Guiding Light on 60 Minutes

Guiding Light fans, be sure to watch 60 Minutes this Sunday. America’s most prestigious news magazine is airing a segment on the end of the show.  I think this is a classy move on CBS’s part.   After 72 years the show deserves a respectful send off from the network.  Correspondent Morley Safer, who is old enough to remember when the show was on the radio, is the perfect choice.  GL tapes in the same building as a lot of CBS news shows,  so it is not surprising that the network’s news division has chosen to acknowledge this sad milestone in television history.   I hope that 60 Minutes treats this as more than just a tribute, and uses it as a springboard for intelligent coverage of the demise of daytime television. We all know the story, but most of America does not.

Crystal Chappell Shares Fans’ Disappointment About Otalia

As happy as I am that Guiding Light’s Olivia and Natalia are going to live happily ever after, the lack of physical affection between them is a travesty.  No other soap couple has decided to move in together and start a family without kissing.   Forget Nuke.   Otalia are acting more like Ned and Chuck from Pushing Daisies — and if he touched her, she would die.  I could rant and rave about the homophobia, but I’ll let Olivia herself do it.  I briefly spoke to Crystal Chappell about the issue on the Daytime Emmy red carpet.

What would you day to all of the Otalia fans who are disappointed by the lack of physicality between the couple?

I’m right there with them.  I don’t understand.

With the show canceled, and nothing left to lose, why not go for daytime’s answer to The L Word?

That’s a question for someone else.  I am as baffled as you are.

The Most Evil Mayor Since Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The downfall of Mayor Lowell on One Life To Live was a well structured umbrella story, but Lowell improbably turned out to be a supervillain straight out of a comic book or action movie.  Before he got arrested, the peripheral supporting character managed to: create enough a drug problem that Cole had to work undercover, irritate Vicki so much that she decided to run for mayor, set in motion the chain of events that led to Russian drug dealers shooting Sean and kidnapping Starr, birth the brat that set the chain of events in motion that led to Matthew’s paralysis, smack the brat around, refused to attend his football game, give John McBain a raison d’etre, oppose gay marriage and abortion, twirl his moustache, and kick a puppy.  Only the last two  of those are made up.  It cracks me up that the show was not sure that working with a cartel of violent drug dealers was enough to make him a viable bad guy.  He also needed to cite the Republican talking points.  What’s your position on Universal Health Care, Mayor Lowell? Granted, in real life it seems that every week a politician who espouses “family values” gets caught in some embarrassing scandal.  If Ron Carlivati had Mayor Lowell accidentally tell a pornographic story in front of a hot mic or yell at the President for being a liar, I would not have bought it.  But the family values guys always get busted for sex, not drugs.   This begs the question: who was Mayor Lowell’s mistress?  Likely suspects include: ultra-skank Stacy Morasco (Lowell’s capable of procreating), Kyle’s hot gym date (for added hypocrisy), Rex’s formerly comatose father (for added kink), Alex Olanov (she used to be Llanview’s mayor, too), and Roxy (she has terrible taste in men.)   Come on OLTL, you have managed to hit every other cliche of evil.  Mayor Lowell should be guilty of adultery, too.

Shallow Thoughts About The Young And The Restless

• After she killed Zapato, I declared Mary Jane/Patty dead to me.  I thought that not even discovering a cure for cancer could make her redeemable.  It turns out she did the one thing that could melt my dog-loving heart: she terrorized Colleen “Shrimp on the Barbie” Carlton.  I have wanted to slap the Australian accent out of her for a long time.  Watching Mary Jane tie her up and point a gun at her has been cathartic.  I dare to dream that she will end up in a coma and wake up as Lyndsy Fonseca or Adrianne Leon.
• Amber’s black wedding ensemble was great.  I have no idea why she is letting Deacon blackmail her into marrying him instead of taking him down unless she is secretly attracted to him.  That is not the way the story is being written.  Nonetheless, her goth marriage ensemble said, “I really don’t want to do this,” with style.
• Nick Newman is the most fickle man on earth.  He keeps vacilliating between Phyllis and Sharon seemingly based solely on who is in the room with him at that moment.  He gave Sharon up.  After spending time with Sharon, and learning he was the father of his baby, he headed off to give Phyllis the heartbreaking news while she was preparing to take their brain damaged child to a clinic.  Then he had a conversation with Phyllis and was like, “Oh wait.  She’s pretty too.  Maybe I shouldn’t tear her to shreds at the worst possible moment.”  His next conversation with Sharon was, “I couldn’t do it.  Wait a minute.  You have a great body.  Okay.  Phyllis has to know the truth.” Both Phyllis and Sharon must be at leats a little crazy to put up with this wishy washiness.  It makes Nick so unappealing and the triangle unrootable.

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