Still More on the Half-Year in Soaps

Lest anyone think I am anti-Carolyn Hinsey, let me assure you that I am not.
I just think she is misinformed about what constitutes the crime of rape.
Actually, most of her recent columns have been pretty good. I'd link you to them, but it appears that the SOD site does not have them archived. If you want to send her your opinion about any of the soaps, you can reach her at sodopinion@aol.com. (That is not a link). Don't send her mass e-mail messages to campaign for such and such an actor/actress to stay on a show or to change storylines. She doesn't like that sort of thing. (Neither would I). If you're really funny, you could get published in SOD. Who knows? You could be the next Marcia from Arkansas.

More on the soaps later

Mimi Torchin Returns to Soap Opera Weekly

After a three-year absence from the magazine she helped to launch, Mimi Torchin returned to
Soap Opera Weekly starting with the August 19, 2003 issue, which just hit the stands a couple of days ago. (In some areas, the new SOW won't hit the stands until
Tuesday the 12th, but there are a couple of stores here that get the Tuesday mags out on the
Thursday or Friday prior to their official newsstand date.)

I was dismayed about Torchin's departure from SOW, as her "Speaking My Mind" editorial in each issue was always a treat. Torchin cares passionately about soaps and about free speech. I am not a soap insider, so don't know the real story of her departure. I do suspect, however, that it was not entirely voluntary. Not long before she left, SOW was involved in a dispute with Days of Our Lives regarding a column written by Marlena De LaCroix.
De LaCroix (a pseudonym) had written something about another soap being unwatchable. I believe the show was General Hospital, but my memory is a little foggy on the details. For some reason, Ken Corday, Executive Producer of DOOL, became enraged. Corday believed that De LaCroix had gone too far. He thought that the mags were to support the soaps, not criticize them harshly. With soap ratings falling, the mags had a duty to be cheerleaders. He declared that DOOL would not do any promotion with SOW, supply pictures, etc. Torchin stood by De LaCroix and criticized Corday pretty harshly for his attempts to quash free speech. Although I was never a huge fan of De LaCroix's, she did have a right to write whatever she wished about the soaps. And I was glad that Torchin stood by her.

I don't remember the timeline exactly, but Torchin left not too long after the dispute with DOOL--I believe it was within a year. De LaCroix left soon after. Lynn Leahy was made Editorial Director of both SOW and Soap Opera Digest . "Speaking My Mind" was replaced with "Dueling Divas." Some time later P.K. Waddle took over De LaCroix's "Critical Condition" column. SOW took a decidedly fluffy turn. If it weren't for fan letters, "Critical Condition" and Carolyn Hinsey's role in "Dueling Divas," there would be little serious commentary in the magazine at all. The same goes for SOD. There, Hinsey and the Mail Bag and "Love It/Hate It" are what save the mag from being a gossip and fashion rag. Both mags do have feature articles that sometimes touch on controversial issues such as how soaps portray rape and the integration of ethnic minorities into mostly white soap towns. But the majority of space is taken up with fashion and make-up tips, puff piece interviews, who wore what where, etc. And if you believe everything you read in SOD, most soap stars are also gourmet cooks. Yes, there is actually a regular feature that shows a soap star cooking a favorite recipe. SOW even devotes a few pages each issue to prime time shows, as if there is not already enough coverage of them in other magazines.

Torchin is going to be writing a weekly opinion column, aptly titled "Still Speaking My Mind." It appears that it will replace "Critical Condition," although there was no mention of this in the magazine. P.K. Waddle's column was not in the most recent issue. If the people at SOW have any sense, they will team Hinsey and Torchin in "Dueling Divas." I suspect that those two very opinionated ladies would bring a lot of attention to the magazine.

Speaking of soap criticism, P.K.Waddle's column in the August 12, 2003 issue of SOW was about As the World Turns , one of two soaps that I tape. The other being Port Charles, of course. Waddle's point was that ATWT is even better now than it was last year, the year for which it won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in May. I only saw about the last quarter or so of last year's ATWT. I can agree that the show is better now, mainly because the bus tour storyline is over. The not particularly interesting teens are now in different storylines, which showcase why the bus tour story never worked.

Star-crossed lovers Aaron and Lucy look more like brother and sister than boyfriend and girlfriend. That might not be so bad if they generated more romantic chemistry than siblings. Unfortunately, they don't. Lucy would be more interesting on her own. I like Lucy (Peyton List) in scenes with her father Craig and new stepmother Rosanna.

Meanwhile, immature and moody Alison--the wonderful Jessica Dunphy--is in a budding romance with Chris Hughes, played by Grant Show lookalike Bailey Chase. (Chase is improving day by day). If fan comments in the soap mags are any indication, Alison and Chris are becoming popular. The bus story would have worked only if fans had had reason to root for the boring Lucy and Aaron and had believed that the normally reasonable Hal would become obsessed with pinning Aaron with an arson charge.

Waddle thinks that ATWT is near perfect. I don't. The stories now are all engaging but there are is one very serious problem with all of them: characters who ought to be involved, even if marginally so, are not seen. Jack and Carly got married in Montana with only Craig, Rosanna, Mike, Molly, Katie, Parker, and a Native American midwife in attendance. Because Lily and Rose were stuck down a well, none of the Snyders could attend. Emily and Hal also could not go.
Bob Hughes is in his second coma. Yet only Kim and Chris have been by his side. His son Tom and daughter-in-law Margo have been almost completely absent from the hospital--I think Tom was shown there once. Margo went there to get information from Susan about the Lily/Rose kidnapping--not to check on her father-in-law. Barbara and Kim are on the outs, so it might be awkward for Barbara to show up, but she should anyway. And where is Lisa? Eileen Fulton made some very public comments about the current ATWT regime not wanting to use her. No matter what is going on behind the scenes, Lisa should be there for her friend Kim and her ex-husband Bob. Hogan Sheffer and his crew know how to write great stories and great dialogue, but they do have problems with isolating stories and with not knowing how to deal with certain characters, thus dropping them. They killed off Jake McKinnon because he didn't have any connections on the show. New characters with few or no connections to existing families appear on soaps all the time--including ATWT. What connections did Marshall and his daughter Sara have? Yet they are now fairly prominent characters.

The ATWT serial killer story would be killer but for the facts that there were not enough suspects and all of the people who died were minor characters. Gordo, who had come to Oakdale Memorial because of his admiration for Bob, was an obvious red herring. Chris could not be the murderer. So that left the charming, good-looking, and oh-so-reasonable Dr. Eric (Rick) Decker, played by former Dynasty hunk John James. And again, this story seems to take place in a its own little world. (Perhaps the name of the show should be changed to As the Worlds Turn.) Emily, who is supposed to be Carly's good friend, has had virtually no contact with her since the disastrous fashion show. Hal is the lead investigator on the serial killer case, yet he rarely talks to Margo, whose family is directly affected by it. And you'd think Paul would drop by to say a few kind words to Kim. Sure he's just back from the dead and bent on getting revenge on Barbara, but he ought to find some time to comfort his great aunt--especially since she is on the outs with Babs too.

What I like about ATWT far outweighs what I don't like. The dialogue is smart and witty. All of the stories--except for Lucy and Aaron's--are interesting, even if they are taking place on little islands. Some stories are ending as others are about to begin. People are on to Rick now, so the murder mystery will end soon. But the fallout from Paul's return promises to affect his relationships with his family, Rose, Dusty--and now Craig and Rosanna--for a long time to come. I am looking forward to more scenes between Cady McClain's Rosanna and Roger Howarth's Paul. Theirs is an inspired pairing. So is the partnership between Craig and Dusty. Hunt Block and Grayson McCouch are hilarious together. And no doubt that both Rose and Rosanna will oppose their business liaison. Sara and Marshall's story should be a humdinger, too.

ATWT deserved the Emmy, although its winning ensured the demise of PC. It should also get the prize next year for this year's work. I've a feeling that The Young and the Restless and GH will be strong contenders too.

Rape, Incest, Murder

Those are hardly staples of soaps, at least in the minds of most fans. But several shows have taken decidedly violent and just plain icky turns with recent storylines. Carolyn Hinsey recently complained--with justification--about how dark soaps have become. I am not copying her, since this topic was planned for posting several weeks ago. She just beat me to the punch.

ATWT has been praised for its rape storyline, but I question why the rapist--who admitted to the crime but got off due to a mistrial--was then "pardoned" of all of his other crimes, for which trials were still pending after the rape mistrial. Actually, he was not pardoned, the DA inexplicably dropped the charges, as if by doing so, viewers would forget what had happened. At least the rapist, T. Marshall Travers, does not have a leading lady yet, but that could be in the cards. Last spring, it appeared that Marshall was going to be killed, thus solving the problem of what to do with this corrupt, violent character. Instead, poor Jessica--Marshall's victim--was shot and almost killed by her daughter, Bonnie.

Marshall has never paid for his crimes and remains on the show in a prominent storyline. Keeping Marshall out of prison--or alive--just so that his presumed-dead daughter could become Bonnie's foster child (or adopted child) denies the viewers justice. How ironic (situational irony, I mean) that Roger Howarth left OLTL for ATWT because his rapist character committed murder and other crimes, yet was made a romantic leading man and never paid the consequences. (He was briefly imprisoned for the rape, at least). I hope that ATWT is not on that track with Marshall. I don't want to see anyone out of a job, but the writing team should have thought about what they were going to do with Marshall's character before they made him into a rapist. Of course, they did think about it. They thought that Marshall's criminal past would deepen the drama now that Sara knows who her father is. But characters not paying for their crimes doesn't deepen drama. It cheapens it. Is rape an unforgiveable crime and is Marshall an irredeemable character? No and no. But Marshall should have had to face the consequences of his actions. Otherwise, they look just like devices to advance the plot.

ATWT is wrapping up a serial murder storyline--see above for details. GL just finished its own serial killer story a few weeks ago--when Ben was revealed to be the murderer and then killed himself. (What a sad end for the son of one-time lead character Fletcher). Now DOOL is gearing up for its own serial killer story. On OLTL, villanous Mitch was killed earlier this summer. Murder mysteries can be compelling, but are soap viewers getting too much of a good thing? Viewers of both ATWT and GL have probably wondered which show was which for a while. (Not really, as the two P&G soaps could not be more different now. But that's another topic).

Incest, or near incest has been featured on The Bold and The Beautiful, Y&R, OLTL and GH this year. B&B and Y&R were daring, but in different ways. B&B had Bridget (Jennifer Finnigan, who looks could be Jennifer Ferrin's sister) and Ridge (Ronn Moss) were paired up as potential lovers. The problem? While Bridget was artificially aged from being say 10 to a teenager and then into her early 20's, she "grew up" thinking that Ridge was first her father, and then her half-brother. A recent plot twist revealed that Eric Forrester was not Ridge's father, meaning that there were no blood ties between the two characters. Once Bridget found out the truth, she started having romantic feelings for Ridge, a man she has always thought of as family, one way or another. Blood relationship or not, this was pretty wild, even for soaps. Fans objected to the storyline and TPTB (Bradley Bell) wisely chose to drop it.

On Y&R, the incest story was the result of another bit of revisionist history, only this time, characters who were thought to be unrelated--sworn enemies, in fact--were found out to be mother and daughter. Jill Foster and Katherine Chancellor have a history of enmity that dates back to the early days of daytime's most popular soap. I haven't really watched the show in years, but it used to be almost required viewing in my household when I was growing up, so this revelation was a real shocker. The incest that could have happened was the result of a storyline that predated the plot twist by a few years: Jill's son and Katherine's granddaughter (Jill's new niece) had been dating and had actually gotten married. My understanding is that the couple had never had sex and were interrupted just in time on their wedding night. However, the characters had already committed incest in some way. While they may not have ever had sex, surely they had kissed and made out during their romance. Of course, their romance was written before the show decided to make a dramatic shift in character relationships.

On OLTL, Joey and Flash (who was revealed to be his cousin) had a brief flirtation that included some kissing. He was paired with someone else and become involved in a triangle with a character who we can only presume is not a long lost relative. The trouble with this story was this: Joey and the viewers did not know Flash's true identity. But Flash did know who she was and did know that Joey was her cousin. So why was she after him?

On GH, two teenage cousins, who are not blood relatives, but who grew up thinking of each other as family have been paired romantically. Unlike the rest of the soap fandom, I don't really watch GH, so I am not sure of exactly how the characters are related. Nevertheless, the thought is still icky. I have cousins who are not blood relatives. I would never even think of becoming involved with any of them romantically.

Both the Y&R and OLTL incest stories show how soaps can get screwed up when juicy stories are produced before being fully thought out. Any soap, given the continuing narrative structure and the many years of production, can make the mistake of romantically linking characters who later turn out to be related. On both B&B and GH, the stories were more about people living and relating to one another as family, even if there were no shared bloodlines. No matter how it is written, incest--or potential incest-- is not something viewers welcome. Soaps would do well to avoid it in the future.