I never saw
“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”, but after watching
"All My Children" last week I’m going to assume that movie really sucked.
Not being familiar with the film, I did some research. From what I can tell, it is a thoroughly depressing drama about the marathon dance craze of the
Great Depression. Apparently, married couples and unacquainted social dancers alike would arduously swing and sway for hundreds of continuous hours for a cash reward. In
“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”, the marathon dance acts as a central metaphor for the "dance" of life, and through the motions exists an everlasting berating, conspiracy, and competitive animosity. Only Pratthole would find inspiration in this flick.
If Pratt got anything right, it was the “thoroughly depressing” part, as last week’s episodes were the worst I’ve seen in the decades I’ve watched the show. In my version of hell this dance-a-thon would be playing on Hell-TV 24/7. Conceptually, it was a doomed from the start. In lieu of the “cash reward” common in the Depression era dance marathons, AMC offered a
fake charity for
real starving Africans. Couldn’t it at least have benefitted a fake charity with some tie to the show like the Miranda Center? Fake charity for real starving people just seems wrong.
Secondly, whatever happens at Fusion/ConFusion usually sucks, so cramming the entire cast into the place is like begging viewers to change the channel. I realize Pratt was trying to accommodate a budget issue, but nothing good ever happens at Fusion/ConFusion and he should know that by now. This is the point in the blog where I would normally make a joke about the legions of characters who have been assaulted at ConFusion or how odd everyone looks with the ConFusion lights shining up their nostrils, but seriously the most ridiculous, ludicrous things happen in this set so again, using this set as the focus of the story set it up for certain failure. Why not have some moving memorial to the town’s history and rise from the destruction of the tornado? It would have been a chance to utilize all the vets we love and may not see much of anymore. Instead we had Adam, Jessie and half the male population of Pine Valley acting their scenes in the
women’s restroom at ConFusion. The
WOMEN'S restroom! Ridiculous!
Third, I guess Pratt thinks “the dance of life” and “everlasting berating, conspiracy, and competitive animosity” means women duking it out in the crapper. If there was ever a sign of how low this show has sunk under Pratt’s pen, it was the moment the show’s beloved heroine Erica Kane, at 62, apparently stuffed Annie’s head in a toilet. We didn’t actually see Erica cleaning the bowl with Annie’s bangs, but it was pretty clear what happened. I’m assuming Annie doesn’t have a glandular problem we don’t know about that causes profuse sweating from the head. For one thing, Annie could beat Erica up with her lips so Erica throwing Annie around was absurd. For another, after the initial dunking, Annie continued dancing! Did it dawn on her or anyone else that she may have had urine or a piece of shit in her hair? I tell you why Adam passed out. Annie smelled like shit! I’m surprised Annie didn’t die from E-Coli!!!
Fourth, the dancing. Even the black people on this show dance like old white people. This was more Dork Dance-Off than Dancing With the Stars. In fact, there was only
one star in attendance, namely Erica. Adam Chandler was more Steve Wozniak than Hélio Castroneves. And I’m assuming the rest of the world isn’t in the midst of a Petey craze, so I don’t think they could have raised $5 on local access let alone whatever they pretended to raise on national TV. I guess we should be grateful we didn’t have to watch Tad try to dance to “My Humps”. And what happened to all those pole dancing skills we saw a few years ago?
As for everything else, it was just varying degrees of shiteous. Erica and Krystal are new BFFs? Never. David, Jake and Amanda continue to make no sense. Whatever snap Jake and Amanda had is evaporating faster than the toilet water on Annie’s forehead. Adam gets light headed and sees a vision of Stuart and then decides to take a break? I would have exited stage left when my date came back from the bathroom with dingleberries in her hair! Madison walks in circles hurling insults at the nearest Hubbard and never once gets the back of Mother Hubbard's hand. Zach and Liza make out on TV and piss off how ever many few Zendall fans still exist out there. JR and Marissa dry hump on the roof but nobody at this huge fake charity event notices. Prisoner-in-hiding Kendall somehow slips past all the media unnoticed, sneaks into ConFusion, and nobody notices.
And as if things weren’t bad enough, Aidan returns.
But to show us that things can always be worse, McKenzie Phillips took over the airwaves with the bile inducing details of her incestuous affair with her father. I was able to keep it down during AMC, but this was too much. I threw up a little in my mouth. Between AMC and McKenzie, the whole week seemed less
“Feed the World” and more
“World Vomit Week” .
So now we hear that Aidan Turner is out. Rumors are flying that Beth Ehlers is leaving and Beth Ann Bonner is coming, but does any of it really matter as long as Pratthole is still head writer? There was absolutely nothing wrong with Beth Ehlers. She saw the writing on the wall and made a move from GL to AMC and AMC totally failed her. I don't begrudge her a thing. Her storyline sounded great but the execution was heinous. Remember Brot sneaking around the hospital with Colby, er Turdby? She never had a chance. She spoke out in frustration and she got shit-canned for it. Her failure is Pratt's failure and a missed opporturnity. RPG got a legacy character with tons of history. She got an ill defined, poorly imagined character Pratt special. Beth Ann Bonner, you are forewarned.
Thank goodness for the new TV season and all the stuff we can talk about that doesn't involve anyone McKenzie Phillips has had sex with or Chuck Pratt’s writing skills. We may call it the PVP, but it’s so much more. And with all of your astoot commentary, you give AMC and TPTB a chance to see that we care about and support well written, quality programming. So whether it’s OLTL or something else putting a smile on your face this season, all you have to do is let your fingers do the talking, right
here.
