Since 1994 I’ve been saying that Nathan Fillion is awesome. FINALLY the world is catching up:
He’s got a hit show, he’s a cover boy and he just won Entertainment Weekly’s poll as the male TV Character readers most want to date.
I TOLD YOU SO 😉
Category Archives: Soaps
Lucky Spencer kicks ass, takes names
I tuned back into General Hospital recently and was glad to see the Lucky/Elizabeth/Nikolas wanna-be triangle was finally moving.
Friday’s cliffhanger ended with a drunk and bitter Lucky confronting love-of-his-life fiancee Elizabeth about sleeping with his half-brother Nikolas. Monday was the full on Rage Fest and it was AWESOME!
Jonathan Jackson is at his best when he is screaming and crying and having a total fucking meltdown on screen. Seriously – he gets so into the scene he’s got tears and snot, his voice goes hoarse, the veins are popping out of his neck and forehead. It is amazing. We were clapping and shouting “Emmy! Emmy!” Thank god they got him back for this storyline.
The fact that all the actors involved in this arc are the originators of these roles helps tremendously. There is built in trust and knowledge of the characters and you can actually sense the years of relationship and drama in these scenes together. His numbed conversation with Luke afterwards was also beautifully done. He and Tony Geary have always had tremendous chemistry together and this quiet after the storm was played perfectly.
He was absolutely brutal to Elizabeth and Nikolas and gave an ultimate Tour de Force. There is NO better soapy drama than the Spencer/Cassadine Saga in my book. Now bring back Stefan dammit! (is he dead? I don’t even know. Like that would matter on a soap. He held Laura’s “dead” mother captive for years!)
Thanks to envious01 on YouTube, you can watch just Lucky’s Epic Rage Fest without having to suffer through the mob shit! I may just watch the show this way from now on:
WTF??: James Franco on General Hospital
Like everyone else who cares about this sort of thing, I am pondering what the heck James Franco is doing on GH. He’s an award winning movie star so why is he doing a daytime TV?
Who knows, who cares. What I do want to know is – why is he sucking so badly?
Don’t get me wrong I know he’s a great actor. He was wonderful in Milk, hilarious in Pineapple Express, and will forever hold a place in my heart for being head Freak Daniel Desario on the I’m-still-not-over-its-cancellation Freaks and Geeks.
But he is just painful to watch as creepy artist Franco in this arc. It is like he’s doing a spoof of soap acting. And I believe he did this earnestly – I don’t think he’s mocking the sometimes melodramatic styles of soap acting. But that is how it is coming across at least to me. It’s as if he’s in a Saturday Night Live skit overracting a soap character.
I seem to be in the minority though as every piece of press I read about it seems to love him and think he’s “elevating” the acting of the regular cast. I don’t know. I think there are plenty of good actors in soaps (of course there are crappy ones, but there are crappy ones on primetime and movies too) and they’re proving it isn’t as easy as it may look when James Franco is kind of crappy at it.
25 Days / Day 19 / Nathan Fillion
Who: Nathan Fillion. Joey Buchanan, Rick Castle, Captain Hammer
Why: He’s adorable and funny and is so appealing he probably has chemistry with doorknobs and other inanimate objects
When: One Life to Live mid-90’s – Present
Level of Obsession: My friend and I gave him a card when he was on OLTL and later he was featured in a soap magazine talking about how much he loved our card (it was a Where the Wild Things Are one)
“Ahhhh!” Moment(s): The Joey-Dorian/May-December romance on OLTL; Dr. Pomatter in Waitress; “The hammer? Is my penis” in Dr. Horrible; this interview on Kimmel; anytime he wears his little “Writer” bulletproof vest and any scene with his on-screen daughter in Castle
I so love Nathan Fillion and am THRILLED that he’s finally getting the recognition he deserves. When he was sweet Joey Buchanan on OLTL my friend and I got to visit the set and as we were leaving he was checking his mail. She very casually said “Hi Nathan!” and as he turned around, you could see by his expression he thought it would be someone he knew. And although he did not know us, he could not have been more charming and delightful and tall! I followed him on and off through the years but did not watch Buffy (where I hear he was really, really evil, I don’t know if I can take Evil Nathan) nor have I see Firefly although I know I really must (it is on my watch list for the new year). He even got me to briefly tune in to Desperate Housewives when he had a run on there (and re-united with former OLTL co-star and buddy Tuc Watkins!). I like Castle although it is a little formulaic and I’m not a big fan of cop shows. If he weren’t the lead I wouldn’t bother, but he is so funny and quick and the family scenes with his mother and daugher are delightful. Plus, how can you not love a man who returns to his soap roots for an on-screen funeral once he’s a big star AND does all this for his cat??
25 Days / Day 11 / Jonathan Jackson
Who: Jonathan Jackson, Lucky Spencer on General Hospital, spawn of soap supercouple Luke and Laura. Winner of three daytime Emmy’s while still a kid
Why: Well he’s lovely to look at, and he’s crazy talented, he should have been bigger than the soaps. He should have been Anakin Skywalker but probably it was a good thing for him that he wasn’t, being that those movies sucked
When: Mid-late 90’s, Spencer-Cassadine Shenanigans Pt. 2 . He really shone with the family angst and first love stuff
Level of Obsession: I used to tape General Hospital every day and then dub the S/C saga onto other tapes! It was that good! Of course now you can see the whole damn thing on YouTube and it is still one of my fave soap storylines ever
“Ahhhh!” Moment(s): His reactions and response to his TV father’s revelation that he’d raped his TV mother. His recent return to GH
My mom and I met Jonathan and his brother at a U2 concert in Boston in 2001. My mom froze and whispered “is that Lucky Spencer??” So I made my way up to him and dragged her with me and they both could not have been friendlier or more charming. His brother even blessed us! (they are good Christian boys after all.) We told him we’d stopped watching GH because he left, which was partially true (the other reason is I hate the mob shit.) He’s slipped right into LuckySpencerDom pretty seamlessly. He’s still talented, still a great crier, and still hollers at Luke like nobody’s business. I still wish he had been Anakin Skywalker though.
25 Days / Day 10 / Rick Springfield
Who: Rick Springfield. Still the one and only successful rock star/soap star in music/daytime TV history
Why: Because he was dreamy! He was Dr. Noah Drake by day saving lives and making nurses swoon, and a rock star by night making women and 10-year-old-girls swoon
When: When I was 10!
Level of Obsession: I don’t know how “obsessed” one can be as a child, but he was my first concert (thanks to my awesome mom). I loved General Hospital and watched it every day (thanks to my awesome mom) and he was probably the first guy to cover my bedroom walls
“Ahhhh!” Moment(s): Hard to say when you’re a kid. But I did see him live twice more as an adult and he was frickin’ awesome. He has a ton of energy and the women LOVE him
I still listen to Rick Springfield. He has crazy good hooks in his tunes. I even hear echoes of him in other artists pop songs and think he doesn’t get enough credit for being such a catchy songwriter. I still have this sort of “pure” interest in him though given that I liked him when I was a little girl. That is why to this day I still have not seen his big screen bomb Hard to Hold which my mom deemed too risque at the time. Nor will I see his guest arc on Californication, which you think I would be all over since it stars #8, but – ew – no. Too freaky for my inner 10-year-old
Whee Lucky’s here!
Man I wish DVR had been around when I watched One Life to Live and General Hospital daily (actually I wish SoapNet had existed then too, way easier to watch this crap at night.) You can forward through all the mob shit which is like, 90% of the show – delightful!
I haven’t watched GH regularly in years so I don’t know a lot about Lucky’s storyline by the various Other Lucky’s. I know he’s a cop, I think he was a druggie, I know he’s fighting with Luke. JJ still has a baby face which makes the cop angle a little hard to buy, but whatever. He still has lovely chemistry with Elizabeth (nice callback to “sleeping on the floor” from the rape storyline), and damn it all if I didn’t “awwww” when Luke called him “Cowboy”.
I eagerly await showdowns with Nikolas as Cassadine/Spencer shenanigans are my favorite part of this show. And damn if I did not see the Luke spots Elizabeth/Nikolas make-out on the docks reveal coming! I actually gasped.
Sucked in. Again.
Wonder if Lucky will push him down the stairs again!
Wow EW is all over this: Jonathan Jackson talks about his GH return and his onscreen family
We got Lucky!!!
I am very excited to see that Jonathan Jackson, Original Flavor Lucky Spencer, will be reprising the role on General Hospital at the end of the month.
Even though I haven’t been a serious GH watcher in years I catch it on SoapNet from time to time and know that they are hooking up his ex-wife and his half-brother. The current Lucky is dullsville and plays NO subtext at all. Anytime I see Elizabeth and Nikolas making out then torturing themselves about betraying Lucky I think “this would actually be you know, interesting – if Jonathan Jackson was still Lucky.” Clearly I’m not the only person who thought so.
He was an intense actor as a kid and was rewarded with 3 deserved daytime Emmy’s. The scene where Luke reveals his rape of Laura to Lucky was incredibly well done by both actors bringing a controversial 20 year storyline to a climax. But the stunner of the whole scene – even after Tony Geary’s masterful nearly 9 minute monologue – was Lucky’s devastated – and devastating response to his father’s ugly story: “that’s a nice story dad. Makes me really proud.” Absolutely gutting Luke and the audience.
(you can see it here, around 8:55)
Now if they could just get Stephen Nicholas back as Stefan Cassadine I would set a series pass for Port Charles!
The Love Boat with Dr. Noah Drake? Yes please!
My first celebrity crush was Shaun Cassidy. He of the feathered blonde hair and Hardy Boy fame. I clearly remember getting his record for Christmas when I was about six. There is a photo of me holding up the cover with the HUGE picture of his face next to my tiny pleased one. He was dreamy.
But my puppy love for Shaun Cassidy had fallen to the wayside by the time Rick Springfield came on the scene in 1981. What was so great about Rick was that you could listen to his music and see him everyday on General Hospital. I had a roommate once who claimed to be a RS fan but wasn’t “into soaps” which to me defeats the entire point of loving Rick Springfield in the early 80’s!! Dr. Drake was there each day in his white lab coat with the collar turned up saving people and bedding nurses with perfectly feathered hair. Always with the feathered hair! Then at 4 o’clock the record player was ON.
Rick is still touring and recording and even shows up in GH occassionally playing Noah Drake and some rock star doppelganger in a plotline too stupid even for me to follow. In 2001 I was in Las Vegas for a birthday bash and we saw Rick in some sort of Vegas-y show in which he performed for an audience of women in their 30’s and 40’s and their husbands who sat with their arms crossed looking less than amused. It was a lot of fun (especially since we didn’t have husbands there ruining our Rick buzz. And we could drink alcohol which was, obviously not allowed when we were 8 year old fangirls)
I saw him again a few years ago at Mohegan Sun and it was really a great show. He did this bit where he went out into the audience and got up on chairs and played and the women on the floor went batshit insane. I mean CRAZY hysterics. Again the husbands were like “who IS this woman??” In the bathroom later I overheard mature, married mothers with jobs and degrees and mortgages squealing “I touched his thigh!!” like 14 year old girls. It was awesome.
Last night I discovered Rick does one of those celebrity cruise things for his fans. I love that he has old GH castmates on it (I see you Bobbie Spencer – you with your faking blindness so Noah wouldn’t leave you!), and Doug Davidson of Young and the Restless who I remember from reading Tiger Beat 50 million years ago, has been Rick’s best friend forever. I particularly love that on the upcoming cruise Rick will be peforming Working Class Dog in ITS ENTIRETY which would make the whole thing worthwhile IMO. Who doesn’t love “Jessie’s Girl”??!
From the looks of this, Rick spends a lot of the cruise shirtless and drunk which as an adult I find amusing, but when I was a kid I would have been horrified.
she liked Imaginary Men best of all 