| "Reflections by Jill" - A Weekly Commentary on OLTL | |
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This week marks the beginning of something new and exciting for this site; a weekly commentary by a fellow fan and writer. I'm very pleased to have Jill joining us on a weekly journey of her reflections and comments on the latest happenings in Llanview. Jill will also be here for your own questions and comments, and will be publishing them in her upcoming columns. So sit back and enjoy! And don't forget to email with your questions or remarks.
REFLECTIONS
BY JILL…..
Hey Everybody!
This is my very first attempt at writing a column and when I was first
offered this opportunity, I jumped on it. I
think it’s going to be a lot of fun for me and I hope (fingers crossed) that
it will be for you, too. For the
sake of my own protection, I ask that you refrain from holding any big juicy
tomatoes or raw eggs while you are reading.
OK….so you obviously know my name. I have been a fan of One Life To Live for many years
on and off, and returned to it on a “never miss” basis a few years ago.
I do have my favorites on the show and who they are will probably become
painfully obvious to you at times, however, I intend to give everyone equal
time, including my favorites, and promise to be very fair to my
“not-so-favorites” as well…..no really, I promise I will….LOL!
For this first column, I’d like to discuss
something that has interested and baffled me for a very long time…the writing
and directing. I’ve often thought
about what questions I would ask if given the opportunity to sit down over a
nice bottle of wine with some of these illustrious people who control what we
see every day. I think I’d ask
the writers things like: “How
dumb do you think we are?” Is it
believable that after what Gina has pulled, that Ben would still voluntarily be
living in that house with her? How
long is Colin going to hang around in that box before someone calls the Board of
Health to deodorize the entire town of Llanview?
Is Jessica going to grow up any time soon and find a nice young man who
doesn’t lie or whine? Is Lindsay
ever going to spend any time behind bars for anything she’s done, or should we
be content that she’s been behind bars once, for a short while, for hitting
Jess and killing baby Megan…a crime she didn’t even commit (how ironic is
that?).
I guess that’s enough for them to chew on for
a while, but I have one more question (and this is where you might get a clue as
to who my faves are). I’d really
love to know why all the “good stuff” is discussed off camera.
When Ben and Viki decided that they’d have no more secrets between them
and be totally honest with each other, why didn’t we see any of those
discussions on-camera? When Ben
started getting involved with Gina and his past was creeping into his current
life yet again, I said, “Not smart Ben. Why
doesn’t Viki know who Gina is?” Then one day Viki just said one line,
letting us know that Ben had already told her everything about his past with
Gina. I think we would have enjoyed
seeing some of that conversation. Maybe
a few less moments of Lindsay conniving, or a few less moments of Max
bed-hopping would have left ample time for a little serious conversation….and
some good acting, I might add.
My current favorite slip-up is a geographic
one. Does anyone remember last year
when Viki decided to have her cancer treatment at Cherryvale Clinic and at that
time Cherryvale was an hour and a half away from Llanview? I mean, isn’t that the reason she went there in the first
place…for privacy and so no one would know her? Okay…so I’d like to know how all of a sudden, people got
from Llanview to Cherryvale in 5 minutes, as in every time Nora or Lindsay went
to see Colin and they were there and home before an ice cream cone could
melt…and how about when the kids were in the woods at that party and Colin’s
house was right up the hill? Give
me a break…like I said before, “How dumb do you think we are?”
OK, now to the directors, and I would like to
say that for the most part, they do a good job.
As far as I’m concerned, Jill Mitwell could direct Academy Award
winning movies. For those of you
who don’t know me, it might help if I told you that I have an eagle eye for
details and continuity. As well as
the things everyone else notices, I notice every other crazy little thing (or
most of them). Some people might
say that I see these things because I watch the shows I like a second time, and
sometimes it does take a second viewing to catch the flubs.
Ok, I’ll confess, sometimes it’s a lot more than a second viewing,
but hey, isn’t that what weekends are for?
You shall be the judge of my insanity.
Here are some of the things I’d ask the directors….Is it too much to
ask for the show to spend a few dollars and buy a blanket for each residence in
Llanview? Let’s face it, that
beige checkered blanket has been EVERYWHERE!
It’s been in Viki’s attic, Asa’s stables, Jessica’s loft, and
countless other places. Do they
think we don’t recognize it as the same blanket?
I hope they cleaned it after it spent time with Asa’s horses, before
they covered poor Ben with it after he was shot the first time. Then they had the audacity to cover poor Grace’s body
with it when they hauled her out of the river. Also, can they spell
C-O-N-T-I-N-U-I-T-Y? Why is it that
in love scenes, they never remember, or don’t care how the pillows are
arranged from one scene to the next? When
Ben and Viki made love for the first time after her surgery, those pillows
changed position in every scene. Even
something simple, like this week…when Nora was talking to Hank in Bo’s
office and she was drinking that bad coffee…I noticed right away when the
camera panned that it was water in the cup.
Couldn’t they at least have put some Coke in the cup to make it look
like coffee? Does anyone remember when Ben was with Viki at
Crossroads way back and in one scene the pictures on the wall of the dogs
playing poker were in one position, and in the next scene they were switched?
One thing they do remember always, and I guess this is one of the laws of
Llanfair…you will never, never, never see anyone drinking coffee in the
library out of one of those white mugs from the kitchen and by the same token,
you will never see that lovely, fancy tea service used in the kitchen.
Hey, it makes perfect sense to me….NOT!
See, I’m sure lots of you now think I’m
insane, but I know in my heart that some of you are just like me!
Come on…fess up. I will
say this; some of my little discoveries have been more significant than others.
The biggest one that comes to mind happened the first time the wardrobe
people had the good sense to put Ben in those lovely black drawstring pants.
I immediately noticed, when he turned his back, that amazing as it may
seem, God gave that man another set of incredible dimples, plain as day, on his
lower back. Now don’t go to
replay your tapes to see it…not yet...finish reading my column first…LOL!
This discovery, rest assured, made countless people happy and probably
gave a boost to the VCR industry, since many people needed new VCR's after they
destroyed theirs with all the rewinding. By
the way, you don’t even need to be a big Ben fan to appreciate those dimples,
do you?
Even though I do have a lot of questions about
things I don’t always like, I truly do love the show and most of the
characters. I am loyal to the end.
I hope you enjoyed this little trip through my
idiosyncratic mind. In future
columns, I promise to prove that I am indeed sane and I intend to deal with
everyone on the show, so please feel free to send me comments (please be kind),
questions and suggestions.
Thanks for reading. Until next time!
Jill
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