FRUSTRATIONS

I was watching last Friday's DAYS OF OUR LIVES on SoapNet this morning and wondering just how long can Nicole possibly bar EJ from her bedroom to hide her fake pregnancy bump?  And doesn't that defeat her purpose since she is only pretending to be pregnant so she won't lose EJ?

I saw a little bit of GENERAL HOSPITAL.  I like Claudia with Ric, mainly because I dig Sarah Brown and Rick Hearst.  Yet there is really no good reason why Claudia isn't sleeping with the fishes as yet.  I know the show is playing on the tension between Claudia and Sonny, with the constant threat that Sonny will find her out and kill her, but since we know Sarah Brown is on contract we also know Claudia will not be shot full of lead.  Pity.

After a run of great episodes (remember, I am a week behind in my DVR catchup) AS THE WORLD TURNS stumbled with last Wednesday's episode.  The jury is out on the new actress playing Jade, but her introduction was horrendously clunky.  We are asked to suspend our disbelief twice in one scene, with the consequence that the whole story feels forced and artificial.  First, Derek recognizes Rose when he sees Lily, but Noelle Beck has never played Rose and is frankly unimaginable as a working class showgirl from New Jersey.  Second, when Lily pulls out the picture of Jade any viewer with a memory of the last 2 years will have to make the mental leap to accept the recast.  So Derek is recognizing a character who we can't visualize and then being shown a photo of another character we can't recognize.  It's like something out of SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK!!  I could forgive all this if it meant Martha Byrne was going to return as Lily and expose Noelle Beck's Lily as really being Rose but that is only going to happen in my fevered imagination.  And I will miss the original Jade, Elena Goode, who had an easy rapport with Van Hansis.