TVSquad

Soap operas are a funny form of television fiction. They have rules all its own, they can tell all kinds of stories and do them in the most unusual ways. Here's a few things I've noticed lately, things that seem to only be possible, on a soap.

Only on a soap...can a medical clinic be conceived, built and stocked in less than a month.
It's true. It happened in Port Charles. On General Hospital, soon after Emily died -- and Nikolas stopped seeing visions of her thanks to a brain tumor -- he decided to dedicate a health clinic in her memory. Since Nikolas is a royalty, some kind of prince, cost was no object. He never met with an architect or designer, never spoke to contractors, never searched for a location and dealt with permits. He did have a fight with the mayor for a couple of shows about opening the clinic after it was already completed. If only all construction projects could be done so easily. Jeff Lewis on Bravo's Flipping Out doesn't even work that fast!

Actor Drake Hogestyn, who plays 'John Black' on Days of our Lives and has perfected the 'smells a fart'-style of acting,had his very own real-life soap opera drama on New Year's Eve. He and his family were in the backyard of their California home when a deranged fan burst in with a bible, claiming he was going to exorcise the devil from Hogestyn. The man, Carl Raymond Cheney, obviously thought that Hogestyn was his alter-ego. He made reference to some older episodes of Days and claimed he could cast the devil from Hogestyn. (I don't keep up with Days, but I thought it was Marlena who was possessed by the devil)

Court records show that Cheney chased Hogestyn's daughter and pushed his wife before Hogestyn grabbed the man by the hair, swung him around and punched him in the chin. It was probably better than any action sequence that has ever aired on Days of our Lives. Hogestyn and his son subdued the psychotic fan with duct tape until police arrived.