I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something about Manny however that just isn't typical soap couple fodder. "Popular couple" somehow doesn't quite explain them. We've had lots of popular couples on GL in the '90s, but when I look at them and then at Manny, I still feel there's something uniquely different that sets them apart. I adore Mason and Julia but even though their story was just as well-written and complex as Manny's is now (maybe better, the character of Julia is, in my opinion, one of the strongest female TV characters ever), Manny still seems to belong in a different league.

So that leaves us with "supercouple."

I'm amazed at how casually references are made to the supercouples of the '80s when speaking of Manny. Not just in online discussion forums, but in the press as well. "They could become the next 'Luke and Laura," "the next Reva and Josh," "the next Bo and Hope" ... These are quite daring comparisons, yet they are made over and over again. And I don't think they're thinking of what Luke and Laura, Josh and Reva, and Bo and Hope have become in the '90s, when making those references.

I never saw Luke and Laura in the '80s, but I saw a segment of their dance in the department store during General Hospital's 35th Anniversary Special and was blown away by the magic, something that Luke and Laura in the '90s never managed to do for me. I had the same reaction when I saw Manny dance at the reception. You were just drawn in right there and then.

So what is it about Manny that reminds us of the golden days of supercouples?

And what are the challenges of being a supercouple at the end of the '90s and moving into the next millennium? When you've seen cloning and aliens on soaps and been treated to real-life soap operas (even in Presidential circles), you've seen pretty much everything, so how do you keep Manny exciting and unpredictable without resorting to soap cliches? Moving at light speed? (I never thought I'd see the day when viewers would scream at the writers to slow down.) Redefining soap cliches such as the one-night stand in drunken stupor? :-)

kristi