Slash & Burn

Last week I saw a banner ad at tvguide.com for an As the World Turns love triangle featuring two guys and a girl, and it seemed like the two guys were actually the pairing to root for. Curious, I did a search on YouTube.

Thus, an obsession began, and I spent more than seven hours in a row watching the story of Luke and Noah unfold.

I haven't watched ATWT in twenty years, when teenaged Lily was frolicking with hunky stableboy Holden. They're amazingly still around, and it's their son Luke who's now falling for Noah, a repressed army brat who dates girls and desperately tries to fight his attraction to Luke. The actors do a terrific job -- particularly Van Hansis as Luke -- and the writing is remarkably subtle and incisive. (Granted, you'll also have to suffer through a subplot about some singer and her cliched stalker than involves a field trip to Branson, Mo., but the Luke/Noah story is worth it, trust me.) Maddie, Luke's friend and Noah's short-term girlfriend, is warm and sympathetic, and Holden and Lily are very supportive of Luke. Noah's father is unfortunately turning out to be a bit of an eeeeeevil bastard, but it is a soap, after all.

If you're interested in catching up on Noah and Luke's story, you can find all 64 parts (and counting) here, including their historic first kiss -- the first real kiss between two men in American daytime TV history.

I also wrote some fanfic, because no obsession is complete without it.