My Internet is abuzz today with the news of ABC canceling both All My Children and One Life to Live to make room for some health & food shows staring B celebrities from reality shows*.
I used to watch One Life to Live with my middle school best friend Becky, but it was never dear to me. Though I am saddened by the shrinking of our daytime soap opera family, I am ultimately just glad it wasn’t Days Of Our Lives that was canceled. Days, recently renewed by NBC for another two years, has narrowly escaped the guillotine of our media revolution. Woot woot!
Where would we, as a society, be without the convoluted and often hilarious storylines soap operas bring to our lives? Take, for instance, Philip Kiariakis’ face transpant.
Days’ Philip served our country fighting in Afghanistan back in 2006. He came home a changed man; having lost a large part of his face.
The bandaged Philip returned from his time overseas just in time to interrupt an important custody hearing. As he slowly removed his bandages, Victor (Philip’s evil dad) recounted a harrowing tale of Montreal specialists and facial reconstruction a la Six Feet Under. At least two commercial breaks later he had removed the bandages and we were shocked to see that Philip’s new reconstructed face was not horribly grotesque or even unfamiliar.
No, we were only surprised to see that the Philip who left for war (Kyle Brandt) was now the Philip we remember from his high school days, Jay Kenneth Johnson, who played Philip before Kyle Brandt took the role in 2003. Convenient, eh?
Such evolutions are commonplace in life, yes?
It’s worth noting that Kyle Brandt got his start on the Real World, making me wonder how daytime television found its actors before reality tv.
* I long ago realized that the quickest route to a talk show was through going on some reality show and standing out, but it’s just not my style. : (
Lets hear from the peanut gallery, eh?
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You can’t forget that he also lost part of his leg and now has no limp.
I almost addressed that in this post! Oooh Days. How do I love thee!