Daytime Soap Opera
Actor Of The Week

The Best Of Each Show

In the spirit of the season, I decided to pick a standout from each soap this week. To me, Anita’s larger than life persona on BTG isn’t the greatest fit for Tamara Tunie’s acting style, when she’s doing the glam diva thing I very much notice that she’s acting, strip the artiface away though, put her in a grounded scenario like receiving and relaying a cancer diagnosis and that’s when Tunie makes the most of her abilities, that’s when her emotions feel more real than performative, and I’m reminded of what I admired so much about her work on ATWT. Jeers to B&B for only ever trotting Eric out for stories that emphasize his age as if there’s nothing else to him now, but cheers to John McCook for always giving it his all no matter how frustrating the limited scope of his stories must sometimes feel, Eric’s melancholy before Christmas was the best acting B&B had to offer this week. Over on Days Of Our Lives, after the writers had Marlena make such a questionable choice for Rachel’s mental health they thankfully had Brady move past his anger over it fairly quickly and we were treated to an extremely well-acted reunion between stepmom and stepson, full of forgiveness and the promise that they were in this together with Rachel. While I loved the moment on GH where Rocco split the cookie with his dad, Dante, and Gio’s violin playing, nothing could eclipse Portia on the witness stand, begging Alexis to stop questioning her only to be devastated when her relationship with Isaiah was revealed to everyone in the courtroom including her estranged husband and very upset daughter, Brooke Kerr is long overdue for an Emmy, maybe this will finally seal the deal. Lastly, on Y&R, they feature a lot of seated conversations these days, many of them don’t have enough to say, but the one between Traci and Lily had depth, they talked about Colleen and love and Traci’s writing life, this is one of the best relationships on the show, their connection through Lily’s best friend and Traci’s lost daughter (Colleen), and the way they kind of fill a void for each other, Lily without her parents, Traci without her daughter, I wish they shared scenes and nurtured this relationship more frequently.