soap opera

Never change, General Hospital!

Penni Jones6 Comments

I’ve been watching General Hospital on and off for most of my life. This is not something I’m proud of, but it’s just part of who I am. You cannot imagine my relief when GH (yeah, I call it GH) was spared from the daytime soap chopping block at ABC.

I know it’s hard to understand why I’m loyal to a show with cheesy dialogue and far-fetched storylines. But these are the things I love about the show. It’s the purest form of escapist television.

On soap operas, ANYTHING can happen.

Currently on GH, mob hit man Jason Morgan was presumed dead not once, but TWICE! Then he was in a hit and run and his face was all smashed up and then repaired into super HAWT form and he has amnesia (there are two people on the show right now with amnesia-so rad). He’s going by the name of Jake, which is also the name of his son who was presumed dead but was recently found alive (on Cassadine island, natch). So now, we’re waiting on pins and needles to see if he finds out who he is before he marries Elizabeth, who knows who he really is but has always been in love with him and wanted him for her own and now she has him even if his pretty little brain is broken.

I don't know who I am, but I know how to screw on a silencer!
I don’t know who I am, but I know how to screw on a silencer!

They ain’t got to explain NOTHING.

Everybody’s rich somehow. There’s a mob element but we don’t really know what exactly they deal in. And assassins (like the above Jason) never go to jail, and if they do they get pardoned quickly through some magical technicality. The beauty is: it doesn’t have to make sense or be explained. Things move too fast around here for actual plot development!

I should be in jail for murdering Connie, but instead I'm boinking my daughter's boyfriend. Don't judge me!
I should be in jail for murdering Connie, but instead I’m boinking my daughter’s boyfriend. Don’t judge me!

Storyline recycling is the way of the walk.

I love to watch the storylines recycle every few years. Some things are obvious: One-night stands always result in a pregnancy. Pregnancies are never healthy and normal. Dead spouses always show up to weddings.

Oh nuts! Is that your dead wife? Rude much?
Oh nuts! Is that your dead wife in the doorway? I hope she brought a gift.

And a few things take longer to resurface. For example, Olivia got pregnant by mobster Julian Jerome after a one-night stand (these people DO NOT know about birth control), so she had Ned Quartermaine say the baby was his just like he did when Alexis Davis got pregnant with mobster Sonny Corinthos’s baby a decade or so back. It’s hard to remember exactly when that happened, because I think that kid should be about 10 but she’s about 20 because of SORAS (soap opera rapid aging syndrome, which is totally a thing).

Recast, recast, recast!

Recasts don’t always turn out great, but sometimes they are fantastic. The original Carly, Sarah Brown left to pursue her movie career after she was cast in Big Momma’s House 2 or something. A few Carly’s later, GH was happily settled in with Laura Wright. But Sarah wanted her job back and fans loved her. So…they recast Sarah as a mob princess. Things didn’t quite work out, but it was fun to see them be all “hey, why the hell not?” about the whole thing.

Stop calling me Carly, I'm Claudia now!
Stop calling me Carly, I’m Claudia now!

Don’t like this plot line? Freakin’ DROP IT!

Occasionally there were be a plotline so dumb, so pointless, that it just disappears with no explanation whatsoever. It’s like the writers are all “this crap ain’t working so let’s just forget about it and hope the viewers do, too”. I can’t explain why, but I admire the attitude that must go along with those actions.

I'm so glad they dropped that whole alcoholism thing so now I can successfully run my bar even though I never have customers.
I’m so glad they dropped that whole alcoholism thing so now I can successfully run my bar even though I never have customers.

Please, General Hospital, never change. Keep doing what you do and I’ll keep watching and talking to the TV like a crazy person.

 

Reality, sitcom, or soap opera: your ideal lifestyle revisited

Penni Jones2 Comments

It’s been two whole years since I posted reality, sitcom, or soap opera: what’s your ideal lifestyle? A lot has changed since then. Kim Kardashian has a baby to market, Ashton Kutcher is the new Charlie Sheen, and ABC is down to only one soap opera. It’s time to revisit with an updated lifestyle quiz to see how you have changed with the times. In case you didn’t keep up with your scores from last time (why wouldn’t you have?) here’s the link so you can do it again.

1. You have a new crush! What do you do?
a. Have your agent call his/her agent and arrange a date. So romantic!
b. Invite your potential paramour over for a drink, then spill something on his shirt. Do the whole “you’ll have to take that off so I can wash it” bit. He’ll never see it coming!
c. Murder his wife. That’s amore!

2. You lost your job. What’s the best course of action?
a. Arrange a series of public sightings. Be stumbling drunk every time and try to work in at least one crotch shot.
b. Drink and cry, then send your former boss a horrible e-mail that you never intended to send but you forgot to hit delete. Celebrate the restraining order by sleeping with your sexy neighbor.
c. Form a new company overnight and let your new company eat your old company. That’ll teach them.

3. Oh, no! You had a heart attack. What should you do?
a. Cue the cameras and try to work in a crotch shot.
b. “Why is this freeloader living in my house?” (cue laugh track)
c. No worries. It was a fake heart attack so your wife won’t divorce you and marry your son.

4. You want to be an author, so you:
a. Call your agent and arrange for a ghostwriter to tell your story the way only you can.
b. Keep lots of hand-scrawled notes everywhere and bartend (you guys- I just described my 20’s).
c. Write a book and you’ll be a star in the next episode. There’s no time for revision in the soap world.

5. Your next door neighbor keeps letting his dog poo on your lawn. How do you handle it?
a. “You guys, the Bentley’s out of gas. I don’t know what to do.”
b. Go to his house to confront him, only to learn that he’s really hot. The next several episodes will play off of your sexual tension and dog poo.
c. Since he’s already banging your wife, you shoot him.

6. How did you find out that you’re not barren?
a. Oopsy, there’s a rapper’s baby in your uterus. Guess that means he’s half-Jesus!
b. Oopsy, there’s a waiter’s baby in your uterus. The waiter is a decade younger than you and oh so attractive. The next season will play off of your sexual tension and pregnancy hemorrhoids.
c. Oopsy, your brother-in-law’s baby is in your uterus. Fortunately, your sister is in a coma so you don’t have to tell her that her husband is a philanderer. But you will have to tell your husband. Unless you can pass the baby off of as his. Good luck!

7. You’re getting a divorce. How do you handle it?
a. Cry to your mom about it in the back of a limo. Don’t bother to pretend it’s real. Nobody expected better out of you.
b. Laugh and cry, and then your ex will become your roommate. You guys will have a blast navigating the dating world together. Oh, the shenanigans!
c. Fake a pregnancy to keep your husband around. When you find out that he impregnated his much younger secretary, try to murder her. After your short stint in the psych ward, you’ll be good as new and ready to date again.

8. Your mom is driving you crazy! What should you do?
a. Fire her. You can get a new agent somewhere else.
b. Let her move in with you. Oh, the shenanigans!
c. Murder her and make it look like a suicide. Then you can take over her empire and steal all her meds.

9. Your house burned to the ground. Why?
a. To boost the ratings.
b. You caught the kitchen on fire while trying to make toast. You and those shenanigans!
c. Because Duke slept with Bianca.

10. You’re leaving after a one-night stand. Do you:
a. Make her sign something stating that she’ll never tell anyone about it, even though you kind of hope she brags about your prowess to the media just so you can deny it later.
b. Grab the wrong clothes but don’t notice it until later that day and you really have to get your favorite jeans back. So you make your friend pretend to be a pizza delivery driver so he can sneak in for you. Perfect plan!
c. Realize later that day that you just slept with your brother’s wife’s brother who just happens to be a priest. Whoops!

You chose mostly a’s: Your handlers won’t tell you this, but you’re just an idiot with extensions and implants.
You chose mostly b’s: You know better than anyone that friends are what holds your world together. Plus sexual tension, falling down, and dirty jokes that miss the mark but you just keeping trying! Boobs!
You chose mostly c’s: Enjoy today, because tomorrow you might be cancelled and teaching acting at a community college in Akron. In the meantime, get pregnant by your step-dad and burn down the hospital so they can’t reveal the DNA results to your mom or husband.