DRW50

Wasn't Tammy Wynette on Capitol? How was she?

We're getting into my favorite period of the Soapnet years. Jill's anguish over losing Edmund, which was brutal to watch, but phenomenal acting from Nancy Altman. The Seneca/Jill/Frank/Rae mess, which has one hell of a climax with Rae setting Frank up (if only that story hadn't ended in Kimberly's arrival). Everything about early Siobhan, and the spellbinding Siobhan/Jack, my choice for best soap pairing that never was. I even liked Pat/Nancy, I thought that recast of Pat was very underrated. I still wonder if all the recasting is what doomed RH or if it was the very abrupt, very damaging shift towards mob stories and Kimberly's "acting" career.

I didn't think Zoe and Sarah having sex made any sense, but I've enjoyed the fallout. A story which doesn't make sense at first but is then well developed I prefer to a story which is mapped out on paper but doesn't make sense onscreen (which is why I didn't enjoy the John Paul/Kieron relationship or John Paul's reunion with Craig). With Sarah's terrible taste in men, I'm glad to see her exploring her sexuality, and she and Zoe have good chemistry together. I'm only sorry about how much Mike has been hurt, because he's one of my favorite characters. I wish Hollyoaks was better at creating new characters. Over the past few years, seems like 75% of their new characters are poor. The best new characters they've created lately were in Hollyoaks Later. I'm glad they're bringing the stripper and Malachy's ex onto the regular Hollyoaks.

My biggest memory of Loving is the dynamo performance from Christine Tudor. I'd love to see the entire story again. I still watch the Steffi/Gwen reveal scenes on Youtube. At the time I thought Ameila Heinle was great, I had no idea how she'd turn out on AMC and Y&R. I didn't care about most of the people on The City, but I started digging the show when Tracy showed up. Nancy Altman was superb as Deborah. I miss her.

Sarah Jayne Dunn played a mobster's girlfriend in Dark Knight. I wish they'd done more with her on her return. The story never seemed like the Mandy I've seen, although I've only seen her in some scattered episodes from 2005 and 2006. I wish they could write Frankie and Newt out. I don't care about Newt, and Frankie often makes me see red. And now she's living in the home of the daughter she never really cared about. Ravi as bisexual is strange. I'm glad we're spared a self-loathing/acceptance story, but he doesn't seem to think of himself as bi, and his family doesn't know about him, so we may still get the coming out story. I'm not sure Stephen Uppal would be up to the material. I was hoping they would have put him with Russ, they have good chemistry. I think this story and the Sarah/Zoe story both come across as more naturally soapy than John Paul's last few stories. His relationship with Kieron was poorly developed and then they wasted all that Kieron could have brought to the canvas. I LOL when Ravi said that when his brother sees an opening, he takes it, and Kris said, "I guess it runs in the family." I also love when people get upset about too many gay stories on one show. The way I see this is Hollyoaks is making up for the lack of gay stories on 90% of the soaps. I hope they won't break up Mercedes and Malchy. Hollyoaks needs a stable couple and I want to see them explore Malachy's HIV.