while it would be so very nice if every soap opera episode could be as great as one life to live was last wednesday, i could live with what i got today. each of the three shows i watch regularly --  oltl, guiding light, as the world turns -- had some nice, relatively quiet (which is to say not too over the top) moments between characters that gave voice to the inherent ambuity that is life.

i've started to take these moments for granted on oltl, (which is nice:). today, it was an exchange between tea  and cole. no histronics, just tea trying to make cole understand why his mother, marty, had hired her to defend cole on dui charges despite the bad blood between marty and tea. 

on gl, grant aleksander's return as phillip last month brought with it an increase in these character moments. today's scenes with phillip and his father, alan, daughter, lizzie, and ex-wife, beth, were all layered with subtlety and subtext.

and if that weren't enough there was buzz meeting his new grandchild for the first time. could barely hear the dialogue (still some bugs to work out with the sound), but with justin deas, the words never really matter. 

and there was more: apparently i'm one of the few who've had a hard time getting into gina tognoni's portrayal of dinah marler. her reasons for participating in lizzie's kidnapping and the framing of her brother bill always rang hollow to me. even her public confession on friday's episode left me a little cold.  and the budding relationship between her and shane lewis has felt forced.  but after watching the scenes between her and shane today, i finally get her -- and them.

i still have some bones to pick with gl: alexandra visits phillip in jail, but doesn't attend coop's funeral -- and still hasn't expressed her condolences to buzz?  and why weren't  lizzie's mother, beth, and grandmother, lillian, at the party to share in dinah's confession?  i get that there are scheduling constraints, but when characters are missing from scenes where logic dictates they should be with no explanation provided, viewers (well, this viewer anyway) find it jarring. 

even as the world turns pleased me today. not all of it, the meg-paul-emily-dusty-lucy nonsense is still ff material. but the scenes with tom, margo, casey and alison evoked the doug marland era. and it's been a long time since i could say that. i take some comfort that the atwt writing team still remembers how to write these kinds of scenes. maybe they could do more often. i could live with once a week -- mondays are good for me.