Tuesday, October 16, 2007

As The World Turns: Yay, they're boyfriends!

So happy! Luke and Noah are now boyfriends! Whoo! Though it was still a rather bumpy road towards the end. Here’s a synopsis for the past three episodes.

Dusty shows up again at the hospital and confronts Holden and again someone is trying to tell Holden that nobody knew Winston was a murderer right away. He also tells Holden not to take it out on Lily but him, so Holden decked him. Now I admit I’m really not the biggest Dusty fan you’ll find (though the writers have managed to make me appreciate him more as of late), but for Holden to punch him like that really wasn’t called for. I know that the Lily/Dusty/Holden trio has had an awkward history, but now is not the time for him to be thinking about the past. If it wasn’t for Dusty jumping whackjob Daddie in Luke’s room, Daddie would have succeeded in trying to kill Luke with that needle, and heaven knows Lily would have gotten hurt too. Look at the Colonel’s track record. If someone is trying to stop him at doing whatever, he’ll do whatever it takes to stop said person and keep his plan moving, no matter what happens to them. I’m not expecting Holden to hold Dusty’s hand so they can then break into a chorus of Kumbaya, but at the same time you’d think he’d be a bit grateful considering the circumstances. Though I am glad to hear that he doesn’t blame Lily for all of this.

Poor Noah. Poor, poor Noah. Seriously. He’s still reeling with what has just happened to him. And after stealing a bottle of alcohol at Fairwinds after talking to Dusty about Cheri, he finds Maddie. And Maddie tries to make him feel better. Okay, the two of them would never work as a couple for obvious reasons, but the other thing they have in common is that they do have psycho family members (i.e. her sister Eve, the slasher). Noah drunkenly kisses Maddie and is briefly back to that warped logic of dear ol’ Daddie’s about how he needs a woman to be a real man. Thankfully Maddie breaks the kiss and talks some sense back into him. She misses what they had, but at the same time knows it can’t work and knows that he wants Luke. But Noah still blames himself and thinks Luke wouldn’t want to be seen with him. During this time, we also meet Luke’s physical therapist, Bert. Luke really feels that without Noah, nothing can be done to make him feel better, and he’s losing his will to live. Bert wants to help Luke’s negative attitude, so he turns to his “secret weapon” - Lily. She calls Dusty obviously to get Noah. Thankfully after running into Dusty at Fairwinds before deciding that he wants to leave town, Noah finally decides to make it to the hospital to see Luke. Lily’s with Luke while he’s sleeping and Noah walks in with Dusty. Luke wakes up and sees Noah and asks to be alone with him. He asked Noah “what are you doing here?” and he freaks out for the first few seconds as a cue for him to leave. But Luke reassures him to stay. And they even hold hands! It was a really sweet moment.

Along comes Monday and we have more Luke/Noah scenes. And Noah even asks him “How can you look at me and not see the man who put you here?” Luke again reassures him that it‘s not his fault, and they are going to be boyfriends regardless of what’s happened. It may take time and it was even brought up that they may not be able to be intimate with each other for a long while. But that doesn’t matter, they are both willing and wanting to be together. They really do love each other. Yay! The resolution to everything was really nice and comforting, especially after all the chaos in the past week or so. And of course we have Holden giving Lily the third degree at Emma’s kitchen about getting Noah to come. By this point I was really just shouting expletives at my television set at Holden due to my frustration considering the fact that Noah actually did WANT to go, he just thought Luke wouldn’t care to see him and he really just needed a firm nudge. Lily didn’t act on her own. His arguments don’t even make sense. Does he even CARE that Noah could help out in the recovery of his son?! Exasperated sigh… why is this character being written like this?!

There are two things I really wish would be different about this storyline, and they’re are pretty much the same things I’ve addressed before previously.

For one, I really wish that Holden was being written better. I’ve said my reasoning in an older post.

Secondly, I still hate the idea of lack of character intersection. I wish that Lucinda would be in this storyline more. And while I was happy that she was on Friday, at the same time I was a bit disappointed that there have been no scenes with she and Luke in the hospital. She is one of the few character that really helps make him smile. Her, Faith, and Noah. And I could have really imagined some great potential with seeing her and Noah talking about things before he came out, and her encouraging him right along with Dusty and Maddie for him to high-tail it to the hospital to see Luke. And then we have friends Will and Gwen, as well as Brad and Jack were in the hospital the same time as Luke and didn’t visit him once. From research since I don’t remember a lot of the early years of this show with much detail, As The World Turns is supposed to be a family-heavy and friendly interactive show, and the powers that be had the perfect opportunity to have the characters intersect with each other more. I mean, Will Munson is supposed to be Luke’s friend, so the few scenes they’ve shared together since Luke came out to him don’t make much sense.

And again, as far as the show goes, I really wish the rest of the storylines were as engaging as Luke and Noah’s. The Carly one I thought was going pretty good despite the position of a certain character until recently. Maura West still rocks as far as acting goes, but I’ve noticed that this is one the biggest problems that head writer Jean Passanante has. There are few (and good Lord in heaven, I stress the word “few” VERY strongly) storylines that have had potential, but they are not executed properly. For example, J.J.’s kidnapping. And the problem I had with that is that eventually it just drug out way longer than it should have, with Jack, Carly, and J.J. going through obstacle after obstacle. Carly almost drowning in the quicksand (which really looked like a disgusting combination of oatmeal and dirty dishwater that hadn’t been changed in about three weeks) was the major nosedive as far as that went for me. It just got way out of control. I honestly wouldn’t have been shocked that just as soon as Carly and J.J. escaped from the quicksand if they had to get out Star Wars light sabers so they could fight off a giant lizard. Gladly soon after one more bit with the kidnapper, it was finally over. And there was one point early in Luke and Noah’s story where I was so furious I almost gave up entirely, reason being Noah sleeping with Maddie in Branson and the fact that they were on once in a blue moon. Luckily for the most part, their story has improved in quality and they kept me sticking around. Then you have the character assassination as well. Don’t get me started on Adam Munson.

Today I know I don’t need to watch the first half because Paul/Craig/Meg/Rosanna seem to be the head of the show. The storyline is such a snooze fest I don’t even care about what happens to any of them. And then there is more Carly/Jack/Katie stuff. What does that say? I mean, seriously, I really wish that I could be interested in the whole show. I truly do. When only one storyline out of the four or five that they have going is interesting and makes me want to come back for more, that is just sad. And it’s not just me. There are a number of fans who only care about Luke and Noah’s storyline. They are the highest rated storyline on the show right now. Thanks to them, the ratings are going up. Last year when I first started watching again when Luke came out, I was easily able to warm up to most of the other characters on the show that were new to me, and their stories. A little over a year later, it is drastically different. It just goes to show how the quality of the show for the most part has changed over a matter of time, and not for the better.

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