites are Timmy on Passions and Gunther on Edge of Night.) I don't know if Spinelli is going to join that list, but at least his continued existence as a frontburner "teen" character gives me hope that a soap head writer somewhere is thinking out of the box in this creatively dry soap climate.

I know that a number of my fan friends who don't like Spinell think he is yet another kick in the teeth inflicted on them by the King of Soap Sadism, GH head writer Bob Guza. As for moi, I savor that Spinelli has brought a least a little bit of lightness to the repetitive bang! bang! of life in Port Charles. In one episode this week, Alcazar (Marlena is among the multitude of admirers of the great looking Ted King!) was on the operating table fighting for his life after being shot by Sonny, and Tracy was calling Spinelli "Spumoni."

Last week, Tracy, that smart mouth, called him "Spaghetti." We've got to hold on to whatever little humor there is on GH, because the bloodshed on this show never seems to be a more than a kiss away.


Posted by marlenadlc at 09:02 PM
Comments (11)

January 04, 2007
Y&R Part II: The Problems
Last week in Part I, I wrote that rediscovering Young and the Restless was my most enjoyable soap experience of 2006. But the show has its problems, too. Here are some that I see:

For openers, Y&R's young characters are a big bore. Compared to the ABC soaps, which place their central plot spotlight on youthful characters, Y&R concentrates on older and veteran characters. I like that. But Y&R does have younger characters, too, and unfortunately they are the show's major liability. Why are they so dull? Why does it feel to me that college coed Colleen is given almost as much airtime a day as GL's Reva Shayne or AMC's Erica Kane? Actress Adrianne Leon is no soap superstar, and Colleen's love affair with art professor Adrian Korbel (every time his named is mentioned I yell out "Champagne!" as Korbel is a very famous real life brand of bubbly) is cliché city, especially to someone like me, who has spent so much recent time on a college campus. Colleen's old boyfriend, J.T., is a big washout. Especially puzzling is the recent addition to Genoa City's "teen" scene in the person of the grating irritant Amber, who in a spaghetti strap dress is "auditing" Prof. Korbel's classes. She's gotta be thirty! This is the very same character that was once a big pain in the WASPy tukas to anyone Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful for years. Why is same actress Adrienne Franz even on Y&R now?

The only young character who is consistently engaging on the nicely- layered show is Devon, deftly played by Bryton. He's fiery and defiant as a suspect in the Carmen murder mystery, yet vulnerable as a boy who has been rendered nearly deaf by meningitis. I adored the great depth of love and warmth with which his family, Dru, Neil and Lily Winters, gathered around him, shoring him up as he learned sign language and had his cochlear device installed.

So many of Y&R's characters are so highly idiosyncratic, it is almost impossible for new viewers to access them. As I watched Y&R anew these last few months, I just couldn't understand why I wasn't liking some of the show's central and historically most popular characters. Is this because the same writers (Bill Bell and associates) wrote the show for thirty years and characters and stories became a bit too inbred? For example, bland blond Sharon isn’t appealing or sympathetic to me even though I know she lost her daughter last year and her husband Nick cheated on her. To me, she just seems the queen of entitlement as she brazenly makes out with married Brad whenever she feels like it. But then, going back two decades, I've just never seen the appeal of Nikki, a.k.a. Mrs. Victor Newman, either. In scenes with every character but longtime friend Katherine Chancellor, Nikki's very, very flaky! I assume one would have had to watch Y&R for years to like these two. Y&R did new viewers a big favor last year when they gave the ultra-intimidating industrial titan Victor a strange side effect of epilepsy (don't ask!) in which he temporarily turned into a softy who like dogs, children and even his historic nemesis Jack. Showing Victor's tender side finally made me key into the character after two decades of being literally afraid of him. I think other Y&R characters could use similar deconstruction to show newer viewers why they tick.

Y&R is obviously a show in the throes of major change (from the decades of Bill Bell and his associates to the regime of Lynn Marie Latham). And there is nothing long term soap fans fear more than change! A head writer, especially one new to daytime, must find ways to entice new viewers without alienating the old ones. It's probably the hardest job in the world!

For example, Latham may have decided the entire Abbott family was a group of characters she no long wanted to write. One certainly can understand why viewers are so upset that longtime favorites John (who died) and Ashley Abbott (who left town this week) are suddenly gone. The Abbott breakfast table had been a star of the show all its own for years!

And lately, Y&R's ratings are indeed slightly down. In modernizing Y&R, keeping those old viewers happy while attracting new ones, Latham has quite the tightrope to walk.

P.S. Last week, in reviewing what I like about Young and the Restless, I wrote that at least this soap does not feature outlandish plot gimmicks a la the ABC soaps. I was wrong! This week, Michael has just discovered that Paul is detaining the real Sheila (who was thought dead but had secretly gotten plastic surgery to look exactly like Phyllis) in a cell that looks just like Michael and Lauren's baby nursery. What a mindblower that episode was! And the day before, Kaye had confessed to Nikki that she finally remembers that long ago she switched Jill's baby Phillip for another baby, leaving the possibility that the real Phillip is alive.

Is Y&R suddenly going the route of other gimmicky soaps like Days of Our Lives (where Roman and John once famously juggled faces) and One Life to Live (where Marco and Karen pioneered the fine art of baby switching decades ago)? In actuality, in order to keep up with the soap get-those-cheap-ratings-fast Joneses (the current ABC shows and NBC's Days and Passions) all Y&R has been doing is dipping into its own history. Surely you remember that the then thoroughly evil Victor held his then wife's lover Michael Scott in a cell in the early 80s and Brad himself was kept in a cell by a crazed ex-lover (Lisa Mansfield) later on. I assure you that back in the day, it flipped soap insiders out that conservative family man Mr. Bell was writing really quasi-kinky stuff like this. And years ago in a very serpentine story, Sheila took a baby boy she had bought on the black market and switched him in the nursery with Lauren's first son by Scott.

To stage gimmick and stunt plots, a soap head writer has be a somewhat of a magician, or at least a very creative thinker. But, as you can tell, I crave intelligent writing myself above all on soaps. These days I savor intelligence wherever I find it, and Y&R is still mostly a soap with a brain.