COMING SOON TO THE WRECK CENTER

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Y&R Wrapup - Beastmaster + Amnesia = FWAP FWAP

Okay so it's late. Okay so it's really really late. I got tiiiiredd y'all. Don't hate. Don't hate. Um, anyway, regardless, this is the first of two entries to wind up the failed experiment that was "Darn and I switch networks," in which I did, and he...really didn't. Blame him, I do! But regardless, I owe you guys one more Y&R entry. Technically it should only have covered two weeks ago Wednesday-Friday, but I ended up getting to this so late last week that I felt bad - and decided I would do not only the second half of the previous week, but also recap for you all of that week (now, um, last week) for you too. So I am, so I will, so there! You may no longer care, but I do! It's the principle of the thing! And now...

TOUCHING MOMENT

My emotion chip is working, Dad! Ping ping ping yaaayy! MMMMMM your pain tastes like saltwater taffy, Dad. Slurp slurp. That's my tongue.

Where better to begin than with Amnesia Nick and his return from the dead. Hot Bearded Amnesia Nick. I never realized how hot and good an actor Josh Morrow was before I tuned in for this thing. Unfortunately for Phyllis, he of course does not remember being with her or their beh-beh. No matter what manner of chintzy plastic, ridiculous-looking cowboy hats or drugs or complicated sex toys Phyllis brings to the hospital, Nick does not respond! Meanwhile, hilariously, Nick's entire family seems just thrilled with Phyllis' predicament. I mean, all of them, not giving a shit at all. Actually encouraging him to forget her. Personally, I feel for Phyllis, but I love that the Newman family are just such a bunch of sour, catty bitches that greet Phyllis when she comes back from Nick's hospital room with rolled eyes and requests that she not go back. See, this is the thing: Darn lectures me, tells me the Newmans have not necessarily always felt this way about Phyl, that these conflicts are fabricated recently by LML. And I understand that, and respect that, but at the same time, there is obviously some old bad blood there, and it's being recognized. It's refreshing to me. On so many other soaps (*koffkoff*OLTL*koffkoff*) they would all play Happy Families just out of writing laziness. Look at Joey Buchanan marrying Jen "That Whore" Rappaport. Jen who had taken great pleasure in trying to ruin Joey's sister Natalie's life and sell her out to rapist maniac Mitch Laurence. Oh, sure, Viki, Jessica and Natalie were not too pleased when the marriage was announced, and were reserved through the wedding, but then that was it - "well, we have to be there for Joe." Uh-uh. The Newmans say fuck that! And I for one love it. Every unbelievably bitchy, horrible comment by Nikki or Chopper (Victoria) , I just adored it. Poor Phyllis.

All Nick wants, of course, is Sharon and his old fambleee. He apparently has lost the knowledge that Sharin' is now the Town Bike. Even Brad had her. Brad. Poor Nick, so out of the loop on the present! Cassie dead! His facial hair longer and sexier! His son, woodener and gayer! Lil' Noerrr's favorite video game, Nick is told, is no longer 007, but now Final Fantasy. Hmm. Three guesses which one:

All up in ur RPG stealin ur dress-spheres

I do think there's a lot of good stuff that's arisen out of this storyline. The whole Nick/Phyllis-Jack/Sharon paradigm has always struck me as gonzo though I think the actors all work well together. And, there were the scenes with Jack and Nick, as Jack asks Nick if he's glad Jack taught him all those Boy Scout skills. Even for a Y&R neophyte like me, that makes you go back and think, 'oh yeah, he probably did that.' His'treeeeee. I like it.

But then there's the stories and characters that are just useless. I don't think I'm out of line in saying that, upon first impression, Don Diamont, or rather Brad Carlton, whoever, is one creepy motherfucker. Kind of another daytime Patrick Bateman (c/f: Mallet, GL) if, you know, Bateman used his giant leathery cheeks to store nuts and food for the winter. I mean, Jesus, he's like Steven Seagal in a business suit. And when did Brad and Mouser (Victoria) break up? And how is she now with JT? How? Where? Why? What? When? I'm not saying Thad Luckinbill is not trading up, he so definitely is, but it's so random to me. Just throw these fuckers around and see what sticks, is the philosophy apparently. Like Brad and Sharon - what?! Does Sharon want to get kickboxed half to death like Kelly LeBrock? I ask you. I need to know.

G'day maaaate! This be me first wife, aarrrr. Mixed-up accents, yaarrr. I miss my old buddy John Amos. And my ferrets.

OMG you were on a basic cable show no one watched! Watch fucked-up daytime line up to suck your dick! When did Y&R turn into the Out Of Work Cable/'80s Stars Soup Kitchen? Nia Peeples, Tammy Lauren (who I actually like as Maggie, don't get me wrong) , and now the fuckin' Beastmaster? They could've at least got Marc Singer and his crazy looking face! Are we supposed to be impressed that little ol' daytime netted the Beastmaster? Is that why I'm supposed to want to watch this guy? It just seems like a thoroughly retarded uber-retcon (in which Thom Bierdz is a Faux!Phillip) done not to exploit story potential for Jill and Katherine, but rather done solely to introduce this totally useless, boring, bland character...who happens to be played by the Beastmaster, in which case he is deemed worth it. And, worse, is married to Amber. deargodinheaven. And I'm sorry, I don't care how nouveau riche those two are, how humble Cane's beginnings really were, but as Chancellor heirs I do not fucking buy that they were so broke that they could not get privacy at home, could not go to a hotel, and so had to fuck in his car. That's some Melrose Place reasoning right there. Late-stage Melrose Place. And I loved and adored Melrose Place. But worse, Amber as a character is just seriously tacky and base, in a way I thought Y&R was above. Adrienne Frantz ain't getting any younger and the 'ain't I a stinkah?' little girl act is getting old. Amber stories are all the same, and dragging those cartoon characters from B&B over to do guest shots is not helping Y&R. It just strikes me as a particularly embarrassing, juvenile, and worse, passe chapter in Y&R's history while they try to emulate a number of other bad soaps...from the late '90s.

beep. BEEP. BEEEEEEPPPP.

As we can all see, things continue to not go well for William. He is trapped in the lion's den surrounded by Fishers/Baldwins. Even that baby probably wants him dead. Not that I care much about him, but still, it's funny. I love that Chesty McHeroic (Paul) and Det. Maggie keep visiting him and are like, "what? what's that you wrote, William? 'MRDR? HLP MEEE?' I-I don't understand, buddy. Timmy? Timmy at the well? What? How?" These scenes are so silly but so classic soap, with the dying old man and the desperate shrewish wife out to hide her misdeeds. And now the whole family is in on the act. I like how the rest of them sans Gloria all just sort of listlessly
acknowledge William, who could put them all in jail if he talks, whenever they come home. "Oh, uh, haha, hi...yeah." Lauren's reactions are particularly hilarious. "Here, watch William for awhile, Lauren, you have nothing to do this afternoon, right? Right. Watch our legal liability." And then she and William keep trading eyes to shifty eyes. AWK-WARD! And so funny. I could talk about Gloria's continued facial hilarity, but really, Judith Chapman speaks for herself.

youarepushingitmyfriendyouarepushingit. do you know why they call me the gray death? letmeshowyou. Iammadeoflaffytaffymotherfucker.

Once again the primal, lustful savagery of Victor Newman rages forth to lay claim to his woman as he clocks David Chow! Oh, the ladies loved that - in 1982! No, what can I say, I still love it, it's awesome. Victor has basically become Robert Shaw from Jaws to me, except no boat or shark, just one crazy fucking old man. His speech patterns are essentially the same. To this day I need closed-captioning to understand about a third of Quint's dialogue in that movie. Nikki rushes forward to defend David and momentarily forget about her other ongoing love affair with Entemann's baked goods - I'm sorry, that was low - but she just doesn't understand. Victor does! Victor in his rough and ready "casual wear." Suit jacket and blue jeans, like fucking Robert Redford out at Taos or something. "The hipness." Come on. Robert Redford isn't fooling anyone anymore and neither are you, Victor. Victor knows it issab-o-taaage that blew up Nick's plane. Just like that, sab-o-taaage. And I, for one, believe him. Because he might hit me. And then I would have to take a fake stunt fall and pretend to be hurt, just like David.

Straight as hell.

And of course Kevin has an insane scheme to trap Jana. I realize by the time I post this it's actually several days after his insane scheme to trap Jana, but give me a little credit for working a week longer than my original brief, 'kay? I know I'm behind on the times, a relic of the past. Anyway, Kevin's brilliant plan involves nearly killing himself and mating his car to a tree while still in it, and Greg Rikaart absolutely revels in it. Kevin in his hospital bed of pain, croaking out gleeful demands upon everyone, miming 'scissor fingers' at Colleen as he insists she tell Jana he is still in surgery - priceless. I will give Wolf Girl this - the Kevin/Colleen chemistry works, to me. Yeah, I know it's sick, but it's great. The subtext GR seems to play to me is that he knows there's something weird between them, knows he can wrap Colleen around his finger because of it, and sort of tries to play it off while obviously keeping it bubbling at the surface of their interactions, and in his subtle taunting of Korbel. He's just great. And the scenes with him and Michael after Michael cottoned on to his plan were lovely. These characters are OTT in some ways, certainly, but LeBlanc really infuses his struggles to get them to articulate their feelings and the gulf of difference in perspective between them with a lot of emotion and reality. But where Michael wants to get through to Kevin, Kevin just lies there, fucked-up and battered, pouting. He doesn't want to hear it, or at least is too young to care. On another show, it would be a TENDER MOMENT where Kevin acknowledges to Michael he understands but won't change yet. Here, Kevin is just too young, stupid (but brilliant) , and self-destructive, and so there is no resolution to the issue and the family dysfunction continues. And that makes perfect sense to me.

FWAP FWAP FWAP FWAPFWAPFWAP FWAP FWAP FWAAAPPP

Apparently I am the only one who caught the unintentional hilarity of "porn addict" Daniel telling Lily he will "enjoy his shower," and her blithely responding, "I know you will." FWAPFWAPFWAP Only on American daytime television would a story about an addiction to Internet pornography go by without even a passing reference to masturbation. This is like that hilarious Lifetime movie with Kelly Lynch and the boy from Peter Pan who gets addicted to porn and doesn't jerk off, just is shown sitting in his room drinking Red Bulls for days. Judging by Daniel's reactions at the shrink's office, apparently watching porn and not jacking it makes you jerky, sweaty and Lee Strasberg Method twitchy, as though you were doing coke. Fine, okay. I did enjoy seeing another Fallen '80s Player in the role of Daniel's psychiatrist, BTW, a woman who I must be the only to know the name of - character actress Lisa Waltz! Best (un)known as the hapless wife of zombie sheriff Clancy Brown in the horrible Pet Sematary II, who is killed along with her son in a hair band metal-tinged vehicular homicide attack near the end of the movie. Remember that? Yeah. Go back and check, I'll wait. It's her. Keep on paying for the kids' college education, Lisa Waltz.

See? Lower right.


I'll go heat up the lasagna.

Does Logan's character role strike anyone else as basically Lee Grant's from Valley Of The Dolls? Anyone? No? Just saying. Same creepy aloofness, same sexual vibe, same random lines. Okay. Nevamiiiind.

...So that's it for Y&R. Finally. I'm sorry it took so long and that it's still out of date, but I have been busy with job hunting and I did feel a responsibility for ONE OF US! to fulfill our cross-network obligation. I've actually really enjoyed the show though I can tell it's not what it was, and maybe I'll keep up with it. I do have one more GL entry to do - God knows what I'm going to do there, since I had written up my last scheduled episode, but that was, uh, almost two weeks ago. I want to try and make it somewhat current, so I'll work something out. Should be up tonight or through to the weekend. Also coming soon as soon as I can find ALTERNATIVE MEANS to watch it is a take on General Hospital: Night Shift. I am desperate to blog it but do not have SN. If anyone has ANY IDEAS AHEM please to let me know, otherwise I might have to beg my friend Anna. And that would be shameful. kthnx.

Live Earth, or "If I Ran The Soaps..."

...So I'm not doing my final Y&R and GL posts like I should be right now, because I'm watching Live Earth all day. Just like with Live 8, I love to watch the more obscure foreign concerts in Tokyo, Brazil, Shanghai, Hamburg, etc. with acts I've never heard of that are so exotic and interesting. Toni Collette and her band were amazing in Sydney. And frankly, it beats Madonna embarrassing herself and the entire venture with her gypsy act at Wembley. Oh my God. Did you see that? It was like Inland Empire.

But the reason I bring this up here is because I needed to rehash my tired old rant that anyone who knows me knows by heart: If I ran a soap, you wouldn't need a lame prefab teen scene story this summer. Why? Because I'd just take it to Live Earth. In the story, have the kids go to Live Earth. Didn't DOOL do this in a retarded way with the Stones a couple years ago? Well, nevermind. I'm just saying. Don't spend all that fucking money on musical numbers and guest acts and choreography and songwriters. Just take a few light and easy to move with cameras to several different venues, take the young actors necessary, split the kids up at different venues, including the more obscure ones, say, one at Hamburg and Tokyo or Brazil along with two at New York and London, structure a very loose series of plot beats around the concerts, and have them communicate by their phones, showing each other - and through them, the audience - what is going on around the world at these different concerts. Run a promotional tie-in on the network website with Live Earth and a phone provider; "follow Starr and Matthew (or whoever) and the gang on their phones as they travel the globe with Live Earth." And then, in the local area, so as not to disrupt the concert, pretape most of the story material with the kids in a block, like they did with the Hawaii remote on OLTL a few years ago. Break the scenes up and string it out throughout the concert footage.

Yeah, Live Earth or any other similar global concert would probably never allow it, and they'd probably be right not to. But honestly I think it would work and be - relatively, of course I probably have no idea what I'm talking about - cheap. A few cameras, a few kids, mostly pretaped footage, and just let the concerts guide it. So you get a fun teen story, but more importantly, you can teach The Kids At Home something by watching this stuff, as well as exposing them to all sorts of music around the world they've never heard. I don't understand why TPTB spend such stuff trying to "stay on the pulse of youth" and don't think of something so simple.

...So anyway, I have been gone. Long week. I am making up for it with an extra-big Y&R post that covers most of this week, as well as an extended GL one. l8rs. Phil Collins is trying to be hardcore in London, I gotta watch that.

No Post Monday (and maybe Tuesday)

Yeah, so I'm still behind. I am too depressed by current govt events. Sorry. Soon, promise.

DOOL Weekly Recap - Let Our Plane Have Sex With You

"Look, Betty, don't start up with your white zone shit again. There's just no stopping in a white zone."
"Oh, really, Vernon? Why pretend? We both know perfectly well what this is about. You want me to have an abortion."

Ohhhh good times. I have been preoccupied all week long with job-hunting and doing a special week of GL and Y&R recaps - and Darn was going to be my counterpart by doing the same for OLTL and AMC, but you know, he failed - and so the sole DOOL entry this week is a weekly wrap-up! And what a week it was! It was actually a lot of fun. Anna DiMera (a.k.a. A Pimp Named Hunley) played Mata Hari to the DiMeras and quarreled with Fauxman, Kristian Alfonso displayed more life and vigor than she has in years, Steve got mad crazy on the dance floor, Nick and Chelsea had bad sex and Chelsea responded by treating him like an ancient relative with an incontinence problem, and those crazy kids on Touch The Sky Airlines continued to fuck around and make complete fools of themselves while dragging The Chels down with them. The airline shenanigans were so cheesy and ridiculous that they have become the focus of the entry, a focus I will begin to run completely into the ground starting now, with the first of several classic clips from Airplane!


"Elaine, you're a member of this crew. Can you face some unpleasant facts?"
"No."


I don't even know where to start with these kids, really. Seriously. Chelsea and Nick went upstairs to do it to it last week and this week, Chelsea looks at him like she saw him jerking off to beastiality porn. Chelsea: It's not even that serious. Now mind you, Nick is just a tad intense about it. And apparently deaf, dumb and blind regarding her body language. "Joo wuff me, Chelsee? Ah wuff yuuu. We gon build a castle inna sky madea wainbows wheh we get mawwied and have six keedz wight awaaaayyy!" Cool it, Nick. I love you, I love your personality, I love your (or rather Blake Berris') propensity to wander around in the Los Angeles sunlight with Julia Stiles with your shirt off and your board shorts hanging perilously, perilously low (big shoutout to Dreamcaps) , but after that scene Nick could make anybody a commitmentphobe. Commitment-o-phobe? Which? I don't know. But he could, is what I'm saying. It certainly doesn't help that this "NuStephanie" a.k.a. "another lame excuse for Ken Corday to cast non-actor celebrities in lame, pathetic attempts to court media attention or the fickle gaze of preteen viewers," is a complete fucking idiot. Do you remember Shayna Rose being cruel or bitchy to or about the Fallonator? I sure as shit don't! Now Stephanie can't stop riding Nick! Big-ass bouffant hairdo like a John Waters movie, fake-ass tan, and all she does is ride Chelsea's ass about becoming a brainless whore like her so Chelsea too can know the bliss of getting the brains bronco-dicked out of you by a lantern-jawed Nazi superman who is, like, part of the Russian mob garment trade. I know that's what I aspire to every summer! I would give up plasma to have Shayna Rose back. I know a lot of people didn't like her but I thought she had a unique look and style, and was a damn sight more Steve and Kayla's baby girl than this hollowed-out bitch whose sole focus in life is making Chelsea trade down for a Ken doll. I can't wait for Captain Nazi there to get her in some life-threatening situation with the DiMeras.

I won't even talk about the scenes onboard the Fuck The Sky With Our Huge Throbbing Plane jet, with randy passenger after randy passenger trying to get freaky with the girls, and of course, Stephanie starts fucking her way down the aisle. Did they have to give them those turquoise outfits straight out of the old Britney Spears Toxic video? And sorry, Jett looks like he is playing big-boy dress-up in his co-pilot uniform. I have to say, though, this whole idiotic summer story is growing on me, and why? Because while Nick is indeed getting fucked, it at least is giving him, Chelsea, and Max beaucoup screen time, and Marcus Patrick, well, while Jett is no brain trust, he at least seems to have some core of decency unlike his Aryan partner or Stephanie, and it doesn't hurt that he is also blazing hot. Plus, how can you totally hate a story where they go to so much trouble to make a cheesy fake plastic and cardboard Las Vegas skyline? The idea of a cheesy summer story - I mean, listen, there have been so many cheesy summer stories on daytime. In concept this is far from the most offensive, the whole luxury plane thing in Vegas with criminal contraband thing is so goofy it becomes enjoyable. In acting and focus, it's a mess. You've got good actors and characters like the aforementioned, who really help you enjoy the goofy story in some respects because they're there, but you've also got bad acting and bad characterization in two characters we should care about - Jeremy and Stephanie - who are just loathsome now. Plus, we're asked to care about Jett, which is one thing and entirely possible, but we're also asked to be titillated by the possibility of him and Chelsea while the very popular Nick wanes on the sidelines getting insulted, abandoned and fucked with by Kate. But don't worry about Nick, audience! Have fun with Jett and Chelsea right now! Sorry, ain't having it.


"Striker, listen, and you listen close: flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes."

Meanwhile...

The Vengabus is coming! Dah dah dah dah dah daaahhhh dah! We - like - to party! We like to - we like to party!

Ohhh SNAP! It's the highlight of the week! It's crazy dancing Steve! Crazy aging Splash clubkid Steve! Stephen Nichols, I love you. Is there nothing you can't do? Forget for a moment that I've taken issue with what I feel is the slapdash, OTT feel of this whole latest DiMera/Brady reunion tour. Steve as the double-triple-whatever agent freaking out the DiMeras and infiltrating their inner sanctum while Team Brady carries out their plan was some priceless shit. His John Travolta/Dave Chappelle fingers-to-face moves were what did it for me. "It's too real for you, Bart, ya cain't take it! Ya cain't take it, it's too real!" I'm happy to see SN happy, and frankly, high-minded concerns of strong storyline aside, this shit is just hilarious without being juvenile, as Reilly humor was.

Tony preps the reach-around.

So Steve drugs the DiMera date night, and Tony and Anna all get it. More hilarity. Thaao Penghlis (Your Ongoing Sexual Problem) is obviously so happy to be getting meaty material that does not involve him conspiring with Al Qaeda, getting attacked by a hockey-masked serial killer or dragging the exhumed corpse of his father around and talking to it. He and (A Pimp Named) Leeann Hunley clearly still love each other to bits and they just dazzled in their scenes. When Tony unwisely (as Steve hilariously notes) tells Anna that he wishes he could be the man he used to be, you remember who he used to be before the Reilly era and understand. And Anna is so phony and such a cocktail party schmoozer, and Leeann Hunley gives her just the right amount of artifice and nouveau riche put-on without making it a burlesque the way so many more recent soap gold diggers, like Judith Chapman on Y&R or Judi Evans (as Bonnie) or even, in her own way though I adore her, Ilene Kristen on OLTL, do today. But those are also all fine actresses who probably have the shoddy writing to blame at least partly. Either way, Hunley's Anna just seems to have that air of social climbing falsity effortlessly without having to spell it out in neon; you can see her trying to put off the vibe of the aristocrat around people like the Bradys, people closer to her own roots, and you can see how she become alienated from them and Roman while obviously having come from them. She even has chemistry with Josh Taylor's faux Roman, who clearly is having a good time with her too.



"All right, I'll need three men up at the tower, you, Neubauer! You, Macias!"
"Me, John, big tree!"

It's not just Thaao Penghlis and Leeann Hunley - everybody's having a good time, and that's clear when we reach the subject of Kristian Alfonso and Hope. In the recent past I've given KA a lot of shit. She's emaciated, her voice has dropped like a hundred octaves, her cheekbones could rip Bo's face off, she is humorless and going through the motions, etc etc. Not so long ago, Hope was looking kinda:

Sorry.

...Um, but now, all of a sudden, Hope's not lookin' so scary anymore. She's actually a whole lot of fun. Kristian Alfonso is clearly really, really happy. Know how I know? Cause she's screwing around. She seems physically incapable of not being constantly flirty and cute with Peter Reckell/Bo in all their "serious planning" scenes - she's having a laugh. And because she's having so much fun, you can believe Hope and Bo are still really, truly, deliriously in love again. And all of a sudden I find myself becoming a bit of a Bope fan, because she is having a ball. The earpiece thingy scene? Cute. The bet about Roman and Anna? Cute. She's just great lately and I guess we have to credit Hogan Sheffer. And OMFG is their new baby not the cutest fucking thing? She is one chill baby. Just, thumb in her mouth, don't give a fuck, taking it easy. Anna comes in raising a ruckus? Whatever. Ciara hear you. Ciara don't care. I love her. Love. her.

Ciara considers 1-2-Stepping Anna's ass.

Sooooo thaz it. I ain't going over the little bit of ShellePhelleHelle (are they seriously moving her towards JKJ's Phillip? C'mon, I am not a big Shelle person or anything but this is just arbitrary at this point, they just reunited her and Shawn) or Sami and her twin behbehs just yet, I'm sure there's way more of those stories to come this week. Once I am clear of the last of my Y&R/GL obligations from this past week, I will be taking some time to regroup but will try to do bi-weekly or more entries for DOOL and later, OLTL. Hopefully someone will pick up the slack. I'm also going to do a few more special one-offs like this week of episodes in the future, and will also hopefully be covering a certain two nighttime soaps, one shortlived, one about to begin. More on that when this is all done.

"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines."