Final Days Part 15~ Shades Of Gary Tomlin Or Was It A "Pigment" of My Imagination?

Eighteen or so episodes left to air One Life To Live and the show's producer and Head Writer continue to parody the show (that's been their bread and butter for decades), the soap genre and the fans.  In doing so, they pretty much show why the genre is nearly extinct.

(A)   The plots are ridiculously laughable.

(B)   The plots are stale and redundant.

(C)   The characters are stereotypical.

(D)   The characters are shallow and exhibit little or no depth.

(E)    Male actors need only have a six-pack and show it “gratuitously” to stay employed.

(F)    High school and college girls are stupid sluts.

(G)  TPTB  decided to get their storylines from Jerry Springer and Maury Povich.

(H)   TPTB forgot that technology and the OJ Simpson trial evolved the viewers.

Checking around the net, I saw that some viewers managed to laugh in spite of the tolling of the death knell, while others found nothing funny about the joke that seemed to be played audience. 

Here's what some are saying about this special episode of One Life To Live:

 

"This was so dumb. That is why I stop watching this show. No wonder this show is going off!"

 

"Cornball, campy fantasy eps are one of the reasons soaps are on a ventilator, OLTL in particular. What a waste of precious last shows."

"I HATE this joke! Thought I was the only one! The show is nearing the end and this is how it's treated? Like a joke? How very sorry that the actors had to go through that. I feel like someone spit in my face."

“I don't care how silly and stupid and campy it is... I am laughing my fool head off right now, and I'm not even halfway through the episode. I think it's perfectly delightful that they're willing to take on the stereotypical soap characters, actors and the crazy stories that go with them. RH with a mullet pronouncing "damned" as "damn-ed..." HI-liarious!"

"I loved Howarth's bad, fake, cliffhanger face.

I love KA's voice. I also prefer Easton in this role!!!"

"I really like KDP in that trench coat and the black boots.".

"There were so many great things about today's episode. Add me to the people who discovered that I dislike Tea, but actually really like Florencia. She was awesome."

"ES is working that accent lol"

"I think it's fun and the constant comments about the gratuitous shirtlessness is very true."

"And RH was hysterical and smoking hot, much better than the three Waxed Wonders."

(Gifs by Winterbee)

"Love the Starr dani James Jessica ford Nate scenes they r hilarious and I love how they didn't even try to make the slap look real lol"

"Shaun and Destiny were fabulous..I haven't laughed like that in awhile"

 

"The TW and IK walk off the empty set was especially poignant when you realize that they filmed this when the cast still believed that the show had been saved."

That darkened screen was sobering to me as well.  I felt that sadness when the actors tweeted and left messages on their facebook pages of their last moments at the ABC studio.  We have a few more weeks left, but the reality is that it's over.  I will miss One Life To Live tremendously, mainly because I was always hopeful that things would get better, but with every writing team, the problems were exacerbated because each new Head Writer wanted to make his or her mark by out-absurding the previous writer.

These are One Live To Live's Final Days and this episode indicates the one clear vision that I've seen from the producer and writer in years, that the genre is as incestuous as the relationship between Brandon and Briana, therefore it remains stunted and malformed.

(For Frank Valentini and Ron Carlivati, on to the next  incestuous relationship show.)