This is so cliche, it's ridiculous. But, what the hell? Let's talk about it anyway. In fact, lazy writers have used this so often, it makes it less entertaining. Yet once in a while, there's a good one. But rarely. It seems to me that this is simply a symptom of the horrible writing that has tanked this genre. So, I'm on board. Besides the people having no love for one another and lawlessness and crazy wars, the natural disasters are indicative of where we went off the rails. Come on, Guys and Maria Bell, can't you be a little more inventive to find ways to stick people together with the eventual result of having sex? Can't you think of something a little more interesting?
Okay, so to be fair, sometimes, this stuff works. The last storm on GH was stupid, but so is all of GH. It's a dumb plotpoint to get Sam and Tea to give birth at the same time in places other than hospitals. And, I'm sorry, but Tea in labor is so unappealing, I think Todd may have had to grow an alter to get through it. Hell, I might have. I'll call her "Paddison" and she's deaf, so she didn't hear Tea's wailing and psycho shrying. But it was still kind of amusing. The storm worked in that respect. It drowned out some of Tea's screeching.
But it's so overused and comes out of nowhere. What about making the world a little less "stressful" in terms of natural disaster and making it about emotional disasters or business disasters? The last disaster on OLTL was the blackout, but I'll let that one pass as it was man-made and brought us all those great people breaking out of prison. Anything that lets me see Mitch again works for me! But couldn't there be something more inventive? Like couldn't there have been a plain old prison break. I know, the black out made for all that romantic lighting, but it could have been more like an old movie. They were more realistic...okay, that's a stretch. But a thought.
The worst one I ever saw was on AMC and Bianca gave birth- what a shock- and Babe died. I can't even remember what it was but I think it was a tornado or a flood or something. It was so bad, I don't even remember . Now, as annoyed as I was with AMC at that point, killing Babe made it all worth it. She was a waste of space and an insult to the great female characters AMC had in the past. But, as usual, I digress.
The point here is that the storm or natural disaster is all plot point that makes it easy to throw people together rather than having to write complex stories that build over time and bring people together in a realistic and rational way. I know I've lived through many a storm and even a slight tornado and countless snowstorms. Yet I've never been trapped with someone I hardly know and it led to sex. That's just, well, stupid. It's stupid in real life and it's stupid on a soap. But I have to admit that when Nick and Sharon got trapped in Jack's cabin in the snow and Brad died from driving into the pond and Phyllis flipped out about trying to get to them, it led to one helluva sex scene and romance galore. That one worked real well but, hey, Nick and Sharon can sell it trapped or not.
I get how the disaster make for a lot of potential "OOO"s and "AAHH"s but, really, who cares? We want to see complicated relationships, not buildings falling down and women screaming. Maybe we can live with the men having their shirts torn, but there must be an easier way. See: Valentini's patented sauna trick. Really, though, it's another symptom of the end of the soap opera. It's the apocalypse coming because, in actuality, it's lazy writing. And that's the real problem. There's a lot of issues, but that's what it all comes down to. And that's enough.
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