Late last week, the CBS soap opera As The World Turns set the wheels in motion for a new summer storyline involving major characters Paul Ryan, Meg Snyder and newcomer Sophie Duran. Things have been going pretty well at the soap recently, and after a dreary winter of who killed Dusty Donovan, who killed Sam, and who would get custody of Sophie’s baby, As The World Turns seemed ready for a little fun, romance and lighthearted summer storylines.
The Sad Case of Sophie Duran
Just as I was enjoying some romantic comedy (Katie, Brad, Janet, and Liberty) and interesting new pairings on this soap opera (like Casey and Emily, and the flirtation between Carly and Holden), As The World Turns decided to take the character of Sophie Duran in a very dark direction.
Sophie Duran came on the As The World Turns scene last year as an unwed mother, and was heavily involved in a storyline with Gwen and Will Munson, the couple who adopted her baby. The character of Sophie was quite colorless and unaffecting when she had a change of heart and fought the adoptive parents for custody of her child. After a lot of soapy drama, Sophie eventually gave up custody of her baby to Gwen and Will, who left Oakdale to start a new life in another town.
During the dramatic As The World Turns storylines involving the custody battle, the actress who plays Sophie seemed over her head with the heartfelt scenes and she often overacted. With Gwen and Will out of town, Sophie helped take care of Barbara Ryan during her cancer treatments, and together with Barbara and Paul, Sophie launched her own jewelry design business.
I had hope that Sophie might mature and blossom, and she seemed to come into her own in the scenes with Barbara (played by the venerable Colleen Zenk Pinter.) This was short lived. Sophie soon found herself falling hopelessly in love with Paul Ryan. After throwing herself at Paul and spending one night with him in bed, she cannot face the fact that he loves Meg.
When Paul rejects her for Meg, Sophie has a breakdown and destroys Paul’s apartment with her bare hands. The character is mumbling and glassy eyed, and wandering around half dressed, with cuts on her bloody hands, and this is disturbing to watch.
She then accuses Paul of raping her, though As The World Turns viewers wonder how she will prove it without any physical evidence. Then an overwrought, overacting Sophie crawls to her laundry hamper and pulls out the panties she was wearing during her one night of sex with Paul, and we can all see where this is heading…
How irresponsible of As The World Turns, to present this storyline on a soap. Sophie crying rape to get even with Paul, then framing him for the crime, sends a terrible message. Even if Sophie did have some sort of psychotic break and doesn’t really grasp what she’s doing, I still detest this storyline.
And for Meg and Paul fans, who thought that maybe they had another chance, will this lame, irresponsible storyline be yet another excuse to tear the couple apart?
From Bad to Worse
As The World Turns has a bad habit of hiring bland ingenues with little proven acting experience, and then building major storylines around them (remember Jade played by Elena Goode?) Perhaps As The World Turns thinks they’ll discover a diamond in the rough, like they did when then unknown Meg Ryan played Betsy Montgomery Andropolous many years ago.
In my opinion, Sophie Duran lacks charisma or depth, and certainly cannot pull off the heavy drama in the recent scripts of As The World Turns. I never find her very believable in any of the scenes she has done so far. It seems like a bad decision to me to build so much of this TV show around her character.
Let’s hope the CBS soap opera As The World Turns will not linger on this unfortunate storyline. I hope the character of Sophie, who once showed a spark of potential, will leave Oakdale like Jade and the many lackluster ingenues before her.
