And then there was Downton. The pain of watching Anna push Bates away, of Lady Mary trying to move on without Mathew, Tom trying to fit in 'upstairs', Mrs. Patmore chasing Daisy with a wooden spoon........wars, forbidden relationships, money struggles, tragic deaths......the writing, the costumes, the dialogue.......feels like we're coming full-circle.......again! But wait...
(updated 5/31/13)
I was flipping through a recent issue of Us Weekly the other day and read with a heavy heart about the passing of Jeanne Cooper, the Grande Dame who played matriarch Katherine Chancellor on Young & Restless for 40 glorious years. On the brink of tears (and, yes, sitting in the potty, the only place I have 2 minutes to read anything in peace!) I was suddenly just completely overcome by this news. Yes, she was old. Yes, she had been on and off the show for health reasons for years. Yes, it was to be expected. But was it allowed?! *sigh*
I haven't watched Y&R for several years now, but I still always hoped to get addicted again, or to at least find the time to sit and catch up every now and then. And with that hope, there was always an expectation that my beloved characters would still be there when I returned! I mean, they live in a box for Pete's sake! They are there every. single. day. with the same wardrobe, hairstyles, and plotlines! And the powers-that-be are right there driving the belief that these people are immortal, after all, they do not age! Whether from surgery, good lighting, or from having a child that goes from a newborn to a preschooler, to a troubled teen, to a college grad, to a boardroom exec in the span of 10 years or less we are meant to believe these people are permanent fixtures in our lives. And yet......
I will never forget Mrs. Chancellor. I loved her storylines, her grand speeches, her pulling lost souls together. I can still see her throwing open those double doors in Chancellor Manor, the home she shared with her beloved Philip, and storming in the room in those flowing gowns, waving her finger around with that big 'ol turquoise ring on it, screaming for Esther to come in and dry her off after Jill has thrown another drink in her face fighting over whom Philip loved more, or who was the worse alcoholic, or the worse mother. Face lifts, dead husbands, alter (and several trips to the altar!) egos, corporate takeovers, alcoholism, black market adoptions, I loved every damn minute of it......Farewell Duchess.
And, as I tried to explain to my husband why the impact of Jeanne Cooper's passing hit me so hard (pointless, I know), I felt the timeliness of this post I wrote last year. I hope it brings back some memories and some comfort for some of you who may perhaps be going through some of the same emotions. ♥
(original post written 1/13/12)
The end of daytime dramas...
Oh, boy. This is a rough week to be a soap fan! For those of you not in the know, ABC has decided to (tragically, I might add) cancel One Life To Live after being on the air and in our living rooms for more than 43 years. Yes, the fact that a major network has decided to cancel a long-running and beloved television series (even a soap) is in itself hardly blogworthy. Shows have been cancelled for as long as the boob tube has been around, and I would argue that some still need to be cancelled! Have you seen some of the crap that's on T.V. these days?! Oye. But that's another rant blog post entirely. What makes this cancellation particularly notable, not only to me, but to millions of loyal viewers, is what the end of this show will mean.
As we prepare to say goodbye to the fine denizens (I always wanted to use that word in written form) of Llanview, Pennsylvania, I am suddenly feeling very nostalgic and very aware of exactly what this show has meant to me and the impact it has made on my life. I have only peeked at the show the past two weeks and was stopped cold when I saw Clint clutch his chest as he lay down next to Vikki as she lay bleeding from a gun shot. My eyes welled with tears. I could not breathe. I am teary now just thinking of it. What in the world was going on? Not only were the powers-that-be flushing the show down the crapper but they were going to crucify all of the beloved characters, sabotaging all of Agnes Nixon's history, one by one? Could they not just let everyone gather around the Christmas tree one last time and play a montage of flashbacks with a sappy song sung by the glorious Kassie DePaiva and fade to black? Ugh.
The weak and the strong,
The rich and the poor,
In sickness and in health,
In joy and sorrow,
In tragedy and triumph,
You are All My Children....
I can remember cutting my first soap opera tooth as young as 3 maybe 4 years old. I spent summers with my grandparents in a very small rural town. A town so small that it was totally safe and normal to send your preschool-aged grandchildren to go play "downtown" or down in the 'crick' by themselves until supper time. But summers with my grandma were sacred and I really enjoyed my time with her (and gramps!). Well, my grandma was a Swedish farm girl. This lady would wake up long before the crack of "Oh my God the rooster ain't even up yet!" to start a load of wash and cook breakfast. Yes, imagine being 3 and eating a full breakfast at 5:30 a.m. every morning! But we did because we loved her and we wanted to eat! We knew the next meal was going to be a ways away, and if we couldn't bum a freebie from the bakery on Main street, we were gonna be starved! So, with breakfast and The Price Is Right over, my grandma would switch the T.V. over to ABC and she would settle down for All My Children (another long-running ABC daytime drama that was axed this past fall). But before the show would start, she would gather up grandchildren and make this announcement, repeatedly: "If you're hungry, you must eat NOW. If you want lunch, I will make it for you NOW. Are you hungry, NOW? Because I will not make it for you while my show is on." And we would have to hurry and think, "Am I hungry? Was the nice lady working at the bakery today? Are there crackers somewhere? Lint-covered Tic Tacs in pockets?" AHHH! "No, grandma, I'm not hungry NOW." Stomach already starting to grumble and regretting my knee-jerk response. But the show was on. We had to wait. And wait we did. Because grandma watched the hour-long drama and as soon as that was over she would hop up and turn the dial on the antenna's receiver (yes, turn the dial) and we would listen to the click....click......click.....and magically, the San Francisco ABC station would appear and she'd watch the next day's episode! So, either out of boredom or starvation, my love for All My Children was born. Yes, at 3 years old.
My beautiful mother was also a huge soap fan. I was, in fact, named after a soap actress that would later star on The Young and the Restless. My brother was born when All My Children first hit the airwaves and, the first episode of Y&R, three years later, was broadcast the day after my birth. Not much else for a SAHM to do in the 1970's. I even remember wondering at a very young age if my mom didn't want more for herself than to stay at home on the couch and watch soaps all day. I was very young.
And so my life with soaps began. First, as something to do over the summer breaks (no job and no car!) and then I would head home after school, run to the bathroom (NEVER used the public potty in H.S.!), grab a salami sandwich (NEVER ate lunch in H.S.!), and search for that remote and start rewinding that VHS tape! Days of Our Lives, Santa Barbara, General Hospital, All My Children, and One Life To Live. I'm not really sure where or how this passion came into play in my real life. I cannot ever remember hanging out by the lockers and discussing what Julie Chandler wore (and we all had those high-top Reeboks with the double Velcro straps and the colored soles after that episode!) or wondering if Max and Gabrielle would ever escape Eterna with that nutty Ursula who would go on to become nutty Opal! I don't know other than to say that these characters were my friends. Not to say that I didn't have friends, but these were the friends I wanted to be hanging out with. Their lives were slightly more messed up than mine, they looked good, and they somehow always had Christmas no matter how screwed up the families were. I liked that. I needed that. I needed to feel that there would always be a Christmas. With flashbacks. And montages. And voice overs.
My mom died early on February 26th, 2005. I can remember somewhat clearly that my love for the shows died about that time also. Edmond was killed around the same time. Maria was beside herself. I remembered when Erica lost Mona (the sweet Frances Heflin) and Bianca was still a baby. And when Vikki lost Megan. It was just too much. I had no one to talk to about this and I was busy at University and starting my career and my life over without my mom in it. I didn't, no, I couldn't, carry her memory and the memories I had of those shows together. And I remember thinking back to when my mom's mom died in 1993, how she also stopped watching the ABC soaps and turned to the telenovelas that her mom loved. Soaps in our family meant something. Soaps in our family meant 'moms'. And we were running short on moms.
I had my son in 2008 and became a SAHM in 2009. The first, and I mean the very first day I was home with my 7-month old, my hand was on the remote so fast at 11 a.m. it made my head spin! I was home alone 4.5 days a week while my husband worked out of town. I had no familial support. I had no friends with small children. I was not on Facebook. I was not blogging. I was not part of a mom's group. And I was drowning. I needed my mom. Desperately. I headed straight for the next best thing: Katherine Chancellor and Vikki Buchanan. YES. I could do this. Things were not going to be so bad. Llanview looked the same as it did all those years ago: The decor at Landfair, Dorian, Angel's Square, Marty Saybrook, Fraternity Row, Megan, Joey, Todd, Nigel, pictures of Asa, ugh, we lost Asa too? I. Was. HOME. Yes, there was a new Jessica/Bessica/Tessica and I had to figure out the whole Mitch Lawrence deal but it felt real and it felt safe and it felt normal! And they used BIG ADULT WORDS! My God the WORDS! There were plots and schemes and dialogue and things to THINK about! My brain would not be turned to mush like the bananas I was feeding my son. I had something to hold onto when my husband left on Sundays. I had something to look forward to after a long sleepless night. I had something to do when my baby napped. And cue the choir singing "HALLELUJAH" I could lay on the couch and eat my bon-bons! Well, I could crash on the floor in my pajamas at 1 p.m. and try not to think of the million things that needed to be done by myself with an infant before my husband came home on Fridays or before the baby woke up. And time to think about how my mom tackled everything as a SAHM in the 70's with two kids running around and still had time to watch soaps! My Lord in heaven, how did she do it all?!
And so it has come full circle. I have watched my sweet little boy dance around as the OLTL theme played in the background. And I have struggled to get him lunch before 1 p.m. every afternoon because mama's show was coming on. And I have cherished the early mornings (when I didn't get him fed by 1 p.m.) when I would steal away downstairs and sit down and watch episodes on my husband's laptop and clip coupons and sip hot coffee slowly. Alone. In peace. Soaps saved my life and I don't mean that in a figurative or dramatic way. I simply mean they saved my life. Saved me from sulking and wearing black eye-liner and Dr. Martens in my teens, from losing touch with my mother and grandmother in those awkward rebellious years, from forgetting my past, from letting go of my mom, and from losing my sanity in my struggle with being a SAHM. (And it saddens me to no end to think that my future daughters or granddaughters will not have daytime soaps to save them.) Soaps, and more importantly, OLTL gave me reason to hope. Reason to hold on. Reason to believe. Because I only have......One Life to Live. Goodbye Llanview........
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I also blog daily over at The Krazy Coupon Mama where I share lots of great money-saving tips, lessons in couponing, freebies and product samples, printable coupons, giveaways, grocery store deals, and more!
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