Episode 95 Morals

In plain English, these are the morals from Episode 95:

Once More With Feeling

All I can say is that I hope Bill Bell understands that what has just happened is not the grand, lovely reuniting of Victor and Nikki that any of us out here in Viewer Land have been waiting for. Well, certainly not me, anyway. Truth be told, I've not exactly been rooting for Victor and Nikki to get together at all. But certainly not on these terms. There's nothing romantic or honorable in what Victor just did to Diane, and no one with an ounce of the romantic in them could possibly be happy about the way this event was achieved. Hence, I hope this is not the climax but a beginning. I hope it turns out to be that Victor starts to learn the painful truth about how little he's achieved and how much it has cost him. And I hope Bill Bell remembers that it's the Black Knight who just won, and that the white night (who seems to have long since lost his horse) needs to come riding in and cut Victor down to size before he's gonna see me cheering.

But, you may say, that's what soaps are all about: the people we love to hate. Sadly, though, we've been seriously crippling those we love to love. And of the others, they've been behaving chaotically--not predictably--in manners not befitting their personalities. The Victor I know, for example, made a bargain with Diane. A cold business deal for a calculated reason. And he would honor that business deal, whoever it was made with, because his word and his honor mean more to him than love. That he didn't was a betrayal of his character. And further, we were told repeatedly (though we didn't believe it) that Diane was different. That Victor really did love her. That she was the New Love, at last, finally displacing Nikki. But if he loved her even a tenth as much as that, he could not have done to her what he did. The "I changed my mind".

One by one, the soap is drifting toward outraging the audience. As if Victor's chief on-air competition was Jerry Springer, and the only way to make the ratings was to stir the audience into a fit of irrational frenzy by injuring their sensibilities at every turn. First Neil. Then Nick. Now Victor. And yet we continue to watch.

But do we continue to watch because these are the people we love to hate? I don't think so. I think the makers of the show underestimate our love for the characters of yesteryear, and our allegience to a show in which we have a many year investment and for which we harbor still a thin ray of hope that things might return to normalcy. Like Dru, like Sharon, like Diane, we don't cling because secretly we want more of what we're getting--we cling because we hold out the hope that things might get better. But even hopes fade.

Give us some characters to like. Show us some characters who pay for the indignities they thrust upon their fellows. Show us that the Morality Play is still alive and well in Soap Opera land. Please, please, please don't tell me that the New Morality Play is upon us and that this is all we have to look forward to.

It's time for the Newman empire to sour and fall as a direct and visible consequence of its excesses.

That's all for Episode 95's morals. Don't miss Episode 96 and its morals!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.