HMS Daytime Continues to Sink

The Daytime Emmys are as big of a joke as daytime soaps themselves have become. The nominations were announced today and just confirm that this entire industry is content to run itself completely into the ground while maintaining the status quo.

Both Scott Evans and Brett Claywell were pre-nominated for their AMAZING work on One Life to Live (largely because new rules allowed them to submit themselves and not have to be pre-nominated by their fellow cast members), but neither received an actual nomination. In fact, One Life to Live, easily the best soap on the air over the last few years, was not nominated for Outstanding Drama Series or Outstanding Writing Team.

This is just a complete travesty and proves that the medium is dying for a very good reason. A show takes the time to write an incredibly groundbreaking story; they write it beautifully, they hire two outstanding actors who portray the characters perfectly; they hold nothing back, in fact, and give us a perfect example of what soaps could and should be like.

The end result? The network kills the story, fires the actors, brings in a hack like Jean Passanante to 'help take the soap in a new (read: old, tired, and badly written) direction', and the people who are supposed to at least reward the outstanding work of their peers completely ignore the entire thing, not even bothering to hand them a single nomination.

Brett Claywell himself had this to say on twitter today:

We tell a story that was groundbreaking and powerful, then lose my job and am overlooked for a nomination. Daytime is such a joke.

Way to fiddle while Rome burns, daytime.

Pre Noms for Kish!

I haven't been feeling well at all these past few days, so I'm behind on the soaps and hoping to catch up this weekend.

If there's anything that could cheer me up, though, it was seeing that both Brett Claywell and Scott Evans have been pre-nominated for Daytime Emmy Awards!

The pre-nominees are those people in each category who've received the most number of votes from their peers to move forward to the actual nomination phase, where voters view the emmy reels and select the nominees and winners.

Brett has been pre-nominated in the Outstanding Supporting Actor Category and Scott in the Outstanding Younger Actor Category, for which you have to be 25 or younger. It's odd to see them nominated in different categories for the same storyline, but at least this way they won't be competing against each other!

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that they both receive full nominations.

A few Kish-related people are pre-nominated as well, including the fantastic Ilene Kristen, who plays Roxy, but I was surprised and very sad not to see Tika Sumpter on the list. Tika, who plays Layla and who is tragically under used by the show at the moment (where are Cristian and Layla, anyway?!), did some downright amazing work in the episodes where she figured out that Oliver was gay. I became a huge fan at that point, and I think that work would have made her a strong contender to win the Emmy.

Meanwhile, this is the first time since joining As the World Turns that Van Hansis won't be nominated for a Daytime Emmy, since he isn't included on the list of pre-nominees. Van was nominated in 2007 and 2008 for Outstanding Younger Actor and last year for Outstanding Supporting Actor, but he never managed to take home the Emmy. That was especially frustrating in 2007, when he was nominated for his work in Luke's fantastic coming out story.

With As the World Turns leaving the air next fall, my not so secret desire is to see Van on One Life to Live. What a match up that would be!

One other performer has been pre-nominated for an LGBT role this year, and that's the amazing Crystal Chappell, who played Olivia (one half of Otalia) on the now cancelled Guiding Light.

I've been loving Crystal's return to Days Our Our Lives as Carly Manning (along with the wonderful Louis Sorel as Vivian), and I know her legion of fans are going to be thrilled to see her name on the list.

Thoughts on the Daytime Emmys

Tonight, the Daytime Emmy Awards finally aired, months after the nominees were announced and way past their usual air date. This year, none of the networks wanted to air the show, which hasn't exactly been a ratings winner in recent times.

In the end, The CW decided to take a chance on the show, even though they don't actually have a daytime lineup of their own. I'm sure there's some irony in there somewhere.

I loved Vanessa William's opening number (and I love Vanessa Williams, period!), a daytime version of Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You, sung while she was inserted into scenes with those she was singing about. I did feel sorry for her, though, given the particular guys they had her singing about. I mean, with all the hunks of daytime, she gets Ron Moss and Pat Sajack? Yikes!

The best part was that amidst singing about all these men and how they should leave their women for her, she threw in Guiding Light's lesbian couple, Otalia, singing to the Natalia half of the pair. They even showed the clip of the first Otalia kiss during this portion of the song, with Vanessa superimposed over Olivia for part of it as she sang "Take me, I've got more moves, I know that Ellen approves."

The very first award was Outstanding Supporting Actor, the one in which Van Hansis was nominated. I was already holding my breath, and then they made it even more intense by announcing that there had been a tie! Van wasn't the first winner, so I held out hope during Vincent Irizarry's acceptance speech. Then, the second winner was announced: Jeff Branson.

Damn it! For the third year in a row, Van is denied an Emmy which should have been his. Now, granted, the very first year he was nominated was the year he most deserved it (he had better writing then, during the coming out story), but overall, it is a travesty that this incredibly talented actor keeps getting nominated and going home empty handed. Even when they give it to two people in one night, they overlook him!

I know the fact that the writing on As the World Turns is pure crap right now doesn't help his cause any, of course. Still, I've always thought that it truly highlights how talented he is that he's able to be so good with such lousy material.

Anyway, the next highlight of the show was Van and Jake Silbermann presenting an award together. When Vanessa Williams introduced them, she noted that their portrayal of daytime's first gay couple had made them one of the most popular duos in the history of soaps. Very nice to hear that acknowledged on air!

Van and Jake looked fantastic, not surprisingly. Van seemed to be going for a bit of a 70's look and his hair is a bit longer once again. Jake's look never seems to change, but then why mess with what's already working so well?

They ended up presenting the award for Supporting Actress to the first winner for Days of Our Lives in the acting category in quite a long time: the very talented Tamara Braun, who was briefly on Days last year before going on to play Bianca's lover Reese on All My Children, was the winner. Days was pretty stupid to let her go, I have to say.

The show won a second acting award a few minutes later, though, and again for a former cast member: Darin Brooks, who played Max for the past four years before departing a few months ago. He had the most memorable speech, too, dropping a few inadvertent swear words that had to be bleeped out before turning and walking away. He was clearly nervous, so it was pretty endearing. Days never seemed to know what they were doing with Max, but I always liked Darin well enough. I'm still sort of surprised by his win, though.

One Life to Live won the Emmy for Best Directing, which was something at least. Honestly, OLTL should have been cleaning up the awards in every category tonight. It has been the best show on the air for the better part of the past two years.

Vanessa Williams got to do another hot song and dance number mid show, which was nice. Not being on a major network this year, the show seemed more fun somehow. Maybe it's just me? Or just the fact that I fast forwarded through a lot of the non soap stuff?

It was not fun, however, to see General Hospital win Best Writing over One Life to Live. What they hell were they smoking?! Absolutely ridiculous. Even die hard GH fans have been complaining how bad the show is at the moment! These awards really seem like a joke when things like this happen. You realize how much it's about industry politics and how little it's about real talent.

Betty White, whom I completely adore, showed up (she's had a recurring role on The Bold and the Beautiful these past few years if you didn't know) to pay tribute to Guiding Light, which is going off the air after 72 years. It's always great to see Betty, she's so funny. The tribute to GL was nice, too. I was never a big fan, but it's so incredibly sad to see a legend leaving the air after so long.

A final enjoyable moment came when Susan Haskell won Best Lead Actress for playing Marty Saybrooke on One Life to Live. Truly, truly deserved. There are so many talented people in daytime, more than most non-fans would believe, and she's definitely one of them.

The award for Outstanding Show wasn't even one I cared about tonight, simply because the best of all the current shows- One Life to Live- wasn't even nominated! Makes a lot of sense, huh? So, the fact that The Bold and the Beautiful won didn't have the sting it would have had it if had been up against the better show.

Well, overall, it was another bad year at the Daytime Emmys for most of those who truly deserve recognition. When and if As the World Turns is driven into the ground by Passanante and Goutman, I hope Van considers taking a role on One Life to Live. With All My Children moving to L.A. and Guiding Light off the air, it will be the only other soap still filming on the East Coast, so he could still work in theater and I know they'd create a character he could really sink his teeth into.

Van Hansis Nominated For Daytime Emmy

For the third year in a row, Van Hansis has received a Daytime Emmy Nomination for his work as Luke on As the World Turns. This is a much deserved nomination and I can only hope that the third time will prove to be the charm.

Unlike the first two years, however, Van is not nominated as Outstanding Younger Actor, but rather in the much more competitive category of Outstanding Supporting Actor. The fact that the industry recognizes Van's talent even amid a much wider field says a lot.

It's no secret that I thought Van was completely robbed the first year he was nominated, after some truly amazing work during Luke's coming out storyline. He should have won last year, as well, but that first loss still stings for me. Van deserves to win this year not only in recognition of his continued excellence in the face of some of the worst writing on television, but also in recognition of all the work he's done on the show for the past three and a half years.

It says a lot that As the World Turns received four nominations for the only truly Outstanding thing about it: the actors. Aside from Van, Maura West and Julie Pinson were nominated for Outstanding Lead and Supporting Actress, respectively, and Meredith Hagner was nominated as Outstanding Younger Actress. Not surprisingly, the show was not nominated for writing or for outstanding show, either of which would have made the credibility of the awards plummet.

The full list of nominations does have a few surprises for me, including seeing Days of Our Lives nominated for Outstanding Show in addition to several acting nominations. Days has been largely shut out of the Emmys for so long now that I never really expect to see it on the list.

The other surprise was that One Life to Live was not nominated for Outstanding Show, in spite of nominations for Outstanding Writing Team and Outstanding Directing Team. The show certainly has had its rough patches lately, as all soaps do, especially when faced with network interference, but I still think it was the best soap on the air for much of the past year.

Of course, the most telling thing about the awards is that they will be airing on The CW this year, a network that doesn't even have a daytime line up, because none of the other networks wanted to air a show that has seen such a decrease in ratings in recent years.

I can remember a time not that long ago when Soaps were so popular that not only were they celebrated onscreen with the Daytime Emmys, they also had their very own televised award show every year with the Soap Opera Digest Awards. Times sure have changed.

Lambert and Fonda and Hansis (oh my!)

First of all, I'm sure if you read any gay blogs online you've probably seen the pictures that have surfaced of American Idol's Adam Lambert kissing another guy.

There wasn't any real doubt for most people that he was gay, of course. I've been hoping he'd be the first American Idol contestant to be out while on the show (and hopefully the first openly gay winner!) and I'd say that these pictures have taken a step in that direction. Some of the comments I've read are speculating the the pictures will turn people against him and he'll be voted out early. I think that even before the pictures came up, people had to strongly suspect he was gay and he still made it in to the top 12.

Besides, you can't be a fan of Luke & Noah on As the World Turns without realizing just how many women and teenage girls love the idea of gay men! I think the only people who'd be alienated by this would be those of the religious right, and they weren't likely to vote for him anyway.

I'm not foolish enough to think that this show is actually all about talent, but I think it does play a large part and Adam certainly has plenty of it. I'll be voting for him and I'm sure many both in and out of the gay community will, too.

I debated posting the pictures or not, but in the end I decided that Adam is clearly out and proud in his life outside of Idol and I honestly don't think he's going to trying and pretend to be straight while on the show, so why not?

Vote Adam! Vote Often!

Towleroad has an exclusive conversation between Kevin Sessums (whose memoir, Mississippi Sissy, I read last month and really enjoyed), the incomparable Jane Fonda, and playwright/director Moises Kaufman. Fonda will be starring in Kaufman's new Broadway play, 33 Variations, which opens on March 9th. The whole conversation is excellent, covering both the play and a variety of other topics, including Harvey Milk, Prop 8, and Fonda's lack of status as a gay Icon:

KS: And yet, Jane, you never in your amazing career ever became a gay icon like many actresses.

JF: No. I didn’t. I haven’t. And I know why. It’s because I have never been conscious of my presence. All the gay icons have very, very strong physical and emotional presences. Katharine Hepburn didn’t like this about me. When we were filming On Golden Pond she used to take my cheek in her hand and say, “This is your box. What do you want to say with it?” I never really gave a fuzzy rat’s ass about that aspect of it all. I never had that kind of persona. I was never confident enough. I just didn’t look the right way.

KS: But you always came off — in all your evolved selves — as a confident person. Many gay icons have a heightened vulnerability about them. You’ve never seemed vulnerable as part of your public persona. Well, maybe you had a Klute-like vulnerability to you at times.

JF: (laughs) I know what you’re saying. But it’s just not my style to be a gay icon. I wish it were. I think it would be a hoot because most of my friends are gay.

I've always loved Jane Fonda, ever since I adored the movie 9 to 5 as a kid, even though most of the issues it was highlighting went way over my head. To me it was just a fun movie with all sorts of crazy action sequences and even a bit of animation! Watching it as an adult, I appreciate it even more.

I really wish I could see her on stage! From reading this conversation, 33 Variations sounds like a fascinating play.

Finally, I forgot to mention yesterday that Van Hansis has been pre-nominated for a Daytime Emmy for his portrayal of Luke on As the World Turns. Each show's cast and crew vote amongst themselves to put forward two actors or actresses in each category for pre-noms and then the actual Emmy Nominees are selected from among those people.

If you'll recall, Van has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy the last two years in a row, each time in the Outstanding Younger Actor category for those under the age of 25. This year, Van is no longer eligible for that award but the cast & crew have put him forward in the Best Supporting Actor category, which is an even bigger honor, especially coming from the people he works with.

It remains to be seen, of course, if he'll receive an actual nomination, but I think that they'd be foolish not to recognize his work. As bad as the writing usually is, Van manages to spin gold from it all the time.

Congratulations, Van! I hope the third time proves to be the charm.

Checking in on the Gays of Daytime

Time again for my quarterly blog post! Okay, so they're not intended to be quarterly, but that's about how it seems to work out.

I'm not sure what I have to say about the state of gays on Soaps Operas. The good news is that Luke & Noah, after the stalwart Kiss Campaign and media blitz waged by Nuke Fans, are finally kissing more frequently on As the World Turns. The bad news is that the show keeps coming up with silly reasons for them not to make love.

To recap from where we left off: Noah married Iraqi refugee Ameera, to keep her in the country, which kept the boys from being able to be together. Eventually, Noah's psycho father escaped from prison (where he was serving time for the murder of Noah's mother and the attempted murder of Luke) and took Ameera hostage in New York City, where for some inexplicable reason she was to be handed over to mysterious people who wanted her, in return for him being smuggled out of the country to freedom. Ooookay.

Of course, Luke & Noah tracked them down. Noah had just managed to convince his father that he should let Ameera go when Luke arrived with the police and Colonel Mayer jumped into the river, drowning himself. No body was found, which in soap world means he'll pop back up in six months to a year.

With that behind them and Ameera officially giving Noah his freedom and leaving town (thank God!), the path was finally clear for the boys to be together... right?

Oh, you silly, silly person. Of course it wasn't! You see, Noah blamed Luke for showing up with the police just when dear old Dad was thinking about being a human being for a second or two. Noah needed 'a break' from Luke, which quickly became a break up.

All hope was lost, until Cyndi Lauper rolled into town for Oakdale Pride (daytime's first ever pride event, I might note) and managed to reunite Luke & Noah through the power of song. Don't you love it when gay friendly pop divas show up and do that?

Seriously, though, that was one of the better episodes that As the World Turns had done in a long while and Cyndi Lauper is completely awesome and a great ally to gays and lesbians. I wish the Nuke story was half as awesome as she is.

Anyway, Luke & Noah reunited at Cyndi's concert and Luke told Noah that he wanted that to be The Night for them. You know, THE night. But, Holy Plot Contrivance!, Noah stunned Luke with the news that he couldn't deflower him back at the farm as requested. Why? He'd joined the army and had to report for induction!

The show tried to spin it as Noah dealing with the loss of his father by doing the one thing his father always wanted him to do, but the whole thing was ridiculous from start to finish. Luke followed Noah and outed him as his boyfriend in front of some recruiters, but they turned a deaf ear, as did the head recruiter when Noah came out to him directly. He warned Noah that if he reported that, Noah may or may not be allowed to enlist and gave him a chance to take it back.

Noah decided not to sign the final papers and the story was wrapped up pretty quickly, thankfully, but it was a mess all the same. Their timely intention may have been to comment upon Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the way that gays are frequently allowed to serve during war time when they're needed but forced out the rest of the time, but the way they went about it was very haphazardly thrown together.

With all that behind them, Noah and Luke have gone back a few steps and returned to Not Having Sex because they're both living under Grandma Emma's roof on the farm and it's against her rules that unmarried people hook up in her house. (The show even had Luke & Noah comment on the fact that Luke's newly divorced cousin Jack was breaking the rules with his new girlfriend Janet while Emma was out of town, but then they're straight!)

I'd love it if Noah & Luke sat Emma down and pointed out that they're not ALLOWED to marry each other in Illinois, or better yet if they flew off to California or Massachusetts and came back and hung a marriage license on their bedroom door for all to see as they went at it on the other side! But I don't see that happening any time soon.

At least the characters are acknowledging the situation. It would be far worse if they were being presented as naturally chaste. A frustrated Luke recently pointed out to Noah that there is no real reason for them not to be having sex and asked "So why aren't we?" Noah's romantic response was that he wants it to be special, not just something that happens because they're alone on the farm for half an hour, blah blah blah. And I'm all for that. It SHOULD be special. But, more importantly, it should HAPPEN. And soon.

Making all of this worse is the fact that Luke's teen cousin Parker, played by a real life 15 year old, has become sexually active before Luke! Of course, Parker is having sex with a girl, so I guess that makes it moral and just fine to show on daytime. Never mind the fact that said Girl is his cousin by adoption (and played in real life by a 21 year old actress, which makes the whole situation even more uncomfortable to watch onscreen!).

In addition to (straight) Teen Sex, the show is of course also indulging in that time honored daytime tradition, Adultery, in this case between Luke's father Holden and Carly, the ex-wife of Holden's cousin Jack. Then there is Casey Hughes, who is Luke's age, and is having an affair with 40-something Emily Stewart, who also happens to have a child with Casey's father.

And, of course, several characters are being mysteriously poisoned by an unknown person.

So, let's put this in perspective:
~ Straight, underage teen sex between cousins- okay for daytime viewing.
~ Adultery between straight, former in-laws: okay for daytime viewing.
~ Straight Sex Between a 40 something woman and a young college student who is the brother of her son: okay for daytime viewing.
~ Attempted Murder: okay for daytime viewing
~ Two men deeply in love and completely faithful to each other consummating their nearly year old relationship: Keep dreaming!

Still, they are letting them kiss more (see below for the most recent example, borrowed from Superherofan's Nuke site) and they're not shying away from sex as a topic of conversation between them, at least, so all hope isn't completely lost. In recent weeks, though, Luke & Noah have mostly been involved in the acrimonious break up between Luke's parents. Considering the quality of their recent story lines, maybe it's a good thing to have them take a break for a bit from a story of their own, lest the writers have Noah join the circus and Luke come down with a special sort of amnesia that makes him think he's straight. Wait, I shouldn't be giving them ideas!

The other thing that should be noted is that while Van Hansis was once again deservedly nominated for a Best Younger Actor Daytime Emmy this year (the last year he was eligible for that category), he lost for the second year in a row. Van is one of the most talented actors in the medium and the fact that he has been passed over twice for an Emmy is incredibly sad.

Luke & Noah are still the only gays on daytime, though apparently the primetime spin off of General Hospital (oh-so-creatively entitled General Hospital: Night Shift); which airs on Soap Net, has introduced a gay doctor. Given their track record with the gay character of Lucas Jones, who came out around the same time as ATWT's Luke Snyder, and who stuck around only long enough to come out and be gay bashed before disappearing from the show, I don't know how much hope to hold out for this new character. Rumor has it, though, that he may make the transition to the daytime version of the show.

Meanwhile, just when you thought that the now defunct Passions had done quite enough in its nine year run, they managed to air daytime's first gay wedding. Of course, it didn't actually air on network TV, since Passions had moved to DirectTv after being cancelled last year by NBC. But it's still worth noting that the show that gave us the first African American lesbian character in daytime and the first Down Low storyline (though it turned out that Vincent was a hermaphrodite and Chad was sleeping with his female parts, not his male parts), ended with a milestone gay wedding between Norma & Edna, two middle aged lesbian characters, before going off the air.

When you read about such stories, you might almost think Passions broke some important ground, but of course the stories themselves were often completely unwatchable, so I don't really know just how much impact they had.

It will be interesting to see if other shows begin to incorporate gay characters any time soon. Luke & Noah have been together for close to a year now and have shared several kisses. The world hasn't ended and in fact the pairing has become one of the most popular on the show. Will they remain a one of a kind story, or will other shows try and capitalize on the popularity of the pairing for themselves? With daytime starved for ratings and any increased attention from viewers that they can get, they'd be stupid not to. But then, if you knew how many times the Powers that Be in daytime had demonstrated their stupidity in the last few years, you'd probably lose whatever slim hope you were holding on to.

You Call This a Love Story?

It has been awhile since my last post. I was planning on writing a few weeks back, when the Daytime Emmys aired, but I ended up being too pissed off to do so.

As you know, Van Hansis was nominated as Best Younger Actor for his amazing portrayal of Luke Snyder on As the World Turns. Most people seemed to feel that Van and Jonathan Pelphrey of Guiding Light were the front runners for the award, so it was a real shock when the award was given to a very mediocre- and that's putting it kindly- actor from The Young and the Restless.

If Van had lost to someone with some talent- like Pelphrey or his own co-star Jesse Sofer, who was also nominated- it wouldn't have been quite as upsetting. But as it was, the whole thing was just like pouring salt in a wound.

I've never seen a better coming out storyline on daytime and I doubt I ever will again. Both Van and the storyline deserved to be rewarded, but I guess the Emmy panel favored mediocrity over a performance that actually had an impact on people's lives. Yet again, gay stories are patronized with a nomination and then passed over for something 'safer'. Of course, it wasn't so long ago that the story wouldn't have been on daytime at all, let alone have garnered Van Hansis a nomination. That doesn't make it any less of a travesty.

The worst part is, Van has been given nothing to do since last September, so there's little hope of him being nominated again next year at this rate. We can only hope things will pick up soon.

If all of that seems bitter, be glad I didn't write on Emmy night!

It's been about a month and a half since it finally seemed like Luke's love story was starting over on As the World Turns. I can't say that it has heated up all that much in the time since. A good love story on a soap should have a nice, slow build up, of course. One of the things I hate most about soaps today is their tendency to throw two people together and have them suddenly be each other's One True Love in the blink of an eye.

But so far, Luke & Noah's love story hasn't been on a nice slow simmer and it certainly hasn't boiled over too quickly. Instead, it's more like the pot is on the stove, but they've forgotten to turn on the burner.

Let's do a quick recap of where we left off. Luke had just started interning at WOAK, the local TV station, for the summer, and had finally become good friends with Maddie Coleman, fulfilling one of my own personal wishes, since Maddie always seemed like the perfect best friend for Luke.

Maddie & Luke ended up attending the Prom together as friends, although we as viewers only saw the traditional morning after breakfast, not the actual dance. Said breakfast included the first reappearance of Luke's former best friend/crush Kevin since last September, but I honestly wonder why the show even bothered to include him.

Don't get me wrong. I was excited to read that Kevin would be returning (though the initial reports were that he was going to be recurring all summer, and that doesn't seem to be the case after all) and I was hoping for some closure both for Luke and for those of us who'd been expecting something more between Luke & Kevin than what we were left with.

What we actually got, though, was a scene in the diner where Kevin & his annoying girlfriend Liv stopped by Luke & Maddie's table long enough for Kevin to awkwardly compliment Luke on his 'sweet ride' (his Grandmother Lucinda's limo) and Liv to let them know oh-so-subtly that Kevin had been a real sex machine post-prom, and that was it. Of course, his presence did allow Luke to stare a bit wistfully and Maddie to wonder aloud if he was still into Kevin, and that in turn lead to Luke saying that he's done with falling for straight guys and what he really wants is to have someone in his life.

I guess it's possible that Kevin's brief return, which inspired a cry of "That's it?!?" in many of us fans, might have been intended to soften the hearts of those out there who think it's bad enough that As the World Turns has included a gay character at all and hate the idea of him actually finding love. Perhaps they wanted to show those people just how lonely Luke is and how unfair it is that he doesn't have someone. The rest of us, of course, have been saying that for months without need of a reminder.

So, the prom and high school behind him, it was time for Luke to meet Noah at last. I was ready for a really good 'meet cute', that concept from so many romantic comedies where the couple destined to be together meets in an unusual, funny way. Soaps tend to adhere to this time tested plot device pretty closely.

Imagine my surprise, then, when ATWT gave the Meet Cute not to Luke & Noah, but to Noah & Maddie. See, Maddie had taped the whole of prom night with her cell phone to show to her imprisoned boyfriend Casey, in an effort to make him feel like he was there with her. The final bit she taped was her telling him how much she loved him, which she'd then sent to his cell phone. (Don't even get me started on why someone in prison would have access to his cell phone!) Only, whoops!, Maddie sent it to Noah's cell phone by mistake and when he met her he recognized her as the random woman who'd declared her love for him.

After Maddie explained the mistake, the two of them instantly bonded over their love of classic Hollywood films, before Luke came in and insulted Noah, whose work he'd been covering because Noah was late arriving in Oakdale.

So, Noah & Maddie meet cute and Noah & Luke meet... bitchy, I guess, at least on Luke's part.

Still, it was a start. Only it was followed by two whole weeks where we never even saw Luke & Noah onscreen. The show should have taken that time to show them working together, getting to know each other, but they didn't. Instead, the next time we saw the trio, Maddie & Noah were as chummy as could be and though Noah was trying to be friendly to Luke, Luke was still being a total jerk to him. That could have been another twist on the Meet Cute, I suppose, but instead it just came across as Noah being a nice guy and Luke being oddly mean spirited to someone he doesn't even know.

Which would be fine, if ATWT had then shown us some scenes where Luke begins to slowly change his mind about Noah as he gets to know him. Instead, they decided to focus on other (very boring and tired) storylines and then just have Luke fall for Noah all of a sudden, with no real build up. It happened when Luke dropped some of the videotapes he was carrying at the studio and Noah was helping him pick them up. Their hands touched and- Eureka!- Luke was in love.

Now, I did like the actual moment where their hands touched and Luke realized he'd fallen for Noah. It was a well done moment, especially since Luke thinks that Noah is straight and immediately afterwards had this perfect "Oh, God, not again!" look on his face that was both sweet and a little heartbreaking. What I don't like is the fact that As The World Turns didn't give us any build up to this moment at all.

Luke confessed his feelings to his cousin Jade afterwards and worried about having fallen for another straight guy, as he tried to offer both her and we poor viewers an explanation for his moment of Instant Love. After the debacle with Kevin, Luke explained, he had been hiding his feelings about Noah even from himself. Hence the being a total jerk to Noah most of the time.

I'll buy it, because it does at least make some sense plot wise, but I'm still not at all happy with the fact that they opted not to have any kind of a build up to Luke realizing his feelings.

In fact, I have to say that they've so far managed to make Luke a minor player in his own love story. We've seen Noah with Maddie far more than we've seen him with Luke, whom we still see only once a week most of the time if we're lucky.

Anyway, Luke decided to try and give his feelings a creative outlet. The three interns had been given the assignment of creating a summer project, a series to be broadcast over cell phones, with Maddie starring, Noah directing, and Luke writing. Luke is putting all of his feelings about falling for the wrong guy into his writing.

The show is taking the time, at least, to give us some idea of who Noah is as a character. We know that he comes from a military family, wants to be a director, and plans to attend Northwestern. We also know that he's got some mysterious issue with his father that makes him want to be far away from home.

So, of course, home is exactly where he ends up having to go. In this case, home is Branson, Missouri, where the the show has sent its younger actors for a rare location shoot. I won't bore you with the plot details of what is truly the most hideously bad story I've seen on ATWT yet, but suffice it to say that it involves Maddie, Noah, and Luke on the periphery of it, at least enough to get them all in Branson.

Luke, especially, was reluctant to go since he wants to spend as little time around his 'straight guy crush' as possible, but circumstances have dragged him into it, just as they've lead to Noah coming face to face with his disapproving father.

As the World Turns says it's committed to telling this story, and I hope they're not just blowing smoke yet again. But I have to say that I'm not liking the detour it's taking at the moment, which looks like it includes Maddie, upset and lonely after being dumped by the imprisoned Casey, and Noah, upset after a confrontation with his father, hooking up. Just in time, no doubt, for Luke to arrive and see them. That will play out in the next few episodes, it appears.

If that does happen, I hope that they'll at least give equal screen time to Luke & Noah when the times comes for them to be together romantically. Anything less would be an insulting cop out.

Meanwhile, some in the soap press have been raving about Maddie & Noah's chemistry together, which has many Luke & Noah fans worried that the show will take a detour and claim that it had to give the clamouring fans what they wanted. Since I see zero sexual or romantic chemistry between the two, I have to wonder if those doing the raving are trying to subvert the Luke & Noah storyline before it even really starts.

Let's just hope that Luke actually ends up playing a role in his own story, provided, of course, that it turns out to be the love story we were promised.

Van Hansis, I'm happy to say, wants Luke & Noah, or 'Nuke' as many fans have dubbed the pair, to be together as much as the rest of us. So many actors who play gay roles go out of their way to denigrated romantic scenes they may have to do in an effort to prove how straight they are (or, one suspects in many cases, how straight they're pretending to be), but Van is completely committed to playing Luke as a fully realized gay character. Here's part of an interview that he did with TV Guide Online that will give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

TVG: Luke has fallen in love with Noah, and it looks like ATWT is gearing up for daytime’s first real love story between two men. Is daytime ready for ‘Oakdale: Brokeback Mountain’?.

VH: Yes. It happens in real life, so why not in daytime? It’s funny, because people don’t ask that question when it comes to primetime TV. People assume [daytime is] a conservative medium — and personally, I don’t think it is. I read the fan message boards, and trust me: our fans are more than ready for this. Daytime underestimates its audience sometimes..


TVG: Hello —I completely agree! It’s important to note that the writers are always eager to tell these stories, but when you factor in the network suits, who feel the need to pee on the trees as it were, true greatness becomes impossible..

VH: It must be refreshing as a writer to write something new when you’re so used to penning baby-switch storylines! Luke is a character whom the audience roots for. Soap fans are very protective of their characters, and they want him to be happy – which, of course, includes falling in love..


TVG: Will Luke and Noah get physical on the show?.

VH: I don’t know yet..


TVG: Would you be angry if ATWT skirted the physical aspect of their relationship?.

VH: Yes, it would be unrealistic. If two people are in love, they just don’t walk around town holding hands. I would hope the writers include some physicality. If we’re going to go this far, we should do it right..

To put it bluntly, Van rocks.

Oh, by the way, don't even ask me about the 'down low' storyline on Passions and how it has progressed. It was just too insulting (and the show too painfully bad) for me to follow any longer. Sorry about that.

Sadly, that storyline and Luke's are now the only two glbt storylines playing out in daytime and there don't seem to be any more on the horizon.

An Emmy Nomination for Van and Continued Lack of Real Story for Luke

I hope everyone is having a good Saturday. I also hope everyone who can is planning to join a march or some other demonstration between now and Tuesday, which is of course the fourth anniversary of the beginning of this whole travesty in Iraq.

Well, this week the Daytime Emmy nominations were announced and I'm really happy to report that Van Hansis received a nod for Best Younger Actor for playing Luke on As the World Turns. The Best Younger Actor/Actress awards are for those who are under 25 years old. If he were nominated again next year, it would have to be as a Supporting or Lead Actor since Van turned 25 last September. Of course, to be nominated next year, he'd have to be given something to do this year!

I'm really glad that Van was nominated. He has done such an amazing job bringing Luke to life and making the viewers care about this character. It's largely due to his performance that there's even a chance Luke might eventually have a boyfriend on the show, since it would have been all too easy for the show to ditch the character (as we've seen with numerous other gay characters, most lately Lucas on General Hospital) if Van hadn't succeeded in making the audience care the way he has.

The coming out storyline was incredible and Van did a beautiful job that deserves both the nomination and the award itself.

Even when Van is relegated to the background of a scene, he's completely in character as Luke. For instance, at the big New Year's Eve party, Van provided nothing more than scenery in the background, but there was a moment where Casey Hughes, a good looking character Luke's own age, walked by him and Luke checked him out as he passed. It was subtle and exactly how Luke would have acted. There's no way that was in the script.

So, congratulations to Van for a well deserved nomination. Hopefully by the time the Emmys air in June, Luke will be involved in a new storyline on the show.

There was a lot of buzz about a story that started this past week, but I'm far from pleased with what we've seen so far. First of all, it's clearly going to be another mini-story that wraps up in a few episodes, rather than an actual storyline. And secondly, it's not even really about Luke, it's about propping up another character.

Back when Luke had those great scenes with his grandmother Lucinda, in which they talked about how school is going for him this year, he mentioned that his essay had been nominated for the Devilibus Award but that he wasn't sure that the teacher who'd be making the final decision liked him much.

Well, this week we found out that the award, which Luke was apparently expected to win by everyone who'd read his essay, was given to another student. Luke played the matter down to his mother, but his cousin Brad overheard their conversation.

Now, you'll remember that Brad made some off the cuff homophobic comments when he first came to town a couple of months ago. At the beginning of this new episode, Luke and Brad were carrying some boxes for Lily and Brad complimented Luke on being able to manage the heavy boxes, since 'guys like you' aren't into that sort of thing.

Luke really let Brad have it, which was nice to see. Luke has always been a bit too understanding about other people's negative reactions to his sexuality, in my view. This time, he wasn't putting up with it for a second and made it clear that he didn't give a damn what Brad thought about him or about anything else.

Of course, the scene was played up to make Brad look misunderstood. He'd just meant that Luke was into 'school and books' instead of manual labor. Which is ridiculous, by the way, because Luke helps out on his Grandma Emma's farm all the time and Brad must know that. Luke is also a star on the basketball team. The idea that Brad sees him as being completely bookish isn't believable, yet it wasn't played like a cover. We're supposed to think "Poor Brad, he didn't mean it that way!" Please.

At any rate, once Brad found out that Luke lost the award, he questioned his cousin and found out that Mr. Ledoux, the teacher who'd been in charge of deciding who won the Devilibus Award, had decided that the award should be given not just to the best essay, but to the person who best represented the school, which of course wouldn't be an openly gay student.

If this story had truly been about Luke, we would have seen Luke and Mr. Ledoux playing out the scene in which Luke found out he'd lost and his teacher told him why. Instead, we hear it all second hand because the story was really about propping up the character of Brad and showing that, hey, he might make inappropriate comments, but really, he's just a stand up guy deep down!

Please. The character is disgusting and annoying (and badly acted; ATWT has one of the most talented casts in daytime, so it is beyond me why they went and hired Austin Peck, the wooden 'actor' recently fired by Days of Our Lives after years of 'acting' by taking his shirt off to distract from his painful lack of talent) and they're trying to use Luke's popularity to make the audience like him.

So, instead of seeing Luke dealing with the homophobia of this teacher and the loss of an award which really meant something to him, we get a couple of Luke & Brad scenes and then it becomes all about Brad luring this teacher down to the TV studio (where Brad's become a co-host of Oakdale Now, a local talk show) on the pretense of winning a Teacher of the Year award and getting him to confess that he'd given the essay award to someone else because Luke was gay.

After months of not seeing Luke doing anything but standing in the background at party scenes, it's nice to be seeing him more regularly. But Van Hansis is incredibly talented and they're completely wasting him by not giving Luke a real story of his own! I would much rather have seen Luke finding out he'd lost the award, and why. Those scenes would have been excellent, I'm sure.

What's more, not every story about Luke has to be about him being gay, and I don't think Passanante grasps that. That doesn't mean that they forget the character is gay, of course, but just that the stories don't have to all revolve around people's reactions to his sexuality. Other teens on the show have dealt recently with issues like gambling addiction and sexual abuse, things which had nothing to do with the characters being straight. They dealt with these things while being in relationships, too.

There is still no casting announcement on Luke's potential boyfriend, the storyline which was supposed to begin this Spring, according to what Jean Passanante told AfterElton.com.

While the show received several acting nominations this week, it should be noted that there were no nominations for the writing, and is it any wonder? Get it together, ATWT.

Meanwhile, I should note that over on All My Children the other week, J.R. Chandler was somewhat redeemed after the fact when he had an epiphany about how wrong it was of him to leave Zoe lying beaten in the cemetery. It was too little too late, in my view. Those disgusting scenes turned me off the character of J.R. completely, and off of the show, too. I didn't tune in at all this past week.

I did see that Zoe was beginning the process of becoming a woman, which included a pretty realistic consultation with a doctor and the realization that this is going to be a drawn out process with very real risks, and not something that can happen overnight. She also met with a support group of other transgendered people, played by actors who are transgendered in real life, which I thought was a nice touch.

I may try and follow this storyline a bit more now that the hideous Headwriter of the show, Megan McTavish, has been fired. This is the woman who decided that it would be a cool idea to undo Erica's abortion, destroying a television milestone in the process. Now that she's been shown the door, the show may be easier to watch. It depends, of course, on who they hire to replace her. I'm hoping for someone with some fresh, bold ideas who will also respect and utilize the history of the show in a productive way.

That's always the hope, of course. The reality is that daytime writing has become so stale because these shows keep recycling writers. Get fired from one show, and another scoops you up. Hell, you can be fired from the same show multiple times! This was McTavish's THIRD time as Headwriter of AMC.

I guess we won't see much advancement in ratings and story quality until networks are willing to hire new writers and- even more importantly- to let those writer's tell their stories without interference.