23 replies to this topic

[glatwt]

linda gottlieb? the woman behind OLTL in the early 90's! does anyone think that if she would have stayed in daytime under the pressure she did, would have given JFP a running for the strongest female EP of her time?? something tells me she would have stayed with OLTL if it wasn't for network interference?? this woman knew how to run daytime in a different way (think gloria monty early GH)! if she left OLTL to produce another show for example, would she be in the running for the strongest female?? remember in the early 90's during her time, all the soaps under gottlieb, phelps, riche and behr were the golden standard of daytime!! i wonder if gottlieb didnt give up so soon and ran head to head with phelps???

[SFK]

It's possible. LG strikes me as very cool, confident, and collected whereas JFP seems rather neurotic and maybe even a little insecure. I really liked LG's casting, social consciousness (which went at least as far back as her work in after school specials), and her stylishness. Would love to see what she would do with something like Hollywood Heights.

[glatwt]

thankyou SFK, i just think she gave up too soon!!! if phelps got shuffled around, i often wonder what she could have done with GL, AW. ATWT, GH, AMC or even DAYS if given the chance?? i def put my bets on her over phelps!

[CSF]

Linda obviously left because she was sick of the network interference. I think she did what she wanted to do and when it was getting to be a pain she left. She could mark off the accomplishment. Had ABC not been so annoying she probably would have stayed at OLTL for 6 year instead of 4. I always had a sense that if things worked out, I could have seen her being tapped by PGP for Guiding Light instead of stupid Michael Laibson and then Paul Rauch. She could have turned Springfield back into the sophisticated community Doug Marland made it into.

[Khan]

LG at GUIDING LIGHT?

*shudder*

[CSF]

LG at GUIDING LIGHT?

*shudder*

Why?

[Khan]

Because, unlike many ONE LIFE TO LIVE viewers, I didn't believe LG was the Second Coming. Yes, she improved the production values, as far as music, lighting, set and costume design go. However, she, in tandem with Michael Malone, appeared to pay lip service to the idea of honoring the show's roots and traditions. To me, LG and MM had made OLTL (and especially long-time veteran characters, such as Asa, Clint, Dorian and Viki) unrecognizable to the point where I felt like what they were producing and writing every day was a brand-new soap opera which just happened to call itself ONE LIFE TO LIVE.

Edited by Khan, 05 October 2012 - 10:50 PM.

[SFK]

That's an interesting perspective Khan because beyond childhood flashes of my mother's OLTL viewing, I really didn't come to know these characters until I knew OLTL for myself, which was '93 when LG was at the helm. I liked what I saw, but who knows, maybe I would have felt differently had I a longer history with these characters. Wow, this is a bit of a revelation for me when I think about the newer, younger fans who rave about the soaps in their current state while I eye roll myself a migraine. It's all perspective.

[CSF]

Because, unlike many ONE LIFE TO LIVE viewers, I didn't believe LG was the Second Coming. Yes, she improved the production values, as far as music, lighting, set and costume design go. However, she, in tandem with Michael Malone, appeared to pay lip service to the idea of honoring the show's roots and traditions. To me, LG and MM had made OLTL (and especially long-time veteran characters, such as Asa, Clint, Dorian and Viki) unrecognizable to the point where I felt like what they were producing and writing every day was a brand-new soap opera which just happened to call itself ONE LIFE TO LIVE.

To an extent maybe but I enjoyed her OLTL and I felt like Paul Rauch's OLTL was more damaging to the fabric of the show.

[Khan]

I felt like Paul Rauch's OLTL was more damaging to the fabric of the show.

And to an extent, I would agree. Especially as the '80's wore on, the stories became more bizarre, and Rauch's excesses as a showrunner became more, well, excessive. Yet, I could take an episode from 1989, let's say, put it next to an episode from 1982, and feel as if I am watching the same show, despite the differences in casts, writers and production regimes.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

The thing with Gottlieb was that she did not respect the soap genre, and openly admitted so. She wanted to reinvent the wheel, and I don't think she was entirely successful.

I'm all for innovation and change, but you can't force them, which is what I felt Gottlieb and Malone did a lot of the time.

[SFK]

Was it that she didn't respect the soap genre or that she saw that there was room for innovation, change? I don't think what she accomplished was radically un-soapy, really. I know she had the idea for the short arcs and all, and maybe this has to do with her after school special and film background, but it was like she was more comfortable with stories that had a more immediate beginning, middle, and end (which might make her great for the novella format).

[Khan]

Was it that she didn't respect the soap genre or that she saw that there was room for innovation, change?

I believe Linda Gottlieb saw there was room for innovation, but I also believe she had to learn the hard way that when it comes to soaps, you can't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Elements such as long (or longer) form storytelling are too intrinsic to soaps' DNA to be tampered with; and for an audience that craves comfort and familiarity, the minute you change how these stories are essentially told, or alter in any way the process by which newer characters are introduced and then woven into the canvas with the ones they "know and love," you do so at your own peril.

[DRW50]

I do think Gottlieb cared, instead of just making her vanity project, like MAB did. She brought back a certain sense of community and heart. Once GL lost so much of its core identity, by the mid-90s it being gone for good, I wouldn't have minded her joining. The only real hesitation I would have is that she created Todd, one of the biggest canvas-destroying soap opera characters ever. In the long term she also did a big number on Viki.

Edited by CarlD2, 06 October 2012 - 12:27 AM.

[Khan]

The only real hesitation I would have is that she created Todd, one of the biggest canvas-destroying soap opera characters ever. In the long term she also did a big number on Viki.

Actually, I tend to blame those errors more on Michael Malone. He fell in love with Todd, and expected the rest of the known, free world to. And Viki? Well, I think he took one look at her assumed status as Llanview's rich, white patriarch and assumed that was all there was to know. But the truth is, Viki wasn't quite so high-and-mighty even when she wasn't under Niki's influence.

[DRW50]

Actually, I tend to blame those errors more on Michael Malone. He fell in love with Todd, and expected the rest of the known, free world to. And Viki? Well, I think he took one look at her assumed status as Llanview's rich, white patriarch and assumed that was all there was to know. But the truth is, Viki wasn't quite so high-and-mighty even when she wasn't under Niki's influence.

I think he and/or Gottlieb thought Viki was too strong, and therefore boring, and that she needed to be torn to pieces. The problem is that once she was torn down, no one ever built her back up again. Viki was many things for the Rauch era - badly dressed, given some dubious stories, starchy - but she was never boring, or weak.

[SFK]

Initially, I loved the "idea" of Todd and the use of backstory. Ultimately, his relationships with Powell and Kevin, not to mention his siblings, could have been fascinating stuff, but the character was given too long of a leash and many other characters lost their dimensions and full worth in Todd's shadow. He should have been written as one fascinating Lord among many instead of being given such a disgustingly large chunk of the canvas.

[SFK]

I think he and/or Gottlieb thought Viki was too strong, and therefore boring, and that she needed to be torn to pieces. The problem is that once she was torn down, no one ever built her back up again. Viki was many things for the Rauch era - badly dressed, given some dubious stories, starchy - but she was never boring, or weak.

Viki is a character who never should have taken a backseat to Todd and I just won't go for the all too convenient justification that she saw her father in him and out of her own issues she gave Todd a thousand pardons. Todd is psycho in a way that the Victor Victoria idolized never was. I just don't believe that she would have ever seen her dad in him. Felt sorry for his wounded soul, okay, but he was no Victor. The writers were first and foremost Todd fans, and they knew that there was a strong Todd fandom of crazies out there, and they too often used Viki as a pawn to remind us of why we should love this dude.

[DRW50]

They saw Viki as her abuse, and how the family she loved (both with Victor and then with Clint and the kids) was all a lie. The idea of Viki, to me, should have been her triumphing over her flaws and rebuilding a strong reality. Perhaps this would have happened if Malone hadn't been fired in early 1996. We got rageaholic Viki trying to shoot Kevin (the only justification for that would be if she knew they were going to cast Tim Gibbs). As it was, the old Viki never returned, and without that strength, her children, her identity, her job, her career, all progressively shrank into the darkness.

Edited by CarlD2, 06 October 2012 - 01:08 AM.

[Vee]

Gottlieb left well before the DID story fully kicked off, and before any of the crap with Elliott Durbin the hypnotist.

I never found Gottlieb's Viki boring. I found her very human, with the affair story and so on. I know longtime fans despised it, probably rightly so. Erika despised it. But I thought it made her a real person, with real needs and issues, and I thought they went to the core of her illness and resolved it in the DID story. Even I, as a young kid, knew multiple personalities didn't just come from a bad fall or a single family dispute - I knew what that implication meant and that it had to be some bad [!@#$%^&*], so I thought it was about time they told that story. I don't think they ever saw her as a victim or her life as a lie. I think that whole team had such great affection for Viki, her children and her family. You'd never get scenes today like the ones they used to do with Viki and Joey and Jessica and Kevin. I think what they did with Viki was modernize her for the '90s. This was a woman of a certain age who was in the grasp of not only a midlife crisis, but deep, deep issues with her psychological demons that went back to childhood.

Linda did once famously say in print re: the Sloan story that they were going to give Viki what she'd never had - "an orgasm." I think she was brilliant, but she alienated many, many people at the show - Erika (who to this day never shies away from saying she disliked her both professionally and personally), Clint Ritchie, John Loprieno, James dePaiva. And yet I think most of those people did some of their best work under her. So go fig. I also think she did underestimate some of the core strengths of the '80s and even Rauch - Andrea Evans, Tina, those couples, etc.

I don't think Viki was never strong again. I think Jill Phelps, for all her faults, focused in on Viki again, even though I hated the stories with Ben. And yes, I think Ron did a great deal to rehab Viki after years of horrible victimizing [!@#$%^&*] with Dena Higley. She found herself again. Under Frons you could never show her at work, but work she did, and she was happy and viable and steady. One of my favorite scenes will always be her using her intellect and her former alters to realize the truth about Natalie's abduction via Jean Randolph, and then using her knowledge of DID to pose as Jean in order to outwit Bess.

Edited by Vee, 06 October 2012 - 02:05 AM.