We Got Lucky! Vol. 1 Pt. 3

So the last hour of the VHS tape I found was 2 episodes of the soap opera Passions. This spoke more of the easy access Passions allowed to teenage viewers. Because Passions was a crazy show. Passions would break the fourth wall a lot, have their characters be in Oz for no reason, not inform anyone that a dream was occuring, had a plot where a character would takeover the world using the Pope's chalice, and oh so many rape scenes. In fact, the 2005 season is known as The Year of the Rape. I believe they had Abraham Lincoln rape somebody, but it might have been consensual. The story lines were so obtuse and deranged, that any casual viewer could be sucked right into the trap of watching this Soap Opera. Which was fine, because they had an evil small person who assisted a witch.

Needless to say, I couldn't get into Passions. I'd like to think that is because I grew up some, but it probably had more to do with me just having to endure Growing Pains and 1998 MTV. I couldn't sit through soap opera schlock. It is interesting to note that this tape was from a high school freshman girl in the minor out lying suburbs of Pittsburgh. These shows had much of an impact on a developing mind that they required to be taped. A pre-fame Leonardo DiCaprio, a in the moment Jesse Camp, and the self indulgence of Passions- all have a common thread in their artistry: off kilter. Seeing Leo on Growing Pains is more weird than anything (look where he is now and look how 80s Growing Pains was), while Jesse Camp and Passions are just balls of weird wax in their own right. Was this a teenager identifying with not normal subject matter, or the marketing of such eccentricity at work? I think this was just taken what you are given, and then finding the real reason to watch. Given Growing Pains, I would hunt out the weirder moments of the show, and of course Jesse Camp was the best thing on MTV during his day. Passions stood out above all the other sitcoms, especially for teens, because- well- it tried to. This tape was the surface being scratched, the look to escape modern trends and to blaze a uniquely their own path of TV watching. Or it was just a tape that never got taped over again. Either way, I'm like eh.