Stories that upset you more than they should have

[applcin]

It's an amusement park in Virginia, where GL held some fan events. From what I heard, it was literally days after an event that DAM attended that Wheeler told him he was being let go.

[DRW50]

Thanks. I never knew about that.

Given the producers of soaps in recent years I'm surprised she didn't fire him right before he went onstage at the event.

I did think making Edmund so monstrous was a very bad writing choice, especially since GL was not exactly full of good leading men at this time.

[P.J.]

dragonflies, on 22 April 2012 - 08:09 PM, said:

It totally was and this is not even me saying this as a CarJacker, it was just nasty on so many levels. It was probably Pissante

The Holden thing literally made me ill. As much as I hated Carly and Jack's other "romances"----that was just the pits. Not only did all the blame end up at Carly's feet, there was no way in hell I could ever forget the fact Holden had never truly even liked her----no matter how much they tried to tell me otherwise. There was no way in HELL Carly would have ever found Holden interesting enough to bed either. EVER.

While I won't argue the other points---I never thought they "made a fool of Hal." There was "something" between them while she was married to Hal, but the marriage was in trouble early and he kept turning to Barbara.

Carly was married to Brad when she kept meeting Jack at the boathouse. And since Brad blackmailed Carly into marriage, he deserved to be made a fool of. LOL.

Aside from anything Carjack----I repeatedly got so disgusted with the Brooke/Ridge/Taylor antics, I'd drop B&B for months at a time. Everytime Ridge would go into "decision mode", he would give long silioquies about how much he loved both women, and inexplicably picked (IMO, anyway) Taylor every time. It was infuriating.

[MissLlanviewPA]

I LOVE Kings Dominion! It's only a few hours away from where I grew up in Maryland. I went every year starting when I was eleven. Didn't go last year, though .

I do remember the GL stuff there, but I don't think any of it ever occurred when I would visit.

Anyway, to the topic:

OLTL--The death of Al Holden, the departure of Max Holden, the death of Gabrielle Medina, and the refusal to "fix" their story at the end like others were given/attempted to (Bo & Nora, Cord & Tina, Clint & Viki, Jessica's paternity, Todd/Victor, T&B...you get the idea). They were just as popular as many other established families, and deserved better. I still like to think Gabrielle is alive, made peace with Bo, reunited with Max and is living with him in Argentina--while trying to find a possibly alive Al (fan fic idea? I think so!). Sometimes, I really am amazed that I ever came back to OLTL years later--what they did to the Holden-Medina clan was inexcusable and drove me away for years.

And FWIW:

I always thought the Kathleen/Cass/Frankie triangle on AW sounded similar to what a Gabrielle/Max/Luna triangle might have been like if it had ended the wrong way (IMO,. at least).

[MissLlanviewPA]

I should also mention this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnmSq0KuDgw

I know Max was angry after Gabrielle lied about wanting to frame him for Asa's murder, but I don't think he ever got to the point where he truly hated her--he just wanted to get Roxy off his back.

And of course, Luna--because it seemed like Gabrielle meant nothing to him to some after that.

[sungrey]

The Kathleen/Cass/Frankie fiasco on AW reinforced my belief that Donna Swajeski wasn't all that and a bag of chips. I never really was a fan of Donna's work (she all but destroyed Jamie/Lisa on that show, although looking back I think Joanna Going was planning on leaving as it is so they switched the story to Jamie/Vicky) but that triangle was the last straw.

When you have a triangle, it's supposed to be a great one. The Alice/Steve/Rachel triangle was soooo well done because you just loved to hate Rachel but there were times when bitchy Rachel was even vulnerable with Steve. Here, the show tried to resurrect the Cass/Kathleen magic but did it in such a way that if you were a C/K fan you were left on the outside looking in.

I think that's why I was so glad to see Frankie killed off AW. Of course, had I known that would bring the entire show down a few years later... I'm not ashamed to have openly rooted for a character's demise, but I have never done it again and will never root for a character to be killed off.

[DRW50]

I guess it was always obvious Cass would stay with Frankie, as Julie Osburn was only back temporarily, but I felt like the main focus of the writing was in protecting Frankie's dignity as a character; everything else came second. It was not fun at all to see Kathleen on the edge of a breakdown, with no one there for her, aside from some strained conversations with Felicia or the Corys. I know why Kathleen was not happy, but when you add in that Cass had by that time been drained of most of his personality, and Frankie was perpetually bitter, it was not exactly a great contrast or something with rooting value. I wish they'd let Kathleen move on from Cass sooner and not bothered with a triangle.

I also never felt like, as much as Donna Swajeski clearly loved Frankie, that she had any idea how to write for Alice Barrett as an actress.

[MichaelGL]

Growing up, and watching the harrowing tales of Frankie's demise on AW, and Nadine's death on GL(all within a short time frame), is enough to give any 7 year old soap watcher nightmares, and that is what it did for me.

But in all honesty, both deaths were a disservice for soaps and it's women audience. Compared to what viewers are subjected to during primetime on such shows as CSI and Law and Order, GL and AW were sadly ahead of the curve.

[Vee]

OLTL: The destruction of the Holdens. I had grown up watching Max, Luna and Little Al, and as much as I disliked the Nathaniel Marston recast (outside of the wonderful pairing with Kathy Brier's Marcie, which did not translate for me when Al became Michael) Al was still a cherished character in the history of the show for me. I was incredibly upset when he died, and a lot of that was owed to Fiona Hutchison's unbelievable performance in those weeks and months. Her final scenes with Al in Gabrielle's dream - where she says something like "you have been the joy of my life," barely able to speak - were heartbreaking, and I've never been able to find them online since. I also will never, ever forget the utterly desolate look on her face after he died, with Gabrielle in her hospital gown, looking like hell, curling up in Bo's arms like a dying animal over the musical montage of "This Year's Love."

Fiona did such amazing work during and after Al's death that I will never understand why she and James dePaiva were fired, or why it was necessary, after months of depression, for Gabrielle to die violently. I would sooner have taken a shorter arc in which Gabrielle pulls away from Bo and back to Max's arms, and they decide to leave together for Argentina to start anew with Max's young twins. Bo and Nora would then be left open for each other. I adored Fiona Hutchison. The death of Gabrielle broke my heart.

Jared and Charlie's dismissals. I loved them with Natalie and Viki, and I hated how Charlie in particular was ruined. Jared at least died a hero and a good husband. I do believe Erika Slezak and Brian Kerwin when they say the show had not initially intended to write Charlie out, or at least like that - I think later-years OLTL often steamrolled by on adrenaline and excitement and too often ended up with terrible messes on their hands. It just killed me.

The rapemance, with Victor and Marty. I think now it could technically be spun as Victor being a victim as well - and you know that RC would likely now re-pair them someday since he's not "really" her rapist - but at the time it was just so loathsome and foul, as was everything that followed. Trevor St. John ignored or subverted any in-depth writing for his Todd since the story, and the show often breezed along expecting us to still accept "Todd" as the devil-may-care romantic antihero. He became a complete sociopath after that storyline and they treated him like Ryan Lavery. It was absolutely stomach-turning to watch, and I got very, very, very tired of writing about it in public the worse it got. I thanked God for the Two Todds saga, because it undid the damage to Todd Manning's character but also allowed Trevor St. John a whole different role - relatively absolved of his sins, but still dangerous and dark. Not a hero, either.

Let's toss the Bobby Ford story in there, too. There's a lot of these. I could go on all night.

[DRW50]

Were there any stories which probably weren't supposed to get a big reaction but ended up bothering you?

Mine in that category, for OLTL, will always be that wonderful episode with Dorian being pushed in a pool while drunk and high, and having to get herself out, offcamera.

[Vee]

That never really bothered me. I didn't think Langston was out to drown Dorian and I didn't think it was to be seen as anything but her being in the pool for a minute. There were other scenes that did, but I can't necessarily think of them offhand. I did think having Dorian over just for Viki and David to laugh at her was tacky - and I liked David and Dorian. I also hated the way Dena Higley regularly humiliated Viki and Natalie in favor of Clint/Dorian and Evangeline.

[DRW50]

I agree with you that it wasn't intended that way, but I was very disturbed by this at the time, since Dorian was clearly out of it and then no one was there when she got herself out. It was one of those scenes where I guess we were just supposed to laugh at the moment and not care about the details, like the scene where we were clearly supposed to love Rex for punching out a man who had a concussion.

[Vee]

The particularly gonzo Dena Higley moment I remember was when she seemed to live out some sort of personal fanfic axe to grind - a year after she fairly grudgingly ended the Natalie/John/Evangeline triangle by having Evangeline the saint dump John - as he begged her not to leave, then took up with Natalie, who was consistently demeaned since - Dena got some of her final licks in.

To set the scene: Spencer Truman is arrested for his crimes and thrown in the pokey. His story sphere, at this point, is largely Blair, Todd, Faux!Marty, John, etc; Natalie and Evangeline rarely ever figured into his stuff except as support players to John or Todd. Out of nowhere, Natalie visits Spencer in prison or something. Spencer then goes into this long, long-ass scene where he begins to recite chapter and verse to Natalie all the ways in which she is worthless as a person, useless to John, and completely and utterly inferior to the great and fantastic Evangeline Williamson, who is John's true north. Mind you, I'd ceased caring about John and Natalie as a couple after 2004 but even I was like, 'what the [!@#$%^&*]?' There was absolutely no reason for Spencer of all people to have that scene, and for that sentiment to come up at that point, a year later, with Evangeline with Cristian and "Todd". I figured Dena was just still bitter - the entirety of her run on the show was pretty much taken with deifying Evangeline and treating Natalie like dogshit. It seemed like such an immature, out of place bit from an angry writer.

[DRW50]

I remember your comments on that - and the scene where Evangeline had to ward off vicious reporters, or something.

[Vee]

Oh, yes, that was right after Evangeline dumped John, when her sainthood was at its apex - Natalie had been kidnapped by the Killing Club murderer and was off in some mountain hole somewhere while Melissa Archer was in contract negotiations. Episode upon episode was spent with this, and at least one or two of them had Evangeline trekking up Llantano Mountain despite traffic jams and phalanxes of reporters, for no apparent reason - "I have to get to John!" she cried, despite having just broken up with him. She smashes through police barriers in her car, kung fu-chops nosy reporters bothering Viki, and then rushes to the crime scene just to tell John, "it's alright, John. You can go in after her." What?

That whole period - all of Dena's stint, really - seemed designed to tell us that even if John was with Natalie (or "Todd" with Blair), Evangeline was always the best, most fantastic woman in the universe.