even worse than bad reality television

I've written about the show "Passions" previously. As I mentioned, I don't watch the show, but since I subscribe to Soap Opera Digest, I read the weekly summaries of all the shows, so that coupled with feature stories and bits and stuff, I know a lot about what's happening on shows I've never watched.

Here's a sentence from one such "Passions" summary a couple weeks ago:

"Eve gives Vincent a gynecological exam on her kitchen table."

OK, without even knowing relationships and circumstances, how incredibly, mind-numbingly EWWWWWWW is doing that kind of exam on your own kitchen table???!??!!!?!

But then, what if you know the following:

Julian and Eve are Vincent's parents. They had both thought he had died in some event that happened, but then Eve discovered that her new friend Valerie was actually her son Vincent in disguise, her son who also happens to apparently have complete girl bits. Valerie then purposely seduced Julian and got impregnated by him. Eve knows all about this, but Julian is oblivious to who Valerie actually is.

OK, now keep all that in mind as you read a recent part of the "Passions" summary:

Eve helps Vincent with his Lamaze training, doing her best to comprehend the situation. Then Vincent gags Eve and ties her up in a closet because Valerie has a "date" with Julian and doesn't want to be disturbed. A horrified Eve is forced to listen as Valerie tries to seduce her baby's father. Val torments Eve by proceeding to having sex with Julian. However, Julian gets the biggest shock when Val's wig falls off, revealing the true identity of his lover. Now Julian knows that Vincent is alive. Vincent decides he has no choice but to kill both Julian and Eve.

Are you serious? Seriously. WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT.

As I mentioned before, soap stories oftentimes have an outlandish quality to them, and "Passions" even has witches and witchcraft as a central part of the show (which I'm ok with in primetime shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Charmed" but for some reason doesn't work in a daytime setting for me, but then I never watched "Port Charles" and wasn't interested at all when they brought vampires into that show). But there's fantastical within reason, and then there's beyond. I remember reading about Marlena's possession by the devil on "Days of our Lives" some time ago. Again, outlandish for daytime soaps, but possession isn't new to stories - look at "The Exorcist" and any number of movies and television shows. Heck, look at Corinne and Father Tim's child on "Soap". But really, I want to know how the creators of this particular Eve/Julian/Valerie|Vincent triangle (or is that square? or rectangle?) write this entire storyline and think that it's a good day's work at the office. Yeah, incestuous and semi-incestuous relationships have and are even currently being played out on other soaps, but again, this goes way beyond that. Who exactly watches this storyline and thinks, yeah, great story, can't wait to see more? Oh, isn't it great that he/she is seducing his/her own father and getting pregnant by dear old dad? And then mom has to listen while her son has sex with his father. What do the actors think about having to portray that kind of story? There's portraying Ted Bundy and Charles Manson and the likes of that, but what about the two people playing Vincent and Valerie? Yes, Vincent is actually played by a man, and Valerie is played by a woman, though I'm not sure if the actor who plays Vincent is ever dressed to look like Valerie.

Yeah, I know, I'm getting entirely too pissed off about a show that I don't even watch. If I don't like it, don't watch it, which I don't, but don't even read about it. Hey, if they want to put it on the air, I obviously have no power to stop them. I just see them doing this kind of thing and then completely not understand how they can be so shocked and surprised that their ratings aren't doing very well.

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing soap fans are clamouring to see more of.