definitely, possibly, maybe

the start of the year is always so hectic, you both want to start things fresh, but you have so many things hanging over your head from the previous year. that's why it's always nice to reflect on things. 2009 was a strange year. a lot of celebrities died unexpectedly. life itself has been insanely busy. i traveled so much, that now as i face a year with less travel, i'm not exactly sure what i should do with myself. the nice thing about a new year is that you get to figure it all out. but before i get to that, here's the good, the bad, and the ugly of 2009: the good grey's anatomy's creative resurgence at the end of 2008, grey's had sunk pretty low. izzie was having sex with visions of denny. the show had ceased to be compelling. but then, a turn-around marked by the new year, izzie's cancer storyline went full steam ahead, the character's suddenly grew up, with meredith and derek finally committing to each other in a meaningful way, alex and izzie...

i've caught up on a week's worth of episodes of "general hospital" and have to admit that it is always a roller coaster ride. [except the more i think about it, the roller coaster would be a pretty terrible one that mostly stayed straight and close to the floor and had an occasional loop that would exhilarate you and then nauseate you just a quickly.] from the sublime: robin and patrick singing " i had the time of my life " was possible one of the most enjoyable things to happen on gh in a long time. the best thing about the whole karaoke evening was that you could clearly see how much fun everyone was having. you could see that these people genuinely enjoy each other's company. there's not often a lot of joy on gh so every little bit of it counts. and picking a song from dirty dancing was actually genius. song choice being key to every karaoke perfomance, both kimberly mccullough and jason thompson sold it. i started watching gh the summer kare...

hmmm, it's been months since i've blogged about gh . partly this is due to the fact that i fell behind while i was traveling. partly because all the outrage lapsed into disinterest when i realized i couldn't bring myself to care anymore and everything that was happening was just so trite and boring. some days i still feel that way. and there are still whole storylines that i either hate or just fast forward through. but there are some good things too. in no particular order, here are my thoughts on the goings-on in port charles: 1. soras [and why re-casting roles works on soaps even if you do miss the original actors]: the new, older versions of sonny's kids are turning out to be quite enjoyable. [although hilariously, cameron whom i believe is older than molly is now younger. and because cameron is so cute, i'm kind of hoping they won't fix that. we also haven't seen spencer in ages, so he may be approaching 50.] in any case, at this point we've only s...

so "general hospital" has been particularly terrible of late. i've said before that i can't stand the lead-up to the drawn-out reveal to the "who is responsible for michael's shooting" non-mystery. at this point half of port charles knows it was claudia, and like most rational people they think it is despicable that she ordered the hit, but they still do NOTHING with the information. why? because actually prosecuting someone in a rational manner is INCOMPREHENSIBLE in port charles, and that alexis davis is so just busy eating brownies in random storylines. this leaves it to sonny and jason to decide that their own brand of justice is what needs to prevail. here's the thing, them needing claudia to pay for her part in the conspiracy makes no sense because it is so hypocritical. their need to kill her doesn't quite equate michael spending time in a coma. (especially since we all know he is going to recover). the whole thing is stupid and sucks up s...

some days i feel better about "general hospital" other days i feel worse. here's what makes me feel worse: 1. all things related to claudia zacchara and michael's shooting . this includes jerry's reappearance in dvd form, ric's smarmy blackmail scheme, jax and olivia knowing, johnny and claudia plotting al the time, jason and sonny vowing to find the person behind michael's shooting. here's the thing i don't understand. ian devlin shot michael. yes, claudia organized the hit. so when they talk about finding the person behind michael's shooting, it befuddles me, because jason already killed that guy! and organizing the hit is different from shooting michael. at least in my mind. 2. the slow destruction of robin and patrick . i know that not all people love robin and patrick as a couple, but as one of the few romance-oriented storylines on gh i have always been disposed to like them. i think the actors have fantastic chemistry and i have enjoyed...

this could be an april fool's day post. and technically today is april fool's day. but the fools i'm talking about inhabit port charles. somedays i don't know why they are still around. after all " guiding light " -- the longest running soap -- was just canceled . gh has managed to hit a new threshold of terrible. in list form, here is everything that is wrong with gh : 1. the now non-secret that claudia zacchara was behind michael's shooting this particular terribleness (is that a word? if not it is a good descriptor for everything on gh lately) is compounded by 2. ric lansing's skeeviness i mean ewww. do we need to see claudia prostituting herself? way to appeal to your viewers guza...i mean, isn't the average soap opera viewer a woman? what woman would want to watch ric blackmail claudia for sex? speaking of women viewers and what they don't want to see 3. robin's post partum depression i'm sorry, i wouldn't have a problem with...

i love kirsten storms and her portrayal of maxie jones as much as anyone else, but i definitely do not love this: or this. (also, it's a lot frightening to see how little her arms are, especially if you think about how the camera adds 10 pounds.) i know that there are a lot of maxie-spinelli fans out there, but i'm just not entirely sold on this pairing. maxie has definitely made spinelli a more bearable character, since brad anderson tones down some of the spastic tics and expresses himself (albeit in a slightly more shakespearan manner) with a modicum of normality when spinelli addresses maxie. (note that it spins out of control when spinelli and winifred talk to each other. gh needs to seriously consider adding a health warning when those two are in scenes together: may cause fits of rage or hysteria when consumed for intervals longer than 20 seconds . i could post a youtube video of some of their moments, but i will spare us all. instead i will focus on my original point, ...

hmmm, so apparently helena is swinging back by port charles to wreak vengeance on her darling grandson, nicholas. i wonder if resident "bad" girl rebecca, figures into her plan. here's hoping that emily quartermaine is being brought back to life. though, i am enjoying rebecca and lucky together. and i enjoyed today's confrontation between lucky and nicholas. it's at least something not related to the mob. i'm kind of hoping that emily comes back to life and she and lucky have a thing and we delve into how elizabeth and nicholas have to deal with it. i think i like this storyline so much because when i started watching "general hospital" lucky, liz, nicholas, and emily were the 4 musketeers. and i really enjoyed watching them all interact. here's a little reminder: youtube is a wonderful thing.

i have a confession to make. i watched the godfather trilogy for the first time this weekend. (ok, well, i'd seen pieces of it before on television, but it was re-edited for tv and aired the saga chronologically, which funnily enough was pretty confusing and completely off-topic.) i really enjoyed the movies, and i now understand why so many people rate at least the godfather or the godfather: part ii in their top ten movies of all time lists, and perhaps because i had been warned that the third one was terrible, i even enjoyed that one. watching the story of a family that is built on and then ultimately destroyed by the mob, could only bring into relief how pathetic "general hospital"'s attempts to portray the mob have always been. i caught up with gh yesterday and could only chuckle at claudia and sonny's plan to have a cocktail party with the five families (why are there always five families in mob stories on television and movies? i don't understand. i...

so the other day on "general hospital" robin brings emma to kelly's and runs into elizabeth. elizabeth says hello, asks mike for her grandmother's order, and just starts taking emma out of her stroller... who does that? i'm not a mom, but i'm telling you right now, it doesn't matter if it's my closest friend, they're not picking up my baby without asking me first. meanwhile, this whole ppd storyline needs to be resolved. robin is never fun to be around when she's strident, unreasonable, and defensive. it's not surprising that patrick is walking on eggshells around her, since she is so unpleasant when she gets that way. but at the same time this storyline needs to make some progress. also, what is sonny thinking? what kind of person, especially one who has witnessed some tension, asks a wife to keep a secret from her husband? i mean, robin and patrick have enough to deal with in their own lives, why do we need to involve sonny and carly in t...

i bet you all are thinking that this is another lost blog post, but it's not. it's actually about the hot mess that is "general hospital." i'm embarrassed to admit this, but i'm actually traveling for work and have been catching up with the episodes online, via abc's full episode player. in any case, sometimes i wonder why i bother catching up with episodes i've missed instead of just skipping them over. i suspect it's some sort of masochistic tendency on my part. here's the thing, i think one of the biggest problems gh faces is that the writers have continued to write themselves into corners that they can't wriggle out of and they relentlessly cling to storylines that do not work while refusing to take the tired stories in newer, possibly interesting directions. i've been doing a lot of lists lately, but it's the best way to highlight all the things wrong with this show. 1. claudia zacchara in all honesty, i like claudia. i think ...

i'm not a huge fan of alternate reality episodes, usually because i feel like it's a way of cheating, used only to justify the current writing staff's decisions with regard to their characters. but sometimes, because the alternate reality allows the writers to pair up actors who don't usually have a chance to work together, you see some interesting possibilities open up as a viewer (sadly these rarely seem to open up to the writers) and there are opportunities to see the characters in a different light. "general hospital"'s what if barbara jean jones had lived, and maxie jones had died episode, got off to a somewhat painful start. having maxie provide commentary while surrounded by some weird white background was bad enough, but then to have her talk on and on about how lulu and johnny were supposed to be in love? what was that about? maxie has always said that lulu and johnny weren't right for each other, and in her heart to heart with johnny during t...

"general hospital" has outdone itself in promoting women's awareness of heart health, and by outdone, i mean managed to ruin at least three consecutive episodes with some stultifying, stiff dialogue as well as some eye-gouging-worthy scenes. 1. max & milo counsel diane on her heart health. i fast-forwarded through this, and i recognize that this is a ridiculous thing to share, but this scene sums up how awful and ridiculous and incompetent the gh writing staff is, and does an admirable job of showcasing the tawdriness of the product placement: yes. it really is that bad. and what's worse is that this lasted for three days. i'm hoping that today we saw the last of the heart healthiness, though we do apparently have a "it's a wonderful life" alternate reality episode coming up with maxie tomorrow. if the above scene was awful, the scenes below might be even worse, i actually sat through these the first time too. why would max sit on the bed that c...

how is it that the gh characters have access to all these guns? i mean, it's ridiculous. i know port charles is set in upstate new york, but they do actual have gun control laws there. so all the people running around with guns stuffed in their pants don't really make a lot of sense. and you know what really doesn't make sense to me, is why all these mob characters always stick the gun in their underwear when they leave the house? isn't that a bad place to put a weapon. i mean, why would a guy point a gun at his privates? all of them do this, it doesn't make any sense to me. don't they have holsters??? the police don't have a monopoly on holsters. anyway, of course sam shot jason. the fact that sam and jason are in the hospital is so ridiculous. and i get that it's all about reuniting sam and jason and lucky and elizabeth. but really sam trying to be helpful is so irritating, and the fact that she's there trying to help but instead getting in the wa...

somehow i always feel like i'm running behind. oh well. i've been more or less keeping up with the dvr and figured it was about time to publish my thoughts. because i can. so "the incident" that gh is counting down to is driving me insane. not because it isn't well-executed, because if there is one thing that gh does well it is sweeps events. i just hate the drawn out anticipation, why won't things just happen already!! hopefully the rumored deaths won't involve characters i like or legacy characters that form the show's core. here's a list of people i think can go: 1. kate howard -- what is the point of her character now? her fabulous bob is returning but will be forever sullied by the insane mob apologist she became. megan ward has zero chemistry with maurice bernard, kate and sonny were a snooze-a-thon. lately kate wanders around town throwing hissy fits at olivia, claudia or carly, and threatening to fire maxie and lulu at every turn. 2. nadi...

huh, so i'm finally all caught up with "general hospital" i mean, like i watched a whole month's worth of episodes over the last couple of days. i often find that catching up with gh is a lot of work, and not work that is particularly rewarding. however, much to my surprise in the last month a good amount of gh was actually entertaining. unlike my year in review, i think i should start with the bad first. work it out of my system so that this post ends on a high note. claudia and the search for the hidden dvds oh jerry jacks, why did you have to come back for this? so many gh characters taunt us with leaving and then randomly show up when we least expect them, but at least track-suit wearing alan quartermaine is somewhat welcome. you are just smug and annoying in your britishness when you are supposed to be australian and i can't get past how the writers clearly had no idea what to do with you as a character since you pinged and ponged from maniacal to skeevy f...