General Hospital's Gain

Martha Byrne may have only been on General Hospital for a few seconds on Wednesday, but I can already tell this new role as the mayor's wife fits her like a glove. She is certainly much better off joining the cast of GH than being on As the World Turns. Regardless of who was to blame for Byrne's departure from ATWT, I think she left the show just in time, even if this role on GH is short-lived.


ATWT used to be one of my favorite soap operas and I rarely missed an episode. I grew up watching Byrne as Lily and for me no one can replace her, but in recent years the show's writing has become somewhat sloppy and rather bizarre. It is not the same soap opera it once was and does not adhere to the same standards. The turning point for ATWT came when the writers started letting the drama drive the storylines, the same problem that is currently occurring on Y&R, although to a much lesser degree. When ATWT started doing this the show went downhill very quickly. The storylines did not even have the same feel as past storylines, making the show and its characters virtually unrecognizable. There was absolutely no rhyme or reason to most of the storylines. They were just there to uphold the dramatic situations that were being presented. This type of writing has a tendency to alienate longtime viewers as it did me because I no longer watch the show. So in my opinion the fact that Martha Byrne is now on another soap opera playing an entirely different role is a good thing because her character on ATWT has not been the same for a very long time. This makes it less difficult to miss seeing her play Lily and makes accepting her new role that much easier.

Strange Bedfellows: Y&R

Just when I thought the storylines on Y&R could not get any more bizarre Devon starts fantasizing about Tyra, someone he knew as his aunt until only a few weeks ago when he discovered she had been adopted. This is yet another example of Y&R's recent tendency to allow drama to drive the plot of the show. I also think this latest storyline with Devon was fabricated in a desperate attempt to give Bryton McClure a stronger presence on the show. And if the show plans to keep him on contract he certainly needs a better role than sidekick, something he seems to have been playing for far too long now. I just do not think having Devon fantasize about Tyra is a good place to start expanding his role on the show. I am actually not even sure how Y&R could keep the Tyra character on the show, but write out the Karen character. In my opinion the only thing that made Tyra interesting was her rivalry with Karen, now she is just Neil's boring girlfriend. And unlike Neil's "late" wife Drucilla, I think that Tyra actually makes Neil seem boring. I surrounded the word late in quotes only because I still suspect that Dru will be found alive at some point, at least that is my hope. Perhaps the show could have had Devon look for his biological father only to discover along the way that Dru is still alive somewhere, rather than having him harbor feelings for his pseudo-aunt.

The Ultimate Sacrifice: OLTL

As of Friday's episode of OLTL it is inevitable that Marcie is going to offer Starr the chance to raise her own child. I am so glad that this storyline was written in a way that allows Marcie to make a decision about who should raise baby Hope, rather than having another child taken away from her. Marcie is not a selfish person and there is no way she could have ever formed a close bond with any baby knowing that the biological mother was having doubts about giving her up. I am also pleased with the maturity that Starr projected in honoring her promise to let Marcie raise Hope, rather than letting her down by changing her mind at the last minute. It would have been difficult to root for either one of these characters if they had each chosen to go against their nature and put their own needs above Hope's welfare. Marcie's selflessness in realizing where Hope belonged, despite the pain she has suffered from wanting a child for so long proved that she will indeed be a great mother someday. Starr's selflessness in wanting what was best for her baby despite the fact that she wanted to raise her proved that she was mature beyond her years and had the potential to be a great mother. I do wish that before Michael and Marcie's departure from the show we could have seen Marcie find the happiness she deserves by being able to finally adopt a child. Perhaps once they leave town they will finally be able to do just that. I hope that the show writes something in where perhaps Michael sends a letter to John telling him how he and Marcie are doing and informing him that they have been able to adopt. Let's just hope that if Marcie ever does try to adopt again the child is outside of Todd Manning's gene pool for once.

GH's Mother-load

"If my baby's dead Carly is going to pay...in ways that she can't begin to imagine." Those were Claudia's words as she tearfully confided in Johnny her concerns that her fight with Carly, which resulted in the two of them falling down a flight of stairs, ultimately cost her baby's life. In the end these words could prove to be quite ominous as I suspect Carly's baby will be born healthy, while Claudia's baby will not. The likelihood of both of these women having healthy babies seems improbable, primarily because this scenario does little to promote an interesting storyline, at least for now. With all of Claudia's stress I expect that at some point she will have a miscarriage, then decide to fake being pregnant until the birth of Carly's baby. At that point I think she will either steal Carly's baby or hire someone to steal it and claim it as her own. Either way I think we are looking at a long process of Carly thinking her baby died because she did something wrong during her very fragile pregnancy, only to eventually find out that Claudia has been claiming the baby as her child all along. And obviously this sort of occurrence would be preventable if only Jax would be honest with everyone about Claudia's involvement in Michael's shooting, a revelation that will surely create distance between Jax and Carly yet again. This distance, particularly if it occurs in conjunction with the baby stealing scenario, could ultimately result in Jax seeking solace with Olivia, the only person who knows as much about Michael's shooting as he does.

Y&R's Drama, Drama, Drama

There is no question that I like to watch soaps with a lot of drama, otherwise they become boring and stale. However, there also needs to be a certain amount of time devoted to building up story lines or the drama becomes pointless and unbelievable. If soap writers are not careful the drama can end up driving the plot instead of the other way around. Lately Young and the Restless has been filled with this type of drama, especially since the show killed off Don Diamont's character Brad Carlton. One would think that when a show as popular as Y&R kills off such a long-running character there would be a significant lead-up to their demise and the impact of their departure would be felt by many of the shows other characters. This never really seemed to materialize at any point on the show. Brad was instead killed in a tragic accident when he fell through a frozen pond trying to save Noah's life. His death should have had a significant impact on Noah considering the fact that he was not supposed to be there in the first place, something that was apparently lost on Noah. Then again he has had a lot to deal with lately considering the state that his parents have been in.

At first Sharon seemed to be deeply affected by Brad's death because she had sent him away shortly before his tragic accident. However many things were affecting Sharon at this point so it was difficult to tell exactly how much of an impact Brad's death actually had on her, as she began unconsciously stealing random objects. This was supposed to have been both a direct result of Brad's death and the fact that she was in love with Nick, who still could not decide between her and Phyllis. At this point the writers seemed to be saying that Sharon had kleptomania, however this affliction began disappearing once she started sleeping with Nick, Jack, and Billy, behavior that resulted in pregnancy. Like most of the drama on Y&R right now, Sharon's brief affair with Billy came out of nowhere. It made absolutely no sense that Sharon and Billy would sleep together. Of course, it made about as much sense as the fact that Nick all of a sudden fell back in love with Sharon. I must have missed something along the way because I really do not know where that came from. For months Phyllis accused Nick of harboring secret feelings for Sharon, accusations Nick denied and never outwardly expressed to any degree, until they shared a kiss in Paris. Like Brad's death there was not enough lead-up to this kiss or the feelings that were supposedly attached to them. Nick should have been visibly struggling with his feelings for Sharon for a while before he ever acted on them. At that point choosing Sharon over Phyllis should have been an easy decision. I have lost count of how many times Nick has gone to Sharon to declare his undying love for her, only to decide to stay with Phyllis.


Aside from all of the drama surrounding Nick and Sharon, Nick's half-brother Adam has been creating some needless drama all on his own. At first I thought the Adam storyline was going to get interesting after his arrest and apparent blindness. I found this to be an intriguing twist to Adam's story and a possible way of redeeming his character and reuniting him with Heather. After all, her relationship with Adam is the only thing that makes her seem human. To say the least I am disappointed to see the direction this character has been taken. I had hoped that at some point we would get to see his relationship with Victor, Nikki, Victoria, and Nick evolve, but instead Adam has become another faceless villain. There seems to be almost no method to his madness, and herein lies the problem. In order for soap villains to be redeemable something has to have happened to them at some point in their lives to make them villains, something that can evoke sympathy from the viewers. The problem with Adam's character is that we know what his upbringing was like because we were introduced to both Cliff and Hope years ago. We saw how he interacted with Hope on her death bed and there was no sense of resentment or animosity in his tone or body language. And none of the stuff that has happened to him since he moved to Genoa City constitutes what he has been doing to Ashley the past few months. And while it is clear that Ashley is but a pawn in whatever twisted game he is playing, that alone does not give him a free pass for the many weeks of torture.

Of course I could go on, there is certainly more than enough drama on this show right now to dissect. Having said that, Y&R is one of my all-time favorite soap operas, I just hope this show does not get so wrapped up in creating all of this drama that they forget to lay the ground work for it. Telling a compelling story is what this show does best, and no amount of drama can replace that.

OLTL's Baby Switch

I will admit that I am not a loyal viewer of One Life to Live. I know very little about the characters and even less about their background. And I rarely have a chance to watch it in its entirety, but I have been following a few of the story lines in bits and pieces along the way. This baby switch story captivated my attention months ago, primarily because it correlated with Marty's return, another storyline I somehow became interested in. Last week Jessica finally learned that the baby she (and her alter egos) had been taking care of for months was not actually hers, but Starr's. It was difficult to hold back the tears as Jessica discovered that the baby she had given birth to had died, prompting Bess, one of her personalities to switch her baby with the baby Starr had just given birth to. This was a bittersweet revelation in more ways than one. First of all Starr and Cole were elated to find out that the baby they thought had died months ago was in fact alive, but then came the reality that they had already promised to let Michael and Marcie adopt her. One could easily see that Starr was having second thoughts about giving up her baby. As I watched I was torn between who should have baby Hope, Starr or Marcie? Marcie clearly deserves some happiness. She has wanted a baby for so long and after what she had to go through with her last adoption in having to give him up, she should not have to suffer another loss like that.

From what I am hearing and observing it sounds like after Starr reluctantly signs the adoption papers, Marcie realizes how conflicted Starr is and makes the ultimate sacrifice to give Hope back to Starr. I think this was probably the only way this story line could have ended. It is difficult to see Jessica have to give up a baby she thought was hers after losing Nash last year, even if she was technically responsible for switching the babies. The fact that she still has Brody and her other daughter close by, however, does provide reassurance that she will somehow be able to integrate her personalities and live a normal life. It would have been difficult to see Starr and Cole try to move on without their baby, but it would have been equally difficult to see Marcie cope with another missed opportunity to be a mother. At least if the story line plays out like I think it will Marcie will make the decision to give the baby up herself, instead of having her taken away. This seems like the most likely ending because the Marcie and Michael characters are apparently leaving town and will be off the canvas for the foreseeable future.