OLTL: Discussion for the week January 4

[DeeeDee]

They should be Joey & CJ.

[MichaelGL]

I loved the scenes you mentioned as well.

[DRW50]

I still hope they might cast Cosgrove as Joey.

Poor CJ, still missing somewhere. For all we know he suffered the most brutal Buchanan heir fate of all, and Sonia Sotra dropped a church on him while he was having sex with River Carpenter.

[DeeeDee]

:lol: :lol:

[NorrthCafe]

Aye aye aye.... All the talk of Shane the demon seed and I've just watched the movie "The Girl Next Door" (Ketcham - 2007). For anyone interested, Austin Williams (OLTL's Shane) plays a kid whose crazy mother maltreats two young girls she takes into her home as a foster mother. The girls' parents are killed in a car accident. Williams plays a very bratty and mean spirited kid who helps his mother torment the girls. Despite the dark nature of the material in "GND", it was so easy to see Williams as "Shane" while watching it. I realize that Shane isn't always bratty, but when he is, he's a real firecracker.

BTW, the movie was released the same year he originated the role on One Life.

[Vee]

I don't have a problem with ol' Shane. I think the actor's good and he reacts the way a kid would in these ridiculous situations. Rex OTOH is about as mature as he is. When Rex says things like "my father was right about you" to Gigi, you keep hoping the writers have caught a clue and are making Rex a villain again, but the whole story seems tethered to the idea that he eventually will be exonerated as HERO OF SHOW while Schuyler gets smacked down. That's why I wasn't quite feeling yesterday's show, even when I loved Gigi rejecting Rex. I can feel that vibe coming; it's a classic Fronsian trope. Angry, forceful male bullies woman, loses her at first, then comes back and is eventually proven "right" after a long hard slog - or at least, he gets the woman back. And usually she apologizes. Part of me believes this was done this way to make Rex and Gigi "equal" after he fucked Stacy.

The problem is that taken on its own merits in the episode, the story interests me: You want to believe it a story about Gigi the single mother finding love with a new man after her baby daddy betrayed her despite her years of devotion. So that engaged me and I thought FF and SC did well (I have no idea what JPL was doing unless he was intentionally playing it as unsympathetic as possible, because he was aggravating as hell to watch). But while that is the surface level of the story, on a Frons soap it is never the larger story. The larger story is always about the man. This is a problem bigger than any writing team; it is something that comes from Frons and has infected virtually every frontburner storyline he oversees.

[oltl1]

When did little Eddie Alderson become such a stud. When he closed the door and threw his cane and kissed Dani, I thought I was watching Valentino.

[Vee]

I liked that. Matthew was giving her the full mack.

Blair and Elijah were cute. For now. I never had a problem with the actor, it was how Eli totally became Tea's little bitch in the last two or three months. When they were sparring in the courtroom he was great, and he was great today.

[MichaelGL]

Vee I wholeheartedly agree with you here.

Initially on paper, minus Fron's chauvinistic tendencies, the thought of Rex being somehow brainwashed by Mitch to give into his darker side is an interesting idea, and why I thought this idea would work rather than making him Bo's son (Snooze worthy IMO). Rex being stuck between the ideas Mitch, his biological father is putting into his head vs what he's come to learn from Bo, a sense of right and wrong, all the while he loses Gigi and Skye I think is classic soap. However on screen it's falling apart with 1. the actors involved and 2. the propping of Rex (Which might hinder us at seeing any struggle with Rex to fight off the ideas Mitch is putting into his head, since the TPTB doesn't want him to be portrayed anything short of a hero).

Surprisingly with Tuesday's show, I wasn't bothered by FF's acting so much as JPL. I think FF did fairly well for once, but I agree, JPL played Rex rather unsympathetically Tuesday.

[DeeeDee]

Tika is beautiful even on the backburner.

[Leia]

I'm so glad Gigi is moving on to Schuyler. I hope they don't throw him under the bus for Rex.

I don't like Langston's fickleness. Markko gave up his relationship with his parents for her.

Cole is so much better away from Starr. I don't know what's worse Starr and Cole or Rex and Gigi.

[quartermainefan]

In defense of Fara Fath, she and Eric Winter played the most charming couple on Days during their time I felt, and she really was good selling the romantic stuff. If you want someone to sell cutesy romantic fluff, Fara Fath can deliver the goods I think. I never had a problem with her on Days, and was sorry to see her leave that show. JPL I think people sell short. He has a very sitcommy line delivery (as if he learned all about acting from watching FRIENDS--and probably did), but I remember he and RSW making a great buddy duo more than once. I get people want all soap actors to excel equally in all departments, but what makes Erika Slezak so good is a lot different than what makes Ilene Kristen so good. JPL should do a little comedy and a lot of taking his clothes off. That is his strong suit, and that's a perfectly legit strong suit to have for a young soap actor.

[Vee]

I think Farah tends to sell this stuff more than JPL does. She is far from Garbo, but there is a raw, in-the-moment, idiosyncratic realness to her which I have always liked, and she has really sold the story with Scott Clifton. Some of her best work on the show has been these last six months. No tanking whatsoever from her, IMHO. Whereas I think JPL has been encouraged to go all in with his tics and lost control of the performance; I'm not sure he's doing what TSJ does, which seems to be actively subvert the writing to allow for his interpretation of Todd versus the writing. RH did that too.

We also know JPL was not happy with the writing for Rex and Gigi during the initial Stacy mess (and who could blame him), but he played that as unsympathetic as it was written then, too. I don't think he's experienced enough to use the writing his way in the way TSJ does (not that I agree with how TSJ does it), I think he's got a limited bag of tricks to work with and none of them are helping the shitty writing of the character. All JPL's acting tics developed back when the character was a second-tier lead or support player (where he should've stayed), when Rex was an antihero/lovable con man. They're all based on sarcasm or wry little bits, not sincerity; that's why he comes off strange and in these scenes, overly harsh and annoying. But that's also the writing, of course. It does Rex absolutely no favors, just like Ryan, Zach, Sonny, etc etc.

I would like to see Rex go 'dark' again and back to his roots, while Gigi seeks shelter with Sky in a legit romance. But I think they're only going to pantomime that for a couple weeks or a month, and then Sky will be unmasked as a big ol' liar who is so much worse than poor, confused Rex. And that doesn't do any of them any favors. You could do much more with all the characters, Rex included, by letting this big freeze and his descent last longer. By having Rex be as he once was, the larger audience might remember when they used to like him.

[Cheap21]

I enjoyed Todd/Tea and Eli/Blair yesterday. Todd and Tea's love scene was done tastefully and sweet, whereas Eli/Blair was done kinky and fun. Two contrasting styles which worked for the 2 different couples

Please dont tell me we are in for High School Musical the sequel?

[Leia]

I loved early Rex and Gigi. High school sweethearts and young love revisited later in life-what's not to love about that. But the charming adventuresome couple and young family we were treated to earlier this year is not what we see anymore. I still continued to hold out hope for them even when Stacy came to town as I thought that we would find out that Gigi's parents were still alive. They throw those heavy dramatic plots at them and it has ruined any rooting value for them as characters. The result is now I don't find them rootable as a couple.