The Good, the Bad, and the WTF?!

THE GOOD

I'm a huge horror buff, which I bet is no surprise at this point. When the first Scream film came out in 1996, I was in high school. I'd seen the slasher films from the eighties, and I loved anything scary. But at the time, very few horror films were being made and released by major studios. And Scream was exactly the creative boost that the horror genre needed at the time. It revitalized the genre, while making fun of itself at the same time. I'm a huge fan of the entire trilogy.

Needless to stay, I was absolutely pumped when I heard that Scream 4 was being made, with original director Wes Craven, original screenwriter Kevin Williamson, and original stars Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courtney Cox. How could a fan not be stoked for this?

So I admit to going into this film with pretty high expectations. And you know what? For once, my expectations were very much met, maybe a little exceeded. Scream 4 was brilliant. It does for the glut of horror film remakes what the original film did for the dying slasher genre: it exposed the cliches, makes statements on society, and it also (minor spoiler) remakes the first film! Remakes it in a hugely original way that I didn't always see coming.

Horror fans may still appreciate this film, but if you haven't seen Scream 1-3, then don't bother with Scream 4. You just won't have the same experience.


THE BAD

So there was once a time when I loved "Glee." I bought the boxed set of Season 1 at the end of last summer and I spent an entire weekend watching it. It hooked me. I loved the characters. I loved the stories. I loved what they were doing with the songs and musical numbers, and how everything flowed well.

Cut to the hot mess that's been Season 2 so far, and can I just say "Gah!"? Gah!

The show's been on a month hiatus, and the last aired episode was amazing. It was the Regionals ep, and the cast sang original songs. It was tense, it was emotional, and it was what the show used to be.

A new episode finally aired last night. I watched it this morning. Gah!

I just don't have the energy to rant on everything that I thought sucked about last night's episode. So I'll talk about the only good thing (besides the fact that Paltrow is gone for the foreseeable future). The corridor confrontation between Kurt, Blaine, Santana and Karofsky--pure gold. I loved Santana getting up in K's face, and I really hope this is setting up for what was promised to us earlier this year. There is a lot of potential with the Karofsky character, and I'm afraid the writers will butcher it, like they've managed to butcher most of this season.

One more "Gah!" for good measure....


THE WTF?!

Last week, ABC Daytime announced the cancellation of daytime soap opera staples "One Life to Live" and "All My Children," leaving the network's daytime lineup with one soap opera ("General Hospital"). GH joins what will become only four surviving soap operas on network television (ABC's "Days of Our Lives," and CBS's "The Bold & the Beautiful" and "The Young and the Restless"). OLTL and AMC become the third and fourth soap to be canceled in the last two years.

I watched "One Life to Live" for a few months last year and then stopped once the stories I was following ended, and most of the actors were fired. But it wasn't a terrible show, and I'll mourn its loss. I can agree that television is changing, and that maybe soap operas are a somewhat dated format. But there are still loyal viewers and fans out there, and it sucks that they are losing shows they've watched for THIRTY or FORTY YEARS. That's a lifetime.

I think my major complaint is that these dramatic serials are being replaced by more cookie cutter talk shows. I mean, really, do we need more groups of people gabbing at each other over inane topics? Really?

I don't know. But I do applaud Hoover for listening to their consumers and pulling their ads from ABC. Some might say it's counterproductive to pull ad revenue from a show that relies on it to stay afloat, but it's already canceled, no? I can't imagine ABC Daytime would eat humble pie and reverse the cancellations, so why not show them exactly how their fans feel about this betrayal?