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As The World Turns Weekly Blog. Friday, July 03 2009

Thoughts on the week of June 29-July 3.

I don't like being negative because it makes me feel like a jerk, but sometime I find it hard to help it when it comes to this show at the moment. I'm used to convoluted plots, but it's not easy to do it and make it work. I think that's one of the problems that As The World Turns has had lately. There is a real disconnect between some of the stories they are telling them and the way that they try to tell them. All soaps go through this at different points, but the world of Oakdale seems particularly stricken lately. It's not that the stories they are telling are not traditional Daytime fodder, because they are. Returns from the dead, battling addictions, manipulative business dealings and fraud, long lost siblings and hints of incest have been the staples of the genre for the last thirty years. Perhaps that's the problem. Perhaps they are relying too much on where soaps have gone before. As the week went on, things got better, so I'll concentrate on that.

"I'm not Adam anymore, I'm Riley, so get used to it," was how Riley/Adam explained the new situation to his brother. Early in the week, it was finally revealed that Riley is Adam. He was disfigured and had radical plastic surgery. Maybe this is why, up until now, his face has registered so little emotion. Only a couple of people know so far and, considering the extremity of the situation, took it with extraordinary ease. It isn't the absurdity of this plot that bothers me, it's the execution. This plot has been a disaster for weeks, largely because it has been so superficial. It wasn't eased into, it wasn't given much psychological depth and it wasn't given any tension. Even Ellen Dolan's truly impressive performance hasn't been able to save it so far. But once the first hurdle was behind them and the riddle of Riley was revealed, I could sense that something changed (hopefully). Once the peak of the plot was behind them, things gelled a little more. The scenes between Riley and Casey finally didn't feel so forced and they actually seemed to have a relationship. I didn't care who Riley was, but now I am actually interested in what he will do.

"People keep telling me: Get in touch with your emotions. I finally do and I fall in love with my sister!" Hunter told Alison. The more successful story of the week ended up being the second most convoluted one - Emily's egg hunt. Her mother tested the eggs and found that they weren't hers. The whole plot quickly unraveled and Emily discovered that she is Hunter's biological mother. "The way Alison is my daughter, you're my son," she explained. Of course, it also means that all sorts of children could be floating around with her DNA. After last week's creepy scenes involving Larry and Emily in his hotel room, we were given more incest tinged stuff this week. After breaking up with a belligerent Casey, Alison nearly spent the night with Hunter. It didn't happen. When Larry heard about it, he asked her to move away with him to Chicago. She wasn't interested, but she had to admit that there was something between her and Hunter. Although Hunter's feelings for her haven't changed, he can't be with her, so what will happen? Will they resist and is this whole brother/sister thing just the red herring so often employed in such stories? It was all vintage melodrama, but with some black comedy and nicely nuanced moments as Larry's usual veneer fell away.

Less interesting was Meg dumping Dusty... for good this time, in yet another anticlimax. The only thing in her orbit that was interesting was having Paul sniffing around her again. I never thought I'd think that, but after seeing her with Damian and Dusty lately, it's almost refreshing to have him around. Paul framed the two rivals up to fight each other and left himself available for Meg to vent to.

The Carly and Craig saga continued to slowly move along. I think I'm starting to understand why this story is paced the way it is. The repetitions, the false starts and stops to the wedding plans, the accidents which lead nowhere, the denials that no one believes, the blatantly obvious which no one sees. For weeks on end it's been largely the same with small variation, layering it up as the whole thing starts to feel more restrictive. Pretty soon, it could be downright tedious and simply sad which is, to a degree, largely what dealing with a substance abuser is like.

But the real highlight of the week for me was the little scene where Craig went to see Margo. He informed her that he is marrying Carly. "I have to take a pill," she immediately responded. It was nice, it was charming.

Anyway, those were my thoughts about last week. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below and remember that this is all in fun.

- Matt Purvis