Soaplovers

The OC is still about the family aspect in addition to all that you describe. With all the personal/family changes going on with Tamra, Kelly, and Shannon... Vicki needs to have that family element to compete. Plus, I'm seeing with the two new housewives.. there are lots of kids/family elements (although I think due to newbie Gina's divorce happening.. perhaps she should have been downgraded to a friend of... and just had five main women).

Oh wow! Sometimes real life is always more interesting than what gets on camera. If Brianna and family aren't being featured that much, if at all, than why is Vicki a main housewife since most of her story was her being a grandma?

It also didn't help that Nella was played by at least three (maybe four?) actresses within a short amount of time (Victoria Rowell was one, I think). It showed the lack of investment of Marland and co to service the Franklin family beyond just set dressing and even the most featured member of the family didn't really get serviced much beyond being Heather, and later, Jessica's boyfriend. Jessica's family had a little more focus with the show at least attempting to feature Jessica's brother Lamar trying to work at the Argus and not quite having the journalistic touch.. and her married sister Fiona appearing from time to time.

Yeah.. those aren't the best taglines.. but I don't judge a book by its cover. I'm not a fan of NY (too much group.. and almost all of them aren't married so they might as well rename the show)... so I'll be looking forward to some family stuff/drama on the OC.

Jack/Brad should never have been introduced... the Snyders were finally gone by the mid 90s and it felt like heaven. I'll probably be slammed for saying this.. but when the show had the all female 50th special... I thought Emma was out of place and didn't belong. It was fine with the other six.. and it just symbolized how Marland and future writers kept trying to keep the Snyder family going past their expiration date. Yeah, it would have made more sense for Meg to buddy up to Lily.. and want to venture to the Walsh Mansion.. and to hob nob with all the rich teens that Lily knew... over Lily wanting to spend all her time at the Snyder Farm. And the isolation would have still worked if the Snyders were on the poor side of Oakdale... but I guess Marland wanted to have a throwback to how the Hughes family started out as a farm family until Chris H made the break from that life to live in the big city. I guess perhaps having the Snyders realize that the farm is too much for them to handle and to have them sell to a corporate entity thus becoming more middle class would have been more realistic given the farm crisis in real life in the late 80s/90s where small family farms were being eaten by corporate farming.

Marland talked in his bible about introducing characters slowly... yet within weeks of starting, he floods the show with the Snyders and isolating them to a farm instead of a working class section of Oakdale. And I never bought spoiled princess Lily willingly wanting to go to a farm, even spending the night there countless times... it just never rang true. Now if the 1st actress playing Lily was still playing the part, I would have bought it because the actress played Lily more like a town boy than Martha did.. who played Lily as an over dramatic teen princess that seemed happily at a country club than on a farm. What was his reason for writing Maggie/Frank out of the show? And watching the show a pre-teen in the early 90s, I understood why Iva was written out since her story seemed to be complete once she married and left to start life anew.. same with Seth/Angel. Some characters have a shorter shelf life than other characters.. and writers sometimes don't recognize that. I think even Marland recognized that hence why he had mentioned the Kasnoff clan in his future outlines before he passed away.. since I think even he knew the Snyders shelf life was coming to an end.

While she was involved with her editor Ned Simon.. and I think he died either by heart attack or stroke in early 1994... so perhaps she submitted scenes of her grieving his death, etc?

Kim Zimmer (who played Nola) said that for most of her three year stint on the show.. the show was always in danger of being cancelled... in fact, she described the situation in the same manner as to an actors contract (13 week option) basically saying the show was extended every 13 weeks... which could explain why things never seemed plotted long term because the writers never knew for sure if that 13 week pick up would be the last one. The timeslot changes, plus moving the focus from the hospital to a traditional family structure killed the show long term. Right now, the reruns are in April 1976... and sorry @vetsoapfan I'm actually liking Depriest's stint thus far. I know you mentioned not liking Anne Bailey Howard as head-writer.. but the scripts that Howard has written have been pretty good (perhaps she should have been a script writer and not a head-writer?). The show taken on a generational vibe as of late with the conflicts between the establishment and the youth (i.e. Althea/Penny, Matt/Mike, Steve/Billy, Mama Dancy/Jerry, and Eleanor/Wendy). I like the idea of a clash between the establishment and the newbies... and wished that idea had not been shown to reflect just parent/child... but established doctors and nurses vs interns and nursing students (sort of what the show did briefly in 1970 with Carolee as head of nursing clashing with Julie the manipulative nursing student).

Even in the 80s and 90s, syndicated soaps had trouble succeeding long term. Now other types of programming that were syndicated... different story Saturday afternoons after cartoons were when a majority of syndicated sitcoms/dramas played in Chicago during the 80s/early 90s. I do think perhaps a streamed show/serial might work.. but only if released in bulk (say 20 episodes with the last of the 20 ending in a cliffhanger... and they're released once a month for people to enjoy).

Luann has always been shady and vile... and lets face it, she was never around the kids except for appearance sake. So I hope this lawsuit causes her to lose money and prestige.

Who knew Amy wasn't such a goody goody.. almost makes what Belle does to her later on seem like karma I guess this is before Susan mellowed out and became more likable. Very detailed story projections.

Anne Bailey Howard was a script-writer on the Doctors.. interesting. That's a name that either brings up positive or negative feelings (her stint on Days post Leah Laiman wasn't well received). She's a decent script writer

I'll be intrigued to see the whole Dancy family since they are almost as far removed from the hospital setting as the Conrad's are (except for Sarah).

From what I've read... Eleanor stays till the end of 1977... I think Scott only lasts a few more months.

I wonder if he confused head-writer with consultant. I know he was a creative consultant on ATWT in the mid 80s before Marland took over, so perhaps he was that for GL? There was an interview done in 2009 with Lemay where he commented on Marland and how he found him to be a fascinating writer.. but thought Marland was too rigid and wasn't open to flexibility... and this was in response to Marland's list of how not to ruin a soap. I will say I will agree with Lemay's one consistent rule that he mentioned throughout that interview... when writing a script/character/story.... ask why and never ask what (i.e. if you can answer why a character is acting a certain way, it will work.. but he said that with the gridlock of the genre, he understands why a writer would lean toward plot rather than character because it's faster and easier). I often think Lemay/Marland would either have struggled in the late 90s into the 2000s.. or had left the business altogether..imho.

I do agree 1985 was a very strange year... the year started out fairly balanced with focus on the Reardons, Lewis', Spauldings, etc... but by the end of 1985 with the Infinity story.. it was a completely different show although I did like the story idea of Reva hitting rock bottom and attempting suicide... a shame in 1986 it didn't get followed up on. I do agree that 1987 was another transition year with the show slowly coming back to life...(though I loved the upbeat music for the opening credits I see differences from July 2 1987 (before Pam Long returned where it wasn't a bad show, but something was missing).. and the December 24th 1987 episode (a few months after Pam Long's return).

Naked Wasted... that was when Tamra went from just a catty housewife to the all out villainess. I think there were reports that Jeana was lambasting production during this event being filmed, hence why I think a camera person was following Ryan/Gretchen.. and how both Jeana and Lynne were trying to get Gretchen to leave with them. Little did we know that during this time Tamra was getting calls from that one guy claiming he was sleeping with Gretchen during this time.. hence why we saw the change in Tamra's attitude toward Gretchen fairly quickly. I recall Tamra admitting during the S4 reunion of all that was going on behind the scenes and regretted not talking about it on camera because it made her look like the bad guy (and in a weird way.. it turned out Tamra was right about Gretchen). RHOC will always rank higher for me than some of the others because on the OC.. no one gets top billing.. it is still an ensemble with five or six individual narratives. It will never be the Vicki or Tamra show ever.

This is right before Pam Long left and Jeff Ryder (co head writer) took over completely. And I'd rank this higher than anything Kriezman did... and at least the production values were good during this era. The Wheeler/Kriezman era didn't even have that.

Yes, the Shannon/Barbara/Brian triangle was started before the writer change.. as well as Sierra/Lucinda/Craig... Frannie/Kevin/Marie as well.

I think 1986 worked so well because Marland was carrying through with stories and characters that were left for him by the previous writer, while starting new stories of his own that didn't really take off until 1987.

I know Byrne wanted Lily not to be so business oriented like she was when Rattay played the part... yet oddly the first three years she was back playing Lily, she was heavily into business and played it well. I did like that eventually she co-owned the Lakeview with Lisa... and I didn't realize that Lily's field of study when a teen was hotel management... the one consistency.

Than she should have been demoted. If unwilling to show all aspects of your life on a reality show than why be on one. Makes no sense to me.

I felt we were robbed of seeing Ramona's life post-Mario... that was one of the things I was looking forward to so much in season 7/8/9... but we hardly got to see Ramona on her own. Very disappointing. Hence why I liked RHOC.. because no one on that show has power.. and there still is an element of 5 to 7 individual narratives (I love how newer viewers whine about that and how I point out that was how the show started.. and then they shut up lol Then those same viewers remark at how much they like the earlier season).

Probably an unpopular opinion.. but I was always on Lucinda's side especially when it came to Lily. I actually wished she'd disowned that brat Lily and let the princess go live at the Snyder Farm and cut her off so she didn't have any money. And I had wished she had succeeded in getting Holden/Lily to break up even though had she not done anything.. they still would have broken up as we witnessed once the two were adults and Lucinda had learned to accept him. I also was on Lucinda's side with not telling Lily about Holden's amnesia and being in the hospital in New York.. but only because Lily would have found a way to make it all about her (which we saw when she was frustrated that Holden didn't remember her, etc). I also understood why Lucinda told Sierra about her breast cancer before she told Lily (and Lucinda confirmed it by saying because Sierra wouldn't have made it all about herself). i watched the pitchfork episode.. and the reason Lily was there was because she was upset about Craig being reported missing/dead. The way she acted, you would have thought she was the most important person to Craig.. moreso than his girlfriend/wife Sierra, his mother Lyla, or his sister Margo. Selfish character. Now I do wonder if you think this was due to how Martha chose to play the character, or if this is how the character was written by Horgan/Marland/Backus/etc?

I think when Phyllis and the two Jacks... and Jack with Patty/Emily was done... the writers should have looked at this scene to learn how to do the aftermath of such a story to great effect. What Blade/Rick did was rape and her reaction is the reaction that someone should have to having something like that done to them. And plus when Phyllis/Jack had that happen to them... having Ashley remember this happening to her would have made those stories richer.. or even having Ashley think something was off about Jack, etc. Brenda has always been the Ashley I loved best... and I agree with @yrfan1983 that Brenda played the gamut of emotions much better than ED would have. ED went over the top when having her breakdowns... while Brenda played Ashley as being in shock, processing all that had happened to her, coming to her conclusion and acting out in a realistic manner.. with Jill being the support step mother for once to her. Even though Brenda played the mental breakdown aspect of Ashley's character.. I think she played it as Ashley coming to terms with what happened and determined to come out fighting.. as opposed to ED.. who always played Ashley's breakdowns as her losing her grip on reality and becoming helpless.