“These Are the Days of Our Bold & the Beautiful” 
 

A few weeks ago, I watched 5 episodes of “The Bold and the Beautiful” in order to write a column reviewing the show.  Since I am currently not watching the soap love of my life, “General Hospital,” I thought watching a week’s worth of other daytime fare and then writing a column about it would be a good idea.  I still think it’s a good idea, but I’m starting to think I need to get away from soap operas in general for awhile, kind of clear the daytime palate. 

So, I watched a week of B&B (“The Bold and the Beautiful”) and started writing a column.  I really enjoyed watching that show and so my column went on and on about the storylines and the characters and how easy it was to fall right into the drama and history of everyone on the show even though I have never watched an episode before.  By about page 6 or 7, I realized I was boring myself, so I stopped writing.  While I pondered about a much briefer and more entertaining way to talk about B&B, I recorded a week’s worth of “Days of Our Lives.” 

Unlike B&B, I do have a history with DOOL (“Days of our Lives”).  I watched that show for about ten years, starting in the early 90’s and ending about 4 years ago.  I can’t remember what the storylines were exactly when I stopped watching 4 years ago, but I do recall that there was way too much of “the teens.”  The teens of DOOL were the same for me as the teens on any soap opera I’ve ever watched, even back when I was a teen myself.  That is to say that I didn’t mind them on the periphery of things, interacting with adults here and there, but I do not have any desire to watch the teens take over any soap opera I’m watching for months on end.  On DOOL, I liked Belle, Shawn, Chloe, Brady, Phillip, Mimi (etc), but I sure didn’t want to see them every damn day.  So one damn day, I stopped watching altogether and I’ve never been back, until now. 

So after the glorious common sense and easy flow of B&B, I tuned into my first taped episode of DOOL.  Who’s up right off, of course, but the adult Belle, Shawn, Phillip and Mimi.  It seems Shawn is now with Mimi and Belle is with Phillip and both females wanted to be pregnant and, for whatever reasons, can’t without help.  Mimi has a surrogate and Belle had to be implanted with her and Phillip’s fertilized egg, except…she was just finding out it had been “accidentally” fertilized by Shawn, so she is pregnant with Shawn’s baby instead of Phillip’s.  Then Mimi finds out her surrogate is carrying her egg that’s been “accidentally” fertilized by Phillip.  All of this is explained in about 30 seconds and, I couldn’t help it, I thought it was funny as hell. 

I cringed, laughed, rolled my eyes and thought, “Wow, that’s really stupid.”  Then in a scene or two later, there was Billy Warlock (formerly known in my world as “A.J. Quartermaine”) and he looked mighty fine.  What a sight for sore eyes he was!  His face, his voice, his beautiful head of hair, the whole package only served to prove what dumbasses ABC daytime are for ever letting this man go. 

I was disappointed to see the wimpy, simpering Carrie and Austin had returned.  I was also disappointed to see that Sami is now being made up to look like some middle-aged, swinging housewife from the early 1970’s.  I’m not sure how to explain it, but she’s overly bleached, overly made up and was wearing some weird, polyester/satin/rayon, disco, lounge wear, pantsuit slit down to her naval.  It was just plain weird. 

To make a possibly long and boring column short and at least slightly less boring, I have watched one of five taped episodes of DOOL and, quite frankly, I don’t know if I can bring myself to watch the other four shows.  Everything I saw was disappointing, stupid, been-there-done-that-a-million-times or some combination of all of those things.  Hope is pregnant with some guy’s baby and Bo is pissed and I don’t care.  Jack is near death and I don’t care.  The obnoxious, stupid teens are now obnoxious, stupid, overly made up adults.  The only good thing about the whole episode was Billy Warlock.  If only I’d had a spoon, I’d have eaten him right up. 

This dilemma of whether I should watch the other four shows really sucks because I was hoping to catch a glimpse of Patch and Kayla since I’d heard they’d returned.  I guess I could always fast forward and see if they pop up somewhere. 

In a nutshell, B&B actually looks like a good show and DOOL still sucks ass and seems to be stuck in a storytelling rut, much like GH has been for the past 5 years.  I’m thinking about taping more of B&B and becoming a regular viewer of that show, but I don’t want to jump into anything too quickly. 

It’s like if GH was my long-term boyfriend that I broke up with a few months ago, then I go on my first date with B&B and everything clicks and seems perfect right away, but that kind of freaks me out, so I go out with an old flame, DOOL, and I’m reminded why DOOL is an ex.  I don’t want to start watching B&B on the rebound or otherwise rush into any commitments, because maybe this is “the one?”  But what if I fall for B&B and find out my egg has been “accidentally” fertilized by GH and now I’ll be connected to GH forever and ever? 

Okay, the boyfriend metaphor doesn’t quite carry through, but it’ll have to do. 

I don’t know what show I’ll pick next to review.  Maybe a cooking show?  That is, as long as “fertilized egg” isn’t on the menu. 

;-)