Fate, It Was Meant To Be! Or Was It?
By P.A.F.
It seemed like a good idea in writing. A soap opera takes on
twelve-week story arcs where some characters would take
center stage and "all will be resolved" in this length of
time. This is what the new writers of the floundering
serial Port Charles proposed to do, and we, its fans, waited
with anticipation to see what they would come up with. What
we got was something that, in my opinion, could only be
described as disappointing and an extreme let down.
Suddenly, characters we had grown to care about were acting
like their bodies had been taken over by aliens from another
planet-- they weren't acting like themselves.
For
example, Kevin Collins, over the years had been
established as an individual who, despite personal turmoil
which drove him temporarily over the edge, always tried to do the right
thing and remain true to those he cared about. Yet, just
days after his then-beloved wife Eve had supposedly perished in a car explosion, Kevin is making love to Lucy on the floor
of the lighthouse. Now, I'm all too aware that there are
fans out there who have wanted a Kevin and Lucy reunion for
quite some time now, but did it require an assassination of
both these characters and their integrity to do it?! Not
only did Kevin act like he mourned Eve one minute and then
moved on the next, but then Lucy went so far as to change the
DNA test that was proof that Eve was still alive, so that
Kevin would go on believing that she died. Lucy Coe has
been guilty of a lot of things over the years, but this was
carrying her manipulations too far. I think the thing that
really got me was when Kevin forgave her so quickly when he
found out about this. What? Is this the same man who left
her at the altar a few years ago because he found out about
the part she played in Serena's accident? Now he's all
forgiving and telling her never to change. If she doesn't
change, how will he ever be able to trust her?
If the fact
that our old favorites weren't acting like themselves wasn't
enough to have us wondering why we would bother to watch, we
then have new characters who come out of nowhere taking over
the program. Case in point, Arianna. From the moment she
hit town (or should I say, she hit Eve head on with her car),
Arianna has taken center stage on Port Charles. Why is this,
when beloved characters like Chris, Karen, Alison and Jamal
hardly have any story to speak of? The writers might try to justify this by
saying that Arianna's story was one that needed to be told in
daytime. A young woman from a foreign country who had been
raped and dishonored in her family's eyes, now on the run to
stay alive. Well, I, for one, could have done without the story,
and this character, for that matter. It's obvious that the main
reason for her being on the soap is to act as an obstacle between Eve and Ian.
But these two already had obstacles, such as the fact that Eve is still married to another man.
And then there are lots of things that could still be explored
regarding Ian's past.
The new format might have seemed
like a good idea, but now its starting to become apparent
that maybe it wasn't. There's something to be said for time
and character development. Perhaps if the writers had
slowly brought Kevin and Lucy back together, it would have worked more effectively. Maybe if Arianna had been slowly
worked into the canvas, I might actually care about her.
True, no one wants to watch a soap opera that drags a story
out, but at the same time, we want a soap that still makes
some sense and is true to its own history.
Page updated 6/3/10
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