BUY PASSIONS SOAP OPERA FULL''It was full of upper-class snottiness, and then I became a ranting maniac and finally ended up giving my wife this romantic tongue kiss. ''I remember when I auditioned, I was given the strangest, most off-the-wall scene to do,'' recalled Ben Masters, who plays the wealthy, spineless, Scotch-and-soda-soaked schemer Julian Crane. Soaps are notorious for their arch approach, but the ''Passions'' cast chews the scenery and immediately goes back for a second helping. Which is the subversive genius of ''Passions.'' Instead of avoiding these conventions, it dives right in and does the backstroke in them. These elements are to the genre what corner fruit stands are to buddy-cop movies: easy targets just waiting for a direct hit. At any given hour of any given day, someone from one of these families is sleeping with one or more members of another. On the other side of the tracks are honest, hard-working, secretly libidinous families like the Bennetts, the Russells and, who could forget, the Lopez-Fitzgeralds. It unfolds in an old New England town called Harmony, where the Cranes are the villainous rich family with all the hidden secrets. On the surface, ''Passions'' sounds like an average soap. The idea is to give the audience something they can't get anywhere else, and you'll make some inroads.'' Everyone behind this show is very smart, because they're tackling it with a very clear sense of style and vision. BUY PASSIONS SOAP OPERA TV''There hasn't been this sort of buzz about a soap since the Luke and Laura days on 'General Hospital,' '' said Michael Logan, a soap opera columnist for TV Guide. References to it have been made on hit prime-time shows like ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and NBC's ''West Wing.'' A fictitious book written by the Tabitha character became a real book, ''Hidden Passions: Secrets From the Diary of Tabitha Lenox,'' and ended up on the New York Times best-seller list. ''Passions'' is already the highest-rated daytime drama with teenage girls, and it's second with women 18 to 34. Unlike those of most other daytime soaps, that audience is young. People want an escape, so we're like a trip to the 'Star Trek' holodeck. If you've given us an hour of your time, we want you to have fun. ''Some like to deal with major social issues, but we aren't that. ''Soap operas should be entertaining,'' said James Reilly, the creator of ''Passions,'' which made its debut on NBC in July 1999. Blue'' possibly be more entertaining than this? How can an hour of ''E.R.'' or ''N.Y.P.D. This closet is a portal to another world.'' Anyway, Kay confessed her bad deed to her friends at the urging of the blind priest, Father Lonigan, who warned the disbelieving teens: ''Do not be deceived. 2, Hecuba, in order to steal Charity's hunky boyfriend, Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald. She was sent to hell thanks to her scheming cousin, Kay, the one who sold her soul to witch No. Nothing, however, tops the dancing demons and burning flames inside the closet of Charity, the local good girl. (Tabitha is played by Juliet Mills, whose glee in portraying this villainess must surely be a reaction to the time she spent as a sickeningly sweet, spellcasting nanny 30 years ago on ''Nanny and the Professor.'') I can't get enough of moments like the ''Psycho'' parody, which culminated in the witch Tabitha and her living doll disguising themselves as a nun and a rabbi to elude an axe-wielding lesbian who chased them through an airport. But then a young angel who looked suspiciously like the second coming of Shirley Temple suddenly appeared. The other one had arrived in town recently and tricked the teenage girl's cousin into selling her mortal soul, which was liquid and fit into a tiny bottle that the second witch carried around like a necklace to taunt the soulless girl. Oh, and nearby stood a cackling witch and a boy doll, which the witch had turned into a little person.Īctually, there were two witches. No, that was the fact that this Hades was inside her bedroom closet. On the screen, I saw a teenage girl surrounded by the flames of hell and jitterbugging demons. Then, one afternoon at work, I wandered into the lunchroom and happened to glance at the television. There just didn't seem to be any fun in a genre that had been parodied to death yet never seemed to get the joke. In my lifetime, I've probably seen ''Beastmaster'' more times than I've seen all the Merchant-Ivory films put together.īut, with the exception of some bouts with unemployment after college, I'd never spent much time watching daytime soap operas. When nobody is looking, I will switch off NPR and sing along to the Backstreet Boys. BUY PASSIONS SOAP OPERA MACI AM the sort of person who has left fancy business dinners early because it was 99-cent Big Mac day.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |