Articles and Interviews: 2000-2003

Editor's Choice: Digest Salutes the Best in Daytime (Soap Opera Digest 1/8/02)

Wed Again, Dead Again

When you're hot, you're hot. And OLTL so sizzled recently that Digest couldn't decide what deserved "Editors' Choice": Todd and Blair's long-delayed, elegant, familiar-face-studded nuptials, or Asa and Alex's behind-closed-doors near-misses down on St. Blaze's Island.

So, we picked both.

Weddings and faked deaths are soap staples, and for good reason. They come with a big payoff and realignment of characters' positions on the canvas, and writers can play endless variations on their themes. OLTL decided to send both off the scale -- the will they/won't they of Blair and Todd's vows (each waited for the other to say, "I do" and finally said it together rather than risk losing face in case one said, again, "I don't"), and the will she/won't she of Alex's discovery of a very-much-alive Asa -- and created a nail-biting tension. Of course, Blair and Todd would tie the knot this time, and of course, Alex would find Asa, but with clever writing and acting that paid close attention to detail, the drawn-out discoveries were delicious.

And we haven't mentioned the pathos of the situations yet. Blair lost -- or thought she lost -- her child just a few weeks earlier. When she heard a baby cry and went searching for it upstairs in Dorian's mansion, still bedecked in her wedding gown, she seemed like a princess lost in a castle, searching for a way out. On St. Blaze's, Alex's grief held a bit more levity (a true gold digger's usually does), and watching her caress the urn of Asa's ashes as if it were the man himself was both touching...and ooky.

The stories would only have been half as enjoyable without the richness of the supporting cast, several of whom were imported for the occasion. Bringing back as many Cramers as possible for pre-ceremony meddling (Pamela-Payton Wright's addled Addie, Laura Koffman's radiant Cassie, recently departed Gina Tognoni's Kelly) provided an ideal opportunity to address several dangling issues, like why Dorian was absent and how Cassie felt about Kelly's involvement with her ex, Kevin (she gave Kelly the A-okay on that). Starr's taunting of interloper Gabrielle with a big nyah-nyah ("you're not invited") further proved that Kristen Alderson is perfectly cast as daytime's best brat.

Meanwhile, away on the island, Nigel's improvisation to keep Alex away from Asa (in that plummy English accent Peter Bartlett wields so seriously) was downright hilarious. Describing his new employer, "Jeb Stuart" (Asa's pseudonym), as a "gay, happily married, bankrupt troll" to put off Alex, Nigel proved that there's just not enough money in Asa's bank account to pay him what he's worth. (Or in ABC's to pay Bartlett, for that matter.)

Making accurate, clever use of such characters lends a real third dimension to the lives played out on-screen. Here, they weren't just for background color: Each had a crucial contribution to make to the story's progression, and it was hard to imagine that the wedding could have gone on, or that Asa could have kept his secret for as long as he did, without their assistance. In the talented hands of cast, crew, and writers and producers, OLTL dished out a heaping plateful of soap staples -- and left viewers feeling satisfied, indeed.