So it’s time to update your feeds and links and head on over to http://soapsbyremote.com (or, if you prefer, http://soapsbyremote.typepad.com).

I’ve switched over to typepad which I’ve used for my personal blog for years because wordpress wasn’t giving me the flexibility to do what I wanted to do within my own extremely limited web design skills and it turns out I don’t have the time or inclination to futz over it any more.

I will play with the design going forward, but for now it’s a case of simple is as simple does.

Not nearly as much as one that’s coming because it will be so spectacularly pointless that I do not understand it on a single level, but I’ll save that rant for the time, and this time around just confine myself to “they’re killing another Quartermaine, oh joy”.

GH seems to have taken the attitude in recent years that they’re not afraid to kill off a character. Think about it, who has simply left town recently instead of being shot, strangled, virused or heart attacked? Dillon and Felicia. That’s about it. Sure Ned and Anna come and go and Robert and Lucas haven’t been seen, but Ned’s the only one of those who has actively left town and that was only advised after the fact. I don’t think Laura counts.

But the dead list is quite lengthy when it comes to medium and long-term characters. Off the top of my head: Zander, Tony, Courtney, AJ, Justus, Alan, Lorenzo, Emily and at least one more to come. That four of them are Quartermaines doesn’t help matters, of course, but while they’ve been the centre of attention recently, they’re hardly alone.

When they elected to kill off Alan and bring him back as a ghost, I wrote at length about the need to refresh cast and that sometimes killing off a character can achieve a whole lot more than just having them wind up in the seniors closet or disappeared. It can deliver great material for the show, for the other players. It can deliver drama.

In can also give a long neglected character and the actor that plays them a proper send-off, as they did, momentarily at least, with Tony and Brad Maule. I didn’t resent killing off Tony. I did resent a lot of what they did to him, or didn’t do, in the years before, but at least he got a brief farewell. Had they actually sent Alan into the great beyond I could have coped with that too, and while I do rather love Alan as Tracy’s Track Suited Conscience, it’s hardly the best use of him. But that’s old news.

Killing off younger characters, especially those in core families who we have seen grow up, always strikes me as being considerably more redundant. It does have its place, definitely, but GH seems to be becoming relentless about it. Just because an actor wants to leave, doesn’t have to mean recast or death. There is another option and it can be used to good effect.

There are exceptions, definitely, and while I missed – deliberately – most of her run, Courtney was a character ill conceived from day one and whose death was pretty well universally welcomed. As far as I can tell the only things that were mourned about her passing were that (a) it wasn’t sufficiently satisfying on a karmic level and perhaps getting run over by someone would have been a better way to go; and (b) her death got more attention than Tony’s even though they were both forgotten the instant the funeral was over.

The same can’t be said of any of the others. It would actually have been more interesting if Lorenzo had disappeared and set Jason up as a murderer in the process. If AJ just got fed up with the whole thing and abandoned the family. If Justus got a much better job in another city as a non-mob lawyer. They can go away and not come back for years. Or not at all. But there’s always possibility. There’s always the possibility that – genre-killing strikes notwithstanding – their kids could show up.

If they really have known of Natalia Livingston’s desire to leave for months then they could have easily recast Emily with someone better, or used that time to build up a reason for her to leave. Instead of getting back together, her relationship with Nikolas could have got worse and she could have elected to take a job in another hospital out of town for a while.

Instead we’re now down to the following Quartermaines: Edward, Monica, Tracy, Skye and Jason. Plus an obnoxious red headed child and an anointed baby they’re not yet chanting “one of us, one of us!” about. Of those Skye and Jason and all the kids are substantially estranged from the family, we virtually never see either Edward or Monica and they certainly never get any story unless another relative dies, and Tracy is the only one who has any story of her own and that’s only because she’s a Spencer now.

This was a dynamic family for 25 years. Across numerous generations. There is no reason at all why they couldn’t be dynamic again now. And yet? Now there’s no next generation on screen. Dillon’s gone, Brook-Lyn disappeared. Though at least those two can come back at some point. Emily and AJ and Justus can’t. I can’t imagine they’ll want Michael when he grows up psycho. Which means there’s virtually no hope of further generations until they send Lila (not actually a Q) and Jake through the SORAS machine. Let’s face it, the closest thing the Qs have to a medium term future is Lulu. (Which I get the disturbing feeling is exactly what TPTB like.)

Which is not to say that Emily’s death hasn’t generated great material very well played, and there will no doubt be more to come next week when the actual Qs get involved. But that is itself a problem because it just serves to show what the writers and actors can do when they put a little effort into it. Which, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, just drives me nuts because it only serves to highlight what they don’t do during the rest of the year.

During the rest of the year Sonny doesn’t have real human reactions to things, just a stock set of reactions – though I do admit that he’s been better under the combined influences of Kate, Diane and Alexis in recent months than he has been in years. During the rest of the year Carly is incapable of thinking of anyone but herself or being quiet, and yet when Emily dies she can still be her wilful self but be more aware of Nikolas and Jason than she is of herself. Unlike Mr Bernard, I think Laura Wright always does a pretty good job, but it’s days like Thursday that show how many more layers she’s capable of when her character is not written as a relentless shrew.

It shouldn’t take sweeps stunts and killing off legacy characters – even ones I was not particularly enamoured with – to bring that out. Of course, I know that this is a refrain I’m going to continue to sing for as long as this regime is in charge, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

I’m just glad this attitude wasn’t about in the late 90s, otherwise Kimberly McCullough’s desire to move to other pastures may well have resulted in a target on Robin’s head instead of a trip to Paris. And where would be now if that were the case?

I did think this week was a good week for GH, it’s just that the central point seems so cynical. Especially if the rumours that Natalia will continue to appear through to May are true.

And one has no choice but to assume that come February, if the show is still on the air, that Monica will have a lot to worry about. But hey, if they kill her off, we’re sure to get Ned back to give yet another eulogy! And then it’s just a question of who will be left for her to haunt.

To give them credit, I guess the powers that be do realise that there’s nothing like killing a legacy character for no good reason to bring out the quality emotional performances in everyone else (even a character for whom most affection resides with her original portrayer).

I do think GH did a pretty damn good job so far this week. Between the reveal of Jake’s parentage and the great performances over Emily’s death, with some lovely little moments in between.

I do have some questions though.

Why is Jax, who at least equals if not exceeds Jason and Jerry for time spent running around in the rain and getting half drowned, so clean?

Jason looks appropriately worked over and positively running with dirt, and Jerry’s roughed up, but Jax actually looks better than he did when the evening started and his shirt is white, white, white.

Speaking of white shirts, why is Logan still wearing his vest? I didn’t know he was so at home in a tux.

Where are Maxie and Georgie?

Why do I like Sonny’s girlfriend so much? Oh, actually I know the answer to that. It’s because she makes this face when Sonny claims not to hold a grudge.

I was also rather fond of her wondering aloud whether he was a typical male who couldn’t ask for directions (not that I’m sure who they could ask) or whether he really just didn’t want to find out if Ric was okay. With extra points for her not giving a fig about Carly or being the least bit jealous.

When did Lulu get to the point that I cheer when multiple people – Spinelli, Nadine, Elizabeth, Johnny and Jason – tell her to get over herself in one scene? I know she crossed that line for others some time back, but she’s officially there for me now.

Related question. Logan arrives at the barn to advise Lulu that her father has had a heart attack. They then leave the barn leaving behind hmm, let’s see, two of the six medical professionals on the island. Was that well thought through?

Finally, before it passes permanently into history, or the young person’s equivalent of the track suit of the afterlife, a question which has been on my mind for years: why does Emily’s calling Jason “Jase” simultaneously seem very real – a sister having a pet name for her brother – and highly, highly annoying? It bugs the crap out of me every time Natalia Livingston delivers the name, even though it feels like a name she should deliver.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Emily’s Death: The Good, the Pointless and the So, So Frustrating.

Caps courtesy Clarissa.

The start of the episodes of both Days and GH on Monday did it, and combined to force me into print on the subject.

Phillip comes to visit Belle and Claire in hospital and offer to take them home and for ice cream and Belle calls him on it. Twice, delivered in a slightly different fashion and blocked completely differently. Once at the end of Friday, differently at the beginning of Monday.

Jason walks in on Sam, Lucky and Elizabeth fighting and announces that it’s not Sam’s truth to tell. Twice, delivered in a completely different fashion, blocked similarly but from a different POV, and with a bunch of different lines before he spat it out. Once at the end of Friday, differently at the beginning of Monday.

At least the scene on GH kept going to deliver the punchline, so to speak, while the Days scene ended in exactly the same place and therefore repeating it served no purpose whatsoever.

Anyway, that’s my pet peeve for the day, now nicely aired so I can get on with the watching and/or fast-forwarding.

It seemed when the strike was called that there were unlikely to be scabs and unlikely to be reruns and more likely there would be news show replacements and perhaps the daytime soap genre would fall by the wayside.

The very real possibility of the genre disappearing, not to mention the costs of production verses the costs of being on strike no matter how strong the force majeure suspension clauses in everyone’s contracts, clearly started to impact as soon as the picket lines started being walked.

Now there is open talk of scab writers already working, and strong rumours of several writers at The Young & The Restless (now debunked) and possibly one at Days crossing the line and going back to work.

There is no doubt that soap writers and producers are in one of the more invidious positions in this battle. While writers and producers on prime time shows that are on the bubble and may not get picked up as a result of an ongoing strike may lose their shows, prime time TV isn’t going anywhere. Daytime drama may well end up consigned to history. No jobs for striking writers to go back to, fewer jobs for actors and producers and camera operators and craft service and grips and sound engineers.

The strike can bring a lot of TV to a stand still with showrunners and actors and teamsters and many others supporting the writers, and that may bring the conglomerates back to the negotiating table. Eventually the networks and distributors and other players will care fundamentally that they don’t new episodes of dramas and comedies and maybe even talk shows to air. It will start to cost them. And that means that a degree of power lies with the WGA even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. Unfortunately the daytime section of the community has no power at all.

In daytime ratings are declining, quality is declining, presumably advertising dollars are declining, and it has been a steady downhill slope for years. So it’s easy to see how an attitude of “let them strike, there won’t be anything for them to come back too and we can put on some other talk show that’s just as soapy but far cheaper on in that slot” would be taken.

It seems clear that both the soap producers and the soap writers can see that possibility with sharp clarity. So where does that leave them? The only way to maintain the genre is to keep the shows on the air. And the only way to do that is either to hire scab writers – even where the individual producers themselves are sympathetic to the strike and may have downed tools – or to encourage/coerce guild writers to cross the line.

And the writers themselves see a future of not only short term pain, like their prime time colleagues who are living on small cheques from job to job, but the possibility of not having a job, or a genre, to come back too.

That must be hell.

Then you add in the extra twist of the knife: the new media residuals writers are fighting for. Were the charming Brian Frons’s view of the future to come to fruition and we were reduced to watching soaps on our mobile phones, guess what would be a soap writer’s main source of residuals? Oh yes, new media. The very residuals the WGA is fighting to obtain.

Talk about a rock and a hard place.

So for all the rants I may launch about the bad writing, even perhaps going so far at times to note that some new writing blood might be a boon to the genre, this is not the means by which I would want to achieve that.

I started out this post like my previous notes about the strike, simply intending to update a little, rather than get political. However, I feel like I probably need to put my position out there. I work in the television industry down here in my little corner of the world where the unions are not nearly as strong as they are in the US – I have seen Hollywood producers choke when seeing how little every participant in the creative process down here is paid and how limited to non-existent their rights to residuals are – and I negotiate with and on behalf of writers and actors and directors every day of my working life. I work a lot in so-called new media. I work on both sides of the line, I’m a producer, I also work with a lot of writers. I very clearly see both sides.

I’m also just a viewer. I write this blog just as a viewer. The fact I also work in the business is purely coincidental and rarely impacts on what I write here.

From both those perspectives I feel for almost all the participants in the genre. I see that the producers are in an awful position. I want to continue to be able to watch and mock my stories in the short and the long term.

But ultimately I believe in what the writers are fighting for and think that writers across all genres, including this perilous one, need to keep fighting for it. Which means no crossing the line. Which may mean, unfortunate as it may be, putting the genre on the line.

Aside from regular and industry news outlets, Snark has been compiling good soap-specific strike updates, and United Hollywood is the unofficial blog of the writers strike. Go visit them.

In every long overdue baby reveal there are winners and there are losers. And then there’s Sam McCall.

I would first like it noted that I am pleased that this particular paternity reveal, while hideously overdue, did not take place in a scenario where the baby was ill and needed a bone marrow transplant or a blood donation, which I feared was where they were going to end up if someone didn’t blurt it out pretty damn soon. So we’re all winners there. Sort of. In a grasping at straws way.

When it came to the four major players, Elizabeth was the obvious loser. Sam was right, it was her lie, and no matter how she ended up there she perpetuated it. Yes, when it finally came out she owned that lie, but too little, waaaaaaay too late. And she added a cherry of justification on the lie, which would have been fine has she confessed after the last real-time sweeps stunt in February, but now, again, too little, too late. I do give her some credit for the fact that they decided to pack a whole lot of exposition badly disguised as justification in her mouth, and feel sorry for Becky Herbst in that regard, but still, too little, too late.

Lucky was the winner. Not in the paternity stakes, obviously, but in everything else. His refusal to take it at face value, his quite fantastic punch, his anger. His calling Jason on his job, his attitude and pretty much everything else, especially the fact that he doesn’t want to give up killing people for a living for his kid. His anger at Elizabeth and dismissal of her explanations. Go Lucky. Entirely justified, and, something I don’t often say, fabulously well played by Greg Vaughn.

Jason came off in about the same place as Elizabeth. Sure he put it out there, took the punch and then applied some patented Jason Silence to the situation. But he pretty soon started defending Liz in a manner than may have been positive for his non-relationship but was otherwise useless. If he was going to defend it would have probably been more useful to apply the offence is the best defence strategy and call Sam on her actions, but otherwise shutting up would have been far more appropriate in the circumstances.

And then there’s Sam. One third right, one third hypocrite of the largest order and one third IT’S ALL ABOUT ME! MEMEMEEEE! She’s entirely right and justified in pointing out that this is Liz’s lie, beginning to end. Unfortunately she didn’t get to that until the end.

By then she’d already undermined herself by staring with classic Sam, whose infertility issues have nothing to do with this. Jason was willing to have a kid with her. Admittedly that was for about 3.5 seconds between being informed Elizabeth wasn’t pregnant with his child and being informed that she was/that Sam couldn’t have kids, but he was okay with it during that period. Sort of. Regardless, his reasons for not wanting a kid with her were in fact more rational than the whole rest of this story. And either way, Sam had nothing to do with it given Jake was the very definition of unplanned.

Then, still before she got to the accurate righteousness she further undermined herself by starting to rail on Jason for his job. In that regard Sam of the living-with-Jason-for-three-years-justifying-everything-he-did-and-picking-up-a-gun- herself-on-a-regular-basis cannot speak. No way. Jason’s third in line cheer leader – often second in line behind Carly but in front of Sonny – undermines all her good work when she starts to call him on kids not fitting in with his “lifestyle”. She’s right, but she doesn’t get to say it.

So by the time Sam got to calling Liz on her responsibility for the lie, especially given she’s still lying herself on several fronts, it no longer had quite the sweet punch it could have. It was still sweet, but not nearly so punchy.

So, in summary, thank the lord that that’s finally out, and go Lucky. Also, can Carly’s head explode soon, please?

Of course, nothing so complimentary could be said of blanket-wearing Hope, Kayla of the camp military or Kate of the WTF?

Caps courtesy Days2 and NBC.

When they made it clear that they were going to do some semblance of a real time event again, I didn’t actually have a problem with it. I still don’t. It may now be unoriginal, but what doing something like this over three weeks allows is for most of the cast to be involved and for all their stories to be told over the period, rather than trying to squash things together.

It also allows room for quite a deal of cast integration, which is always a positive. And even though both GH and Days have vastly improved in that area in the last 12 months, I still always welcome a chance for it to happen to a greater degree.

That general point aside, the execution this time around has been vastly inferior.

The main reason is the lack of suspense.

During the Metro Court crisis there were two main things that drove the action in terms of keeping the stakes clear and urgent. First there was the quite literally ticking bomb waiting to go off. Second there was a villain who, no matter how convoluted and painful he has become since, drove the action and was always raising the stakes by being genuinely unpredictable. In other words, shooting Robin was a great move.

This time around there is no ticking bomb, literal or otherwise. There is the promise of Nikolas waking up next to an as yet unidentified but rather obvious unconscious female, whose fate is also obvious (and ridiculous), so the only unknown is the cause of said fate. Other than the writers of course. I’ll rant more about that when said female and their fate is actually revealed on screen as opposed to in the mags.

There is no one driving villain. Instead there is one highly amusing but not really scary lunatic who no longer has any clear target, one long term character suffering fits of violence and black outs – who is far more scary and yet also a character with a future on the show so how far will he actually go? – and a series of potential red herrings/character assassinations and nameless so-called mercenaries. Against those are the whole rest of the cast, most of them more heavily armed than the people they supposedly fear.

It just doesn’t have me anxious to find out what happens next. How they get from point A to point B, point B very possibly involving everyone but Nikolas and The Body having left the island some time before, for all we know.

In more traditional sweeps fashion, I’m actually more interested in the personal revelations that may or may not occur: Jake’s parentage, Kate’s past, Coop’s role in the Metro Court, Logan’s military misdeeds, etc. And most of that is more about a sense of oh, they’re finally going to deal with that then, than anything else.

The secondary reason it’s not working this time around is the refusal to acknowledge that they’ve done this before. They seem so afraid to draw attention to the fact that they undertook a similar exercise a mere nine months ago – as if we didn’t notice – that they’re avoiding even the most obvious references to the Metro Court experience and its undermining the drama. It’s silly.

That is particularly noticeable in the Patrick/Robin/Ric section of the drama. For a large part they put Patrick, Robin and at points Emily in a situation that they have experienced in different ways before, with a group of people who didn’t experience it, and they refuse to even refer to it.

There should be no circumstances in which those three doctors who are preparing to sew up Ric with fishing line do not refer to the fact that rather recently one of them guided another over the phone as to how to do exactly the same to the third, and it all worked out. That they’re studiously ignoring that fact is ridiculous. If there were any depth to the character portraits they’d be drawing on that experience, not acting like this is something entirely new that they’ve never had to cope with before. It doesn’t undermine the story to acknowledge that; we all know it – ratings clearly indicate that there’s no new viewers watching now that weren’t watching in February and even if there were, this would be helpful background – and not referring to it just looks like the writers are trying to hide the perfectly obvious.

Also, they’re missing a golden opportunity to have a few genuine bonding moments between Patrick and Robin that would be relevant even if they have medium term plans for the chemistry vortex that is the Leyla/Patrick pairing. I can’t believe that anyone, including the writers, see Leyla as anything other than an obstacle, and high crisis sweeps events are the time you focus on the core pairings even if only for a short time, not the obstacles.

Given I think that they’ve got the overall pacing and focus wrong, there are things, moments that have worked, definitely. I think Tyler Christopher is doing a great job. The moments between Ric and Alexis were fantastic (though I guess we see no more of those going forward). Throwing Luke and Scott into a room and having them actually speak to each other – no matter the general sacrelige of some of Luke’s other statements – after the bluster and the yelling, is a good thing. Nadine has, remarkably enough, turned into a breath of fresh air.

Also as with the Metro Court situation, so far at least not everything has been about Jason being heroic. Sure, he’s running around ferrying people to the barn and occasionally saving Carly’s life, damn him, but really, to date, Jax has come off as the most active and heroic in actually getting stuff done. Aside from the doctors and nurses, of course.

So, they haven’t done everything wrong by any means, but if they were aiming for edge of your seat action, which I suspect they were, then they’ve failed. I do want to see what happens, but that’s mainly to find out: (a) how many characters they can unnecessarily kill and then resurrect in track suits, or other inappropriate outfits; (b) whether Carly’s head does actually explode when certain revelations are made; (c) whether Skye’s hair ever moves; and (d) just how many characters they can arm with what variety of weapons in such a short period of time.

Shouting “Shut Up!” specifically.

I rather resent being made to look like a loon shouting at fictional characters on a screen, and therefore I would like to call out the following characters for making me do exactly that:

- Carly

- Lulu

- Leyla

- Carly

- Trevor

- Carly

- Sam (eventually – it was the Carly-like nature of the screeching the second she entered every room that was the problem, not what she was saying. Take a breath, woman)

- Carly

Deaths
- the Wyndemere generator – chopped with an axe by presumably, but not certainly, Zacchara, A.

- 1 member of the general staff guest – stabbed in the back by presumably, but not certainly, Zacchara, A.

- 1 boat – bombed for reasons that don’t even begin to make any kind of sense at all and were, so far as I can see, completely unnecessary – assailant unknown and couldn’t possibly make sense even if they were known

- 1 launch radio and other assorted parts – assailant unknown

- 2 henchman mercenaries(!) – shot by Jacks, J. (since when did he have deadly aim?) and Jacks, J. (he always had deadly aim) after having something randomly thrown at them by McCall, S.

- 1 defenceless hay bale – shot by Morgan, J. and Webber, E.

Injuries
- Scott – hit over the head by Zacchara, J.
- Elizabeth – punched in the face by McCall, S.
- Elizabeth’s dress – torn by McCall, S.
- the Wyndemere pier – chopped up by Zacchara, A.
- Leyla’s necklace – torn off her neck by Jones, M.
- Ric – run through with a sword and pinned to the wall, assailant unknown
- Patrick – beaten about the head by Cassadine, N.
- Logan – punched in the stomach by Zacchara, J.
- Lucky – thwacked over the head by his loving brother, Cassadine, N.
- Trevor – had strips torn off him as well as being slapped upside the face by Davis, A.
- Cooper – knocked out, assailant unknown
- Carly – stunned, having tripped over herself. Twice. The second time being especially hilarious

Highly Inconveniently Occurring Medial Conditions
- Alexis has sudden onset appendicitis

Guns Pulled
- Jason on Zacchara’s quite sensible henchman
- Johnny on Trevor
- Carly on Coop
- 2 Henchman shooting at Jax, Jerry and Sam
- Johnny on Sonny and Sonny on Johnny, simultaneously
- Sonny on Johnny some more
- Sonny on Trevor

Pokers Wielded
- Nadine, showing more forethought than most of the rest of the characters, at Anthony Zacchara and random hallways (of course, by then letting Spinelli get hold of a sword, she lost points)

Armed With Guns (Where the Fuck Did They All Come From?)
- Jason
- Sonny
- Johnny
- Jerry
- Jax
- Sam
- Carly
- Elizabeth
- Nikolas
- Random henchmen

Order in Which TPTB Regard Characters Who are not Jason as Being Able to Take Care of Other Characters
1. Luke
2. Lucky
3. Jerry

That is, judging by Jason’s asking who was there to look after anyone else. Jerry? Really? Also, Lucky of the unconscious for the last two episodes, really?

Refreshingly Out Of Character Demonstrations of Common Sense
- Maxie pointing out to Georgie that going after Spinelli is not a good idea and the best idea is for them to stay where they are so no one has to go looking for them

- Sam pointing out to Jerry and Jax that when dividing up tasks between them she gets the boat, Jerry gets the mercenaries and Jax gets the hardest job of all, Carly

- Nadine, again, asking who exactly put Jason in charge (she clearly hasn’t been in town very long) and pointing out that racing around with a gun is not the be all and end all, AND that the most interesting thing about Jason is that he has Spinelli for a friend. She’s so clearly going to end up dead (unspoiled comment)

Hairstyles Improved by Being Sent into the Rain
- Carly
- Sam
- Elizabeth
- Jax

Hairstyles Not Improved by Being Sent into the Rain
- Jason (stunned, aren’t you?)

Hairstyles Apparently Unmoved and Undampened by Being Sent into the Rain
- Nadine

Hairstyles That May Yet Benefit from Being Sent into the Rain
- Logan – his hair keeps getting poufier the longer he stays inside

Questions I Have to Ask
O- being the universal blood type, why are there so few people on that island that have it and exactly what blood type are all these people if they’re neither A- or O-? G?