TV Guide Magazine: The Best in Soaps 2009

[classicmoment]

Braeden is the best they could find of all leading males in soaps, really? Whilst he's fine as Victor Newman talk overrated on an overall scale

[DRW50]

It doesn't have anything to do with his acting. Notice that Logan didn't say a word about Braeden's acting this year, which was beyond phoned in and which helped tank what the show believed was some of their major stories. Braeden is all promo and image, nothing else. If he ever was he hasn't been in a long time.

[JackPeyton]

what a bunch of bullshit.

i dont even believe he believes what he wrote.

this was easily GH's worst year, IMHO, and that is saying A LOT! the same goes for Y&R and AMC.

Days or OLTL deserved best show. Hands down. Nothing even comes close.

and Peter Bartlett? Did he not see his dual performance? Awful.

[classicmoment]

He didn't say a word about Braeden's acting at all, he gave his description of Victor Newman

[EricMontreal22]

Welle xcept Rescue Me (which I'm not a fan of though I like better than GH ) does much better iwth minorities.

Bartlett is a talented theatre actor, but I agree he doesn't show much on the soap.

Jack the sad thing is this WASN'T AMC's worse year

[quartermainefan]

Wasn't this telegraphed in the 1968 story? I know Rex being having similar DNA to David was set up nicely with the the personality transplant in 1968. I thought that was a clever and cute idea.

Anyway about GH...

GH is all the things he says. It does look better than every other soap, and they did cast a lot of new young talents, and Carolyn Hennesy is fab as Diane and outshines everyone she shares a scene with, and yet the show is very empty. It is like chinese food in that 5 minutes later you don't even feel like you ate it. I don't know that it boasts the finest acting ensemble in daytime. There are a few people who actually are worth watching imo (Tony Geary, Jane Elliot, Carolyn Hennesy, Bradford Anderson, James Franco, the kid who plays Michael). Steve Burton does have talent, it just is not suited to this role. He does great at comedy. Maurice Benard sometimes shows the old talent, but maybe after 15 years it is time to give it up. The rest of the cast are forgettable soap opera wallpaper. Not a single noteworthy one in the entire cast. Ron Hale of course, but he works once a month. John Ingle ditto.

If they could somehow take GH's directors and camera crew and editors, and team them up with DOOL or OLTL's writers, there would be a heck of a show there.

[quartermainefan]

No disrespect to Mr Braden, but since when is a senior citizen who isn't on a big comeback ever hip? There is nothing hip about Eric Braden unless there is some hipster film festival showing midnight screenings of Escape From The Planet Of The Apes somewhere where everyone looks for kitsch in every frame.

Phil Carey was highly underrated. All the people who want to tally emmys and seek out validation for soap actors by citing so and so and such and such as serious thespians may have dismissed Phil Carey his entire tenure, but he acted opposite some heavy hitters and never once let any actor outshine or overpower him. You can give Erika Slezak 16 more emmys, and he still in scenes with her kept up step for step, line for line.

[DRW50]

Eric Braeden is a guy who is always balls out, he says what he wants, does what he wants, or presents the image that he does. That is a timeless appeal to many guys. They want to be him. It's one of the reasons why Victor is popular with a lot of straight men who otherwise don't care about soaps.

I agree with you about Phil Carey. I've never really stopped missing Phil, or Clint Ritchie, on the show, and I probably never will.

[Ann_SS]

Logan's article is the perfect example of how the soap bloggers/columnists suck up to the status quo. Logan reinforces and supports GH's dark immoral mob rubbish so Guza, Phelps, and Frons' preen with the appreciation and dismiss online soap fans as fans who use multiple aliases to complain. Creatively they think that GH is doing a great job and the fans not at home to watch or are out of touch. I am certain they come up with some wacky justification to explain away the failure of their stunts and promos to attract the audience. However, the ABC executives above Frons aren't fools. When the time comes they get rid of all the ABC soaps and the money that they waste putting out crap.

[Khan]

Awww, I like him. He's one of the few things I still enjoy about OLTL (Ilene Kristen being another). Then again, I'm finding most of my favorite actors from the soaps - Bartlett, Kristen, Marilyn Chris (ex-Wanda, OLTL), Brent Collins (Wallingford, ANOTHER WORLD), Dorothy Lyman (as AMC's Opal), Bill Timoney (ex-Alfred Vanderpoole, AMC) - tend to be the eccentric or comic characters.

[DRW50]

I enjoy the comic supporting actors, as long as they have the right material. I don't think anything Nigel has had since Asa's departure has really been that great. Making him the center of the "David is evil" storyline for over a year was repetitive and also badly damaging to the character, because he went from being comic relief to this endlessly sneering moral scold. Now they put him in a dual role which seems to be the same character with different teeth. I do think he is good with the right material, which I can't say for someone like Moe.

[Vee]

Oh, Nigel has never liked David. In no way he is the center of any storyline. I don't see how it damages any of these characters, who have always, always looked down on David given his past bad acts.

[classicmoment]

But many people doon't know the antics or controversial history of the actor, that is the character that so many find appealing. My whole point is: just because, as is many times presented, EB seems to be challenged in finding the differences between himself and this character why has it become the general consensus? No matter how much he tries to be Victor Newman or make Victor Newman Eric Braeden it is still a a fictional character living in a fictional soap world. I'm not saying that I think-that you think that Carl D -and I totally see your point about the appeal but I just believe that the appeal of Eric Braeden shouldn't be reported (in any kind of respectable publication) as synonymous with the appeal of Victor Newman. I think that a humbled, objective writer should clearly re-establish and re-affirm when they are referring to the character seperatly from the actor and his potrayal. How would he be a good actor to anyone if the man never left the character or himself behind where he needed to?

[DRW50]

He was the main person in the storyline from early on (when he was the first or one of the first to learn Asa had another heir) to do the "David is evil" drumbeat. It wasn't just looking down on him, it was non-stop conversations of what scary things would happen if he learned the truth, because he was such a truly horrible and dangerous person. He even tried to kill Renee when he was an infant, and so on. I think when you make a comedic character so unpleasant, they're never quite the same afterwards.

[Vee]

They never said David was "evil" as I recall. They said he was a criminal, dishonest, scheming and could hurt the family and the company. All true. We love David, the audience is encouraged to love David, but on the show, characters have always had issues with him or Dorian or Todd or Brad or Marco or whoever else. They never said he was dangerous - for God's sake, last summer he was half-naked and hogtied in the stables for laughs (and people did laugh). He was a liability to the Buchanans and Nigel treated him that way. I don't think it was supposed to be some serious palace intrigue storyline with the young heir cast down, and I really don't believe most of the audience took it that way. It's David. And he got his revenge, and a place in the family.