GH was great both Thursday and Friday of last week. This soap is not on my regular rotation but I decided to pick it up knowing Brown was leaving the show soon and wanted to see how they'd send her off. The first ten minutes of Friday's episode was just outstanding. Everyone brought their A-game and delivered. Even my straight roommate (who doesn't care for soaps) couldn't believe Claudia took a woman in labor as her hostage. This how you get your audience hooked! This is how you expose a psycho for who they really are. Let's hope MAB has a similar trick up her sleeve when it comes to Adam.

Oh, and that brawl between Lo Cicero and Brown, haha.. classic! You don't see too many catfights on soaps these days.

Well I find GH watchable in terms of the dialogue and the characters and actors I like seeing. And yay for for you finally putting Lexi Ainsworth on that list of yng. actors!

Hey - Kristian Alfonso is a Daytime Emmy nominated actor in her own right. Granted it was years ago, but she was still nominated.

And The Young and the Restless is still the best soap on the air. It's paced and well acted. While not everything works, it's a well-crafted show.

Y&R is a total plot driven disaster. All the talented actors are sidelines. It's a mess. GH is great and has been since those kids were SORASed. The canvas is more balanced and Sonny is no longer at the center of things. If the mob is going to be so important, at least good actors and interesting characters are in place now.

i like that they are showing the repercussions of violence and not giving such a one sided view on things. Kristina realizing why Alexis wanted her away from Sonny was something I never thought I'd see on GH. They're actually acknowledging that he and Jason are criminals and the cops are finally gaining some traction in Port Charles.

IMO, GH is my favorite soap. ATWT is much improved, but has problems still. I was especially ****ed when Bonnie was written off. She and Dusty were such a hot couple and he hasn't had a good love interest since Jennifer died. I guess Telenext is afraid to feature black people because people might boycott the show...nah, they're just racists. Like the rest of the daytime community. The lack of diversity on all fronts is shameful.

The clip you posted from GH seems like a rip off of Beverlee Mckinsey's scene on GL as Alexandra the great apologizing to the entire town for marrying Roger, slamming him in public and then dumping him. Benard was overacting here. Brown here looks like she could be playing Sheila pretending to be Sandy on B&B. I gotta say this GH scene was funny, especially since she's in labor. Carly saying "I'm in labor, you idiot!" must land on Joel MCHale's Talk Soup!

That was a nice picture of Kish kissing. Scott Evans and the brunette make a cute couple. Scott Evans is cute. He must have had a 3way since he's from Boston (Talk soup reference) LOL!

Nelson, your slam on Y&R was kinda harsh, and this is the kind of harshness you need to do to B&B! You slammed Heather Tom before by saying Brandon Beemer's a better "actor" than her, LOL, but now you're mcloving Bill/Katie. I guess you won't ever slam Beemer's awful acting because you think he's sexy and I guess his anti-prop8 pictures make you favor him for his personal choices. But you do dislike Woods, so please write about how awful her acting is since Brad Bell seems to be in love now with Steffy!

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Can I just say how nice it is that there are actually like four soaps now that people are excited about watching? Maybe this can be the new status quo. It seems like forever ago when people would actually largely disagree on what the best soap was because most of them were really good.

Yawn @ Sonny calling out Claudia when he and Jason have been killing folks for years. And GH plans to have Michael follow in Sonny's footsteps and ask to be apart of the mob. The way this show has treated AJ as an afterthought has been reprehensible and that is just one reason I'll never be a regular viewer again.

GH was good on Friday but MB was a little much at parts. The moments where Claudia took Carly were great - acting, editing, pacing - GH hasn't done anything that well in a while.

Nelson - your slam on Y&R was not merited. It's not great and has problems but compared to B&B, AMC, ATWT its leaps and bounds ahead in terms of quality. In terms of competing with itself - the past month has been more balanced than it has been in months.

I'm glad you finally called Y&R out on the piece of crap it's become. The show is lethally dull, plot driven, and totally uninspired. The sad thing is they started off 2009 pretty strong, and it all collapsed pretty fast. The show needed to be called out for the state it's in and I'm glad Nelson did it.

It's time for Y&R to get some better writers and producers. I'm convinced those running it now have no idea what the hell they're doing.

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They don't know what they're doing. That's why I quit watching it two weeks ago and deleted it from my DVR. And you know what? It's been easier than I thought it would be to give it up after 25 years. Guess that speaks to how abysmal the show had become, huh?

Anyone got any suggestions on which soap I could pick up to replace Y&R? I think I'll give One Life to Live a try since they at least seem to be trying to go a gay storyline correctly.

YoungRestlessOne, was Y&R the only soap you were watching? The personality of OLTL as a show is so different from that of Y&R. GH or DAYS might be more similar. But OLTL is certainly good at the moment, so it's a solid choice. And, like Nelson, DAYS is at the top of my must watch list, too.

There are 3 bona fide good soaps on right now: OLTL, DOOL and GH with an honorable mention for ATWT. IMO, what separates the good from the bad is the basics. The good ones can tell a story and feature sympathetic heroes. If you don’t care about Sami getting her baby back then what’s the point? If you don’t feel bad for Fish struggling to come out than where’s your investment?

I never thought I would see GH as good again, but I have to agree with Nelson. IMO, JJ’s return coupled with the hateful Claudia’s exit has breathed new life into the show. All of a sudden there is an emotional weight to the Liz/Nick affair. We care now about Lucky’s pain because we know JJ will make us feel it. No offense to the lovely GV who did the best he could but he didn’t have the skills to turn a hack writer into a good writer. JJ and Vanessa Marcil do that for Guza. Now if only they could get VM back!

ATWT’s writing is very problematic but the actors on ATWT are STARS! Michael Park, TC, TD and the gang are all wonderful and doing some great stuff. It’s not exactly a good show but it sure is getting better.

As for the bad shows, it’s all relative. Each bad soap is bad in its own way. AMC is a hot mess because Pratt can’t write. He probably can’t read either so we can feel free to trash him as much as we like. The AMC actors seem to be doing the best they can to keep the show coherent. B&B is just a satire of itself. It seems only to exist with the intent of getting a shoutout on E!Network for some piece of inanity or other.

Since Y&R used to the fine wine of soaps, its descent into awful is the most painful. Killing off Colleen, the Abbott ingénue? Even if TS isn’t that great, this is a character viewers invested in over many years. Colleen & JT were a huge teen couple with a fanbase ready to come back if TIIC could ever find the right Colleen. Instead, she’s killed off while non-legacy characters like Amber eat the show? WTF?! Would OLTL kill off Jessica or Natalie or Starr? And what’s with screwing up Mary PattyCake Jane so much that we need a twin just so SH can keep her job? How lame can you be? The Adam recast continues to be a total disaster – MM is not only embarrassing himself, he is ruining Ashley & Sharon’s characters with his one-note obvious creepazoid. How can we empathize with Ashley and now Sharon when they are too stupid to realize that Adam is a psycho? There no stakes in this story, especially when compared to the masterful baby switch on DAYS. Arianne Zucker played fake good friend to Sami & Mia and loyal wife to EJ very well. Because AZ’s Nicole was so good at seeming like a normal woman instead of the deranged baby-stealing psycho that she was, it allowed the viewers to excuse Sami, Mia and EJ for being blinded by her and allowed us to empathize with them. Y&R makes it impossible to empathize with their characters. Even Mac was ruined when TIIC turned into a whore that sleeps with married men. That’s the kind of thing that vixens like Nikki do with relish or the kind of thing conflicted heroines like Ashley do with guilt. It’s not the act of a classic romantic heroine! If all of your characters are stupid skanks, what’s the point? LML is a better writer than MAB. Period.

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The reliquary mess, killing John, firing Eileen . . . horrible things . . . but I still don't know why we all and EVERYONE seems to hate LML with everything they have. a few bad mistakes and we're all quick to write the whole show off. an unbalanced and 'dark' summer and a few characters we hate and suddenly the whole show is awful. does the glass have to always be shattered to pieces instead of half-full?

LML made many mistakes. She killed John because she didn't value age and wanted to make Jack the new patriach. Big mistake. Yet LML's mistakes were of a very different nature than MAB's. LML's problem was one of favoring the "newer" characters at the expense of Victor and Jill. She she favored the Fisher-Baldwins more than the Newmans. At least though she made the Fishers interesting and sympathetic. Lauren and Michael were very romantic. Also, Nick & Phyllis were fun to watch. Compare that to MAB's idea of "romance" where Sharon bangs 3 guys in 24 hours and Nick ping pongs from Phyllis to Sharon every five minutes. I could care less if Y&R goes with Phick but if we're going to have them, why can't they be sexy & fun like they were under LML? Now they are tedious and totally unlikable.

Nel, i all but given up on Y&R, these days. I am thru this show in 14 minutes zipping thru commercials and wasted airspace.

I have been taping OLTL the last few weeks...and i absoultely LOVE Fish and Kyle. The gay "weddings" on the eve of Dorians's Mayoral race were a hoot. Though Scott Evans could use some acting lessons (he always has a constipated look on his face)......and yes, i will bite my tongue on that...LOL....i do love Brett Claywell as Kyle. What a hottie!!!

As for B&B......all i have to say to Brad Bell is "HOLD ONTO THAT EMMY" Braddy.......it will be the only one you will ever get.

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Kish really is special. I am excited about a Stacey story for once since you just know that Fish is going to want to raise that baby once he realizes the truth. Scott Evans may not be an acting great but he is adorable and sympathetic. Since Fish is written as a rational nice guy, we don't need any dramatic heavy lifting from his portrayer. Conversely, that's why Stacey isn't working. Making a witch like Stacey human is beyond CH's paygrade. Too bad Amanda Setton wasn't cast as Stacey -- AS really knows how to make a bad girl someone to root for.

ad-girl, what a great summary of the current shows and what's working. I guess a lot of the view on Y&R depends on how you feel about Michael Muhney. I like him, though I certainly agree that he's not making the character seem like not a psycho.

I do love Fish/Kyle, and I love Scott Evans. His acting hasn't blown me away really, but he is SO adorable and endearing, I can't help but love Fish. That kind of charm is important to being an actor. It'll be interesting to see how the Stacy drama plays out. I feel like things could get a little dumb if Fish wants to marry Stacy or something like that. I guess we'll see. But the show has wised up and really started underplaying Stacy, which is great. The "adventure" feel of the Jessica/Natalie/Brody/Jared/Rex/etc. stuff worries me a little, as that's definitely not this show's forte. Hopefully, it'll be fine.

There is too much emphasis on big acting on soaps and not enough emphasis on the right acting for the role and story. Scott Evans is well cast and playing Fish correctly. He needs to be endearing if we are to believe that Kyle can still love him after all the hurt and if we are to understand why Layla can forgive him so quickly. If Fish was not so lovely it would make Kyle, Layla and Cris look stupid or masochistic.

I appreciate that you can see my point about why MM is such a poor Adam recast. Just because
an actor can ham it up that doesn't mean he is serving the greater story. Too many people confuse drawing attention to yourself with tics with real acting. I blame MAB for this though. She does not understand how to tell a story and does not understand the importance of casting.

Sarah Brown sure as hell gave a five-star performance on her way out the door, didn't she? Wow! She was great. On the other hand, I got nothing out of Maurice Benard's performances. Same old, same old. Scream, wave arms, mumble, scream, wave arms, mumble.

I like the different beat of having Kristina understand why Alexis has wanted to keep Sonny away from her. I also liked how Robin seemed to turn on Sonny after the Claudia incident as well. I'm all for anything that doesn't paint Sonny as some tragic hero.