Soap Operas
 

I highly doubt this is going to get many if any responses, but I've recently become fascinated by actual soap operas.

Twin Peaks was something of a surrealist parody of the soap opera, and professional wrestling is nothing if not a violent soap opera. A soap opera for menfolk, if you will.

Anyway. My sister (15) and I were completely bored and despondent one evening. My mother has DirectTV with pretty much every channel available. We couldn't find anything to watch. We watched Spanish channels for a bit, marveling over the commercials, but then we got bored even of that. For a laugh, I turned it over to the soap opera channel.

An episode of Days of our Lives was just starting, and we watched it, intending to make fun of it. We did make fun of it, but were somewhat captivated. After that, an episode of General Hospital caught out attention.

We have been watching these two ever since. We have tried to watch The Young and the Restless, but we absolutely detest it. We have not missed a single episode of General Hospital or Days in weeks however.

We like each for entirely different reasons: Days has John Black, the actor portraying him being the worst actor we've ever seen in our lives. It is also drama to the nth degree. GH is more surreal, and has better acting. We've both come to prefer General Hospital, but Days has its own charm.

Anyone else watch soaps at all?

I will say that Roger Howarth as Franco on GH is one of my favorite things ever.

I'm a really big fan of Coronation Street. It's got ridiculous story lines but it's so addictive. Hollyoaks is pretty good too.

When I was in high school, I stumbled across the most crazy Soap I have ever seen. My mother was big into soaps and would watch numerous ones but I didn't care for any of them until I saw Passions! I would rush home to catch the 2pm episode everyday after school.

Passions was so friggin' hilarious and like none of the other soaps at the time. It had witches, little people, demonic possessions and other supernatural crap that was just too fun NOT to watch.

Oh man, I used to watch Passions too hahaha! I used to get my mom to tape it for me (in the days before PVR) so I could watch it after school.

Sarah, my mom watches Young and the Restless diligently. I can't stand it. She used to watch As The World Turns and All My Children when they were still on, too.

I was forced to watch the young and the restless when I was young, my grandfather fell asleep to it everyday, he also left his pack of luckies in his front pocket.... I was 12, I have been a smoker, ever since... If I could get away with blaming the young and the restless for my smoking...... I would.....Totally....~

How dare you call Twin Peaks a soap opera. NOTHING YOU SAY NOW WILL EVER MATTER TO ME AGAIN.

:laughing:

I've been watching GH religiously ever since Connie told her son that she wished she'd aborted him.

And I love Roger Howarth, but I first loved him as Todd Manning, so seeing him appear as Franco was rather jarring. He plays it to the tee though, so I still love him. I would **** myself if I ever heard that he was doing a Joss Whedon show. He would be perfect for Whedon.

And do you think that Silas Clay is the vampire? I mean, that scene in the morgue pretty much proved that he was a vampire. Which means that he can't have a living brother if he's over a hundred years old.

And lastly, I am enthralled with the whole possible accidental incest storyline between Michael and Kiki. It will make my year if they actually screw. It would serve Michael right for being such a **** character.

I used to love Soap when I was young. Soap the series not soap the genre.

I've been watching episodes of OLtL because of my adoration for Howarth lately, and he's actually quite talented. And yes, he would be spectacular for Whedon. I can definitely see that.

And as far as the vampire stuff; since Easton is main cast, I doubt that his getting custody of Rafe is the end of the saga. I don't think they're going to retreat quietly to Manhattan, and have that be the end of it. The encounter with Franco and Silas was also kind of odd, with the blood stain...

And I feel like Danny having BLOOD CANCER and Silas knowing immediately was kind of sketch. Unless he was a vampire and could smell it. There's no doctor good enough to be able to diagnose Leukemia based on swollen glands and a little rash. And since they thought Stephen Clay was a vampire, but Stephen is dead now, signs certainly do point to Silas.

And, oh golly, with the Michael/Kiki thing. They're first cousins, which is creepy as all get out, since they've now made out. And the stuff going on with Sonny/Carly/Olivia/Connie/Shawn is actually producing some of the better acting from the performers involved - with the exception of Olivia, I guess, since she's in a coma or whatever.

The way I kind of see this panning out is Olivia pulling through, Shawn maybe skipping town, Carly remaining on Sonny's **** list...and Connie, devastated and wanting to get back at Sonny hooking up with Franco.

As an afterthought and Addendum:

I'm really loving Luke right now, and I have no idea why. Tony Geary has some crazy charisma. I mean, hell, he's NEVER been "good looking" and was one half of the most loved couple in soap opera history. My fifteen-year-old sister is likewise enthralled.

She's also creepy for Roger Howarth, and texted me today like, "Did you see the face that Franco made at AJ?! That was the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life! I need a gif of that! I want to make it my wallpaper!"

It was an interesting facial reaction to say the least, though.

I'd heard that he started out on One Life to Live. I'd love to see some of his episodes. Connie made me start watching the show, but Todd was easily the best character otherwise. He's just so lovable. He decided to fake a multiple personality all of five minutes before his court case. Who does that? And he somehow got away with it too! He's just such a lovably bumbling douchebag. And Carly may have been smart for not dating him, but it was still bull****. They were perfect for each other. He's a perpetual screw up and she's a complete mess. What could go wrong?

*smacks head*

I can't believe I didn't pick up on the blood cancer thing. I thought that he may have had something to do with it, but for some bizarre reason I wasn't thinking of it in vampire terms. Now it's ****ing obvious. Then he probably caused it as well as smelled it too. Too convenient otherwise.

I've never been the biggest fan of Sonny before, since he was always a bit too stiff and boring to me, but that scene with Carly was actually pretty good for him. He showed emotion but it still had a stiffness that sold him as an emotionally distant mobster type in a way that had always been too played down for me to really appreciate before.

Shawn skipping town isn't out of the question I guess. I mean, since Jason has to be coming back at some point (I'm assuming he'll be somehow involved with that guy who's name I forgot who tried to poison the water supply who seemed to have been pulling Faison's strings) he would need to take back his position in Sonny's organization. Not to mention that Shawn and Alexis have had a steady relationship for far too long in a soap opera.

Have you ever seen pics of him from the eighties? That curly mullet is quite possibly the fugliest thing I have ever seen. I don't even know if I could watch old reruns from back then just because I wouldn't be able to take him seriously with that hair.

Oh you mean right at the end when he was ****ing with Morgan? That was epic. You know he's crazy and he always plays it, and then he sort of counters it with some weird semi-normalness that you kind of think might be genuine, though you can never be sure, but every so often he just has a moment where pure crazy just comes through and you know that this isn't going to end well.

P.S. Am I the only one who really, really hates Molly? I mean, there is a lot that annoys me about her whole goody-two-shoes character, but the thing that always trips me up is that nobody seems to mind that she left Rafe, who at the time was an almost perfect stranger, into her house where he could have done god knows what to her family. Not only that, but she LEFT HIM ALONE with Sam's baby. Not ever her own baby. There's being good to a fault, and then there's being so arrogant that you're willing to endanger others, even children, just because you have a hunch. If I was Sam I wouldn't let that moron near my child.

There are definite signs pointing to a horizontal tango with Carly at the very least, but Franco has been creeping on just about everyone in Port Charles at this point. And Todd...that is an interesting character. Watching some critical back episodes led me to the gang rape saga, which is jaw-dropping. The actual gang rape itself was terrifying. The focus on the stuffed animal made it wholly sickening to watch.

I actually read that the reason Howarth isn't so keen on interviews anymore is related to that storyline. He was doing an interview, and a female fan screamed, "Rape me!" and he was utterly horrified, wanted to separate from the show and character, and really hasn't done a great deal in terms of interviews since.

And Franco is proving to be quite lovable. I have no idea why. Howarth seems to have a way of making the ****tiest people endearing.


The way I figured it out...my sister and I are watching GH, and they say that Danny has leukemia. I'm trying to figure out how Silas knew, as my little sister asks, "What kind of cancer is leukemia?" and my mom, a nurse, says, "It's blood cancer." Then I was like, "HOLY ****! SILAS IS A GODDAMNED VAMPIRE!!!"

Today cemented it, when Lucy accused him of being a vampire, and I am pretty certain she didn't mean it figuratively, because it's ****ing Lucy. Then Silas is all, "Yeah, we're staying in Port Charles now."

He's almost definitely going to **** Sam, though.


Yeah, Benard really stepped it up. Carly had really crossed the line, because it seems that Sonny had never stopped loving Olivia, only realizing this when she was shot, predominately in his name. It was a botched hit, and Sonny is taking hella accountability for it, and with these realizations that Olivia is so important to him, taking everything out on Shawn and Carly. The way he's playing it is almost perfect.


I feel there's a very good chance that Franco knows Jason is alive, and is exploiting it for some reason. He's also smart enough to have seen through Carly to know the hit was meant for him, and almost seemed to have some sense of the hit from the get-go, even before Olivia was shot. I feel like Shawn is going to try to skip town, possibly even packing TJ up with him - or trying to do so...but it seems like Shawn is really in it for himself, and wouldn't ultimately see leaving TJ behind as a bad thing; he'd probably think it was in both of their best interests.

I have, and it is deplorable, that hair. My mother and grandmother describe the storyline as, "Luke was never cute. He was never cute, but he had so much charisma, and Laura was so beautiful that no one cared about what Luke looked like."

Dude is dripping with charisma, though. They have a point.


Yeah, he seems to have some particular mission to **** with Morgan. He's been doing it quite a bit, and Morgan's just a dumb kid. I'm pretty interested to see what his exact motivation is here, because ****ing with Michael would be so much more damaging, ostensibly.

No, you're not alone. My sister is wont to refer to her as "that idiot girl," and my sentiments are actually much more scathing. How in the hell did she even find the time to write that next book with all of the stuff that was going on, eh? And her judgment? Severely lacking. I do think Rafe is going to end up killing someone within the year. They're painting him as this troubled kid who's had a lunatic father and has to cope with it, but he's not going to stay golden and good. There's something off about him.

Molly is a horrible judge of character. I'd actually not be surprised if Molly dies at Rafe's hands. TJ will try to stop it, of course, but Rafe is going to put her in the hospital in a coma, a favorite plot device, if nothing else.

Really? I remember hearing that mentioned, but what actually happened? I don't have cable so all I have to go on is the episodes from November when I started watching up till now. I definitely get the feeling that there is a darker side to Todd's character than was shown since I've been watching. The way he was ready to have Connie killed at the drop of a hat was rather chilling.

I always knew he was a vampire. Like I said, the scene in the morgue was impossible to interpret wrong. Caleb was dead on the slab, and then the doctor brought out the ring and instantaneously the doctor became Caleb and the guy on the slab became the doctor. If he isn't a vampire then he's a wizard.

I can see that too. All these old actors playing new characters like Robert playing Franco, Lauren Katherine playing Kiki, and Michael Easton playing Caleb/Silas all seem to be having storylines with their old flames. And with Kiki kissing Michael (which had me totally cracking up) I definitely think that they're all going to end up having weird, dysfunctional romances with them.

Yeah, he's definitely playing it like James Gandolfini-lite. Emotionally closed off, and he deals with tragedy by turning his sadness and pain into anger and violence.

Yeah, he's obviously got an ulterior motive. Poisoning the relish (seriously? a storyline about relish?) was obviously meant as a way to weaken ELQ. Along with him being involved with AJ and Tracy with ELQ, something dastardly is about to go down. I just can't figure it out. Why he would want to hurt a company that would be providing him with him income through his shares in the company? He has to know that no one would ever in a million years let him anywhere near a position in the company, so I don't know that he's gunning for CEO. Of course with AJ being CEO who knows? Still, I think that something much bigger is going on, and with all the hints to some great conspiracy with Jerry Jacks I can see him somehow being involved.

I've been wondering about that. What with the storyline about Felix's sister and TJ breaking up with Molly I think he's definitely about to go off the rails, at least for the summer, and Shawn leaving would definitely exacerbate that.

I think that's just his screwed up way of being a good dad. He's gonna play the overprotective father just because it's fun to screw with Morgan, and if it serves his weird, but somehow kind of genuine desire to be Kiki's dad then all the better.

I'm so looking forward to how he reacts to Michael's kissing Kiki. I never saw the old episodes with James Franco as Franco so I don't really have that great a feel for Franco's character, but he seems unstable enough that his reaction is anyone's guess. But considering the screwed up nature of cousin-on-cousin lovin', then I'm sure his response will be suitably screwed up as well.

I was also disappointed that they didn't immediately follow up with that storyline yesterday. I was hoping to see AJ's reaction to Franco just dropping the rape bombshell in casual conversation like a true psycho, and I'm hoping he goes ballistic. AJ is a quality douche. He's totally consequence-phobic and he was only concerned with his amusement at Carly and Sonny's reaction to Brenda supposedly sleeping with Miachel, so he's obviously almost completely self-absorbed. Not to mention that he's been kissing the ass of the guy who got his son raped. This whole him-finding-out-about-the-rape thing seems like a good opportunity to see if he can actually grow as a character, especially after the last scene at the mansion. I mean come on, if AJ doesn't flip out over that then I think that his character might be unredeemable.


P.S. Another character that bothers me. Spinelli. I can never be sure if he's a lovingly silly spoof of an uber-geek, or just evidence that whoever is the target audience for GH have probably never spoken with an actual geek in their lives. Seriously, if Spinelli were black he'd have an afro ten feet in diameter and he'd walk into every scene with a TV under one arm and a bucket of KFC under the other. And he'd probably announce his arrival with, "What's crackalackin wit' all you honkies?! Spin L.E. all up in dis biatch!"

Real life is so much more interesting, why bother?

You have to admit thought that the scenes between Donna and James were pretty soap opera heavy and were always the ones I hated seeing. You could say the secret lives of characters and all the cheating and backstabbing could qualify it as a soap, but then you have the surreal Black Lodge scenes that make up for it.

In any case I have never been able to get into them and they always ruined sick days when I was a kid because they seemed to be the only thing on TV.

Everyone doesn't have your glamorous life dollface. For the rest of us regular folk it's mildy entertaining.

The only time I've ever really followed a soap was when Martin Kemp played Steve Owen in Eastenders and they did that whole storyline on him murdering Saskia Duncan & him framing it on Matthew Rose.

I've seen all the British ones at some point but the only one I have ever followed of my own accord was Brookside when I was a lot, lot younger, cause it was always the most ridiculous one.

Christmas Day has now become the day I know, beyond a doubt, I will be forced to watch soap operas. It is going to make me hate Christmas eventually.

:love: I wish... x

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Not one half hour ago I just remembered something that might totally shed new light on the whole Franco plotline. I'm pretty sure I'm about to totally blow your mind. God that was geeky, but whatevs. Anyway, do you remember when Edward Quartermaine, the patriarch of the family, died a few months ago? And then Heather Webber showed up and replaced his will with a fake one? Well, I can't be entirely sure, but I'm fairly sure that that little plotbomb never exploded, so we still have no idea what was happening back then.

Now fastforward to a couple weeks ago, and Franco returns to Port Charles and sees who? Heather Webber. At the time we had no idea that it was Franco since we all assumed it was Todd Manning, and we know Todd Manning is frenemies with Heather Webber, so, there was no reason to wonder about anything other than what he asked her to do. But now that we know it was Franco I realized that Heather never acted like she thought he was dead. So, she must have known he was alive, which isn't surprising since she's supposed to be friends with Franco's mother. Which means that dollars-to-donuts his mother also knew that he was alive. Which means that her sending Luke in Kiki's direction was a part of Franco's plan. Since if all Franco wanted was to get to know Kiki it means that that must be part of his plan, cause otherwise he could have just met her where she was without any of this Port Charles hullabaloo.

Even more brain atomizing is that if you consider everything that's happened, it becomes obvious that the fake will was created by Franco. The will that gave not only Kiki, but Franco shares in the company. And most bizarre of all, that also means that it was Franco that gave Tracy the relish.


http://images.wikia.com/uncyclopedia...oding-head.gif

Oh. My. God. That makes so much (soap opera) sense! It was revealed today that he was most definitely the relish saboteur, but I highly doubt Eva figured everything out. I mean, it's Franco. His whole M.O. is incomprehensible art, and he was believed dead for eons; there's no way that he just completely hid and came back with the relish. That is not his style.

It was revealed that he tainted the relish to lower stock prices so he could be CEO of ELQ, but it's still not clear why Franco, of all people, should even want that. Tying that into the Luke storyline, it gets really interesting.

If you watched today, though, just as interesting: Shawn wasn't the one who shot Olivia. The bullet casing from his weapon? Not the one that matches the shell found in her body. Someone else was, conveniently, trying to shoot Franco. Was it Eva? Sonny's back-up plan that he didn't tell Carly? Was it Sam, Spinelli, Michael, or any number of people? Or, was it Jason back from the "dead?"

Hell, even Silas. Even though they dismissed his "vampire" storyline with Rafe being all, "I dunno - he muttered something about not being a vampire..." was Silas to blame? They've encountered each other. Maybe (and this is a stretch) Silas made Franco a vampire while Franco was dying, and that accounts for his absence.

Port Charles is a sketchy place.

Why not? Sending someone a jar of relish as a bizarre ploy to...do whatever, sounds like something that would tickle Franco. Perhaps he...I don't know. Tracy would have been pretty much out of the loop without that relish, so maybe Franco wanted to give it to her to further the war between her and AJ. Since him being in the middle of their conflict seems to be such a big part of his plan, it's not out of the question that he gave her the relish.

Not to mention, if Franco really did write that will then anything on it would have come from him. I guess it's possible that he got a copy of the original will, saw that Tracy's father gave her the relish, and just kept it in, just because, but Franco strikes me as the kind of person who needs complete control of a situation, so I still think the relish was his.

I'm wondering if part of his reasons for (if he wrote the will) giving the great grandchildren, and therefor Kiki, shares in the company, was to precipitate this whole search for her that would eventually lead back to her mother. He is obviously an evil genius, so it would stand to reason that he would have a good handle on her character, and would know that she might try to manipulate Kiki for her own gain. Which would then drive a wedge between Kiki and her mother, leaving her more vulnerable to a long lost father figure.

I know right! Epic. I really have no idea who it might be. If it was Jason, then why has he been staying away? If he is free to go around assassinating then I imagine that he isn't captive. So, since his disappearance was tied to Faison, and by associaton Jerry Jacks, then it stands to reason that if he's pursuing Franco, then Franco is somehow involved with Jacks. This is all just idle speculation of course, since I have almost no clue who might have done this. It couldn't have been Franco staging a hit on himself right? How could he have known that Olivia would jump in front of him? That wouldn't make any sense. I think.

I don't know. I don't think that they're going to be connected, at least for the time being. I think that may have just been a meeting of the evil minds to sort of just make them both seem more menacing by association.

I don't go watching The Telenovelas, haha. I'm more of a Dexter, Dr. House, Game Of Thrones, Smallville, The L Word etc fan.

WHY NOT!?

Telenovelas are the best. They are way better than the US ones because they actually come to an end after a certain period of time.