'Social issue stories have their place, but soaps are often most rewarding when ther're just plain fun. Case in point: OLTL's Max/Gabrielle/Asa plot cunningly combines show history and a story that's about as soapy as they come. 

       As soon as Fiona Hutchison returned last spring, OLTL started playing 
Max/Gabrielle clips from the late 1980's early 90's, which both enhanced (for old viewers) and informed (anyone seeing them for the first time).

       But what's better than steamy love scenes from the past?   New, even steamier love scenes, made even more emotional because of what happened before.  Gabrielle was faced with a classic soap dilemma:  torn between savior/husband Asa and Max. And now that Asas' dead (or so were being led to believe) Gabrielle would be free to be with Max--if it weren't for visions of Asas' ghost.

      Hutchison has been dead-on and a helluva lot of fun playing Gabrielle's conflict, complete with angst-ridden breast beating and loads of tears (both real and crocodile).  James DePaiva has made Max the perfect unwitting dupe/romantic foil, getting all hot and bothered when the situation calls for it and pulling back at just the right moment to increase the tension. He and Hutchison haven't lost the magic they had the firtst time around. And Phil Carey (Asa) has been a hoot as the blustering hot-blooded Texan, more fired up than we've seen him in years in his attempt to keep his wife/accomplice reined in as she feel for Max all over again right before his eyes. 

OLTL is doing a bang up job of delivering light entertainment just when we need it. ----"

                ---Travis Kinsey