On a board I post on frequently…the yearly thread of Your Top 10 and Bottom 10 stories has started. And while compiling my list, I realized I would have to include my nighttime soaps (Glee counts right? Sure it does.) or else I would have no Top 10 to speak of when it came to General Hospital. As it is I think GH appeared exactly three times.
But I’m sure to no one’s surprise….I very quickly was able to come up with my Bottom10. Which I know proudly present to you as a belated Christmas gift from me! =)
Bottom Ten
10. Robin’s PPD being morphed into Patrick’s PPD.
Ahhh the start of 2009. And trust me…if some things hadn’t happened in the last half of the year all of January would have been all over this list. But really and truly the entire mis-handling of Robin’s PPD has to rank up there as one of the worst excuses of a social issue storyline ever perpetrated on daytime television. It started out well and I could buy into Robin suffering from PPD. And honestly, Kimberly McCullough sold her early scenes of Robin not being able to touch Emma with total talent that made you realize why she is a two time Emmy winner. Then Robin put Emma in a tree. And no one thought that was insane behavior. Followed by Patrick telling anyone with a pulse who would stop still long enough to listen all about how Robin just wasn’t dealing with this and how much he had suffered and tried to be helpful….when all he had done was whine about having to act like a father, complain about Robin wanting to work and holding up Elizabeth as a perfect parent not only to Liz but in front of Robin as well.
When the only bright spot about this storyline was the long departed Hottie Brad the Carpenter…well not much good can be said when that’s the only part I liked.
When this storyline finally ended about four months after it should have I might have done a little dance of joy.
9. Franco’s crush on Jason.
Purely becaues I dont’ think I’m supposed to find it funny.
8. The recent Lucky/Luke stuff….
Yes I saw this coming about two seconds after the Jonathan Jackson/Greg Vaughan switch announcement was made. But it doesn’t mean I like it anymore now than I did when it first occured to me. Luke has been nothing but a deadbeat, a louse and generally horrific father to Lucky for the past decade. He’s openly laughed at Lucky’s kidnapping and brainwashing by Helena as a “creative prank”. He’s treated Lulu and Ethan as better than Lucky. He’s derided Lucky’s career choice and called Lucky’s selfless decision to raise Cam and Jake a “dead end life raising other people’s children.” And a lot of this happened between February and May. We also saw Lucky swear off his father and be quite clear he wasn’t so concerned about Luke’s asshatness for his own sake but he wasn’t about to let his mother be disrespected in this manner.
And of course I swooned. You so didn’ t have to ask that.
Yet these days….I think I am supposed to beleive that two conversations with Lucky where Lucky told Luke off for the millionth time…that NOW Luke is concerned about Lucky. That he’s worried about breaking Lucky’s heart and that’s why he’s inexplicably keeping quiet about Nik/Liz. All of this without one admittance from Luke that he’s been an unrepentant ass to his son and Lucky has been right about Luke being a worthless deadbeat for years.
Not buying. At all. However I do realize the odds of anyone else agreeing with me on this is restricted to Greg Vaughan fans. So call me bitter. I won’t deny it. But I still say shenanigins to this whole mess.
7. Nik/Liz hook up for no reason.
I know…I thought this was going to be number one to. No one is surprised more than me by it appearing pretty low on this list. I have spilled much virtual ink about this abomination on our screens. But let me try to explain why I so hate this storyline. First it’s the disguising out and out skeeviness as a “classic soap story”. It’s the complete lack of thought or actual story plan. Nik’s in love with Rebecca….no he’s not….he wants Liz…there’s a void between LL2…oh no there’s not….Nik loves Elizabeth…Elizabeth doesn’t love Lucky…yes she does…..could they actually write a story instead of just throwing darts at the wall? There is the absolute lack of chemistry between Tyler Christopher and Rebecca Herbst. There is the fact Elizabeth looks like she’s trying not to do a Linda Blair impersonation in their scenes and I dont’ think Nikolas has made a facial expression in about three years. And let us not forget the insanity that is trying to pass as whitewashing and sympathy pleas for two characters that are looking unredeemable with every passing day. Did you ever think you would live to see the day when this show would pull out Liz’s rape at 15 as a blatant emotional manipulation to try to get the audience to ease up on the hate?
I wept that day….and died a little inside.
6. Claudia’s murder by Michael and the subsequent stupid cover-up and assurance that Michael “did good”.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not shocked by Michael killing someone. I was one of the many who called Michael “MyKill” for years all over the internet. I just still am confused as to why this murder had to be covered up in the first place. While I don’t beleive it was self-defense as GH believed it was, there were mitigating circumstances all over the place. The odds of him actually doing hard time for this crime, considering how well connected his father is, was about as great as the chance of Bob Guza actually writing a decent soap opera not centered around the mob. Does this show honestly believe no one but Jason can use the defense of self-defense or “the other guy had it coming”?
And Michael “did good” per Sonny? Vomit. Vomit. Vomit.
5. The utter confusion and concern by Micheal’s family over why he’s not showing any ill effects of killing a person and why he’s so gun-ho about joining the family business.
I’ve said it before…I’ll say it again…maybe if the little psycho had ever faced a consquence in his entire fecking life, he wouldn’t think being a crime lord is the pinnacle of success. Really? They are shocked by this turn of events? Didn’t the entire free world see this coming when Carly and Jason decided AJ raising Michael would be just the worst thing in the world?
4. Keifer/Kristina
The most mysogenstic soap on air is lecturing against teen dating violence? Michael says “Axe please!” Until someone (besides me and Mala) points out this is just Sonny’s behaviors being done by a kid….I’m on team UGH for this one.
3. Rebecca/Nikola’s stupid revenge plan.
Let’s overlook the fact that Guza so misread the room about the anger over killing off Emily Quartermaine in an unnecessarily brutal fashion as grief over the departure o Natalia Livingston, a classic love her or hate her actress. I won’t even get into the ridiculous history rewrite that Paige Bowen really had twins and sold one on the black market. I will say that once again a storyline was clearly derailed by Guza’s inability to plan an actual storyline without getting distracted by shiny objects. And for all the talk about how discovering Rebecca’s “deception” (that she failed at mind you…she didn’t actually get any money from him) would turn Nik into a dark Cassadine….well I am still waiting for him to turn Cassadine. Helena, Stavros and Stefan probably laughed themselves sick over the idea of dating a woman and then dumping her being considered a plan worthy of a Cassadine.
2. Lulu’s out of nowhere concern for how Dante taking down Sonny will destroy Sonny…..and her insistence on calling him officer in that full voice snark of hers while they are in public.
Man I was liking Lulu/Dante there for awhile….and then they had to go and have Lulu discover Dante’s secret of being an undercover cop. Now she’s all concerned that Dante’s misison to bring down Sonny will bring trouble. Not for Dante for crossing a mobster (they generally don’t like that) but because it would cause trouble for Sonny. Because Sonny is an “old family friend” (who hasnt’ actually had anything to do with her family since about 2005) and he like gives money to charities.
Not to mention the ridiculous notiont that Jax calling Dante, who’s cover story is the mob lackey working as a bodyguard for Jax’s step children, is going to blwo the entire operation and not Lulu walking around town calling Dante “officer” at the top of her voice whenever she can.
1. Ethan Lovett is Luke’s son with Holly…..from around the time Laura was pregnant with Lulu and ON SCREEN all the time.
Now this is related to number 8 totally. But Ethan Lovett’s entire creation is the single worst abuse of history I have ever seen a show do. It spit on Luke and Laura’s history, Robert and Holly’s history and the entire vieweing audience in one fell swoop. The show acted like we should be swooning over this just because Luke was. (The less said about Tony Geary’s obvious crush on Nathan Parsons the better for all of humanity.) Lucky’s completely normal reaction to this was written off as jealousy over how he wasnt’ as awesome as Ethan and he just needed to get over himself. Not to mention with all the mumbling Ethan does…it would have been completely more feasable to make him Sonny’s child rather than Luke’s. I though I had seen Bob Guza hold the audience of this show in contempt before…and then this happened.
So that’s it…the bottom ten for me. What’s yours?
Sarcastic Clapping 