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One wonders if any of Port Charles's 16 head writers have ever seen
a telenovela. If you're lucky enough to have a cable system that carries Univision,
you should check one out for yourself. Take 30 minutes out of your soap viewing--because
really, there are at least 30 minutes every day that deserve to taken out--and
fire up AltaVista's babblefish program. The stories move at breakneck speed, and
yes, they're in Spanish, but it's about 100% more comprehensible than any given
day of PC.
It's easy to understand why ABC decided to undertake the great experiment.
This is crunch time for soaps. If any one of the newer soaps should fail, we'll
never see another daytime soap created. But rather than try a broad-base appeal,
the networks seem to be trying to carve out niche markets. NBC has bent over backwards
making Passions and Days of Our Lives hot tickets for the under-25
set. The Bell family has revamped Young and the Restless to look and feel
like a prime-time show. ABC has tried a cross-soap appeal for the Big Three, and
has been pushing the envelope for PC. Not a terrible idea, but they've
shortchanged the Little Soap that Could in the execution department.
So we began the three month saga of "Fate," which started off decently,
but completely crapped out somewhere around the third week or so. It seems that
in continuity of character was sacrificed for speed. The dusky-voiced promo woman
kept telling the audience that all these characters where caught up in the "hands
of fate." Which gives them a convenient out when all the characters started
to act like pod people.
Setting aside for a moment that nearly every character who wasn't Kevin, Eve,
Lucy, or Ian got pushed aside (which really shouldn't be set aside), these weren't
the people they're supposed to be. Nothing, but nothing these guys did for three
months was for any purpose other than to contrive the outcome. Whether it was
Lucy changing DNA results, Eve catching Soap-Amnesia, or Ian marrying the vaguely
ethnic block of wood calling herself Arianna, the powers that be should just have
run a scroll with the words "Warning: Plot Complication"; it would have
had the same effect. There's no logic being applied here, no continuity of character.
Historically, there's no way that a broken-hearted Lucy would have consoled herself
by tripping and falling on Jack's "hay-hee-ha-hay-hee" (tm: Kevin).
Nor would Eve have taken off to play Florence Nightingale on The Island. Doesn't
anyone just throw himself or herself on his/her bed and cry anymore?
It would be remiss not to mention that the PC cast, for the most part,
remains one of the hardest working in daytime. With the exception of Arianna and
her equally as charismatic brother Ben, all of the actors are actually earning
their paychecks. And even in the depths of the silliness, there are genuine moments
to this stuff. There are opportunities to laugh (Lucy's Date of a Thousand Kevins)
and cry (Lucy's discovery that she is, in fact, barren). They answered many prayers
by bringing back Denise Galik as Rhonda.
And then they throw it all away by bring on a big, fake-looking computer as
a new character. But enough about Arianna.
Much, if not all of the fault for this mess lies with PC's intrepid
team of crack-head writers. With Karen Harris long gone, and with Barbara Blume
either off flossing or having her nails done instead of going to production meetings,
that leaves the viewers in the hands of Brown and Esensten. Now, these two aren't
quite the demons they're made out to be, but they're out of their element trying
to make this stuff work. If the powers that be were trying for a mystery soap,
they're good, but to make the telenovela work, they'd been someone with a smidge
more talent.
A Wish list for "Time in a Bottle":
- More Alison and Jamal. You've got the best teens on the tube, so actually
use them.
- Send the computer packing. And get rid of Nelly, too.
- Remember that half the fun of the show is the recurring actors. Let's hear
what Aunt Charlene has to say about Kevin and Lucy's reunion, or how Estelle feels
about Jack vs. Chris.
- Genuine emotion. When these folks are actually allowed to react to things
like real human beings, they act like real human beings.
- Find a way to make eight-year-old Lucy a permanent part of the cast.
Until next time, Port Chuck.
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