"And Another Thing...": Rae Ipsa Loquitor
by Joan Roseman

If you are one of GHR's readers who just adores Dr. Gretel Rae Cummings, late of Llanview, daughter of Pine Valley's Myrtle Lum Fargate, former petit amie of Dr. Alan Quartermaine, pal of Tony Jones and colleague of Dr. Kevin Collins, then read no further. You are really not going to like this column, not one little bit. Spare yourself. Go sample "Small Things" instead.

I speak as one who knew Ms. Cummings--when she was plain old Gretel, not so plain and not so old--in her original incarnation on One Life to Live. Trusty right hand to aspiring gubernatorial candidate Herb Callison, Gretel was everything a political assistant should be, with a dose of doormat thrown in for good measure. She was loyal, hard working, efficient, quick-witted, and hopelessly outclassed and outmaneuvered in the love department by Dorian Lord. Gretel faded away, apparently never having confided in any of her Llanview friends (Viki and Bo, chiefly) that she had once been interesting enough to have mothered a child out of wedlock.

Fast-forward 15 years or so and here she comes again, Dr. Rae Cummings this time. A self-styled "relationship counselor," this Rae for the Year 2000 is no shrinking violet, content to hug the shadows as her adored boss holds center stage. So far from shrinking is this Dr. (Don't call me Gretel) Rae that she is omnipresent, in your face and on the air ALL the time. The only way a viewer of ABC soaps could not be aware of Rae is if she had been living inside a deep-sea submersible for the past six months. And this week, even as I write, we are promised an entire week of non-stop Rae, everyday, on every show PLUS "The View," world without end, amen.

By some miracle, what Disney and my cable carrier, Time-Warner Cable of New York City have accomplished, Angela Shapiro, head of ABC Daytime, could not have foreseen. In fact, Ms. Shapiro, rumored to be Rae's alter ego, Linda Dano's, best friend, must be gnashing her perfect, porcelain laminated teeth, because a contract dispute between these two mega-conglomerates has taken ABC off the air in my city. Off as in No Rae At All. Anywhere. So, no GH anywhere, either, but ah, what Rae-free bliss!

To be fair, those who only watch General Hospital, Port Charles or the two combined may wonder what my beef is with the ubiquitous Dr. Cummings. After all, she has given new life and new storylines to old favorites such as Tony and Alan. She has advanced the Kevin/Eve story a few paces and provided a welcome dash of cold water in Dr. Rachel Locke's puss. What's so bad about Rae? If she were a character specific to GH or PC, nothing. But Rae is to the ABC soaps like kudzu is to the Low Country. She's insidious. Relentless. She has been forced into the lives of every single character on every single ABC show for what seems like an eternity, and in her wake lies wreckage and confusion. Like some inept gunslinger out of the Old West, Dr. Rae rides into Dodge, stops the action cold, confuses and confounds, and then rides on to the next unsuspecting town. Where Rae goes, we can be assured that central characters will have to put their lives and crises on hold while they submit to Dr. Rae's patented grilling technique. Think plumbing, not medicine: insert plunger into Tad's ear (or Viki's, or AJ's) and exert pressure. Watch the content of their brains get sucked into Rae's maw, while instant, unsolicited and generally useless pop psychobabble gets extruded into the hapless character's cranium. Yech!

When Rae hit Llanview, she carried around a little notebook. Helpless to leave the room, we were forced to witness her write down her early (and usually glib and erroneous) impressions into this tiny diary while her voice-over voice read them to us. Now there's excitement for you! Better yet, when she came to Pine Valley, she turned into a demented New-Age Ancient Mariner, stopping one of every three citizens to demand that they produce her missing husband Daniel (someone no citizen of PV had ever mentioned before). She invaded stately mansions seeking this Daniel, berated people from living their ordinary lives (lying, cheating, deceiving, etc.) because Daniel might find out (!), and eventually drew a beloved character, Myrtle, into the story to provide at least one bright spot in the agony. No sooner than discovering she has a jewel of a mother right under her nose, however, than peripatetic Rae was off to Port Charles, New York, in search of elusive furniture and her even more elusive Grail--the prodigal daughter.

And another thing, Gentle Reader. I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. I'm sick of Rae, sick of a Quest that means nothing, absolutely nothing, to me, and sick, sick, sick of being forced to participate in a marketing scheme against my will. Let's be clear: when all of this started, months ago, I was very fond of Linda Dano, and had fond memories of Gretel Cummings. Today, if I saw Ms. Dano walking towards me on the streets of New York City, where we both reside, I would hitch up my skirts and run, FAST, in the other direction. If I never, EVER see Rae Cummings again, I'll be a happy woman. Put THAT in your demographic pipe, Ms. Shapiro, and smoke it.

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