gwynnega

Tomorrow I'm flying to San Francisco to spend the weekend with a couple of friends I first met in a poetry workshop at UCLA about a zillion almost thirty years ago. I'm delighted to be escaping the Los Angeles summer, but I can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that I need to pack for a high of 63 degrees F.

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One Life To Live continues to be entirely amazing. Today's episode was devoted to the Story of the Two Todds. Much as I love Trevor St. John (Todd of the Past Eight Years), I have to admit that Roger Howarth (Original Todd) has been magical in this storyline, especially now that he's begun to interact with Kassie DePaiva, Florencia Lozano, Kristen Alderson, and Erika Slezak. One of the great pleasures of soap opera (when done right) is how it draws on decades of history, so it's been a delight that the show has begun peppering Original Todd's reunion scenes with scenes from the 1990s (and early 2000s) of him and the same actors. There have been so many less-than-stellar returns of beloved soap actors in recent years (notably Vanessa Marcil's botched return to General Hospital, which may well have cost Bob Guza his job), but Roger Howarth's return has vastly exceeded my expectations.

For ljs (and other soap fans on my FL): a great audio interview with Lynn Herring on the We Love Soaps podcast. She talks at length about Lucy Coe, Kevin Collins, General Hospital, Port Charles and more!

In honor of Herring, here's a 1995 clip from GH in which Lucy strips for charity at the Nurses' Ball, back when Claire Labine was writing the show and utilizing the entire cast to perfection! I particularly enjoy Lucy's cavorting ex-husbands Tony and Alan...

Hilarious clip of a little girl discussing Delia's sneaky ways on Ryan's Hope:



Weirdly, during today's RH, Soapnet had an "up next, Ryan's Hope" graphic that featured James Wclek as Ben Shelley, a character who doesn't show up until long after the eps that Soapnet airs!

RH continues to be awesome, and I ship Jack/Siobhan madly.

( I am very close to voting with my remote where GH is concerned... )

Worked on the Jo book revisions last night, and during lunch just now. Time to break out the trusty word-o-meter!

19,349 / 90,000 (21.5%)

# of revised pages: 69

Meanwhile I'm trying to think of a new title for the book (previously Failing). I'm thinking a good title must be lurking somewhere in the lyrics of a Phil Ochs song.

( today's Ryan's Hope )

( GH Night Shift, season two, episode one )

On Sunday nights from 10-12 pm, Soapnet will be airing old episodes of General Hospital. Some of their choices aren't particularly great, but tomorrow's should be pretty good. From the commercial I saw, I'm nearly certain the first ep is the famous "clink boom" episode, in which Brenda marries Jax and Sonny's wife Lily dies in a car bomb explosion. (The second ep is from Brenda's return to the show a few years back, which wasn't that great.)

Also, the weekend before Halloween, Soapnet is showing three of the infamous Marlena Possessed by Satan episodes from Days of Our Lives! Wheeee!

According to TV Guide, GH fired Stuart Damon this week, and Alan Quartermaine will be written off the show in February. Granted, they haven't given Alan Q. much to do for ages, but the better solution would've been to give the soap veteran something to work with. ::fumes::