The Oakdale teleporter

If you’ve watched As The World Turns lately, you probably know what I mean.  If not, then let me explain.

On this show, it seems that the characters can move from one place to another in very unrealistically short periods of time.

A current storyline features this psycho guy named James Stenbeck.  He’s been menacing many of the folks of Oakdale, including his own family, for decades.  He’s died, but comes back from the dead more times than I can count.  The last we saw him before this current go-round, he was in prison.  But obviously, he escaped somehow, and returned to Oakdale to tormet his son, Paul.

Paul recently got married to Meg Snyder, and Meg is currently pregnant.  Paul got himself in trouble with a loan shark, unaware that the whole thing was engineered by James.  James tells Meg that he will save Paul, if she agrees to give him her baby.  Of course, she doesn’t want this nutcase anywhere near her baby, so James kidnaps her and brings her to a cottage by the ocean, which is later determined to be in Maine.

Now, here’s where the teleporter comes in.  Oakdale is supposed to be in Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.  At the beach house, James tells Meg he’s going to the store to buy some food.  Very shortly thereafter, we see him in Paul’s house in Oakdale, tormenting him some more.  And then he’s back at the house in Maine, bearing the promised groceries.  Meg did comment that he’d been gone for a long time, but still.  It was daylight when James left, and still daylight when he returned.  There was no indication that a whole day or more had passed, in Oakdale or in Maine.  In real life, how long would it take to get to Maine from Illinois?  At least a couple of hours on a plane, not to mention all of the extra time you need at the airport for check-in and security and all.   Since the house is on an island off the coast, he’d have to have chartered a boat.

Somehow, Paul, with the assistance of ex-cop/FBI agent Jack Snyder, finds out where James took Meg and they go there.   So does Paul’s mother and James’ ex-wife, Barbara.  They used the teleporter, too.  And so did Jack’s ex-wife, Carly.

Okay, I missed a few shows.  Apparently Barbara and Paul took the teleporter back to Oakdale, where Paul was hospitalized.  Meg stayed behind at the cottage.  James supposedly died again.  And another dead character, Dusty Donovan, had been revealed to have been held captive by James as well.  While James was “at the store”, Meg was trying to find a way to escape.  She found a secret room, where she saw Dusty locked in a cage.  She picked the lock with a bobby pin and get him out.  Apparently, Dusty had faked his own death.  His adopted son Johnny had been taken from him after the boy’s mother, his wife, Jennifer died.  He was trying to find Johnny and get him back without anyone knowing he was alive.  He had come close, in Bangkok, when he was kidnapped by James, who had just escaped from a prison there.  Dusty was understandably confused when Meg told him they were not in Bangkok, they were in the U.S., somewhere near the ocean.  I guess he must have been sleeping in the teleporter.

Today’s episode was all about the teleporter.  The show opened with Luke Snyder, Meg’s nephew, being happliy reunited with his boyfriend, Noah, who had been in Europe.  Luke takes a call from Brian, who works with Luke at the foundation he (Luke) started with an inheritance from his bio-dad, Damian.  Brian is calling a meeting at the Metro nightclub, where they are planning to hold a fundraising event.  Luke tells Brain he’ll be right there.

Meanwhile, Meg’s brother and Luke’s adopted dad, Holden, has gone to the beach house in Maine to accompany Meg safely home.  Jack and Carly are still in Maine, too, Jack was injured, Carly saved his life, and he was taken to a hospital.  Carly decided that what Jack really needed was his girlfriend, Janet, so she called her and told her the teleporter was ready.  A few minutes later, we see Carly and Janet at the docks, she is getting ready to leave so that Jack and Janet could have some time alone.  They are then joined by Holden.  Holden was mightily pissed to go into the cottage to get Meg and see Dusty still alive.  Before Dusty supposedly kicked the bucket, he was having an affair with Holden’s wife, Lily.

Anyway, Janet goes to see Jack, and Holden, Meg and Carly go back to Oakdale together, in the teleporter.  After making sure that Meg got to her home safely, Holden and Carly decided to go to Metro, which Carly is part owner of, to have a drink.  And…get this…when they get to Metro, the meeting with Brian, Luke, Noah, Lily and Lily’s mother, Lucinda, is still going on.  I’ve heard of long business meetings, but this is ridiculous!

Oh, and Lily is pissed to see Holden with Carly.  Holden cheated on Lily with Carly over the summer, it has since ended and Holden and Lily are attempting to reconcile.

Anyway, see how ridiculous this is?  I realize it’s just a TV show, but still, people notice.  We joke about the teleporter a lot over on the ATWT board over at SoapCentral.com.  I wonder how much it would cost to buy one for myself, it would beat the hell out of driving in Boston traffic.   I should run it through my budgeting software to see if I can afford it…LOL!

Finally, Dusty is alone in the cottage.  He told Meg not to tell anyone that he was still alive, so he could resume his search for Johnny.  But now Holden knows, and who’s to say he won’t spill the beans?  An oddball funeral director came by and asked Dusty what he wanted done with James’ remains.  Dusty said that he didn’t care.  After the man left, Dusty whipped out a CELL PHONE called someone, and asked them to book him a flight back to Asia.  Where did he get a cell phone, anyway?  When you kidnap someone, you take away their cell phone so they can’t call for help.  Was it James’ cell phone?  No one knew Dusty was there, so it wasn’t like anyone knew to bring him a phone.

Oh well, it’s just TV.

I have decided…

…to expand the focus of this blog somewhat.  In addition to posts about cooking, crafts, and product/service reviews, I have decided to put entertainment posts here as well.  We’ll start with my favorite CBS soap operas.

“As The World Turns” has been really good lately.  The character of James Stenbeck is back, and he’s making life a living hell for his son, Paul, his ex-wife and Paul’s mom, Barbara, and now he has quirky Henry Coleman held prisoner in the Fairwinds (Paul’s mansion) wine cellar.  I love both characters of James and Henry, it was sheer genius to put them together in a storyline.

The character of Paul Ryan, as played by Roger Howarth, is a complex character.  Paul hates his father, James, this is why he uses Barbara’s maiden name, Ryan, as his own surname.  Paul is forever battling the demons from his father, he tries to be a good guy, but it’s not always easy for him.  He was recently married to Meg Snyder, who is pregnant with his child.

Paul tries so hard to do good and win the respect of the rest of the Snyder family.  So much that he borrowed money from an evil loan shark in order to help save the Meg’s family’s farm.  Things went bad, very bad.  James (who is skeeving about in the wine cellar) said that there was money buried there at the Snyder farm.  Paul went and tried to dig it up, and made a really huge sinkhole.  He didn’t find anything.

But then, Meg’s nephew, 4 year old Ethan Snyder, ran off and fell into the hole.  Meanwhile, Derrick the loan shark tried to drown Paul in the reservoir, tying him to a cinder block, but somehow, Paul survived.  He went home, and almost immediately went off to risk his life again…by going down into the hole to try to save Ethan.  I hope for Meg and their baby’s sake that he went and got himself some good life insurance quotes.

At the end of today’s show, Paul was down in the hole, and Ethan is safe.  The scenes where he talked to the boy, and gave him some water, saying that “Uncle Paul is gonna get you out of here” were so sweet.  The previews for tomorrow show Ethan being pulled up to safety.   Meanwhile, Paul, who was the only one to think to bring a flashlight, saw the chest that James buried there, which was allegedly full of gold.  Gold that he could use to pay off Derrick the loan shark, and protect himself, Meg, and their unborn baby.   Paul dug it out and opened it, it was empty.  James has lied to him once again, and Paul fell for it.  If not for James, Paul would not have dug out the hole in the first place, and Ethan would not have fallen into it.  It’s nice that Paul is the one to save Ethan.  He never meant to hurt anyone, he just wanted to do for the Snyder family, to prove to Meg that he’s the man that she wants him to be.

Tomorrow’s episode looks really good from the previews…can’t wait to see it!

If you are a fan of this show, please feel free to comment and discuss!