Nope, I didn't wanna take a flight, and I took a train in from Pine Valley so I could gather my things. I want to take a Greyhound out. I wanna remember all the things I liked about Llanview, I want a time to reminisce a little bit. I am also giving the town one last chance on that slow bus ride out of the city to pull me back in, I want them to run after the bus and give me a reason to stay. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though I'll be getting my wish so much like my goodbye blog to Pine Valley, this is my goodbye to Llanview as well. It's gonna be lengthy because I'm feeling a little long-winded tonight, so bear with me.
Much like All My Children, I found One Life on Soapnet, partly because I think I forgot to change the channel after an epi of AMC and ended up liking it. Coincidentally, some time later that is the exact same way I fell in love with GH. lol What can I say, I'm consistent. Watching those three soaps got me through alot of sleepless nights, which come my way on the daily. One Life was at first exciting, full of a cast of characters that I either loved or came to love over time, plots that kept me interested, and more love in the afternoon at first than either AMC or GH. I loved it and thought AMC was the perfect lead-in. Over time, my viewing tapered off as storylines started to bore me and when I came back it was like watching an entirely new show.
Its no secret that in the soap world, you could miss a couple weeks, come back and its still two days later, or you could miss two weeks and miss almost an entire storyline, and in the case of Llanview I missed entire storylines. I thought the casting directors made a few mistakes this year, some with letting talented actors like BethAnn Bonner go via that serial killer bit at the beginning of the year, and adding certain people to the fold on a constant basis like the entire Ford family, all of whom I feel are irrelevant and take the focus away from other stories with better material. I'm sure these guys are good actors, but I'm just not invested in any of them as individuals or as a family. A year and a half ago none of them were around and now they are here, hogging up time on my screen that I would much rather see devoted to the underutilized characters in the cast, like Marty or even Roxy, who I find to be a hoot and a half.
Speaking of Marty, that was one of the big reasons why I ultimately decided to leave Llanview alone. I love Susan Haskell's work as Marty even though when she began her tenure I wasn't a viewer. The Marty I was familiar with before Haskell's return was Christina Chambers, and I purposely didn't pull up any of the originator's work because I wanted to just enjoy the plot and not compare. When Chambers was let go, I was sad but I was excited when I heard the originator of the role was returning to the show. I dunno, maybe its me being a cheesy soap fan and a huge fan of consistency (just look at how I found all 3 ABC soaps, that should be a hint lol), I am always excited when an originator returns to their place on a soap, whether or not I was a viewer when they were around the first time. I'm not a huge fan of recasts because so many of them fail horribly, but sometimes they hit it out of the park and I don't mind. However, if the originator decides to return, I usually don't complain. In any case, I was thrilled when Susan Haskell returned to the show, as I was interested to see what Marty's backstory was. However, that thrill was dimmed and then put out when they allowed her to shack up with the person who was the catalyst for her angst, then promptly used her less and less. Susan Haskell is an excellent actress and I love the dramatic scenes that the show had her in. It really allowed her to shine, so I was extremely disappointed when she was handed less material. It's like unless the story is concerning Todd, John or her rape, the writers aren't sure what to do with Marty. And that's a shame to watch.
It baffled me that characters with backstory and history like Marty were underutilized, yet everytime I tuned in, one of those damn Ford boys was on my screen. I enjoyed Rob--is that his name? when he was the hot producer of David's "show" and provided temporary distractions for Langston, but I definitely did not like when the show broke up Lang and Markko in favor of turning Lang into a familiar soap mold, the cheatin' mold. Really really hated that angle. Lang has always been the sense of reason, the logic that a sometimes ignorant Starr needed. All of a sudden she's cheating on her long term bf with some hot idiot that doesn't really pay her any mind except for between the sheets and she's reasoning and making excuses for him? Nah...really doesn't fly with me. That whole bit with Jessica really pissed me off and ever since then he and his brothers haven't done anything for me but irritate the weeds out of me. With them bringing the parental units in the picture and having them participate with major characters on show, I am seeing now that the Fords may be around awhile longer. Which, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, is a shame to watch.
After all the hulabaloo surrounding Starr's teen pregnancy, I expected her and Cole to have more issues as they adjusted, which I think is vital for any couple who decides to move in together. Having a child come out of said relationship should have made the storyline more complex. How would they deal with being in the same house? How would they deal together with the issue of sex since one go around the park resulted in Hope? The writers had a real opportunity to show us some reality, to let us see a mature teen couple accept their responsibility to each other as well as their daughter and let us watch them grow together. Personally though, I think the writers dropped the ball there in a big way. Instead, the writers let them get boring. I know alot of people weren't too fond of Brandon Buddy's Cole, especially since he was the typical jock when he first hit the screen, but in the years he was part of the cast I gotta say, for starting out as a dickhead he did make some significant changes. Most jocks I knew in school were and still are insufferable jerks who think the world revolves around them and their daily dose of "Look what I did today, look at what I have, I'm better than you" all over their FB walls. I hardly think Cole is still an insufferable pain to watch. Granted, I did not like when OLTL became a segue for the Starr and Cole Show, but as long as there was some balance and enough plot to keep me interested, I was fine. But they got boring, grew apart, and then.....a Ford boy became involved, opening the door for Brandon Buddy to take his leave from the show. Le sigh. They're becoming a recurring theme in this blog, aren't they now?
Again, I could keep going, but I think I've said enough. In short, the show began to irritate me with the things it put in the storylines and the ways that they altered current and some past storylines. That entire storyline about Rex's parents annoyed the hell out of me and by the time I found out a returning Echo DiSavoy was his mother, I couldn't have cared less. I was really excited hearing that the show picked up Kim Zimmer after GL ended; she was one of my all-time favorite actresses. However, by the time that her scenes finally began to air, I couldn't even enjoy them because I was so done with the show. Underused characters should be having more air time and new faces with no history or connection with Llanview shouldn't be taking that time away from them. One Life became a sea of new faces to me, with old and familiar ones either doing things too stupid for me to believe, being too boring for me to care what they were doing, or not being around at all.
With that said, I'm going to continue my bus ride out of Llanview. I may come back to visit, may even stay a couple of days, but I no longer have residency there. lol I would love to tune in and see more of the soap that I came to love over the past four years, but until that happens, I have to say so long, Llanview.
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