I've been hearing a lot of people say that Ameera was put up to "this" by Colonel Mayer himself and that smile from yesterday, and the previews from today really reminded me of the Cleo story from right until Luke first came out to Noah last year. She got all weird and obsessed with Will to the point of trying to kill Gwen and Jade. 

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Now obviously this twist would be slightly less creepy and without the irritating lisp, but I really think the crazy bitch home-wrecker scene is where this story is heading- if it is indeed headed anywhere...

If not, as mentioned before, we still have Brian's shopped pictures from the liveblog to look forward to. :)

on a side note, the placement of the tornado warning on the second clip couldn't have been more perfect! 

He's been reduced to being the "other woman" in what was (in theory) supposed to have been his relationship!

Unlike psycho Cleo, Ameera has been successful in establishing herself as the main squeeze in Noah's life.

Okay, I know I've expressed this opinion before, but it's still just really sticking with me.

Does anyone else think that the characters on ATWT are written like they are extremely stupid? Or do the writers at P&G just assume that we, the audience is stupid.

Ameera is a great case-in-point. As we are fast approaching the point where's she's going to attempt to make her sham marriage to Noah into a real one, I find myself again wondering why nobody seems to question her appearance on the scene in the first place.

According to the story she has spun, she is the bastard child of a poor Iraqi woman who survived mostly on money sent to Iraq by Colonel Mayer because her mother's family scorned her. When the money stopped coming she made her way to America to seek out the the Colonel? Noah? Both?

Okay, right away the gaps in this nonsense are so friggin' vast that only idiots would buy into it.

For starters, both the reason for Colonel Mayer's altruism, as well as how he pulled it off, are both unexplained. We're talking about a man that chased off his wife (and later murdered her) for fear that she would "corrupt" their son. He raised Noah ina rigid environment devoid of affection. Obviously he's not sentimental.

Furthermore, after the first Gulf War Iraq was under embargo, and financial transactions, as well as trade and mail service, into the country was heavily interdicted. How was he able to get money into Iraq, and more significantly ensure that it reached Ameera's mother?

Then we get to the question of Ameera. With the money no longer coming she somehow makes her way to America!?

Let's dissect this one. For starters, very few Iraqis have passports, especially single women. Saddam Hussein didn't exactly encourage world travel for his people and they were under interdict anyway. Yet Ameera must have had some documentation in order to apply for, and receive, a visa to enter the U.S. Entry into the U.S. from countries where we're fighting wars is very tightly controlled. It's not like getting a tourist visa to go on holiday.

Then there's the question of how she got her. Plane? Boat? If she and her mother were dirt poor and living off of what money the Colonel could send, how did she afford travel to get here? How did she feed and shelter herself while making her way to Oakdale?

There are groups that try to help refugees from war zones immigrate to the U.S., but they usually have some kind of resettlement plan when they get the people here. This is especially true under current tight restrictions out of Iraq due to obvious concerns about terrorists entering the U.S. That Ameera simply waltzed in was roaming about freely and unsupervised by any group seems rather incredible.

Also, if she were granted permission to come here as a refugee then generally there would have been some process being applied for her to remain here. So the whole notion of her having a visa and that visa just coming up for expiration without anyone to help her seems peculiar.

This is all highly implausible. At the very east Detective Starling should find it suspicious even if the gullible fools on Snyder Farm don't. If it were this easy for Iraqis to just come over to America we'd be up to our eyeballs in them right now! How did Ameera pull this off when tens of thousands of other Iraqis that would like to escape the war zone haven't?

This is, perhaps, what makes this so offensive. Not just that she's coming between Luke and Noah, but that the whole storyline is so poorly written and no rationale is provided for why anybody believes her story, and thus why Luke allows this sham marriage to go on.

I was wondering...Does Van or Jake have any say in how a script is written?  For example...the episode which aired last Thursday, which had them both jumping up and down on the bed, was so absurd and out there, that I still can't help but laugh when I picture the scene, and wondered couldn't Van and Jake have spoken up about this scene and many other cring worthy stuff that's gone on over the last 9 months regarding their relationship?  I ask this because I know in the British SOAP Hollyoaks, the two main leads in the gay storyline, James Sutton and Guy Burnett were allowed to give input and make changes into what they felt would work in their scenes and what wouldn't. It just makes me wonder why Van or Jake have gone along with such stupidity for so long, including the current storyline playing out right now. Or maybe it's just the TPTB over at ATWT have total control over both actors.

And, it is interesting that Van has renewed his contract, but by the looks of things, Jake has not been offered that extension. Maybe the producers really are looking to strangle this storyline. I guess then Luke will go back to being background noise, or the only token gay guy in the village who pops up every now and then.

Nukely...Regarding the rules for direction and rewrites from actors maybe very strict  over here in the US, but i'm not sure how strict the rules are over in England. I'm just going by what i've read regarding the actors in HollyOaks.

It's well documented that both James Sutton and Guy Burnett who played John Paul and Craig were given the privilage to have a say in the way a particular scene was written.

Guy Burnett has said he had some say in certain scenes. For instance...The coming out scene for John Paul was origionally written with Craig being a lot more vocal, but Guy Burnett felt this was a pivotel and important scene for the character of John Paul, so he went back to the producer of the show and suggested that he say very little, and instead have John Paul do most of the talking with Craig just listening to what his best friend had to say. Both actors also made suggestions on how much imput the character of Sarah, Craig's girlfriend, should play in the relationship. They even got to choose some of the background music played during certain scenes. And I heard they also had input in some other scenes, but I don't recall them right now.

I guess HollyOaks maybe the exception. Nevertheless, the actors did get the privilage of having a say in how a scene played out. And i'm glad they did, the coming out event for John Paul was phenomenal. In fact, few words were spoken from Craig's mouth with his facial expressons instead telling us exactly how he was feeling. Also interesting, at awards shows for which James Sutton is nominated, they always play this particular scene.

If Jake and Van had script input, perhaps we wouldn't have seen them jumping on the bed. Van has said that he has never talked to a writer.

I've never heard about the unions or guilds separating the two, maybe that does happen to an extent but If a producer wants an actor to partake in writing his own scenes in a show, it will happen. I don't recall ever hearing about a time when it did. But I'm sure it has on some t.v. show.

Martha Byrne first took on the role of Lily Snyder (Luke's mom) in 1985 when both Lily and Martha were 16. She left the role for 3.5 years in the early 90s. So, she's played the role for twenty years.

The producers said that she wanted script control, which made it sound like she wanted to write her own lines. Martha said that this was the first time she has ever spoken about contract negotiations. She said she had only asked that the part have as many days in the coming contract year as the previous. She didn't want to play a "lead" role that was in fact pushed into the background. Some one at anther forum posted total air days for the entire list of characters for last year, and since the beginning of this year. Sorry I don't have the stats on hand, but it showed that a character like Parker was getting about as much air time as Lily, more so recently. She didn't want to be usurped by a 14 year old boy, I don't blame her. But it seems like asking for even that little "script control" was too much for P&G, who broke negotiations and posted a cast call for her part as soon as she made her request.

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No, the actors on soaps have very little, if any, input into character development or storyline.  There are times when an actor, if particularly concerned about something, can talk to the producer or head writer to change it.  I have no idea how often the actors are successful.  However, it is clear from recent comments from Van and Jake that most of the physical affection displayed on our screens between Luke and Noah comes from the actors, not from the writers or directors.  Sometimes they plan for it before shooting, sometimes it just happens while filming because it seems right.  So, we have the actors here to thank for what is best about the portrayal of Luke and Noah's love.

Ameera is not who she claims to be. She works for Psycho Dad. His greatest wish was for Noah to marry a woman. Now he has. Next she seduces him. Easily done as he's been with women before

Then Luke catches them in flagrante, takes the gun used to kill Cowboy Bob and blows the bitch away! (The Crowd Cheers!)

He gets the chair and before he goes to it Nuke has one last smooch.

David's s/l above is perfect!  It actually makes sense out of the total nonsense of the Nuke/Ameera s/l so far.  All the major idiocies of the s/l have been well expressed and the absurdity of the Ameera s/l exposed.  So, Luke, grab that gun, blow Ameera away and give Noah that one last kiss - and btw, Kiss off! P&G, CBS, and ATWT!

Thanks, David - I had a good laugh & cry at your great s/l finish!