1. Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald
 

Theresa…Theresa…Theresa….where do I start?

In the beginning, the truth is, the only reason I watched Passions was FOR Theresa. Not because I loved to hate her, but because I LOVED HER! It’s hard to write those words today. To admit that I was a deep and strong admirer of Theresa. In those first months, from June until October 1999, Theresa was the ONLY reason to really watch this show. She was entertaining, humorous, and fun to watch.

Something happened along the way, and I stopped loving her. And, I couldn’t ‘love to hate her’, as I do with the better villains of daytime, it’s ‘just plain hate’ – to the point where I don’t want her on my TV screen.

Why do I feel this way about her?

Because of the way she’s written. Theresa isn’t just a villain, but she’s a psychotic villain. And, she’s being written as the ‘heroine’ of the show. Something doesn’t compute here. I believe my reaction to Theresa is so severe, because of bruisings that I got as a fan to another soap. Watching that show, where a mobster lied, murdered and stole his brother’s child and was made into THE hero of the show, and the moral center, forcing all other characters to sacrifice their integrity in order for him to be the hero. Seeing that ‘Hustle’ unfold before my eyes, has made the soap viewing instincts sharper. I can recognize another ‘Hustle’ much quicker these days, and Theresa as Heroine is the ultimate ‘Hustle’ on Passions.

Another reason why I loathe Theresa is that it’s OBVIOUS something is majorly wrong with the psyche of this young woman, and she’s being shilled as some ‘innocent, well-intentioned dreamer’. Give-me-a-not-so-small-break. For all the screentime that Theresa has occupied since the beginning of the show, as the audience, we STILL do not know what makes her tick. WHY is she so obsessed with Ethan? WHY did she think she was ‘destined’ for Ethan at the beginning of the show, considering she only knew about him in magazine articles, and dribbles from Pilar? It’s simply not ‘normal’. Not even in a soap context is this ‘normal’. Agnes Nixon took the time to explain to us WHY Erica Kane acts as she does. Bill and Bradley Bell took the time to explain Brooke Logan. Heck, even James Reilley took the time to EXPLAIN AND SHOW why Sami Brady is the way she is. But, we’ve had no such explanation about Theresa.

She’s psychotic, obsessed, a stalker, a bad mother, horrible daughter, sister, friend, completely self-centered. And, when you try and dress that up and call it a ‘Heroine ‘ – that dog don’t hunt.

2. Charity & Miguel
 

I hate this couple with a passion (pun intended).

Why?
Because they HAVE NO STORY!

Intrinsically, Charity and Miguel have no story. They fell ‘In Wuv’  ten seconds after meeting on the show, and we’ve been shoved this crap for over three years.

Bad enough that they don’t have any story, but Passions decided:
1. To make them the FOCUS of the teen third of the show
2. They waste other, BETTER characters, on this pairing. Chaining them to Charity/Miguel, thus denying them the opportunity to be their more interesting selves (Kay and Tabitha top this list).

I have nothing against Molly Stanton or Jesse Metcalfe personally. As a soap viewer of the past 25 years, I’m just going to say that they are on the low end of the talent spectrum. Not only that, but THEY HAVE NO CHEMISTRY!

In my years of watching soaps, I’ve come to some conclusions:
a) Actors with chemistry can make dreck watchable. Maybe not forever, but a show can work with dreck because the actors can sell it.
b) Actors with NO chemistry won’t be able to sell Shakespeare, let alone mediocre to poor writing. We all know Passions is NOT Shakespeare, so we need actors with CHEMISTRY to at least make it plausible. Molly and Jesse HAVE NONE!

MAYBE, if we had other teen stories to watch…..but, alas, we don’t. They have chosen to make Charity/Miguel the focal point of the teen story….and, it sucks! Charity Standish is by far, the most one-dimensional heroine I’ve ever seen in daytime. She hasn’t grown in three and a half years.

Teen story doesn’t have to mean uninteresting. There have been numerous WONDERFUL couples who just happen to be teens over the years: AMC had Jesse/Angie, Jenny/Greg, Tara/Chuck, GH had Laura/Scotty, Robin/Stone, Lucky/Liz, ATWT had Lily/Holden, etc. The bottom line for these couples, is that they had: a) chemistry, and b) a REAL love story. Passions’ Charity/Miguel have NEITHER.

3. The NON-Triangles of Passions
 

One of Passions deepest problems is the proliferation of Non-Triangles. What is a non-triangle? It’s when you have three people involved in a story, and the show has the nerve to try and promote it as a triangle, when I believe a triangle is when the pivotal person in question has feelings for BOTH people who desire them.

A REAL triangle was Sonny/Brenda/Jax on General Hospital. One where the middle point – Brenda, was truly torn between her first love – Sonny, and the possibility of mature love – Jax. Both sides of this triangle could debate up and down about the depth of feelings Brenda had towards either man, but NEITHER side could doubt that Brenda had feelings towards BOTH men. Same for the decade plus of the (Caroline/Taylor)/Ridge/Brooke saga on Bold & The Beautiful. I always believed Ridge’s heart was torn between the women in his life.

This is not the Passions way – unfortunately.

Passions has not one, but FOUR of these wretched non-triangles.

A) Luis/Sheridan/Antonio

They first tried to say that Hank was involved in a triangle with Luis and Sheridan. But, that didn’t work – WHY? Because the story was NEVER WRITTEN! I’ve been watching the show since the beginning, and I know that Dalton’s Hank was ‘interested’ in Sheridan, but write it as a triangle? No, they didn’t. They didn’t develop it from Sheridan’s end, and they didn’t even develop it from Hank’s end.

For the crock that we got when they fired Dalton and hired Ryan, I’ll always believe part of it was that they thought if they ‘recast’ with someone more ‘model’ handsome, that they would instantly have a ‘triangle’ with Luis and Sheridan. Not willing to admit that they a) NEVER wrote the story, and b) Luis and Sheridan aren’t the types to become involved in a triangle. Both the characters of Luis and Sheridan are ‘one-love’ people. Sheridan is a one-man woman. Even if she falls for louts, the lout will have her entire heart and devotion. She’s not made for a split heart, which is why they made us suffer through that mess in Bermuda with Diana and Brian. Mess that didn’t stand up for 3 minutes after Sheridan remembered who she was. She’s not with Antonio because her heart is torn – she’s with him out of guilt and pity. Even when Sheridan was dead, Luis was never really ‘with’ Beth.

B) Simone/Chad/Whitney

If there was a story that makes no sense, it’s this one. Chad has NEVER had romantic feelings towards Simone. It’s all been made up in her mind, and in conflicting clues.

I’m very disappointed in Chad. Chad Harris used to be one of my favorite characters. He used to stand for truth and honesty. Now, he’s a pitiful, pathetic liar with no principles.

I’ve said often, and I believe it: Chad is but a shell of who he was when he first arrived. The Chad Harris that showed up at the Bazaar, wouldn’t have turned on the friendship that Simone offered him. Simone has been the one, since the day that Chad showed up in Harmony, who supported him. It was Simone who backed him, time after time, when Whitney treated Chad like dirt on a consistent basis. The truth of the matter is that when it counted – Whitney has NEVER stood up for Chad. She’s never put herself ‘out there’, and that continues til today.

Why didn’t Chad tell Simone the truth in the beginning? Because Kay told Chad that Simone had an eating disorder – remember? But, does Chad do anything about it? Does he tell her sister, her parents, try and get her help? No.

So, since he didn’t care enough to get her help, he could have told her the truth. There were two issues at hand: 1) telling Simone the truth, 2) his relationship with Whitney. Neither one had ANYTHING to do with the other. Telling Simone the TRUTH was an issue between him and Simone –it had NOTHING to do with IF he could have a relationship with Whitney. Both Chad and Whitney have demeaned and disregarded Simone’s feelings because she’s ‘so young’, ‘ just a teenager’ – yet, these two older people are better BECAUSE? Chad’s clearly A MAN, yet he’s not responsible enough to tell Simone the truth?

Whitney’s had little regard for her sister’s feelings since the beginning. They mattered very little to her. Now, she and Chad are humping practically every other minute and she goes home and smiles in Simone’s face. She doesn’t think that this humiliation for her sister doesn’t increase everytime she’s with Chad?

C&D) Gwen/Ethan/Theresa and Kay/Miguel/Charity

I lump these two together because these two are two of the non-triangles that didn’t need to be non-triangles. The setups were there to be real triangles. REAL triangles where the object in question had genuine feelings for BOTH women and was torn. Instead, we got Ethan lying and disrespecting a woman he was with for a decade, and Miguel treating someone who has been in life since he was a child like dirt. That JER chose to make these farcical triangles has been a tremendous waste of the copious amount of screentime that these stories have taken up since the beginning of Passions.

As I said in the beginning…you can have ONE farcical triangle…it’s when you litter the canvas with them that it rots the show.

4. Antonio Lopez-Fitzgerald: A Wasted & Useless Character with NO Purpose
 

Watching Passions, it is bitterly disappointing to realize just how horrible Antonio IS as a character.
It’s really a shame.
James E. Reilley had TWO YEARS to think up a story about Antonio, and REALLY think about the characterization. THIS is the best he could do?
Maybe it’s because I had read too many fan fictions. I had too ‘high’ an expectation for Antonio.
Because, nothing I’ve seen on screen comes close to the characterizations I read about Antonio.
And, JER changing the timeline works even MORE against the character of Antonio. When I thought Antonio was barely a kid when he left, I had more sympathy for him. When they changed it to 10 years ago, makes him look even MORE pathetic.

What did I expect from Antonio?

Ok, he looked like Martin, but had a temper like Luis.
While Luis did the ‘honorable thing’ and held the family together….
Antonio is ‘less honorable’. He would skirt the law to get what he wanted.

And, the main focus of Antonio…
He was also a Lopez-Fitzgerald obsessive.
While Theresa’s obsession is Ethan
And Miguel’s is Charity
Antonio’s Obsession is the Cranes.

He lived every moment for the time when he could return home and wreck vengeance on the Cranes.
To that end, he’s been working feverishly, learning a profession – the law or a business degree.
But, he’s researched the Cranes so much that he knows them up and down.
The Antonio who would walk away from the family and stay away, was ALWAYS planning to return….
Once his plans for revenge against the Cranes were in place.
Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that Antonio would be:
A whining, lazy, grifting mooch of a loser.

He’s had NO plans for ANYTHING.
And, while, I think making Simone stupid is supposed to make us root for Chadney…I think JER thinks we’re supposed to be sympathetic to Anphonio because he’s this stupid. I don’t care if Antonio dies. And, it’s not because I’m a Shuis Fan, but as a Passions fan, I don’t care if he dies. Nothing will be lost storywise. So, Pilar will cry – what else is new. Nothing would be lost to this show if Antonio died.
It’s a combination of poor characterization, and a lackluster actor. They both add up to Antonio being a loser of a character.

5. Plots That Go Nowhere – The Pacing from Hell
 

One of the greatest things that undermines Passions is its pacing. The show has only resolved three of the initial stories from when the show began in July 1999:
a) Ethan’s Paternity
b) Theresa loves Ethan
c) Kay becoming pregnant and declaring her love for Miguel

· These are the ONLY beginning stories that have been resolved. Dragging out stories is one thing. It’s been three and a half YEARS – the show should be dealing with the ripple effects of the first wave of stories.
· What about Eve’s past?
· What’s in TC’s shed?
· What happened in the first part of Grace’s life?
· Who are Chad’s parents?
· Who is Charity’s father?
· WHY did Antonio leave – he’s been on the show for at least a year – do we know WHY he left?
· What happened to Martin Fitzgerald?
· What happened ‘that night’ with Sheridan, the bloody hands and the coffin?
At least half of these should have been revealed by now, if not all of them. The show should be working on the repercussions of the revelations. I happen to believe Passions won’t rise in the ratings to really compete until the pacing speeds up. Until they drop the repetitive and idiotic dialogue that plagues this show. They could drop the repetitiveness, and give scenes to other characters. The show was better in the beginning through 2000, because of all the promise. That so much of the show in its current form is filler in between sweeps periods.

They are just offensive. Offensive to both Timmy and JRE. But, the most important reason why I don’t like them is that they add NOTHING to the Passions Canvas. Timmy ADDED something to the canvas: a) to the moral fiber of the show, b) balanced out Tabitha.

Tabitha is a witch. Dedicated to the pursuit of evil. It was very easy for Tabitha to slip down into the hell known as the ‘cartoon villain.’ Tabitha’s relationship with Timmy humanized her. It showed the audience that Tabby wasn’t all evil, and that there is goodness inside of her. Connie and Cecil do not balance Tabitha out. They are unnecessary annoying gnats. As characters they are farces, and make Tabby unwatchable. Get rid of them.

When we first met Hank Bennett, there was something ‘off’ about him. You knew he had problems. That though his older brother and best friend were stand-up hero types, that he wasn’t. That he had always lived in their shadows, even though he loved both of them. Then came, the mysterious phone calls. Hank Bennett was on the run from someone. He had done things outside of Harmony that weren’t exactly kosher. It was hinted that his interest in Sheridan Crane had less to do with her beauty and was more about the size of her bank account. Everything Hank did never came out the right way, hence the way that Sheridan’s first ‘death’ became a comedy of errors.

Dalton James played Hank Bennett wonderfully with all his flaws. His Hank wasn’t evil – he had just made a lot of poor choices, but his heart was good.
Yet, Dalton was fired. The official word was so that Hank the character could ‘go in a new direction’, and in came Ryan McPartlin. As a viewer I have to ask….what NEW direction did Hank go? All the depth, all the conflict, all the backstory for Hank went out with the recast. It’s one thing to trade one actor for another when both of them can ACT, but it’s another to trade one who CAN act, for one who CANNOT, which is this case. Hank is a glorified extra now with no story remotely of his own. This was a bad move, and no one can explain to me now, how having Mr. McPartlin in the role of Hank Bennett has done the role any justice.

But, even that horrible casting decision doesn’t touch the inexplicable horror that is the Chad Harris recast- Charles Divins. They only hinted about Hank’s possible story. We KNOW that Chad’s story only gets more complex and larger as this show continues.

The story of Chad Harris is the story of the Black Crane. A story of a child abandoned and left to live in hell, only to find out that he’s the son of one of the richest men in the world. The story of how he can deal with this. The dichotomy of Chad Harris is that he can wear FUBU as well as Armani. That he looks like he could be homeless on the street, and be sitting in the Crane Mansion – THIS is his life. These are the extremes that will make up his life. Donn Swaby could do both. He made you FEEL Chad’s pain and anger from growing up on the street. Made you feel his angst in wanting to find out about his parents.

Not only is Mr. Divins a horrible actor, he LOOKS wrong for the part. He looks like he can’t SPELL homeless anymore than convince that he was homeless. He has no chemistry with any of the main players, and I find it ridiculous for Passions to actually put forth that with ALL the unemployed Black Actors in Hollywood, that Mr. Divins outshined them all? Who are they kidding. He’s wooden, emotes absolutely nothing, and brings nothing to the table. It utterly pains me to even think that the story of the Black Crane will ultimately be gutted, and we as an audience would lose such good soap opera due to an actor who can’t possibly deliver the depth and substance of such a story. They need to admit their mistake, and especially with Mr. Divins, go out and recast  -with the emphasis on TALENT, not some pretty boy who is going to gut the three years of preparation that has gone into the story of the Black Crane.

I have nothing against Chrystee Pharris, but the truth of the matter is, she doesn’t bring the heart and soul that Lena Cardwell brought to Simone. Though, I have seen just flashes of the Simone that I loved when Lena was in the role. I would prefer Lena, but she’s not the travesty that McPartlin and Divins are.

8. Psycho Beth Wallace & her mother
 

I just get a foul sense in my mouth when I see Beth and her mother on the screen. Maybe Beth always was crazy. But, the problem is that for 3 years on the show, Beth wasn’t seen on the screen too often. So, as a viewer, you have to take your impression of Beth from the little that we saw.

And, we did NOT see ANY signs of Beth being a psycho. She was always kind, sweet and giving. We didn’t even get a Sheridan dartboard to maybe tell us that she was bitter towards Sheridan. None of that was on the screen.

So color me unhappy when we see that Beth’s been psycho all these years and is in an abusive relationship with her mother. It came out of nowhere, and was done so that Antonio ‘Tree Stump’ Lopez-Fitzgerald could remain ‘the good guy’ in their wretched quadrangle. And, to add insult to injury, in order to ‘explain’ Beth’s psychosis, we’ve been getting these odd flashbacks of her. I can only request that Passions stop it. This is the show that tried to ‘camp’ both abortion and suicide. To say that they shouldn’t touch child abuse with a ten foot pole isn’t exaggerating.

I find Beth the Psycho tedious. She nor her mother are entertaining. I don’t even hate Beth for her manipulations. I find it all out in left field due to poor and slipshod writing.

9. Obsessive masochistic women
 

Gwen, Simone, Kay, Beth, Ivy, Theresa – what do these women have in common?
They have remotely no common sense whatsoever when it comes to the man they ‘wuv’.
Theresa attempts abortion, suicide, admits to a murder she didn’t commit, and throws herself down an elevator shaft, and these are expressions of LOVE?
Um, no…these are expressions of a psychotic.
Beth – KNOWS Luis loves Sheridan and STILL wants him?
Ivy has literally mutilated herself in her quest to get Sam.
Gwen shouldn’t even have looked twice at Edumb, the Ehole, for the way he has treated her.
And, Simone has NO examples in her memory of Chad kissing her the way that he kisses Whitney, and STILL, she wants to blame WHITNEY?
Kay…oh Kay…he’s SO not worth it….

Once again, like with the non-triangles, Passions takes something and runs it into the GROUND. A show usually has one, MAYBE two women who are obsessed with a man, and they are balanced out by other women who have man troubles. NO SHOW has this many unhealthy, demeaned women obsessed with men. NO SHOW. The repetitiveness of this plot-type is one of the reasons why the show is stalled. Each of these characters could be moved onto bigger and better stories. Stories that HAVE to be more interesting than the drivel we see on the screen. And, maybe I find it offensive, for a show that ADMITS that it’s main target audience is the 12-17 female population, to see this many WRONG examples of femalehood for them to watch.

Passions can’t accept awards from public service group out of one side of the mouth, and then turn around and say that having pathetic, desperate examples of womanhood proliferate on the show has no influence on an impressionable audience. Can’t have it both ways. If this show can influence positively, then it can influence negatively, and to have SO many women on the show be depicted in such a wretched light IS negative.

10. Plot-based writing
 

There are two schools of writing: Character-based or Plot-based. I am a fan of character-based writing. Writing when you look at the actions characters take, you can say, ‘ I understand why they’re doing this. It’s based on this part of their character’. The other is plot-based, when you’re watching the TV, and a character does something, and you’re ready to shout out loud – ‘there’s no way that this character would do that.’ Passions is riddled with plot-based writing.

Some examples:

Ethan’s sudden desire and moaning about working at Crane Industries. For a year and a half, we didn’t hear anything from Ethan about working at Crane Industries – how he missed it, that he actually cared. But, when it fit into the preposterous plot twist of Theresa being an executive at Crane Industries.

Another plot twist is Ethan being so ‘impressed’ with Theresa being an executive. When Gwen was working, all Ethan could do is whine about Gwen not being there, and he even asked her to QUIT her job several times.

Then, there’s the plot-driven drivel of the ENTIRE Brian/Diana relationship that began from the moment the boat blew up. Sheridan’s second ‘death’ was an exercise in plot-driven drivel that seriously derailed this show and completely stopped the momentum it had built up from its beginning to the brilliant Ethan paternity revelation. The Antonio Lopez-Fitzgerald  character has been a waste, from the very beginning. A man who falls in love with ‘Diana’ in thirty seconds after seeing her? It was obvious that it was ridiculous for this to be a plot point, so we got plot-driven excuse that he was ‘cursed’ by Tabitha to explain Antonio’s patheticness. A man who loves a woman who doesn’t remember who she is, yet makes NO sincere attempt to find out if she has a family, children out there who love her? A woman who doesn’t file ONE police report on herself to see if ANYONE has missed her? Now we suffer through Antonio’s unnamed disease. As one of the soap rags has pointed out…we can accept all the supernatural explanations…but, there’s something positively ridiculous about Antonio’s unnamed disease.

Do I need to comment on Charity having heart surgery and her scar is smaller than a band-aid?

The entire Simone/Chad/Whitney is plot-driven drivel that can’t even stand up to Passions low standards.

Beth being a psycho: plot-driven drivel.

Hell-In-A-Closet was plot-driven drivel. It was a horrible waste of Passions viewers’ time.  It didn’t have to be. It could have been a pivotal moment in the Charity/Miguel/Kay triangle. But, when NONE of the players of the triangle didn’t change fundamentally, which would have made this a CHARACTER-driven story, the entire story collapsed into the category of ‘waste of space and time.’ Charity – KNEW her cousin sent her to HELL, but didn’t change. Miguel – over the course of the story was made CLEAR about Kay’s feelings for him and what she’d do for him, but didn’t change. Kay – SOLD HER SOUL AND LITERALLY SAW HELL, but didn’t change. How does one ‘top’ sending someone to HELL? They don’t. I didn’t expect ALL of the characters in this triangle to change. Just ONE was enough, and that would have impacted the triangle.

Ivy popping her pills – something should come of that. Ivy should be an obviously addicted fool by now. Not some plot contrivance.
I suppose it all comes down to preference, but I believe that the best storytelling comes from character-driven writing. Character-driven writing ADDS to the characters and the stories themselves.

11. Not following the Hidden Passions guide.
 

What is THE POINT of having Hidden Passions, and shilling it as ‘background’ material for the show, IF THE SHOW IS NOT GOING TO FOLLOW IT?!
As a viewer who bought the book, I thought it was going to ‘fill in’ with more depth the only thing with depth on the show – the Adult storylines. And, to be honest, I wasn’t disappointed. I felt I had a better understanding of those adult characters once I finished the book.

But, watching the show ignore what the book said, has been infuriating. A pet peeve of mine is the way that they’ve treated the character of T.C. Russell. T.C. was done a great service by Hidden Passions, a service which hasn’t extended to the show. To this day, they STILL choose to shortchange T.C. and his accident. For those who didn’t read the book, they would be under the impression that all T.C. was in was a bad fender bender. That it messed up his knee, but little else. How far from the truth (Hidden Passions) can you get? The ‘truth’ is that T.C. was IN A COMA FOR A MONTH, following the accident, hovering between life and death, and the STRESS from watching over his son and worrying about him is what gave T.C.’s father a MAJOR HEART ATTACK. None of this ‘he died from a broken heart’ garbage that the show repeats. The man had deep health problems beginning with that attack, from which he never really recovered and only got worse until he died. The medical conditions aren’t a hard thing to explain. People know the harm heart problems can cause. It isn’t some rare foreign disease, and it would take NOTHING for the script writers for the show to incorporate this into the character of T.C. Russell, and to help flush out his character more. They can lift the dialogue FROM THE BOOK if they need to.

I also think that flashbacks for both TC/Eve and Sam/Grace would help things to explain their stories. People wonder WHY Eve is with T.C. What could she see in him? How could she be with him? The T.C./Eve romance in Hidden Passions  was one of the best parts of the book. It was lush, visual – you could see and feel their relationship developing. What would flashbacks hurt? It’s not like there isn’t a lot of wasted, repetitive dialogue on Passions. There is one specific exchange between TC and Eve on pain and how to live with it that I believe is the fundamental underlying crux of this couple and why Eve’s with him. Once again, I say that the script writers for TV don’t even have to ‘create’ this – they can lift the dialogue straight from the BOOK.

I also don’t appreciate the sudden rewriting of Eve’s past. Eve was an ONLY child, growing up in a wealthy, but emotionally barren household. Her parents were only a few notches down from Alistair Crane on the parenting scale. So, all this tripe from ‘Sister’ Liz about how horrible it was for Eve to leave her alone at home just aren’t ringing so true to me, and making Liz look even more pathetic – if that’s possible.

If you can’t count on Hidden Passions as a supplementary guide to the show, then they should stop shilling it at every other turn.

12. Alistair Crane as a sociopath.
 

I know that shows need a villain. Good villains make shows go forward.
But, Alistair Crane isn’t a good villain. He’s a sociopath. He’s the worst parent in daytime that I’ve seen in 25 years of watching daytime.
All the good villains have a weak spot. And, in daytime, that usually meant their children. Roger Thorpe – ‘Chrissy’ and Hart were his weakness. (The destruction of the Hart/Roger bond is what put Megan McHackish on my permanent *#%$ list.) Adam Chandler, Asa Buchanan, Todd Manning, Helena Cassadine, even Stefano DiMera – he did just about everything during his time on DOOL, but, as a viewer, I had to say that he loved his children (in his own way). He corrupted them all, but he ‘loved’ them.

Not Alistair. He not only doesn’t give a crap about his children, but he was willing to KILL his child. Not that parents in daytime don’t kill their children – but, when they attempt it, it’s usually because the parent will be a short-term role. The reason that Alistair wanted Sheridan dead never made any sense in the first place. IF there is proof about what the Cranes did to Martin Fitzgerald, wouldn’t a sane person just get rid of it? DUH! To have a character take such a drastic and irrevocable measure as that, on such flimsy, plot-driven drivel was disgustingly lazy writing for a story that could well have been Passions’ ‘Jump The Shark’ moment.

13. The lack of sibling bond between Julian and Sheridan Crane.
 

I’m not saying that Sheridan and Julian have to be best friends, but their lack of a sibling bond is bothersome. Julian made a promise to his DYING mother to take care of Sheridan, and this couldn’t be part of the ‘human’ Julian? It was very hard, as a Julian fan, to even root for the character after having Julian participate in Sheridan’s second ‘death’. It was inane plot-based drivel that did nothing for the character of Julian, and almost sunk the character. What would it have taken to have Julian chicken out of the plan he had done with Alistair, only to be double-crossed by Alistair, who never thought he’d do it in the first place? Nothing, except for that it would have spared the Julian character to have this mark on his character.

There should be a small sense of ‘us vs. Father’ with Julian and Sheridan. Even the most combative of siblings [Alan/Alexandra-GL] have a better relationship than Julian and Sheridan. There are combinations of good sibling/bad siblings in soapdom [Hank/RJ-OLTL, Stuart/Adam –AMC, Craig/His Sisters-ATWT, etc.]. You can get disgusted with the bad sibling, but there’s still the family relationship underneath it all. Would it have taken all that much to have this with Julian and Sheridan? Would it?

Well, this is my list about things that make me Passion-less about Passions. Sure, it’s more than 10, but these are what I believe is holding the show back.