Say goodbye to Llanview: Starr-X'ed lovers

Editor's note: I couldn't embed the videos as I wanted to, so just follow the links to see the musical numbers.

Four days and counting until the end of One Life to Live . . .

More random favorite moments in One Life to Live history. These are excerpts from episodes that aired in May 2010, when the kids of Llanview High put on a musical (yes, yes, shades of High School Musical, Glee, and maybe even Spring Awakening), Starr-X'ed Lovers, written about the Romeo and Juliet of Llanview, Starr Manning (Kristen Alderson) and Cole Thornhart (Brandon Buddy).

As you might imagine, teen love stories don't really do it for me, but this was a particularly good one, paying homage to the long-standing history of hate and violence between Starr's father Todd and Cole's mother Marty, who Todd had raped two decades before. (The benefit and the detriment of a long-running soap: Lots of history to contend with, not all of it pretty.)

What's of more interest to me in these segments are the musical numbers, which are often quite entertaining--and, given daytime budgets, probably delivered in one take.

Some of the songs used were well-known pop tunes, which require payment of royalties. Still others were original songs, which required talent to write and perform. A lot of the cast performed in this series of episodes, singing and dancing their way through a couple of weeks' worth of story. It's a benefit to having a New York-based show, which has at its disposal kids and adults who often moonlight in theater and, thus, know how to put on a show.

I just don't think you'd see the same level of performance or ability on a Los Angeles-based soap. While they do indeed have good actors on LA shows (depending on the show and the writing), I don't think it's any shock to say that some of the shows favor looks over ability, and looking good over getting dirty while acting. In the LA universe, the look that's favored and featured often seems to be a very generically handsome/beautiful one, one without any rough edges (or body hair, for that matter).

Another benefit to a New York-based soap? Interesting look people. People with dark hair, red hair, wavy hair, kinky hair. Not all straight and blond. People with varied skin tones. Not all white, not even all WASP.

You know, real people.

While the soaps intermittently and inconsistently delivered on ethnic diversity in their casts and stories, to me they always seemed more aware of issues and appearances on the New York shows.

And when OLTL goes off the air on Friday, that will be the end of the New York-based soaps.