OLTL Discussion for the week of July 19

[MontyB]

[SFK]

I can't think of a soap example at the moment, but it's certainly happened in my family more than once.

[DRW50]

On ATWT, Kim and Jennifer were both pregnant at the same time by Bob Hughes (Jennifer's husband). Their conception dates were only about a month or two apart, if even that long. At the time this was way too much for P&G and some viewers so Kim lost her baby to "punish" her for adultery. Years later this led to the Frannie/Sabrina storyline.

[MontyB]

Completely forgot about that. Yep it happened once almost 40 ago, LOL!!

[EricMontreal22]

I dunno, I guess you're right, LOL but it just feels like a bad soap cliche to me. But maybe it's more how they're handling it--keeping the fact they're even pregnant secret from each other (which will surely drag on), etc. It's funny, I often long for the time when soaps weren't afraid to drag out theri stories--but not in this modern way that I think JER really helped instigate--where we have the soap cliche "misunderstanding" dragged out forever--when it could easily be solved quicker if they confronted the issue sooner.

if that makes ANY sense.

And SFK, I hope you won't hold it against me, but I laughed out loud at your post.

[Khan]

IIRC, you could run the test using amniotic fluid. Or at least they did once on "Law & Order."

[Khan]

Oh, HONEY!!!!

[Vee]

Hooray for cross-posting!

I like the idea of the WTD story on paper but I despise it onscreen unless it's dealing with Natalie or Brody/Jessica alone, what with John and Ford playing central roles the rest of the time. There are much better ways to do Natalie's first pregnancy. I'd shock everyone and give Natalie twins - one by John and one by Jared. The shipper wars would last FOREVER even as she moved on to a new party, and you could continue to string along the Jolie subplot for years, if Michael Easton absolutely must be on the show. Steal it, OLTL - they already stole Gigi going to college from me.

This Layla/Cris story works for me even with poor David Fumero's epic "I get so emotional, baby/every time I think of yoo-hoo-hoo" scrunchy face. Tika Sumpter has been amazing, as she was last year. I hated Vange as the saintly heroine, but she'd make a great awakened vixen to [!@#$%^&*] with these two - Layla is the underdog heroine. They need to beg Tika to give of her time regularly in a major story with that general direction, or, worst case, they need to recast. Most likely, though, they'll end it here and have Layla leave town, [!@#$%^&*] lame.

Eli must live.

[EricMontreal22]

Vee, who's a shipper?

[Vee]

Shipper = fangirls (or, ok, boys) for a certain couple.

[EricMontreal22]

Wow, NEVER heard that term before! Will have to start using it (I admit I've never been one of those soap fans who really fights for a couple or watches even for that--it pains me to even use the joined names...)

I agree with you 100% on all your thoughts with the Layla storyline.

[SFK]

Eric and Khan, some scandalous stuff goes on in small, tight-knit communities where everybody knows everybody else and their business yet they think they can get away with tippin' and dippin'. I have a few cousins born within months of each other, same dad, different moms (in one case, former best friends). To my knowledge it was never proven by DNA, but LONG before Jessica and Natalie my mom and them joked about one of our older cousin's twins who looked like two of the guys she was "seeing", respectively. Art imitating life.

Eric, that is so funny, in just last week's OLTL thread, All My Shadows and Marceline explained what Shippers were to me!

[MontyB]

And there sure are a lot of those "shipper" around.

[marceline]

Shipper has been the term for primetime couple fans for years. Honestly, I'm really surprised that's not common knowledge. (Not criticism, just genuine surprise.) Although on most primetime boards it doesn't have the negative connotation it has on soap boards because it doesn't usually lead to wars and TPTB don't play them off each other like soaps do. One show that did make that mistake was Lost. OMG, the Skate/Jate/Suliet/Jacket wars made anything on soaps look like Bible study. But you can go to a True Blood board and say you're a Eric/Lafayette or a Tara/Sam shipper and no one treats it like a scarlet letter. OTOH, soap fanbases are like gangs. Show the wrong colors and you get jumped.

[EricMontreal22]

To be honest, the only place I've ever posted about primetime shows is on here--or on non tv based forums in their off topic area. Now I'm scared to investigate, lol. I suppose I can find out online where the etymology for the word came from...