A Couple of Musical Notes
by Judy Ellison
Ah, for the days when the pre-fab boy bands didn't take themselves seriously!
Surely the Monkees would've never produced such sentimental schlock as that awful
Backstreet Boys tune that played during Emily's and Zander's "first time."
Not only was the music devoid of imagination, employing every trite maneuver from
the Song-Spinner's Guidebook, but the lyrics--"We started out like sister
and brother..."--hardly seemed appropriate for the...er...situation. Now,
I realize that the lyricist was speaking metaphorically, and there's a world of
difference between saying "like sister and brother" and "as
sister and brother," but the song still makes my skin crawl in that Donny
and Marie sort of way.
And although I do like Sarah MacLaughlan's song "Ice" (which is currently
Sonny's "brooding over Carly" music), I keep thinking that it would
better used in the scenes with Helena and her Frigid-Heir (sorry, couldn't resist!).
Especially since I first heard it played during the PBS special "Lost on
Everest," which dealt with the search for Mallory's and Irvine's frozen bodies
on Mount Everest.
And please. Someone. Turn down the volume.
Just a Couple of Notes
by Amy McWilliams
I have two really short comments, but since they fit nicely between Judy's
bit and Joan's, I thought I'd include them.
First up, my musical note is from Port Charles. What a freaky choice
of music that was for the scenes where Ben stabbed Ariana while Eve and Ian made
love at the hospital. It went from "Time in a Bottle," left over from
the last episode, to some classical, religious-sounding piece. I'm just guessing
that they were going for the Godfather effect, of the holy in tandem with
the profane (used on GH in the infamous "click-boom" of Jax and
Brenda's wedding set against the car bomb that killed Lily, or the mob violence
played off against Laura's lullabye), but neither side of that equation worked
with the music for me this time. I couldn't help but think that Judy's been asking
for classical music all these years and this was the moment they actually listened
to her. They should have stuck with the 70s.
My other comment is about Lucky. When Lucky first reappeared, played by Jacob
Young, it took me a while to figure out what was bothering me about the storyline.
It was a paradox: we were supposed to believe that Lucky was noticably different
than his old self, yet the new actor was used to re-tape flashback scenes, negating
the separation from the old storyline, from the old actor, and from the old Lucky
that the writing asked us to buy into. Now I've figured out what bothers me about
Lucky now--another paradox. Lucky has been acting abominably to Elizabeth, treating
her with disdain, threats, suspicion, etc., and then coming back with sweet apologies
(and now a proposal). I hate the way he's been acting, but I think that the show
wants me to pull for Lucky despite his actions--to see him as victim, rather
than as awful boyfriend, annoying friend, and insolent son. But the characters
around him, especially Elizabeth, behave as though everything Lucky has done and
said is justified, is normal, is--well, is Lucky. So while his behavior seems
pointedly different (though not, I should add, completely foreign to the Lucky
we know from the past), while we are supposed to forgive some of the bad, the
people who know him best are dealing with him as if all of this was completely
understandable, completely ignoring the fact that the guy has been programmed,
never wondering if he might yet be under Helena's control. It was painful for
me to watch Elizabeth take as gospel Lucky's rantings about lies, Jason, etc.,
because I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to forgive this as mind-warped
behavior, or understand it as genuine emotion.
Boy, Boy, Crazy Boy...or, Just Because I love the Lunatic, Do I Want Him to
Run the Asylum?
by Joan Roseman
I love Tony Geary. I do. I grant him leeway I would not extend to many, if
not most, of the walking egos we call soap veterans. Although I have never read
a line he has written (as opposed to having heard a line he wrote delivered),
I will take it as received knowledge that he is a good, possibly inspired, writer.
I believe it. I do. But even Shakespeare had his "Venus and Adonis."
With all due respect to the Bard, it sucks, and so does "Oh, Dad, Poor Dad,
Momma's Stuffed you into a Cryonic Chamber in the Bowels of GH, and I'm Feelin'
So Sad."
If reviving--literally--a long dead Stavros Cassadine is the story that kept
Geary on the set in the face of changes in the production and writing departments
and the opportunity for which Geary agreed to forgo his beloved extended vacations
in Europe, then I wonder whether failure to come forward in the face of self-indulgent
claptrap is an indictable offense.
Don't get me wrong. It is certainly possible that once we get past the absurdity
of its origins, the gestalt of a resurrected Stavros, alive, well and, well, young,
in Port Charles may, after all, have "legs." I suspect it might. And
I for one would love to see Stavros take his first cell phone call or drink his
first half-caf latte with extra foam. I know I'd pay good money to watch his face
while the television monitor broadcasts personal hygiene commercials and condom
ads into his caveman brainpan! The trouble is, will the putative benefits of these
cheap thrills, not to mention delight of watching Helena get everything she's
longed for and find it ashes in her mouth, outweigh all the damage that has already
been done in the name of "What on earth could bring Luke and Laura Back Together?"
Color me dubious. But I also think that however misguided it may have been to
green-light this story, the blame can never rest solely on Geary's shoulders.
It takes a truly gimmick-mad executive producer to O.K. such a farce, and a serially
incompetent head writer to back her up. For better or worse, there's going to
be egg a-plenty to wipe of a lot of faces come fall. I'm laying in a stock of
Bounty right now.
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