There comes a time in every soap viewer's life when, if they've just hung in there long enough, they have outlasted a character they find absolutely loathsome. Well get out the Chandler crystal, raid the Cortlandt's wine cellar and pop open Erica's best bottle of champagne because the day many fans have dreamed of is almost upon us. The demise of Babe Carey Chandler.

I want to make clear that this has nothing to do with Alexa Havins or Amanda Baker but everything to do with the character of Babe. Even though Babe was reviled by many, it was Havins who made the character watchable and while I maintain that Babe should have been written off after Havins' departure, this tornado has given Baker the opportunity to do her best work to date. READ MORE

Here we are at Day 2 (or according to ABC's marketing, is it Day 3?) of The Great Pine Valley Tornado of 2008. Before giving my general impressions, this entry calls for a bit of a disclaimer. My initial "The Wind Done Gone" post about All My Children's epic event was a broad critique of the episodes aired to that date based on ABC's marketing machine regarding the special effects work vis a vis the show. This may have left an impression that I was conflating the CGI work with the dramatic aspects of the story. In an effort to streamline things a bit, I will henceforth treat several aspects of The Great Pine Valley Tornado separately.

THE DRAMA: At the end of Friday's episode, Erica and Adam were trapped in the secret passageways of the Chandler Mansion, having discovered that a mysterious stranger had been living there; a jealous Aiden found Ryan and Kendall at the gazebo moments before it was destroyed; the Comeback was demolished, leaving a hysterical Babe bleeding and trapped on top of a suffocating Little A and JR with a terrible choice to make; and Zach made a narrow escape from his overturned car and returned to the decimated beach house to find the boys alive, Kendall missing, and Bianca under a flipped over couch.

Today, the drama continued with a number of rock solid twists, shocks and surprises (mostly involving Bianca) that would have been more twisty, shocking and surprising if one hadn't read them in Soap Opera Weekly, Soap Opera Digest or watched any of ABC's promos over the weekend. And we're off! READ MORE

In the history of disaster cinema, no two movies illustrate the great divide between campy greatness and head scratching exclamations of "What was the %#^#*%* point?" than Irwin Allen's 1972 The Poseidon Adventure and Wolfgang Petersen's 2006 remake, Poseidon.

For all of The Poseidon Adventure's over the top excess, the original chronicle of the desperate escape efforts of trapped survivors aboard the fictional capsized ocean liner was filled with heart, unpredictability in the fates of who would live or die and we were invested in characters that we grew to care about or despise within a short period of time.

As much as we laugh at Shelley Winters' Olympic swim through the ship, there still is hardly a dry eye in the house when she succumbs to the stress of the effort and dies. On the other hand, the remake was enjoyable on its own merits but burned through its story so fast that it was nearly impossible to care about the fates of its survivors. When Freddy Rodriquez's waiter suddenly plummets to his death, who cares? If all of them died at the end of Petersen's version, it would have been a pleasant surprise.

This brings us to ABC's much hyped 2008 remake of the tornado storyline which ripped through Pine Valley in 1994, heralding the "official" arrival as Charles Pratt as All My Children's new head writer. Fitting somewhere between the technological successes and dramatic failures of the two tales of the Poseidon, so far this tornado is swerving between a lot of hot air and a gust of breaking wind. READ MORE

We brought you the news of Amanda Baker's (Babe, All My Children) departure a few weeks back and now the actress has confirmed her exit to Soap Opera Digest. Baker tells the mag that she is "going out with a bang."

Will Babe perish in the big tornado event for Sweeps? Will she be re-cast yet again? RUMORS have hit the internet that Alicia Leigh Willis (ex-Courtney, General Hospital) MAY be the next Babe. Tamara Braun just joined All My Children and is close friends with Willis. Will Tams and ALW be reunited? Weigh in!

After teasing us last week in his Suds Report, TV Guide Canda's Nelson Branco confirmed in this week's Suds Report that Amanda Baker is in fact out at All My Children.

Is Amanda Baker out as All My Children's Babe? According to TV Guide Canda's Nelson Branco's latest Suds Report "Buzz is increasing that Babe will be one of the two characters to die in the disaster."

For more on Babe's possible death check out the Suds Report.