CORRIE STAR TRUMPS U.S. SOAPS

I watched the first half of ONE LIFE TO LIVE today, flipping to DAYS OF OUR LIVES during the commercials, which has become my habit of late. Loved the scene of Jessica and Viki talking about Natalie and letting some long-buried resentments come through, about how Natalie thinks she's better than them because of her street smarts. This is something not often mentioned that I was glad to see brought up -- Natalie is a scrapper and wasn't handed the Buchanan lifestyle on a platter. Is Natalie headed for a fall? (Symbolically, of course. We can't have everybody falling through that skylight!)

DAYS OF OUR LIVES continued to amuse with the Nick/Max nerd sandwich and the sparky friendship of Nicole and Ava. Chelsea continues to look fabulous with that fierce haircut, but please, no more fantasy sequences with Dr. Daniel. One of those things I hate in soaps is the fantasy sequence which is presented as real until someone yells the character's name and the scene is revealed as fake. PASSIONS is the worst offender in this case, with entire episodes being devoted to imaginary scenarios that you don't think are imaginary until there's a cut and someone says "That's what WOULD happen if we told Ethan the truth, Mother!" James E Reilly has been long gone from DOOL; let's try and keep his bag of tricks away from Salem! PASSIONS hasn't been cancelled for nothing, ya know.

I skipped out on the rest of today's soaps (DVRing AS THE WORLD TURNS, of course) to catch a bargain matinee ($7!) of WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW YOUR FATHER? It has an amazing cast of British actors, and captures the love and hatred that everybody feels towards their Dad at different points in their lives. Plus, you get to see Colin Firth masturbate in a bathtub.
Ex-CORONATION STREET star Sarah Lancashire has a strong supporting role in the film. My personal experience of CORRIE is fragmented, to say the least. I have caught the random episode staying in England or Toronto, but I really got into the show at the beginning of the millenium when now-defunct US cable station Trio ran a batch of episodes. Oddly, it seems they only had the rights to a six month stretch of CORRIE from the mid or early '90s that focused heavily on Raquel, Des and Curly. So to me, Sarah Lancashire represents CORRIE more than any other actress! I've been able to see other CORRIE episodes on video and DVD, but never got to see Raquel's exit from CORRIE. Seeing Sarah pop up in SKINS or DOCTOR WHO has been fun, but there is something cool about seeing her on the big screen. Hooray for the best barmaid from the Rovers!