I just can't cope without my soap

I've been trying for months now to write an homage (a love letter, a mash note) to All My Children and One Life to Live, two of my favorite soaps of all time and the latest two to be canceled. (AMC left the airwaves in September; OLTL is scheduled to depart in January.)

But I'm all tongue-tied, all multiple stages of grief, all momentarily high-on-a-mountain-top, then dashed to the rocks below. (Very "Widow's Hill" from Dark Shadows, circa 1967, I might add.)

Which is odd because one of the reasons I wanted to start writing a blog again was because I wanted to find a way to express myself over some of pop culture I have been absorbing since "the big life change of 2011" (job, love, life--all exploding like cheap fireworks at a street fair located too close to a PEMEX station) took place earlier this year.

But for whatever reason--it's too emotional, I'm too easily distracted, I lack the mental capacity to explain it all for you--I just haven't been able to say what I want to say about the soaps.

This article by Sara Bibel does get part the way there, though.  Bibel's a former soap scribe who now blogs on pop TV culture, especially the soaps (daytime and nighttime editions), for the Comcast network. I really like her voice: She's proof that you can be an intelligent person and enjoy the soaps, get them for what they are but also understand what lies beneath the surface, in terms of plots, characters, the American TV industry, and life as we know it. I don't always agree with her take on everything, but I'm about 95% there, more than I can say about most writers and most people. Let's just say that if I could do it all over again, I'd turn the clock back thirty years and become a soap writer--or Sara Bibel.

Her comments on Tuesday, 6 December's episode of One Life to Live, in which the characters are caught out obsessing over their favorite fictional soap, Fraternity Row, only to find out at the end of the episode that it's been canceled . . . well, please read it for yourself, even if you're not a huge fan of soaps. It explains a lot about why the shows mean a lot to many of us and why their cancellation and the imminent demise of the genre from American network TV is so unsettling.

I'm not so good at explaining why the soaps matter to me and to others, but I will say this: The soaps are not just the sum of their plots and their hairdos. Yeah, sometimes it is all a bit silly--I think any soap fan who doesn't take it all too seriously would agree with that statement. But at other times, the shows, when done right and with integrity, are highly engaging, addictive, satisfying, and just a lot of fun in an un-ironic way.

They're a visual page-turner, your favorite beach read or poppy melodrama come to life--on videotape, not film, with nice-looking people providing emotionally fulfilling moments, conveying the idea that kindness between family and friends still matters, and expressing your secret wish that everything will turn out fine when all is said and done. All delivered with some great laughs and a few tears and fears along the way.

The soaps are like American life (or at least American TV life) before cool and business decisions got the better of everything. Remember when?

* * *

I've never liked every soap--just the ones that get canceled, apparently. Ba-dum-bump.

Dark Shadows, The Doctors, Texas, Santa Barbara, Another World, Sunset Beach, Guiding Light, All My Children, and now One Life to Live. They've all come, and now they're almost all gone.

I especially never cared for General Hospital. I couldn't tell you why exactly. Maybe it's because I'm not really a fan of hospital dramas (except ER and St. Elsewhere, which I mostly liked) or mob wars (which is now mostly what GH is about). General Hospital just seemed like a very '80s, Los Angeles-based soap--lots of pretty people attempting to be clever and fabulous with some really dumb plots. Luke and Laura and The Ice Princess? For pity's sake.

That was the beginning of the end, as far as I'm concerned. A lot of soaps went the same route--to extremes. I feel like when the history of American soaps is written (by me, of course), that will be the modern era's jump-the-shark moment.

That and a few too many people coming back from the dead.

But despite my deep, abiding loathe for GH, I do recall this song with more than just a chuckle.

White people, suffering

If I recall correctly--it has been a long time ago, after all--in the early '80s NBC sitcom, Gimme a Break, there was line uttered in one of the first episodes by series' star, Nell Carter. Carter's character, explaining why she enjoys watching the afternoon soap operas, wisecracks "Lord knows, I love watching white people suffer."

In vino, veritas--or maybe the thought is better rendered as in bitter wine, there's bitter truth. That line has stuck with me for 30-odd years. It has to be one of my all-time favorite commentaries, short but not so sweet, about both the soaps and about American media culture in general.

Like the rest of American media, the U.S. daytime dramas have always struggled with diversity, often failing to create characters and storylines that make strong use of actors that just happen to be African American, Latino, or Asian, let alone gay or differently abled.

There are exceptions, of course. The Young and the Restless has had front-burner stories involving African-American (Kristoff St. John, Victoria Rowell, Shemar Moore, Tonya Lee Williams) and Asian-American actors. Another World in the '90s featured an actor who in real life and on the show relied upon a wheelchair to get around. And no, midway through his appearance, he wasn't "cured" through the miracle of modern surgery or prayer, learning to walk again and also, by the way, turning out to be one fabulous dancer. Jazz and tap.

NBC also broadcast for a few years the soap, Generations, which had an almost evenly split African-American/Anglo-American cast.

I'm more than a little biased, but I think that some of the ABC soaps have done better over the years. Over the course of its run, All My Children featured prominently the African American Hubbard family and the Latino Santos family. AMC also had a lesbian character, Bianca Montgomery, as one of the major leads for nearly a decade, and featured an autistic character, Lilly Montgomery, with significant storyline during the 2000s.

One Life to Live offered the character Evangeline Williamson, played by African-American actress Renee Elise Goldsberry, as the core female character for a good portion of the 2000s. One of the show's other core female characters, Nora Hanen, was Jewish and, in the past, married to Hank Gannon, an African-American attorney, resulting in the birth of their biracial daughter.

But even early on in OLTL's history, there was diversity. When originally unveiled in 1968, the show featured the wealthy and WASPy Lord family along with the middle-class Seigels (a Jewish family), the working-class Rileys and Woleks (Irish and maybe Czech-Slovak?), and the African-American Gray family. One character, Carla Gray, was biracial but passing as white, something that was not revealed initially and no doubt came as a surprise to viewers who tuned in in the late 1960s.

More recently, during the 1990s and 2000s, the show has portrayed the Puerto Rican Vega family in prominent storylines, as well as a front-burner gay storyline involving a white male police officer involved with an African-American woman, who struggles with coming out, eventually leaving her for another man, an out gay doctor.

So diversity is by no means unknown on the soaps, but it isn't always handled as well as it might. Too often the storylines involving "ethnic" or "minority" characters peter out, as if the writers can't quite figure out how to integrate the show's diverse cast members with the other characters.

Granted, that's probably an accurate reflection of a good portion of contemporary America: We work together, definitely, but sometimes we still struggle with living in the same neighborhoods, let alone socializing and sharing our lives.

So it's hard to fault TV for not doing what we can't do ourselves. Nevertheless, if we're supposed to invest in and engage with "our stories" for one or more hours a day, five days a week, perhaps more accurately reflecting the complexity of American demographics and race relations might be one way to help us do so. If nothing else, it might lead us all to a little better understanding of our friends, neighbors, colleagues, and citizens.

And I don't care what you say--Viewers who know the ins and outs of characters and follow their lives for 20, 30, or 40 years or more, can, when pressed, handle a little diversity in action.

And maybe even a gay or lesbian love scene every now and again.

* * *

As part of my mourning process over the demise of All My Children (something I'll write more about eventually) and, soon, One Life to Live, at least on network TV, I've been tuning into soaps from other parts of the world.

This isn't really new for me--I've always had a pash for international pop culture and soaps have definitely been a part of that. I was a huge EastEnders fan during the '80s when it was shown on public TV in Washington, D.C., and other cities. When I've visited Australia and Britain, I have made a point to watch some of the Aussie soaps, like Neighbors and Home and Away. On a trip to Mexico in the early '90s I got hooked on telenovelas, such as Dulce Desafío and Simplemente María. Whenever I'm in the UK (or Canada, for that matter), I always try to catch a few episodes of Coronation Street. I remember well the British soap Brookside and can't believe they canceled it. From the handful of episodes I saw in the mid-1990s, during the "body under the patio plot," I thought it was quite good--although we might all could have done without subsequent plots.

Although what a last episode . . .

Of late, I've been watching episodes of the South African soap, Egoli: Place of Gold. This is not really news either; I've mentioned this before, at least a couple of times. I became curious about the show because at one point it starred one of my favorite daytime TV actresses, Esta TerBlanche, who played the role of Gillian Andrassy on All My Children in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The more I explored, the more intriguing the show sounded. Joan Collins made appearances in the 1990s (and who couldn't appreciate the camp factor of that?) and one of the earliest storylines involved the "coloured" or mixed-race character of Ester Willemse owning up to a long-term love relationship with her white employer, Senator Sinclair, and bearing two mixed-race children by him.

Probably something that was not comfortable to talk about in the South Africa of the 1990s, but there you have it. Let my obsession begin.

First, I watched a few episodes of Egoli online via YouTube. Then, I ordered from South Africa a two-disc DVD compendium, Egoli 18, which chronicles in 18 "new," 24-minute episodes (actually re-editings of the originals accompanied by brief interviews with former cast members, writers, and crew) a year-by-year review of the major storylines and characters. It was less expensive than you might imagine and arrived in just a couple of weeks' time.

In the midst of watching those, I learned of the Egoli 2000 photo book and even an Egoli cookbook, both of which I've ordered. Egoli 2000 is good about giving details on plots and background on the actors and stories, at least from 1992 through 1999. The cookbook is still making its way here, but given that it features some very traditional recipes from the characters (for example, mashonzha, made with mopane worms), I suspect it will prove to be a fun souvenir more than a ready reference in my kitchen. Lazy Days by Phillippa Cheifitz it ain't.

Still, I have my limits. I'm not willing to track down a copy of the Egoli sticker book, the Egoli perfume, "Essence of Gold," or any of the creations of the fashion line designed by characters Freddie Vermeulen and series heroine Louwna Roelofse Vorster Edwards Von Badenburg Edwards. Imagine that name on a designer label.

And if you hear otherwise, please put a hold on my credit cards and dial the South African equivalent of 911 to report me.

So my new fantasy world is developing nicely, thank you for asking.

About the show itself. I have watched the episodes for years 1992 through 2000, with 10 years/episodes remaining. Egoli ran for a half-an-hour a day, 5 days a week, for 18 years, so it's hard to get a full view of the series' highs and lows from these greatly reduced and re-edited episodes. Thus, keep in mind that what follows are general observations, not a clear-eyed gospel by any means.

So far, so good. Classic soap stuff, a mix of daytime and nighttime styles. In the early years (say, before 1997), the show focused on the wealthy Vorster family and the more working/middle-class Willemse and Naudé clans. The shows were recorded on videotape, rather than film, which, in my mind's eye, always makes the action seem more intimate, immediate, and "real" than film does. Before 1997, the show seemed to be a mix of American soaps like All My Children and Loving (from which there was some cross-over of at least two actors during the show's run) and nighttime soaps like Dynasty and Falcon Crest.

Thus, you had a potent stew of high drama and high fashion, along with social issues, family conflicts, and romances-gone-wrong. Louwna's marriage to Walt Vorster starts to hit the skids when she announces she wants to have a career outside the manse as well as being a doting wife and mother. Niek Naudé is torn between the dutiful Margie Willemse and the vivacious Sonet Vorster. Joanne Logan flees her abusive husband Deon Du Plessis. Cecile Roelofse tries to run off with her husband Tom Vorster's fortune, and, soon after receiving her comeuppance, steals her sister Nora's husband instead. Bienkie Naudé falls in love with a high school teacher, joins a cult, gets pregnant, and has an abortion. Stuff like that. All in five days' work.

After 1997, things seemed to change. First, the show started recording on film rather than videotape, looking much more like a nighttime serial. Most of the Vorsters, save for Sonet and her aging aunt-with-a-secret-son-and-heir, are written out, in favor of the fabulously wealthy and complicated Edwards family. The Edwards family, Joanne's super blonde bitch sister Kimberly, newly liberated conman-cum-businessman Adriaan Malan, and some ridiculously plotted storyline involving a German baroness and two heirs--one legit (and hyper-blond), one not--make it look like they were trying to give the show a reboot, turning the show into something a little less specifically South African and more generically international.

This apparently was a conscious decision, as, according to the Egoli book, the show was now being shown throughout Africa, Latin America, and other regions. Nothing exceeds like excess.

I have to admit to liking the earlier seasons the best so far. Generally speaking, the nighttime soap model is more about plot points and business shenanigans, not people. The daytime soap model used to be more about people, characters, emotions, and then plot, but all that seemed to change years ago. I blame it on that damned Luke and Laura and that stupid, freakin' "Ice Princess" storyline from General Hospital--in my mind, a storyline boost that carried American soaps through the '80s but left them high and dry in the 1990s and beyond.

To me, it stands to reason that if you're going to spend that much time with a show day-in and day-out, you need drama, yes, but you need the hook of likeable characters and authentic emotions as well. Who's on top at Jabot or who Sonny Corinthos shot up in his latest mob war just doesn't cut it for me, at least long term. I want to see people, some nice, some not so nice, interacting in honest and crazy ways, acting in intriguing, if not always quite believable, stories. That's what keeps me entertained long term, even when the plot wears too thin.

I see the same thing happening to Egoli as this point. From 1997 to 2000, the show feels like it's more about mean people, more about business machinations, and more about plot-heavy, character-killing stories. So hello wealthy, generic Edwards clan, goodbye Vorsters, and welcome to the back burner, my dear working-class Naudés and Willemses. There may be no way of knowing the real deal from these compressed episodes. The truth may only be known by viewing some full episodes on YouTube, should I be able to find any.

* * *

The other thing that's hard to get a handle on in the edited episodes is how diverse the cast of Egoli might be. We have the "coloured" Willemses, yes, and the African Donna Makaula. We have Mrs. Naidoo, and later we have additional African characters, such as Lerato Mashabela, played by the absolutely gorgeous Nthati Moshesh, who I recognized from the film Cape of Good Hope watched earlier in the summer.

But we also have a hell of a lot of very, very blond, very, very white people speaking Afrikaans.

Funny that. During the 1990s, whites made up something like 10 to 15 percent of the population of South Africa, with their numbers dwindling due to post-Apartheid emigration. Afrikaans is the first language of approximately 10 to 15 percent as well, both Afrikaner and "coloured," although understood by many more, as it serves as a second or third language in the nation.

According to the Egoli book, the show initially began with an 80-20 Afrikaans-English mix of dialog, gradually by the late 1990s, striking a 60-40 Afrikaans-English "balance." African languages need not apply.

The same Egoli book shows on the cover the photos of 26 cast members--1 African, 2 mixed race, and 23 white. The DVD, released in 2010, does a little better, showing a more diverse cast.

So maybe if we're generous, we could say the show's cast and cultural touchstones directly reflected those of 30 percent of South Africa's population in the late 1990s/early 2000s. To be nice and to acknowledge the language and cultural importance of Afrikaners in South Africa, I'm willing to go higher with that figure. Alas, I haven't yet visited South Africa, so perhaps I have got it all totally wrong in my head.

Or not.

I fully believe you can have shows, books, and other forms of media that consist predominantly of characters who are white, black, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, abled, differently abled, what have you. Friends certainly got away with it for years and in no way represented that mosaic that is New York City. It was criticized for that, too, and I think that was fair criticism. However, I'm willing to concede that not every show has to be one big Rainbow Nation.


I don't want to pick on South Africa here. I know there are at least a couple of other South African soaps out there--7de Laan (Sewende Laan or Seventh Avenue) and Isidingo, both of which aim to be more multicultural. And let's face it, America's struggles with racial inequality have been hardly less breath-taking or internationally notorious. Even though something like 30 percent + of the U.S. population might be classified with the awful "non-white" label, a show that shows a mix of ethnicities and races is a rare gem indeed.  

We are not alone, of course. Mexico, with its mestizo population, seems a little too fond of TV blonds as well. And even dear Canada, with its multicultural policy emphasis and Little Mosque on the Prairie can't quite get over that English-language/French-language "two solitudes."

But, wow, would it hurt any of us and our media to make a little more of an effort? I don't really want to see a sharing-and-caring mix of fake diversity on TV, in which no one ever utters a cross word or expresses an unkind thought--or conversely, where only the bad people utter them, not the good ones. Life's a lot more complicated and uncomfortable than that. In fact, I'd like to see some shows that help us deal with that racial/ethnic/cultural/sexual/lingual split, even if only to say that it's a tough break to mend. Sometimes you stitch it together. Sometimes it comes undone. But at least you try.

In the meantime, while I wait for that fantasy to come to my TV screen, I'll maintain my other one, Egoli. Maybe, too, I'll try to find an online source for 7de Laan and Isidingo as well. My pop culture obsessions may disappoint and frustrate at times, but that doesn't mean I won't keep on watching and hoping for something more.

All my decisions

Please select the one best answer--

You spent the day before at work having your emails edited, then getting those edited emails approved before they could be distributed to others for further editing and approval. You spent the end of the day at therapy discussing your impending milestone birthday and your frustrating job as, apparently, an email generator.

Afterwards, you skipped the gym, went home, gorged on those thin Fig Newton cookies, which probably would have been a healthy snack alternative if you hadn't decided to polish off the whole bag in two days' time. You bawled your eyes out as Adam (played by David Canary) brought his almost-dead twin Stuart (played by David Canary) back to life on the penultimate episode of All My Children, wondering how he managed to channel the appearance and spirit of your late father in Stuart's resurrection.

Afterwards, you debated drafting more emails for editing, playing The Sims until bedtime, or continuing the hard slog through the 500+-page novel  about the end of Apartheid you've been cringing your way through since early August.

Now it is just before dawn, Friday morning, September 23, 2011.

What would you do?

(a) Rise at 5:30 am the following day to be on time for an exciting morning of strategic planning with consultants who are prepared to tell you reams, yards, bushels, bolts about what you already know about doing your life's work (with PowerPoints!!!)?

(b) Call in sick to work in order to watch Susan Lucci on The View, followed by the final episode of the 41-year-run of All My Children?

The best use of my time and my intellect is clearly (b). If you didn't know that already, then you should not be reading this blog.

But the likely answer is (a). So you knew me well enough to figure in the guilt and responsibility angle into my decision-making process. Well played.

I'm Esta-tic!

Last week marked the brief--very brief, as it would turn out--return of actress Esta TerBlanche to the role of Gillian Andrassy (aka "Princess Gillian") on All My Children. Reasons #61 (Esta) and #62 (Gillian) to keep on living.

The resurrection of this fan-favorite character was extremely short but very moving, a blink-of-an-eye-moment moment that was part of a much larger, quite bizarre storyline. Essentially it goes like so: The not-so-good David Hayward, M.D. (played by the fine Rioja that is Vincent Irizarry, my pick for Emmy for Best-Looking 50-Something Pin-Up on TV, daytime or nighttime) has been bringing the late, lamented citizens of Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, back from the dead.

No, really.

You see, All My Children, just like One Life to Live, has been canceled, due to what reason exactly I could not say. Excuses--I've heard them all. A decline in ratings? Allegedly. A decrease in storyline quality over the last decade? Perhaps. A rabid desire for ABC and Disney to maximum profit and minimize creativity by replacing all the soaps with cheap, shrill talk shows? That's the one I'm betting on.

Personally, for cancelling my two favorite, remaining soaps, I hope the mouse chokes on a bar of Ivory. I'm not going to share with you in which orifice I hope they find a bottle of Downy inserted.

Although the cancellation of both shows was announced in the early spring, AMC has had an even shorter shelf-life, scheduled to depart network television on September 23 of this year. (One Life to Live won't conclude until January 2012.) So All My Children is trying to wrap up a lot of history--and, in my opinion, correct a lot of past stupid mistakes while giving as many long-term fans as possible a very happy ending--in a limited amount of time.

One approach to this has been the at-any-other-time well-beyond-belief-even-for-an-American-soap plot twist that finds ne'er-do-well David resurrecting from the dead some of Pine Valley's favorite and prematurely past-it denizens. First, it was Tad Martin's great love, Dixie Cooney, brought back to life after supposedly dying a couple of years ago from eating poisoned peanut butter pancakes. (See what I mean by stupid mistakes in the past?) Then it was Zach Slater, Kendall Hart's husband and father of some of her children (and some children of others), an all-around robust Spätburgunder, who was resurrected from the dead and now walks among Pine Valleyites, albeit in a testier, hairier form.

David has also hinted that his late brother Leo DuPres might also be alive--Leo being the great love of Greenlee Smythe's life. (I know, lots of details, but I'm going somewhere with all of this. Just hang on a sec.) By extension, David also has hinted that Ryan Lavery's late wife, the aforementioned Gillian Andrassy, might also be alive. As writer's luck would have it, Greenlee and Ryan are more or less happily in love, David and Ryan detest each other, and Greenlee at one point spurned David for Ryan. Thus, the situation is ripe for the perfect soap opera conundrum: Ryan yearns to be with Gillian but feels committed to Greenlee; Greenlee longs to return to Leo but can't because of her love and obligation to Ryan. Everybody is miserable. Except, of course, David, whose biggest thrills are healing the sick and making other people unhappy.

Not that this romantic impasse would have upset that many fans of the show. The Ryan and Greenlee pairing seems to have never been much of a fan favorite--even though various writing and production teams have rubbed the audience's collective nose in the story for almost a decade. Check out some of the soap sites, blogs, and message boards, and it becomes pretty clear that few are invested in the Ryan-Greenlee romance. Heck, I'm not even sure there's one of those cute, combined names for the couple. (GreenRee? RyLee maybe?) My perception is that the general consensus among the show's fans is that the actors, writers, characters, whatever, seem to bring out the worst in each other--completely opposite the perception of Ryan's pairing with Gillian and Greenlee's pairing with Leo during what was probably AMC's last great, golden era, the mid-1990s to early 2000s.

But the permanent recoupling of Leo and Greenlee, alas, is probably not to be, at least not in any happily-ever-after way. Leo is played by actor Josh Duhamel, he of the dazzling smile and bigger (but not necessarily better) roles on TV and in movies. Josh/Leo did make a one-day guest appearance early in August, a visitation that perfectly illustrated how, despite being absent from the show for a decade, he and his co-star, Rebecca Budig (Greenlee), still had amazing chemistry together and could pick up where they left off, no matter how ridiculous the plot twists. Nevertheless, chances are that Josh Duhamel won't be returning for an extended run to wrap up this story the way that anyone might want, in a nice, pretty package with a happily-ever-after bow tied around it.

And if the Leo-Greenlee part of the calculation can't happen, then probably the Ryan-Gillian equation won't happen either

When the Ryan-Gillian meeting did finally take place on August 24, it was a beautiful moment, a decade in the making. We got to see some wonderful flashbacks of the four or so years that the two were one of Pine Valley's most attractive and engaging pairings. And then we got to see a glimpse of Gillian as a ghost (we can only assume), with the characters acknowledging their love for one another and saying their goodbyes (again, we assume). During this scene, the tears were streaming down Esta TerBlanche's face and Cameron Mathison (Ryan) managed to do more than look stern (but, nevertheless, amazing) and clench his jaw muscles.



The whole reunion, hyped in the media for nearly a month ahead of time and hoped for for even longer than that (at least if some of the blog posts and soap boards can be taken as evidence), lasted for maybe five minutes, tops. So while a welcome and long-overdue return, it was also something of a disappointing one as well.

No disappointment as far as Esta TerBlanche is concerned, at least on my part. While she has matured since the early 2000s (haven't we all?), she still looks lovely, even as a ghost in her mid-30s with too much hair in her face. And despite apparently having retired from acting sometime in the mid-2000s, she can, even in under five minutes and in twenty words or less, convey a world of emotion. I don't know about you, but her appearance made the self-righteous, superhero-wannabe that Ryan has become appealing for the first time in ages, shirt on or off. I found myself wanting to see the two of them together again and again and again, the complex plot retcons required to do so be damned.

That's some pretty powerful acting, but Gillian was always a breakout character and Esta was always a very entertaining actress. Hopefully the clips below will show you some of her appeal. You'll see some scenes from her days on All My Children in the 1990s and 2000s, along with a guest appearance she made on the TV show Spin City during the same era. The comedy on AMC was pretty broad at the time, to put it mildly, but, nonetheless, you get a sense of the character and the actress's spirit, humor, and willingness to go the distance for a laugh.



Plus she has got to have the best eyebrows of anyone in the business.

Despite Gillian's Eurotrash wardrobe and lifestyle--the backstory: Gillian was a broke Hungarian princess who had embarrassed her family by having an affair with a married man and was, thus, exiled to her American relations in Pine Valley (hey, it could happen!)--it wasn't all fun and rain slickers on the show. The clip below offers a more serious, emotional side to Esta TerBlanche's work, part 1 of her grand goodbye to Ryan, circa late 2001. In the story, Gillian is now dead, having been accidentally shot and her heart having been donated to another, less-remembered (at least by me) character. For a couple of months, she has been haunting Ryan, unable to let go of him and her life. Finally, she has no choice.



You can watch part 2 of this scene here. It's a bit early 2000s-romance-on-the-soaps excess, replete with spare candles against a spartan background and Celine Dion (ferchrissakes) warbling on the soundtrack. But, despite the excess, it's like opening a time capsule to a lost era on soaps, way back when (but only a decade ago!), when they weren't plotted like professional football games and weren't afraid of big romantic gestures and lingering, emotional payoffs.

Apparently in real life, Esta TerBlanche decided to leave the show to return with her husband to her native South Africa--or perhaps the writers or producers decided to write her off the canvas in a big, point-of-no-return way, despite her being a popular actress playing a feisty, funny, beloved character. Who knows why the powers-that-be took such a drastic step? (Yet another stupid mistake, perchance?) At the time, it seemed that Ryan and Gillian had been written into a corner, both happily married to each other with little to do but dole out romantic advice to others. Maybe the writers needed to get the character of Ryan out of this rut, especially since the actor would be sticking around for a while. But you'd think they just might have had Gillian fall over a cliff, get sent back to Hungary, accidentally poison herself with her own goulash and fall into a deep coma. Something, anything to keep her in our thoughts and Ryan's heart.

Usually, in most soap storylines no one is ever truly dead, at least for long. But getting shot in the head, having your heart donated to another character, and making an appearance as a ghost in order to give an impassioned farewell to your beloved would certainly indicate that you must be dead in a very real and permanent way.

But never say never on a soap. Interestingly enough, Jesse, the character playing opposite Gillian in part 1, who is also playing a ghost, still managed to make a return from the dead a few years ago, even though he apparently was never really dead (although no explanation has ever been offered for his moonlighting as a ghost). Anything is possible in Pine Valley, with a little writing magic. If only there were more time, maybe we'd have a real Ryan and Gillian reunion and a long-deserved return to the spotlight for Esta TerBlanche.

Totsiens! Esta. Please let's not wait another ten years for your next resurrection.

* * *

A little extra "Esta-cy" for your viewing pleasure: Some scenes of Esta TerBlanche when she appeared on the South African TV serial, Egoli: Place of Gold, early to mid-1990s (and then again in 2004). In Afrikaans with English subtitles.



A religious cult, a beautiful ingenue, the Afrikaner version of Sasquatch menacing everyone, and an overloaded background soundtrack. In any language, in any culture, classic soap.