One Life to Live February Sweeps

Today's blog entry is going to be on sweeps month for One Life to Live. This is the second part, because it's sort of halfway between All My Children and General Hospital in terms of quality. At least it is in my opinion.

One Life to Live is kind of unique compared to the other ABC soaps in that it didn't have a major event or a climax to a story during sweeps. Sure, Spencer was killed in February, but that was kind of a launching point to the rest of that story. I like this approach to sweeps, because if a show can only get big ratings with events or stunts, it's not that great a show.

There were two major stories that were really going strong during sweeps. Spencer's murder and its aftermath, and the arson story.

I'll start with Spencer's murder. First of all, count me among the many that are thrilled that Spencer is finally off the canvas. Paul Satterfield was great in the role, but Spencer was way overexposed since his debut last summer. (I think it was only last summer when he first showed up.) Actually, surprisingly enough, I was starting to really enjoy Spencer when he was going completely insane. Although, when he went to Blair's room to "marry" her, he got too creepy, and clearly, someone else on the canvas thought so, too, because that was the point where he was stabbed nine times. Talk about a crime of passion!

Of course, the person found with the murder weapon was Rex, and while he was a minor suspect, there is no way that anyone could have convinced me that he was the one the killed Spencer. The thing that made this a good murder mystery was that at least half the cast would have had a motive for killing Spencer. We still don't know for sure who killed Spencer (well, I think I might from reading some spoilers, but I won't spoil it for those of you that might be spoiler-free).

As usual, at least on OLTL, Spencer had a will-reading from beyond the grave, and that introduced the new character of Miles. Miles is a man who was hospitalized for his entire life due to a massive tumor on his face, and Spencer, of course, helped him become normal looking again. Also, Miles inherited most of Spencer's vast fortune, which makes him a major player in town. What's more is that Miles's brother is Mitch Laurence, so that makes him affiliated with two of the most hated men in Llanview, which will make it interesting to see how he fits in everywhere.

The other big story that is starting to really move itself along is the arson story. During sweeps, the arsonist targeted Nora and Antonio.

Nora's house was burned to the ground, but luckily she and Matthew made it out safely and are now living at Asa's. There were some really nice scenes after Nora's house was destroyed between Nora and Matthew and Bo and Matthew, where they were talking about what it's like to lose something so important. It was very heartwarming in the midst of such drama.

Antonio had already lost at least one building to a fire, but during sweeps, his club, Capricorn, was targeted. While this moved the arson story along, it also propelled the Nash/Jessica/Antonio triangle. Nash and Jessica ended up trapped in the storage room of Capricorn when it was on fire, and they each declared their feelings toward each other. Of course, Antonio rescued them, and was the one that was most injured in the fire. Now that Jessica has admitted her feelings about Nash, what's going to happen? As of now, she's sticking with Antonio, but I'm not certain that will remain the case in the coming months.

Again, I'm going to protect the spoiler-free with regards to who the arsonist is. I don't know for sure, but there is a common thread among all of those that have been targeted (Vincent, Antonio, Nora). It may not be completely obvious, but if you think about it, you'll get what the connection is.

So, those were the two major stories starting to heat up (excuse the pun with regard to the arson story) during sweeps. There were other stories that pretty much held steady, including the Viki/Clint/Dorian triangle and the Cristian/Evangeline/Todd triangle. The latter of those was starting to gain momentum toward the end of sweeps when Todd received "proof" from Rex that his baby with Margaret is "dead." Really, it's Tommy, Marcie and Michael's adopted son. When Todd found this out, he had a mini-meltdown, and Evangeline ended up comforting him with a kiss. Cristian, being the jealous man he is, didn't like this very much, and now he and Evangeline are on the rocks. How will this play out? I'm not sure. Personally, I like Todd and Evangeline, but I am interested to see where it goes.

The other things I want to talk about with regard to sweeps is the outstanding Valentine's Day episode. This was a quasi-stand-alone episode that focused on three key stories.

The first part was a medieval fantasy with Todd, Blair, Evangeline, Cristian, Starr and Cole. Todd and Blair were king and queen; Starr was their daughter, a princess; Cole was a knight; Evangeline was a princess from a neighboring kingdom; Cristian was her bodyguard; and Dorian showed up as the king's servant. The basic jist of the story is that Blair betrayed Todd and was thrown in the dungeon, and Todd was going to marry Evangeline. Evangeline was in love with Cris, and Starr was in love with Cole, but those couples couldn't be together because princesses couldn't touch lower-class people. I'm totally taking all the humor out of this part of the episode, but it was hilarious. It was nice to see all the actors really have fun with the material they were acting out.

The second part of the episode focused on Natalie and John. This part took place as an archaeological mystery, where Natalie was an archaeologist (with Rex and Roxy as her team) and John was a pharoah that was brought back to life after being given his heart back (by Natalie, coincidentally). The story ended with the idea that John and Natalie's relationship might be doomed to failure, which is very much in line with how their story outside the fantasy was going.

The third part of the episode dealt with the Nash/Jessica/Antonio triangle, and was a variation on Wuthering Heights. This was the most dramatic of the three stories, yet it was still very closely related to their story outside the fantasy.

Seeing all the period costumes was great fun, and the actors all looked like they were having a trip playing out the stories, so it was a fun episode all around. For those of you that didn't get to see it, I hope you do at some point, either on Soapnet or perhaps clips of it are floating around the internet somewhere.

Overall, sweeps was a pretty good month for OLTL. Even without a major event or a major story coming to a conclusion, it was very enjoyable, and will keep me tuning in to see how the stories play out. Anyone that watches OLTL and would like to comment on things I've missed or just to talk about the show, feel free. Like I said in my last post, I love chatting about my soaps!