Post by meg24 on Jul 6, 2006 16:15:17 GMT -5
From Blue at NB
The full article can be found here: Summer on Soaps: the Sizzle and the Fizzle.
All My Children has been fizzling for me for so long now I'm finding it hard to recall why it was once (and for a long time) one of my top two favorite soaps. But there are a couple of things I'm really enjoying. I absolutely adore Leven Rambin and her very original character, Lily, a teenager with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She plays Lily with such deadpan sincerity that I once wondered if her sweetness and simplicity were more a part of her personality than an acting choice. But then I saw her in the short-lived (sadly) The Book of Daniel in which she played a sassy, hot-to-trot teen (whose boyfriend, coincidentally, was played by former AMC actor Ivan Shaw), and realized what a good actress she really is. I could hardly bear, however, the scenes between Lily and Jonathan (Jeff Branson), whose brain damage-induced tics were endlessly irritating. But now that his brain has spontaneously (well, after a bump on the head) regenerated and he's only faking it to keep new wife, Lily, happy, the story and their dynamic is more interesting. Branson just wasn't as good at simplicity as he is at complexity. It always seemed like he was pretending to be brain damaged and now that he is pretending it works a lot better. On the other hand, though, Jonathan is too old for Lily and his relationship with her is a little creepy.
I absolutely hated that Jamie and JR buried Greg Madden alive to get him to spill the beans about who adopted their sister (Dixie and Tad's daughter), Kate. It was the kind of gothic nonsense that works okay on Days of our Lives or Passions, but is out of place on AMC. Plus, the fact that Madden would refuse for so long to divulge Kate's whereabouts rather than tell all and get out of that coffin, is completely ridiculous. But worst of all even before he died and it became murder Megan McTavish has destroyed the characters of Jamie and JR I know soap characters commit crimes for which they're never punished, but even if these two don't get caught, what they did is unforgivable. McTavish finally managed to salvage JR from the ashes of the character assassination of the last couple of years and now this. And it's such aberrant behavior for Jamie, who was about the only unambiguously decent character left on the show (next to Joe and Bianca). His destruction continues as he just (as I write) knocked David out and threatened his life. Justin Bruening is considerably more interesting as a rebel than a goody-two-shoes, but that's beside the point.
What is the point, however, is that no matter now much I disliked the buried-alive stunt, I admired Ian Buchanan's (Greg) performance as a man trapped in just about everyone's worst nightmare: waking up in a coffin, buried alive. It didn't make the storyline any less absurd, but it made it bearable. Also, Buchanan was never given the opportunity to display much range as the slimy, obsessed fertility doctor, Greg. With this storyline at least he got to go out with a bang. And the story concluded with a bang, too. An earthquake finished Dr. Madden off and Colby discovered his arm protruding from the ground in the park where he was buried. His son Josh was in the park and tried desperately to revive his father, but to no avail. Most of this was done as a montage to music and it was very effective, though I don't know why Tad was lurking emotionless in the background. The camera kept going from Josh working frantically on his father to shots of Tad, whose expression never changed, even though we knew he was thinking that now he'd never find his daughter. It was still oddly counterproductive.
One more thing. Since when did the Pine Valley police turn into Storm Troopers? Their overkill treatment guns drawn, screaming orders at the teeny teen girl (who we later learned was a greatly SORASed Colby Chandler) who went on a joyride and caused some trouble was laughable. The kid playing Colby looks promising, though I'd rather they had brought back Liza (Marcy Walker) than her teen daughter. But I'm sure they got the young unknown a lot cheaper than Walker would have been.
I know I'm in the minority here, but I prefer Kendall with Ryan than with Zach. I've tried and tried to like Zach, but he just doesn't do it for me. Of course, in general, I'm sick of that whole storyline, but lately I've been reminded of how much chemistry Alicia Minshew (Kendall) and Cameron Mathison (Ryan) had their first go around.
The full article can be found here: Summer on Soaps: the Sizzle and the Fizzle.
All My Children has been fizzling for me for so long now I'm finding it hard to recall why it was once (and for a long time) one of my top two favorite soaps. But there are a couple of things I'm really enjoying. I absolutely adore Leven Rambin and her very original character, Lily, a teenager with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She plays Lily with such deadpan sincerity that I once wondered if her sweetness and simplicity were more a part of her personality than an acting choice. But then I saw her in the short-lived (sadly) The Book of Daniel in which she played a sassy, hot-to-trot teen (whose boyfriend, coincidentally, was played by former AMC actor Ivan Shaw), and realized what a good actress she really is. I could hardly bear, however, the scenes between Lily and Jonathan (Jeff Branson), whose brain damage-induced tics were endlessly irritating. But now that his brain has spontaneously (well, after a bump on the head) regenerated and he's only faking it to keep new wife, Lily, happy, the story and their dynamic is more interesting. Branson just wasn't as good at simplicity as he is at complexity. It always seemed like he was pretending to be brain damaged and now that he is pretending it works a lot better. On the other hand, though, Jonathan is too old for Lily and his relationship with her is a little creepy.
I absolutely hated that Jamie and JR buried Greg Madden alive to get him to spill the beans about who adopted their sister (Dixie and Tad's daughter), Kate. It was the kind of gothic nonsense that works okay on Days of our Lives or Passions, but is out of place on AMC. Plus, the fact that Madden would refuse for so long to divulge Kate's whereabouts rather than tell all and get out of that coffin, is completely ridiculous. But worst of all even before he died and it became murder Megan McTavish has destroyed the characters of Jamie and JR I know soap characters commit crimes for which they're never punished, but even if these two don't get caught, what they did is unforgivable. McTavish finally managed to salvage JR from the ashes of the character assassination of the last couple of years and now this. And it's such aberrant behavior for Jamie, who was about the only unambiguously decent character left on the show (next to Joe and Bianca). His destruction continues as he just (as I write) knocked David out and threatened his life. Justin Bruening is considerably more interesting as a rebel than a goody-two-shoes, but that's beside the point.
What is the point, however, is that no matter now much I disliked the buried-alive stunt, I admired Ian Buchanan's (Greg) performance as a man trapped in just about everyone's worst nightmare: waking up in a coffin, buried alive. It didn't make the storyline any less absurd, but it made it bearable. Also, Buchanan was never given the opportunity to display much range as the slimy, obsessed fertility doctor, Greg. With this storyline at least he got to go out with a bang. And the story concluded with a bang, too. An earthquake finished Dr. Madden off and Colby discovered his arm protruding from the ground in the park where he was buried. His son Josh was in the park and tried desperately to revive his father, but to no avail. Most of this was done as a montage to music and it was very effective, though I don't know why Tad was lurking emotionless in the background. The camera kept going from Josh working frantically on his father to shots of Tad, whose expression never changed, even though we knew he was thinking that now he'd never find his daughter. It was still oddly counterproductive.
One more thing. Since when did the Pine Valley police turn into Storm Troopers? Their overkill treatment guns drawn, screaming orders at the teeny teen girl (who we later learned was a greatly SORASed Colby Chandler) who went on a joyride and caused some trouble was laughable. The kid playing Colby looks promising, though I'd rather they had brought back Liza (Marcy Walker) than her teen daughter. But I'm sure they got the young unknown a lot cheaper than Walker would have been.
I know I'm in the minority here, but I prefer Kendall with Ryan than with Zach. I've tried and tried to like Zach, but he just doesn't do it for me. Of course, in general, I'm sick of that whole storyline, but lately I've been reminded of how much chemistry Alicia Minshew (Kendall) and Cameron Mathison (Ryan) had their first go around.