Say goodbye to Llanview: Asa's ex-wives and other jokes

We've had a few days of high drama and sentimental favorites, something soaps are well-known for. But soaps can also be funny, funnier than you might imagine, and often more clever and hilarious than a lot of prime-time comedy shows. At least IMHO.

I thought the old NBC soap, Santa Barbara, especially in the mid- to late-'80s was quite comical. Consciously so. In fact, it was often a very sophisticated show, full of pop culture and political references a-go-go. It was the Dynasty of daytime, but even better. If anything, I thought sometimes they played it with a little too much farce and fabulousity, so much so that I suspect they left some of their audience blinded by the sparkle and glamor of it all.

It was a quirky, smart, cocktail party of a soap. When it ended its run in the early '90s, its glory had long been tarnished. But for a brief while, it was the quintessence of '80s fashion and attitude. Just ask Europe, where the show was number 1 for much of its run.

Sara Bibel, who writes the column Deep Soap for the Comcast/Xfinity network, has described One Life to Live in a similar way, framing it as being an "arthouse soap." No doubt at times the show's quirkiness, its out-there antics, its humor, and perhaps its more New York sensibility, haven't always appealed to the majority of soap fans.

Or so I'm assuming; I'm not convinced anyone, especially in the entertainment industry, knows what soap fans are like or what they want. Certainly, they weren't expecting the public outcry over the cancellation of both All My Children and One Life to Live, which happened in spring 2011.

Nonetheless, in the last year, the show picked up a cool half-million viewers according to official ratings, so they must have been doing something right. Plenty of people got the joke. And they were laughing with OLTL, not at it.

May I present to you a case in point--particularly, the one above, a scene from 2001, "one of" family patriarch Asa Buchanan's funerals. (It's a soap, after all; lots of people have multiple funerals, wives, children, and evil twins.) There are a couple of things to watch out for and laugh at--

• The fact that Asa has had something like 9 wives and 11 marriages and most of those wives showed up at his funeral.
• That one wife in particular, Alex Olanov, gets up "to speak a few words in honor of Asa," and ends up taking over the funeral and turning it into an ex-wives' club rally against the late patriarch.
• And the moment when ex-wife Blair Cramer reacts when she recalls her own wedding to Asa. The flashback is to Asa's wedding to the original Blair, who was played by a dark-haired Asian-American woman, not the Kentucky-accented blonde that is Kassie DePaiva.

Trust me, over the years, there have been a number of inside jokes about that casting decision.

But OLTL, at least in the 2000s, when I watched it heavily, has never been afraid to laugh at itself or to take itself lightly. At both funerals and weddings, such as Bo and Nora's remarriage in 2010. Some of this is a little too cute for its own good, especially Bo's son David's (Tuc Watkins) ongoing commentary, in which a little goes a long way. So skip ahead to 5:30 and focus on the beginning of the actual ceremony.

There's more, but this is a good taste of what you've been missing on TV while you're at work.

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And here's another example, a bit long--but "it's because I double-majored." The ridiculous premiere of Vicker Man (starring David Vickers Buchanan), interrupted by the ridiculous premiere of Hold the Diploma (starring, uh, Buster Ridge). Circa summer 2011.



And yet another, Christmas at La Boulaie, Dorian Cramer's estate, where "Santa" makes an appearance.



The comedy is broad, but, hey, I think it's funny all the same.

Say goodbye to Llanview: Sealed with a Kish

Say hello and goodbye to what was once Llanview's resident gay couple, Kish. (Kyle + [Oliver] Fish = Kish.) They didn't last long (maybe a year, from 2009 to spring of 2010), but what a story, or a series of stories, as One Life to Live at the time gayed out in a pretty big way.

We had gotten to know Fish (Scott Evans) over time as a member of the Llanview Police Department. Later, Kyle (Brett Claywell) moved to town, as the brother of another character, crazy-woman-with-a-vendetta Rebecca Lewis. It took a while for the reveal that Kyle and Fish knew each other before, had known each other quite well in fact, in college. But by the time we figured all that out, Fish had already become involved with the feisty, gorgeous Layla Williamson, as well as the stripper-with-a-heart-of-brass, Stacy Morasco.

Meanwhile, Dorian Kramer (Robin Strasser) would run for the office of mayor of Llanview and would actively court Llanview's gay vote, conducting a mass "wedding-in" for local gay and lesbian couples, herself marrying her (fake) female lover. It's all in a day's politics in Llanview.

When thugs threatened the gay wedding, Fish would fight back and come out. Layla and he would break up, he'd learn that he was the baby daddy, he'd patch things up with Kyle, and together they would go off to raise their baby, after Stacy drowned. All in the space of a year or so. Certainly much quicker than the Luke and Noah (aka, "Nuke") relationship played out on As the World Turns. Man, it took Oakdale's resident gay boys forever to have kiss and have sex, while in Llanview we learned that Fish was a top within a year!

So where are they now? Somewhere in Llanview raising a baby, working the beat, and playing doctor (Kyle was a physician, if I recall correctly). Various rumors surround the denouement, that the ratings for the show dropped during this era, perhaps because of the front-burner gay storylines (and it was gay, gay, gay, front and center, there for a while, I'll admit), that the actors had crazy salary demands, or that they just started showing up late to the set, a serious no-no in budget-pressed daytime.

I have no idea where the truth lies. In her book, Afternoon Delight: Why Soaps Still Matter, Carolyn Hinsey argues all of this, plus the "hard fit" for gay couples, especially gay male couples, in a female-focused medium. That, essentially, no one wants to see gay men fall in love on daytime.

Hmmm, I just don't know. Here's one gay man who loves soaps, and I know a number of others who do, too. So there's one audience for this kind of love, and one that's been there for a long time, whether the shows acknowledged it or not. And I know a number of women that are comfortable with gay men, even as fantasy romantic heroes. They may all be in Japan, but they exist, nonetheless. Besides, Oliver Fish's coming-out story was dramatic and tortured (his family disowned him at one point, and Kyle and he were lovesick for one another for a long time), and he had a number of entanglements and friendships with Llanview residents to keep story moving along, in my opinion, for at least a while longer.

Plus, to me, in a medium that is currently "challenged" and likely to disappear from American screens altogether in the next couple of years, wouldn't you want to hook and keep viewers? Whether by acknowledging this particular, hidden minority in your audience or making your show more consistently inclusive toward all minority characters (which was a founding tenet of One Live to Live, a racially and economically diverse cast, with this diversity often playing out in the storylines, when it launched in 1968), the time would seem to be now (or more accurately, yesterday) to take action.

Or is that soap audiences (and the companies that own the shows) are too conservative and Kish was just too hot for daytime?

I guess we'll never know, because OLTL ends in just a couple more days.

So goodbye, Kish. You meant a lot to me while you were around. You touched my heart and stimulated my mind in a way that no other characters, no other show, has ever managed to do so deeply.

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.

Say goodbye to Llanview: The Takeover and The Aftermath

Am loving the hat!

Here is the first in a series of some of my favorite episodes from One Life to Live's past: These were aired in early June 2008 and highlight Dorian's (Robin Strasser) big reveal that she has taken over Buchanan Enterprises from the Buchanan family--and financially and emotionally ruined the Buchanan family in the process.

This event kicked off quite a lot of story for months to come--the death of Jessica's (Bree Williamson) husband Nash, the ostracizing of Natalie (Melissa Archer) and Jared (John Brotherton), Jessica's inability to cope and subsequent insanity, Jessica's pregnancy and the resulting drama from that.



What I like about these episodes is that they are very '80s soap, daytime or nighttime--grand machinations (and a serious wardrobe budget) triggering unforeseen consequences and resulting in deep emotional impact on the characters. These episodes are more like something out of early to mid-Dallas than a hard-pressed daytime drama of the late Naughties.

It's not all about rapid-fire plot points and glossed-over feelings (a character dies, everyone grieves for a week, the widow meets a new love interest at the funeral . . .). Instead, the players react in character about the events, and it propels further emotional development, as well as story, for months and years to come.



I think OLTL was firing on all cylinders, at least during this time period. Despite lots of background noise from the network (cancellation worries, no promotion, favoring General Hospital and All My Children's future over the awkward guest to the party that was One Life to Live), the producers, writers, directors, and actors went for broke to deliver some satisfying drama and must-watch TV.

Last episode, Friday, January 13th, 2012. Llanview, you will be missed.

Say goodbye to Llanview: Can I get a witness?

In honor of the last week of One Life to Live, I'm planning to blog about the show, a mainstay of daytime TV since 1968 and a current and past favorite of mine, daytime and nighttime altogether.

I won't be live-blogging--I have to daytime job, after all, and must rely on evening rebroadcasts on SoapNet to get my daytime soap sustenance. So instead, this week, I'm going to focus on past, memorable episodes and storylines, ones that have stayed with me over the years and, obviously, meant a lot, then and now.

Let's get the tribute going with what is perhaps one of the most well-known of OLTL episodes--and perhaps one of the most memorable moments in TV history (according to TV Guide, no less): Karen Wolek (Judith Light) testifies on the witness stand in defense of Victoria Lord Riley (Erika Slezak), accused of murder, and is forced to reveal to the courtroom and her husband that she is a "common hooker."

I remember watching this with my brother--I was in high school, he was in college--and, at the time, we were both enthralled by the story, the drama, and the acting. It was classic soap opera, near the end of the golden age, when the shows were more about human emotions and less about fantastical and ridiculous plots. I'm talking to you, Ice Princess.

Yes, admittedly, reality is in the eye of the beholder: There probably wasn't then and isn't now a pride of "housewife hookers" around Anytown, USA (at least, not real housewife hookers; I'm not so sure about all those Real housewives), turning tricks by day, playing wifey to their middle-class doctor-husbands by night. But the intricate, long-arc storytelling; the tormented, cathartic emotional release; the freedom to act and not worry about how messy or neurotic you look, while not trying so hard to look messy and neurotic--well, golly, they sadly don't make 'em like that anymore. Even OLTL doesn't necessarily make 'em like that anymore.

Is it over-the-top? Well, maybe a tad, but then so were Greek tragedies and that shameless crowd-pleaser Shakespeare.

I read recently a quote from one of the actors on OLTL, who said that soaps were the closest thing on TV to doing live theater, and that was part of the attraction for the actors. I think this episode of One Life to Live bears witness to the theatrical quality of the medium (good and bad), and the emotional payoff that it offers. I think, too, these are qualities that you only get from shows based in New York, a major center of theater in the U.S. and the English-speaking world.

But we'll get that this week. All in good time . . .

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?

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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.

Kim possible!

Amanda Setton as Kimberly Andrews

For those of you who watch the soon-to-disappear-from-our-airwaves (boo! hiss! boo!) One Life to Live, a U.S. serial (or soap opera, if you must), let's all take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate the return of Clint Buchanan's gold-digger paramour, Kimberly Andrews.

. . . Who now, after being run out of town by Clint's nephew, David Vickers Buchanan, is working the pole at the Spotted Pony gentleman's club in Anchorage, Kentucky.

Too much detail? Don't care for soaps? Ah, well, forget you. You don't know what fun you're missing. You'll just have to trust me that the return of Gossip Girl actress Amanda Setton as our own little Showgirl is cause for celebration indeed. In her short run on OLTL the last time, she saved a boring story (enabling crazy, whiny Stacy to go after her sister's boyfriend, Rex) with great acting, bitchery, a strong emotional connection to her character, and cleavage. Lots and lots of cleavage.

I don't think I've ever been this excited to see a woman that wasn't a family member or a good friend.

One Life to Live may be fading to black on ABC come January 2012, but they are going out with a bang . . . and a badda boom boom . . . and not to mention a boom chicka boom chicka boom chicka boom.