I never realized there was so much controversy about Megan McTavish being head writer, and Jill Farren Phelps being the executive producer.

I’ve been watching One Life To Live for a lot of years now. And in my opinion one of the best storylines were Viki and her multiple personalities, and Todd turning out to be the heir. Afterwards, One Life To Live took a nosedive downward with its storylines, and hasn’t yet stopped.

However, no matter how irritated I became with the storylines, I was still the faithful OLTL watcher. I stuck through watching it at its worst moments. Such as when Todd pretended having multiple personalities. My sister and I always wondered what things were going on in the writers’ heads, who ever they were, and why OLTL was still not being cancelled.

I never imagined that anyone else felt the same way about the headwriters. I do believe that Megan means well. She’s trying to take OLTL in a different direction. Only she’s taking it in the wrong direction.

I believe that each soap opera is different and has its own style & theme. OLTL has it’s own great style that suits its viewers. Which is why I believe Megan & Jill are wrong in bringing in all these actors from Another World. One or two actors are fine, but what are they trying to do? Turn OLTL into Another World?

OLTL is basically in the dumps right now. But I believe this can be turned around in the right direction. Perhaps if we start/continue writing letters to Megan & Jill, we might get through to them. After all, a soap opera stands on its fans, and they should value our opinions. I’m sure if Megan & Jill are bombarded enough with our fan mail responses, they will turn things around for the better.

Here are the addresses to write to if you are interested:

One Life To Live
Jill Farren Phelps, Executive Producer
Executive Producer
One Life To Live
77 West 66th Street
NY, NY 10023

One Life To Live
Megan McTavish, Writer/Consultant
One Life To Live
77 West 66th Street
NY, NY 10023

Seems like the bad guys (and girls) of Llanview are working overtime. From Asa to Roseanne, and to Skye. It really makes you wonder how these people are able to sleep at night.

First of all, I’d just like to say that Asa has always been one of my favorite villains. I love the way he’s always intervening for the sake of his family. But this time, the way he set Will up, that was just plain evil. Never in a million years would I have guessed that Asa would cross that line.

His reasons for hating Will are completely outrageous! Just because Sam slept with Nora, and basically broke up Bo and Nora’s marriage (so Asa thinks), doesn’t mean you turn your hatred toward innocent family members. In the first place, Sam never did anything wrong to Asa, which makes it absurd that he would hate or anyone else in the Rappaport family.

What really makes me shake my head in disbelief is the way he basically played Jessica as well. I mean, Asa is the one who’s always doing his bad deeds for the sake of family. How could he do this Jessica? He let Jessica fall for Will, knowing that he would break her heart when he set Will up. What kind of person is that?

I have totally lost respect for Asa. Which is why I’m glad Max is deceiving him as well. Serves Asa right.

I’d don’t know if it’s just me, but I’ve become dissatisfied with OLTL’s current storylines. The Bo/Lindsay/Sam/Nora and teen quadrangles especially. In a way, both of these quadrangles are just older/younger versions of each other.

Lindsay is like Roseanne having done something to keep a couple apart. Nora is just like Jessica who slept with another man, got pregnant, and then had to stop a wedding. Sam is exactly like Will who slept with a woman who was already taken. And Bo is similar to Cristian whose woman slept with another man, and then got knocked up.

Basically, they’re just two of the same storylines happening at the same time. And I feel like both of them are going around in circles.

But I will say these two storylines do have their interesting twists like Will being framed by Asa. Jason Shane-Scott does an excellent job portraying a victim of unfairness. And seeing Nora stop a wedding despite Sam’s pleas was also interesting. And of course, who could forget how hilarious it was when Roseanne stepped into bed thinking Antonio was Cristian?

Todd Manning is truly one of OLTL’s best characters. And probably one of Daytime’s most unique. Excluding Viki, he’s also probably the character who has been through the most.

No matter how good he got, he always did, and always will have his bad-guy ways. And I love that about him. He had a rough childhood and it really reflects it in his personality and the things he’s done. You can tell it really shaped who he was. And not only is this original but it’s very realistic.

Todd first got his real first spotlight after he raped Marty. He was Llanview’s hated villain, who fans loved to hate. And after all of his other crimes I think it was safe to say OLTL fans really did loved to hate Todd Manning. He was villain number one for us.

Then he really got a special place in our hearts when he turned out to be lost Lord son. Which was also probably one of Daytime’s best shocks. Here was a man who had done so many crimes, who would ever guess in a million years, that he would turn out to be the heir?

And it was great watching his romance with Blair. There comes a point when every villain finally reveals his good side, and it was great to see Todd’s. It was also sad to see that once Llanview’s number one villain had found true love and happiness, it was all taken away because he had decided to help Marty and Patrick out. But of course, fan knew that no villain just dies. Every villain has at least nine lives. And sure enough Todd did return. Better than ever. Although I was upset that Todd and Blair eventually fell apart, I was really glad that they had Starr to bond them for life.

Now Todd’s back once again. And this time he’s here to rekindle his romance with Tea. Now to be honest I have never really taken a liking to Tea or her relationship with Todd. But I’ve really got to tip my hat to them this time.

Todd and Tea make such an original pair. They got together on some of the weirdest circumstances. To think about it, there was nothing normal about this duo’s relationship. They’re always at each other’s throats. Tea and Todd not arguing would be weird. But through all their fights, you can really see that they love each other. Although I can’t really picture them being nice and corny, you can see that they really care about each other and need each other. They’re opposites, but they’re perfect for each other.

While, I’m writing this, it’s still a mystery if Tea will go with Todd. But I really hope she does, and I’m betting she will. I almost know for sure that Todd and Tea won’t the fairy tale “happily ever after” ending. That’s so not them. They’ll probably walk off together after some argument. But it’s the way they show their affection, so hopefully Tea will realize this love is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Hopefully, Todd will come back in the future, because like I said, he’s one of OLTL’s best characters. Of course I’m sure Roger Howarth would to move on to bigger and better things, he’s so talented. But hopefully he’ll decide to return even if it’s only for a week.

One of the best parts of this year’s awards show was the acceptance speeches. I had no idea Kelly Ripa (Hayley, AMC) had such a great personality. And the same goes for Mark Derwin (Ben). The thing about Erika Slezak’s (Viki) parole terms and thanking Angela Shapiro later really had me cracking up. And we also can’t forget about Sarah Brown (Carly, GH), Jon Lindstrom’s (Kevin, PC), and Timothy D. Stickney’s (RJ) humorous speeches either. But the best acceptance speech was made by Kim Zimmer (Reva, GL). The part about having too much wine, and being amish, a clone, and a princess was probably the funniest moment of the show.

I’d also like to compliment Soap Opera Digest for pairing presenters of the same soap and even storylines together. Because in a lot of music awards, they’ll have a country singer and a rapper present an award to an alternative band. And you can just see how awkward it is for everyone.

Every year I always look forward to watching the Producer’s Choice video clips throughout the show. But this year I was extremely disappointed. I know it must be the hardest thing to sum up a soap opera in 30 seconds. But I definitely believe better jobs could have been done. But I must compliment All My Children and As The World Turns (and Days Of Our Lives too) because they probably had the best ones.

I was also extremely disappointed with the fact that fans weren’t able to attend this year’s awards. Although SOD didn’t say so, I think we can all assume they feared Another World and Sunset Beach fans would start riots because both shows were excluded from all nominations. This was extremely unfair because these awards were for the year of 1999 in which both soaps aired. In fact, SB aired every single day of ’99 because it ended exactly on December 31.

Not only was I angered by the exclusion, I was also angered by SB’s so-called tribute. It was basically some bits and pieces slapped together and played to the music of Fat Boy Slim. I found this disrespectful since I happen to also be a SB fan. If SOD wants SB to be remembered that way then they might as well not have run any sort of tribute.

As for AW’s tribute I can’t say much because I never knew much about this soap except our favorite Linda Dano (Rae) and other OLTL favorities came from there.

But for the most part I enjoyed the awards. Not a lot of credit is given to soap operas and its actors/actresses, and it really means a lot that SOD does.

And finally, I’d like to congratulate Erin Torpey (Jessica), Timothy D. Stickney (RJ), Mark Derwin (Ben), and Erika Slezak (Viki) for their wins.

There’s two people in Llanview, that just really need to get over it! The first person is Viki. She’s basically crumbled to pieces over her recent diagnoses of breast cancer. Yes, I understand breast cancer is a really hard thing to deal with. But look at everything she’s had to deal with in her past lifetime! She’s suffered and survived an aneurysm, a stroke, multiple personalities, being sexually abused by her father, and countless deaths, to mention a few…

After all that, I would think Viki would be even stronger than ever. But I guess years of problems have taken its toll on Viki.

Then there’s RJ Ganon. Before I go off ranting and raving about how he needs to get over it, I just really have to say that what Tea Delgado did to this man was just plain cruel. As much as I am happy for Tea and Todd leaving Llanview together, I’m really disappointed in the way Tea handled her “break-up” with RJ.

Tea simply disappeared on RJ leaving him to always wonder “Why?”. She didn’t even have the decency to talk to him in person. She claimed to love him, but she didn’t even care enough about him to break up with him in person. That was just really cruel.

But at the same time, now that Tea has left, RJ needs to move on. Explanation or no explanation, Tea has left the building and she doesn’t seem to be coming back. Hopefully, Tea’s departure will give RJ his edge back and make him the villain we all knew and loved.

Hosted by Celeste
A View From Llanfair
OLTL@www.com