It appears that Constantine’s run on “The Bold & the Beautiful” has come to an end since he was removed from the opening credits this week.And unfortunately, it ended just as lamely as it started…
Two weeks ago, “B&B” presented the “Boldface Challenge” concert. But instead of devoting the entire episode to the concert (It is only 20 minutes after all.), they combined it with the vile storyline involving Brooke’s rape, which made the concert that much more out of place.
Speaking of out of place, none of the people in the audience looked like they’d ever been to a concert before. In fact, they all looked bored stiff—and that included the cast members they kept cutting too.
And apparently, the show got bored with the concert too, because by Monday, most of the characters had left the concert—even before the winner of the challenge was named.
As for the concert itself, I have to admit I fast-forwarded though Jon McLaughlin (who will be opening for Kelly Clarkson this fall), so I can’t really tell you anything there. Elliott Yamin gave another stunning performance of “Wait For You” and Constantine gave a pitchy-in-spots performance of “Fading Into You” (He should take some lessons from Elliott.). As I suspected, the show used Elliott’s performance as a backdrop for some Phoebe and Rick angst, but there was no interaction between Constantine and Felicia, except for a quick kiss before his performance. In fact, Felicia was one of the characters who wasn’t even there when the winner was announced.
So who was the winner? It was actually Phoebe and Constantine. I didn’t vote, but if I had, I would have actually voted for Phoebe and Rick. Their song at least sounded decent. Phoebe and Constantine’s duet was basically just Mackenzie Mauzy butchering Constantine’s song.
The only highlight of the concert was at the end of Constantine and Phoebe’s performance when Phoebe felt sorry for Rick and started singing their song, which brought Rick on stage and led to Phoebe telling Rick she loved him. But because the show had already stopped caring about the concert, there were no reactions from the other characters—including Phoebe’s dad, who had already left. There was not even a reaction from Constantine.
Of course, the reason for this became obvious the next day when Phoebe broke up with Rick AGAIN, making the entire Boldface Challenge story completely pointless.
Constantine has not been seen again. And in this week’s “Soap Opera Digest,” Head Writer Bradley Bell confirms that he won’t be. “We just brought him in for the summer, so for the time being, we’re done with his story. The character of Constantine will be going on tour and Felicia will be hearing from him and so will Phoebe. He may pop in from time to time.”
That’s definitely a different tune than the one Bell was singing a few weeks ago. My guess is he finally listened to all the critics who have been trashing his hiring of Constantine from the beginning.
Here’s a tip for any other soap operas looking to cast Idols: Come up with an actual story before you start signing the paychecks…
