Brandon's Buzz

In what is shaping up as a watershed, telltale year — one marked by radically slashed budgets, by a crumbling ratings, by a series of breath-stealing actor dismissals, and by entire shows coasting on the fumes of asinine plot-propelled drivel (“The Bold and the Beautiful,” anyone?) — for a uniquely American art form — the serialized daytime drama — let’s pause to toast the one soap that’s more or less getting it exactly right: ABC’s “One Life to Live.” The show marked its fortieth year on the air on July 15, and today and tomorrow, they’re pulling out all the stops to mark the occasion by revisiting three of “One Life’s” most successful and most beloved storylines: Tina Lord Roberts’ 1987 tumble over an Argentinian waterfall (today, it’ll be her daughter Sarah taking that plunge); Viki Lord’s infamous trip to Heaven that same year (she’s going back, but this time around she’ll only encounter the folks — like her former father-in-law (and second favorite sparring partner) Asa Buchanan, her dear friend Mel Hayes, and her late husband Ben Davidson — who have died since her first visit); and Clint Buchanan’s lavishly brilliant time-travelling adventure (twenty years ago, he fell off his horse — seriously, you just had to be there — and landed in Arizona in the late 19th century; this month, Bo and Rex are struck by lightning and wake up in 1968 — the year this series hit the air, wink, wink — and faced with a choice to either change the future — will Asa’s bastard son David Vickers even be born? Will Bo not be drafted and sent to Vietnam after all? — or leave it alone). Soaps are all about execution, of course, so the final verdict will be out for a bit, but this ploy feels like a spectacular way to both honor this show’s rich, bountiful history and to re-engage the attention of lapsed fans who have been alienated over the years by shoddy writing and boneheaded plot twists (how many besides me are still infuriated about Nora sleeping with Sam Rappaport ten years ago?!). Contrast this celebration with fellow ABC soap “General Hospital” — which marked its 45th anniversary on April 1 with a dopey thirty-second clip reel tacked onto the end of that day’s episode — and you get the distinct feeling that its network no longer considers “One Life” to be the redheaded stepchild of its daytime lineup.

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“There’s nothing wrong with being a soap. It’s a perfectly legitimate form. I acted in soap operas in the day, to make my living. I did a lot of those! I remember, I played a cad in one of them. I was trying to seduce a girl… it took us about thirteen weeks in one rumble seat to get anywhere. But it was the same plot as we see on TV now.”

— the estimable Orson Welles, discussing life and art with Merv Griffin mere hours before dying of a heart attack in 1985

“You can actually, on a soap opera, marry eight to ten men and not be considered a tramp at all.“

— the marvelous Kelly Ripa, explaining to David Letterman in 2001 why her oft-wedded “All My Children” character isn’t, ahem, easy