DramatistDreamer

It ends at about the 20 minute mark. SORRY everybody, back to the regularly scheduled thread.

It can get a bit dizzying if your focus is on the background characters but the camera work during this sequence is stellar, the way it moves the sequence along in a fluid manner. Watch the entire sequence, it’s long but has a great payoff in visual quality.

There’s a sequence in this episode that happens in the Mona Lisa restaurant that is one example of the dexterity of camera work that I mentioned. Starting around the 22nd minute.

Thank God that’s over! The only reason why I watched the final two episodes was I felt obliged to finish the series. The writing and overall direction of this series began in an interesting way but increasingly became a slog as it wound its way to the end. Also, I read that one of the grandchildren of Babe Paley is crying foul on this series. It is a work of fiction but when the writing starts playing with the sequence of events in addition to relationships, it’s a sure bet that someone will be crying foul. I wonder how this series would have played out had it been 5 episodes instead of 8? It might have been much tighter constructed in terms of the storytelling and perhaps had spared us some of the excess dreamscape filler.

I will have to see if I can find the clips that illustrate this. It may take awhile since I no longer (re)watch like I used to.

The name of the Montgomery made me giggle because ATWT had a Montgomery family. It made me muse about the aspect (down the road) of a brief story arc where the Black Montgomerys find out about the white Montgomerys (only if Scott Bryce and Hillary Bailey Smith could make the appearance though).🤣 That could be some P&G synergy between the present/future of soaps linking with the past. Geez, just saw this post after I made mine.

I respect and love the fact that Rowell embedded in Jamaica and utilized a lot of Jamaican talent, including cast and a Jamaican crew when she was filming The Rich And the Ruthless. She really endeared herself to the Jamaican people and the Jamaican art scene.

As The World Turns was my favorite daytime soap and I have posted about the shooting techniques such as continuous shots with almost no cuts that were used in groups scenes that I loved so much. I just wonder whether anyone really knows how to do this anymore, especially with a multi camera setup. I would love to see those beautiful fluid shots but I won’t get my hopes up for that because it seems like it went away in soaps about a decade before ATWT got cancelled. Listen, ATWT was my favorite soap so I have been relishing the possibility of The Talk getting bumped by a soap that is in part being produced by P&G.

That’s the most manageable way to do it at the outset. It will be interesting to see how much the traditional approach to storytelling for the soap opera will be incorporated in this new series and how much innovation will be incorporated, perhaps leaving behind some methods that have shown to be less effective. I have long wondered why daytime soaps never at least tried to use the repertory system where you have some characters in active storyline for a period, rest them, rotate others in and you can even overlap and have parallel stories but don’t keep running the same characters ragged until everyone, including viewers get exhausted. I remember during the mid-late 1980s when ATWT was running hot and the stories were firing on all cylinders, they seemed to have problems retaining actors. One reason was obviously because these actors were getting other opportunities because they were on such a highly regarded series but others cited the fact that they needed a break from being so heavily involved in so many back to back stories and couldn’t get that break, so some eventually left. And it’s not as if everyone was being utilized similarly, a few actors were underutilized at the same time. From what I heard in interviews with some of the actors, it seemed as if execs wanted to focus on certain couples (a strategy that seemed smart in the short term but eventually marginalized any character that wasn’t part of a coupling) apparently, to take advantage of the super couple phenomenon of the 1980s and 90s. ‘I hope this new series can avoid these pitfalls.

Interesting point about the fact that RH was a 30 minute serial. In this day and age, I don’t see a network soap being able to center one family, unless they are going to make that world really cloistered, to the point of being nearly claustrophobic. A radio soap, sure- a script to screen with a beginning, middle and end, yes, but a continuing drama, somehow I don’t see viewers putting up with that. Today’s viewers definitely expect more.

I do give Leon credit because, as I said upthread, she did look the part even though, honestly, Y&R botched what were good storyline opportunities that were right in front of them, if only they had opened their eyes. Seriously, the writing for her was pretty awful. To call that reliquary story convoluted is an understatement.

Oh of course, you absolutely need both! Fresh faces and experienced veterans and if this is to be a 60 minute serial as has been suggested, there should be sufficient room for both. That first episode, you need strong talent to do the heavy lifting. I agree with this. No offense to the West but I have seen how B’way works up close and personal, as I once interned for a B’way producer and that discipline involved— actors, even the relatively young and newbies always show up prepared.

You know, I lost completely track of these posts?! I was searching for something else and came across these. A very belated thanks to @Juliajmsand @Bright Eyes for your gracious words. Apart from the weird formatting, this would have made for a pretty good umbrella story. Hm, I had more story regarding the reunion between Colleen and Traci and her family and loved ones, which leads to the mystery of who the donor whose heart went to Victor. Of course, that dreadful DV storyline and shipping off of Mattie and Charlie and the killing off of Hilary and Dina (why was Y&R so quick to kill off these two? The others I could have dealt with but this messes up my flow 🙄). Well, the DV storyline also messes up a lot too. Ugh.

Nvm. Please delete?

Everybody’s gonna try to get in on this. I’m interested in who is going to be doing casting duties. In the old days of P&G soaps, it was common to see certain actors circulate their soaps (EON, ATWT, AW, GL, etc). Back then, it was not uncommon to even see an actor appear in a commercial for one of their products before later appearing in one of their daytime soaps. It’s been nearly 15 years since P&G has produced a daytime soap so I think we can assume that things will be slightly different this time around, and P&G appears to be assuming the role of partner, rather than primary production company as they were in the past. Still, the list of actors who once performed in P&G soaps is pretty impressive- Tonya Pinkins, a pre-Y&R Victoria Rowell, Amelia Marshall, Petronia Paley, Count Stovall and Tamara Tunie, to name a few.

Considering that elections are going on in Russia and we’re unlikely to be informed of anything other than the most predictable outcome, coming across this vintage Phil Donahue episode that took place in Moscow (an episode I have never seen) seems especially timely.

With Leon, I was never sure whether the crappy writing or her performance was the biggest problem I had with the character but I found her characterization of Colleen to lack that endearing quality. And in Fonseca’s performance , even when Colleen was being rebellious and made me want to ground her, she was irrepressibly endearing, kind of like Traci. Sursok, well, about her, I was just indifferent. Today’s soaps waste their legacy characters like nobody’s business.

I wasn’t against Adrianne Leon’s casting per se, only because she had Traci’s build and there were some potential but missed opportunities to have a body positive character, that would be the inverse of where Traci was at that age. But the writing was awful during Leon’s tenure in the role, only exceeded by the atrocious writing in Tammin Sursok’s time (plus she was completely wrong for the role). Even if in a reduced role, I wished they would have worked something out with Lyndsy Fonseca to show up occasionally especially seeing as Fonseca’s performance abilities got considerably sharper over the years and she and Luckinbill have great onscreen chemistry, the were really good together on that television series based on La Femme Nikita.

Wow, really?! I didn’t know that! That was some poor choice making, a particular standout in a sea of poor decision making over decades of this show’s history.

Why oh why did those dumb writers kill off the Carltons? If they felt it was too confusing to have Don Diamont occasionally visit Genoa City, could they not have recast the role? Brad Carlton was one of the few characters left on the canvas who had solid working class roots (aside from Jill and Sharon, both of whom have been terribly underutilized and misused) and I feel that connection to striving and ambition has been lost. Y&R, in its heyday was always ambitious and had at least a handful of characters who embodied this. It’s also sad that, you have Ashley and Jack who have grandchildren that they allegedly dote on and you have Traci, who has demonstrated the greatest capacity of unconditional love, has been left without a daughter or grandchildren. Colleen could have made occasional visits to Genoa city sometimes. Honestly, instead of going there with the hair brained stories they plunged JT Hellstrom into with the Newmans, they should have had he and Colleen run off and elope (with Colleen only sending Traci a cryptic message to show up to a particular destination alone where she finds her way to a rustic chapel somewhere), and return for brief story arcs during the numerous storytelling lulls on this show.

^^ Dang, so many things that have plagued IW over the years! On an up note, honey for everyone, I guess?

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity. Hm, from my brief experience working behind the scenes of a television show…I mean, not to make generalizations or cast aspersions or anything but, in my experience, a lot of media people are fairly spineless and often focused on hunting down their next opportunity, wherever they can find it, no matter where it comes from or where it leads them. No lie, I was once told by a television producer that I had too much integrity to be working for her. By then, the job had made me so sick that I agreed with her.

The last daytime soap opera that used the family’s name that I can think of is Ryan’s Hope, which at least, wasn’t too straightforward thankfully. As soap fans, I think we’re generally used to titles that are a little more elaborate on some level. I think that’s why it comes off as a working title for so many. If the writing and performances are top-notch, I can overlook a generic series title. The family has been described as living in a gated community. The title comes across as very ‘on the nose’ is probably why it reads like a working title but hey, if the quality is great (and ups the ante for the remaining soaps to improve their storytelling), tptb can call it Bebay’s Bay Ridge Hideaway and I would deal with it.

Kind of what I had suspected of P&G over their recent IR reports— they wanted to get back into the production of soaps but didn’t want the onus to be on them to produce them. I guess partnering with entities that have some stability is a better option for the type of corporation that P&G has evolved to over the years. Interesting, when we all think back to all that talk about P&G refusing CBS’s offer to purchase the production rights to As The World Turns.

I would be interested in see what that looks like visually. Of course, not interested enough to watch the actual show.