Well, it happened...

That's a phrase I could use to describe a lot of what happened across the various shows that I watched this year.

General Hospital:
The good news of last year was that Robin had her baby and named her 'Emma.' The bad news is that she married Patrick, a move this character will regret. While it was nice to see the Scorpio-Devane clan again, I really wished that someone would have talked her out of the marriage.

On a related note, they managed to find a way to integrate old Carly (Sarah Brown) and new Carly (Laura Wright) in the same show. While I wish that each could have swapped roles, I like that GH saw the wisdom of bringing back a talent like Sarah Brown. I was more sympathetic to her Carly than to any of her other portrayers since.

I won't even comment on the mess that is the Lulu-Spinelli-Lucky-Elizabeth-Jason-Sam-Maxie show. I gave up wrapping my head around that one.


Guiding Light:
Lizzie Spaulding carved out a quasi-normal existence with Bill Lewis, except that the writers seems to think that it makes sense to keep coming up with ridiculously implausible obstacles for them to overcome to prove they are 'supercouple' material. More silly is the Alan-Alexandra parallels that they [writers] seem to want to draw between Bill and his sister Dinah. I liked the Dinah, Bill and Maureen uniting against the world thing.

As The World Turns:
You knew it was a matter of time before one of Carly's children would be put into the position of having to kill some crazy she picked up. Sadly you also knew it was a matter of time before Paul screwed it up with Meg Snyder.

The problem with Holden's relationships with women is Holden. He chooses women who need rescuing and then expects them to not be needy and then is miffed when they are not... How ridiculous.

The Young and the Restless:
Well, Gloria got arrested as we knew she eventually would by betting on the wrong horse. The Katherine Chancellor doppleganger story is pointless and I still don't understand how in this day and age, Anna's blood aunt who raised her can't get legal custody of her from her addict mother, but stranger Neil and the women he's dated for about a year can because they seem to be a two parent unit? I also wish they would give Anna more screen time. I could do with less Amber and less Sharon.

Victor and Ashley together again...


The Bold and the Beautiful:
Will someone please line up and summarily shoot the writers? The only good (and I say that loosely) developments were the reintroduction of Steffy Forrester and the introduction of Marcus, who is Donna's child.


All My Children:
What is the matter with Bianca? Actually this should be 'what is the matter with some soap writers in general?' I say that because both Robin and Bianca became parents (well, Bianca had more of a choice about it this time), but it seems that there is this aversion to anonymous artificial insemination, which happens all the time. It's more sporting for one character to get pregnant from a one night 'pity-lay' with someone who is so wrong for her (Robin) and for the other to ask her brother in law to be the donor and not tell her sister (Bianca).

Through the magic known to soaps and Marvel Comics, Jesse Hubbard is back for real. Watching him and Angie has been a pleasure.

One Life to Live:
Truthfully I stopped caring after they killed off Asa's character, though Starr Manning is still my girl. The one bright spot has been the father-son relationship that developed between Rex Balsam and Bo Buchannan. Bo seems to be the collector and redeemer of the wayward it seems. I was actually pulling for him and Gabrielle Medina and hated that they killed her off.
Poor Starr...Oy Vey! Starr is one of the saving graces of this show and what they did to her...