Bad Acting, Bad Writing and Poor Communication Practices

I have had more time off the past few months than I care for. I have filled that time with doing stuff around my house, working on my resume and watching TV. I had developed a routine for myself that included watching TV while I ate my lunch. Since I don’t have cable, my daytime television viewing is limited…VERY LIMITED. So, I decided to choose, albeit with not much thought, to watch a little of the soap opera, Days of Our Lives. I chose Days because it came on while I ate my lunch and it was a soap I used to follow when I was a teenager.

In the early ‘80s, (when I was a teen) the drama of the stories were so exciting (my grandma got me hooked on General Hospital when I was a toddler) and the people were SO Glamorous!!!! I wanted to look like them and be like them, which is further proof that teenagers don’t know squat! Now it’s over 20 years later and I find myself hooked again. Only this time it’s for different reasons.

This show makes me laugh!

I was watching the other day while I was weaving a seat for my dining room chair—yes, I really was weaving a seat—and messed up 3 rows because I was laughing so much. The first thing that I thought was funny was that all the characters were familiar to me and either they or their children were going through the same traumas that they had 20 years ago.

Here are some of the traumas:
-Infidelity
-Who’s the real father of the baby?
-I married a man I didn’t love so that my sister could have the man I love and she really loves my husband
-I thought he was dead and now he’s back, but I’m married to his arch-nemesis but carrying my "dead" husband's baby
-The DNA of my baby shows that a man I never slept with (I think) is the father
-There’s a stalker on the loose and he (or she) is targeting my entire family because we are more important than presidents or governors, kings or queens

One question: Most of the people on this show are doctors. You would think that at least a few of the women on the show would learn how to use contraceptives!

Then there is the bad acting. Now I’m not saying that these ladies and gentlemen are bad actors, but, for the most part they are put into situations where the acting can’t help but be bad. I actually saw a Soap Opera Eyebrow Raise the other day. The poor actor walked into a room and someone asked him what he was doing there and then there was a tight shot on his face, the eyebrow raise ( I may have heard a vibraphone in the background) and then cut to commercial.

Last but not least, the poor communication skills. It seems that all these people do is talk, talk, talk, but they never say anything to each other. All the drama hinges on misunderstandings and conniving and manipulating…Hell, any good British Farce gives you the same thing in less time and you get a legitimate laugh out of the experience.

What I found most astounding was the fact that I while was watching some of these conversations take place, i.e.: “I can’t tell him I love him and only married his brother because I don’t deserve to be happy even though I know he loves me too.” I was yelling at the television: “Your mother’s a psychiatrist for the gods' sake! Do you think you might have sought some counseling before marrying the wrong man…AGAIN??!!!”

Now who needs the counseling?