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One Life To Live - last chance revamp


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Natalie is a work in progress. Especially these days. She would have a new man, of course. But just because I didn't mention one of many major characters does not mean they don't have a story. It just means I don't want to go over everything, at least not right now.

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He's a walking plot device. Anything he says or does varies depends on what the writers feel at that moment, and he often gets cringeworthy one-liners in place of emotions or a point of view. Like that brat on 2 and a Half Men. The worst part was when he went around perving over Tea, and the show was basically getting a laugh out of the same objectification of women that led Todd on such an ugly path.

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Yes, Jack is often a plot device. So was Starr at his age and younger. Most soap kids are. The trick is giving them a personality to go along with their often transparent plot function. Most soap kids don't have that. Jack and Starr do/did. I like that, even if I dislike sometimes the transparent things the plot engineers for Jack to do or say.

Oh, now you're just being mean. If I laid out everything I wanted to do with everyone on the show we'd be here all week and I'd be very embarrassed. As it is, I wanted to only mention a few things because I have a terrible headache, a vicious sore throat, bad allergies, a serious RL workload of writing and hopefully, not an ear infection. If I'd gone on much longer then (or now, really) I'd've passed out. Maybe later.

I will say that re: Viki and Charlie, I'd want to either bring on his thought-dead younger son, Jimmy, or have them adopt a young child, to really shake up the Lord/Buchanan family dynamic. Or both. Viki would be heavily involved in some paper wars stuff, and later be pitted against Carla Gray over some sort of ancestral secret from the past that Viki is not privvy to. That huge story would ultimately climax, hopefully around some sort of anniversary date, with the Lord and Gray offspring unearthing the family crypt, and Viki, Larry Wolek, Carla and perhaps a few other people congregating near or around the fateful Llanview Hospital fire escape from the very first episode.

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I think Starr had a much stronger and more distinct personality by the time she was Jack's age. She played with lizards. She imagined cartoons of herself and her family. She all but worshiped her father and wanted him to be happy with her mother. She was OTT sometimes but she seemed believable to me. Most of the stuff Jack says, especially about Tea, I didn't believe, and he has been all over the place in regards to how he feels about Blair, Tea, and Todd. I think they wrote for KA's strengths, whereas they just put dialogue in Jack's mouth whether the little boy who plays him can make it work or not.

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I think the kid's as capable as KA was at the same age - she was basically a (delightful) caricature for many years. And just like Jack her positions often made no sense. She'd turn on Todd or Blair on a dime, was obsessed with them reuniting them, attacked any of Blair's other love interests, yet also liked Tea.

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It didn't bother me as much with Starr and Tea because Tea was barely around for most of Starr's childhood. I thought by the time KA began playing Starr, Todd and Tea were on their way to divorce. I thought Starr's patterns were usually supporting Todd, being angry when he screwed up again, then accepting him again, and hoping Blair would accept Todd. She usually gave Todd more leeway than she gave Blair.

Jack, depending on the episode, doesn't want to see Todd, wants to see Todd, cares about Blair, has no use for Blair, sees Tea as a mother figure, sees Tea as just a bimbo who goes around in her underwear. They also force sitcom dialogue on him, whereas with KA, they wrote more of her acting out and the dialogue wasn't as important. I guess part of my criticism is based on the general style of humor on the show, not just Jack, although most of that hasn't been present since last year.

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