Snark Weighs In

News Update: December 12, 2007

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posted Wednesday, 12 December 2007

REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS...

...that appears to be the strategy for stopping the S.S. Pine Valley from sinking.  In the midst of audience angst and terrible ratings, All My Children is bringing back several names from the past in an attempt to boost ratings.

The biggest names on the list are Debbi Morgan and Darnell Williams.  They were best known as AMC supercouple Angie and Jesse Hubbard.  Of course, Jesse was killed off during the 1988 writers' strike.  Williams later appeared on Loving as Jesse look-alike, Jacob, where he was reunited with Debbi Morgan who had been transplanted to Loving as Angie.  Angie and Jacob then moved to The City.  Following The City's cancellation, Williams has appeared on AMC as Angel Jesse.

Now, we get news that Rebecca Budig is returning to AMC as Greenlee, replacing Sabine Singh.  The show is also said to be close to bringing Eden Riegel back full time...

...and none of it is going to matter if the storylines are still garbage.  (See: DAYS, ATWT.)

Nothing more to add, really.

The New York Times has a report on yesterday's picket outside ABC Daytime.  The article notes that despite WGA East President Michael Winship's comments, View hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar have expressed support for the strike.

My favorite line of the piece comes at the end: The West 66th St. studio is also home to the ABC soap opera “All My Children.” Yep, All My Children is just an afterthought to The View--just like it is in Brian Frons' mind.

In other tangentially-related news, NBC is having to return money to advertisers, because their ratings weren't been as good as promised.  And this is before the effects of the strike kick in.  You know NBC is going to have to make up that money somewhere.  I wonder how much money NBC saves if they don't have to pay that license fee to Sony for Days.

STOP THE PRESSES!  CBS is actually going to air old soaps during the holidays.  What?  They couldn't get the rights to Rugrats in Paris this year?

On Christmas Day, Y&R will re-air their Christmas 1995 episode. As I recall, the main drama of that episode was whether or not the Newmans would be able to place a holiday phone call to Nick, who was in jail for the attempted murder of the dastardly Matt Clark.  I wonder if Warton is in this episode.  Anyway, I believe that the Newmans actually broke character at the end and wished the audience a merry Christmas.

Christmas Day will also see the re-airing of the 2003 B&B Christmas episode, which I reviewed here.  It was not an instant classic, but it was the first time in years that B&B had done an actual holiday show, and they've gotten better at it in subsequent outings.

On New Year's Eve, Y&R will repeat an outing from last year, where Nick is paid a visit by GhostCassie--which I guess beats getting a visit from GhostEmily Quartermaine.  Still, I'll skip it.  B&B repeats their 5000th episode for the third time this year.  (The episode first aired in February, then re-aired during the Virginia Tech. shootings.)  So, if you missed the sounds of Eric and Stephanie bumping and grinding, it's your lucky day, partner.

Our old buddy Sam Ford, who brought us the pulse-pounding podcast with Kay Alden earlier this year, e-mailed to tell me he's teaching a soap opera class in the spring:

CMS 603/CMS 995: American Soap Operas

The television landscape has changed drastically in the past few years; nowhere is this more prevalent than in the American daytime serial drama, one of the oldest forms of television content.  This class examines the history of these "soap operas" and their audiences by focusing on the production, consumption, and media texts of soaps.  The class will include discussions of what makes soap operas a unique form, the history of the genre, current experimentation with transmedia storytelling, the online fan community, and comparisons between daytime dramas and primetime serials from 24 to Friday Night Lights, through a study of Procter & Gamble's As the World Turns.

The class is open not just to MIT students, but to students at Harvard University, Wellesley College, the Massachusetts College of Art, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.
In case you hadn't heard, Genie Francis was in a movie this weekend.  They really should have done more publicity about that!  Anyhoo, Marlena says it was a perfectly solid Hallmark movie--which means you have to be in the mood to have your tears jerked.  The film repeats on the Hallmark Channel tomorrow night at 9 eastern, and probably many times thereafter.  My tears won't be in the mood for jerking tomorrow night either, but I'll tape it, and watch it later in the season.  Probably on a double bill with A Smoky Mountain Christmas.  Now that movie is a classic!

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comments (5)


1. WoSTBrian left...
Wednesday, 12 December 2007 4:15 pm

Well, Snark, I always enjoy a good jerking! :-)

SNARK RESPONDS: Ladies and gentlemen, the real reason Brian quit the website--he's going blind.

P.S. I may have signficantly altered WoSTBrian's mesage just to make fun of him. allegedly.


2. TV's Tim left...
Thursday, 13 December 2007 12:59 am :: http://tvstim1.wordpress.com

Bianca? The Original Greenlee? Angie? JESSE?!? Who's next, Billy Clyde Tuggle?

But like you said, without good writing and a clear direction, what's the point? As proven by DAYS recently, you can resurrect every living veteran player you can find and trot them around like show ponies, but if you ain't got story it's all for naught.

Plus, this isn't like some other shows where you've got fifty million wet-behind-the-ears newbies and robotic former models for every semi-talented vet (PASSIONS, anyone?). There's David Canary, Mike Knight, Walt Willey, La Lucci, Eileen Herlie, and Ray MacDonnell (I'd include James Mitchell, but I heard he's retiring this year). And Jennifer Bassey, Jill Larson, Sydney Penny and Tonya Pinkins might as well be included in that number as well. And no matter how annoying and grating their characters might be, Bobbie Eakes and Thorsten Kaye have been known to do some decent acting every now and then. And really, if you can't make a show work with that many talented (and award-winning) people, then maybe you should find a new line of work.

And if those execs are so eager to bring back old faves, there's a lady by the name of Julia Barr that they might want to consider giving a phone call. Just a thought.


3. WoSTBrian left...
Thursday, 13 December 2007 3:25 am

Ahhh, no fair! Snark interfered with me making fun of his "jerking" comments! Why, I'm going to start a blog or podcast of my own dedicated strictly to making fun of Snark and people who live in Noblesville, Indiana!! :-) It's time like this that I really do miss doing the Snarkcast with my old podcast partner... :-( Friends, this is the sort of fun we had during production of the show! If only you guys could have heard what DIDN'T make the cut on our shows!!!


4. DS0816 left...
Thursday, 13 December 2007 4:03 pm

Debbi Morgan, I did not anticipate coming back to soaps on a regular basis. It was 10 years ago she gave the Oscar-calibler performance in Kasi Lemmons's "Eve's Bayou." (Morgan was not nominated but did win the 1997 supporting-actress prize from Chicago Film Critics, which claimed Roger Ebert as one of its members.) With Darnell Willams, he was languishing in a brief story arc on "Guidng Light" earlier this year. I cannot really imagine anything substantial for these two on "All My Children" because, quite simply, there hasn't been anything remarkably good on this show in some time. I wish Morgan and Williams well.


5. GuillermoIbarra left...
Thursday, 13 December 2007 10:54 pm

Bringing former favorites back to right a sinking ship seldom works. I wish Morgan and Williams (and Budig and Riegel) the best, but this concept gives me bad, BAD flashbacks to Lisa Brown and Quola at GL circa 1995 under McHackish.