Curiously Good

I have to admit that the soap One Life to Live has turned into "must see TV" over the past few weeks.

[Spoiler Alert: If you're not up-to-date on your stories, do not read any further!]

What with the show celebrating it's 40th anniversary with a trio of bizarre storylines revisiting their best stories from years past (time travel, a visit to Heaven and a Lord going over a waterfall) and folding it all into and building right into the story of Tess locking up her sister Natalie in the basement (again, another nod to a story back in the 90s where Vicki did the same thing to Dorian) and amnesiac/back from the dead Marty being held by Todd, her former rapist (the two of them have had a ying/yang relationship for over 15 years and they just keep going further and further into their extremely complicated relationship).


Even better, the other day Marty stumbled upon Todd's laptop and Googled (OK “Llannet”ed) her rape and read about the trial which she has no memory of... she also learned that she used to cry 'wolf' a lot in yet another nod to history – the infamous and groundbreaking Names Project flag and coming out story for one of the shows regulars – a teenage boy – years before Another World did it.


It was stunning to see the show use actual photos from the day.. you know, just like in real life. Plus, when she saw the pictures, she of course didn’t recognize Todd because (soap staple alert!) the actor who played Todd in those days quit the soap and they replaced him with another actor. Now most of the time the character simply looks different and no one notices but in this case they explained it away with the character getting plastic surgery.. which now of course works in their favor – Marty has seen the face of her rapist but she doesn’t know it’s the same guy who she’s falling in love with.. brilliant!


Oh the Marty/Todd “romance” story is squirmy to be sure but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.. in fact, I like that they’re taking their time and letting it build so that when it comes to a head (and oh, will it ever) it will be sensational daytime drama.


Speaking of Dorian she’s always been protective of her daughters, and now she’s protective of the next generation: she's got her hands full with her niece, the teenage (and very pregnant) Starr (Todd’s daughter by the way) and Starr’s best friend, Langston whose parents died last year leaving her an orphan – or so she thought until recently as well as Cole (did I mention that he’s the son of Marty who’s being kept hidden by Todd- who hasn’t by the way told her that she has a son across town who thinks she’s dead?) and Markko, Langston’s boyfriend who is finally getting a personality after months on the show…


Meanwhile on the other side of town Rex struggles to stay alive while Adrianna the bitch (much more interesting than Adrianna the nice cute surprise daughter) has returned barring Rex's true love (well, this year anyway) Gigi from seeing Rex in his comatose state.


If all of this is lost on you because you don't watch soaps.. it's OK. I was off the stuff for a good year and a half and it's because of the anniversary shows that I started to peak in again wondering what they were up to. And now, I'm hooked.


AMC is still a mess and GH is getting better (but God please get rid of the mobsters that ate Port Charles) but at least one of the three ABC shows is proving that it doesn't take a genius to honor and build on a soap opera's greatest strength: it's own history.