mikelyons

After all of the grief I received from posting this scoop on this board and in my DMs, I'll keep my scoops to private from now on.

I can't say anymore.

From folks who know what's going on. That's all I can say.

Spoiler: JFP is back at Y&R.

I know how soaps are run, thanks. I've launched a few shows in my time in the industry. My comment is merely how friends help friends even when said friends have a record of tanking the show they work on. That's all.

Agreed. I've followed this news since it launched and these two hires are very uninspired. I know there are a ton of Guza fans and apologists, but he's responsible for one of the worst soap operas to ever premiere: Sunset Beach. His GH was a nightmare for viewers who loved the Labine/Riche era. As for JHC, she was a non-entity at AMC. A friend of mine worked on the show when it came to Los Angeles and JHC was more concerned with buying sandwiches at Costco, cutting them up, and putting them on trays than EPing that show. She ran PC, Night Shift, and AMC into the ground and now they think it's a good idea to give her The Gates? The Santa Barbara Crew was struck again. When will their hold on daytime cease?

Roy Winsor did not create Search for Tomorrow or Love of Life as is often stated in the press as well as soap history books. Agnes Nixon created SFT and wrote the original 65 episodes (13 weeks). Irving Vendig was called in to replace Agnes and her remaining script, but he couldn't write fast enough, so those ended up airing with his work starting afterwards. John Hess created Love of Life. He conceived, created, and wrote the initial scripts for LOL prior to it finding a sponsor. John Hess was screwed out of his on-screen creator credit by Roy Winsor. Erica Kane is not in the first episode of AMC; she debuts in Episode 10.

I dislike hijinks every time. Honour was becoming interesting, but then she up and left the village. Maxine has always been one of my favorite characters, however, I don't think her topical storylines are very well executed. I also loathe the way they gave her an insta-family when Trish left town. I didn't want it in 2009-10. I'm fully aware that they've had a massive cast overhauls, but this one feels different. Maybe it's because we're losing strong characters and good actors to relative nobodies. Lucy's been there a while now, she has her people in place, her vision is being fully executed, and the show is embarrassing to watch.

I've watched Hollyoaks since 2016 or so and, man, it's been a rough ride since Bryan Kirkwood stepped as down executive producer. Lucy Allen's tenure has been a boring, muddled, unfocused disaster. I think one of the problems stems from most of the storylining team and producers being fired when Lucy Allen took over. Goodbye to institution knowledge! I barely recognize the characters. We've been inundated with new characters Ethan, Dillion, Norma, Lexi, Dave & Co., and the insufferable Rayne. Endless cast exits (DeMarcus, Serena, Honour, Imran, Verity, Zara, Grace, Damon, Juliet, Celeste, etc.) paired with juvenile plotting, high jinx, and shenanigans have made it a chore to watch day after day. I fear the heart and soul of the show has been ripped out, never to return.

I came here to write this.

This. All of this.

"4,500 words of dialogue, 250 times a year: How ‘The Young and the Restless’ is made" LA Times article about the firing (link bypasses the paywall): https://archive.ph/jxep2#selection-2091.0-2106.0

It's awful.

Found one! Here's a breakdown and corresponding script from Episode 206 of Port Charles. Breakdown: https://www.mediafire.com/file/maakljcf47j61hi/PortCharlesStoryOutline.pdf/file Script: https://www.mediafire.com/file/pp8oewxaujjq1zl/PortCharlesScript.pdf/file

Fair City has been re-uploaded.

Here's a breakdown from the Irish soap opera, Fair City from 2009 (Series/Season 20, Episode 138). As always, this is for educational purposes. Let's not send it around the internet! 😉 https://www.mediafire.com/file/o0o9ibx36ztrnlm/Fair_City_Series_20%2C_Episode_138_Episode_Breakdown.pdf/file I've posted one... I think I may have one from a US soap, but I'll check.

That's pretty accurate. There's an example of Agnes' breakdowns for AMC in ALL HER CHILDREN. They're VERY short and succinct. From what I remember of Bill Bell's Y&R breakdowns, they're a little more involved with notes to the writer. I remember one where he wrote to Kay Lenard, "Now, Kay, honey..." with a note about how to write the scene and where he wanted to go with subtext, etc. Irna's breakdowns were involved, but a great roadmap. Any writer could take her breakdowns and write a script. If I can find a breakdown this weekend, I'll share it.

I've said privately that going to an hour was the worst thing that ever happened to soaps and I stand by it. Why? Prior to the hour (and going back to the days of radio), the HW would submit a six month or yearly story bible to the ad agency, sponsor, and/or network during their big story conference. That's when the direction of the show would be decided and everyone would head home. In radio, Irna would dictate her outlines and those outlines would be sent to her script writer. They'd return their scripts, the rep for the agency/sponsor would give her notes, and then they'd finish off the script and send it the producer. Elaine Carrington (Pepper Young's Family; Rosemary) wrote her own outlines & scripts. The Hummerts were producers and agency reps, so they were the first and last word. When the soaps were fifteen minutes and thirty minutes, the radio process stuck. Irving Vendig wrote the scripts and breakdowns for SFT as did Agnes (before she was fired). Even when ATWT launched as half an hour, Agnes wrote the scripts from Irna's outlines. One script writer; one HW. Claire Labine noted that she and Paul would sometimes write their own scripts for Love of Life and Ryan's Hope, but they did use script writers. As it's already been stated, Bill Bell wrote his outlines and scripts for Y&R in the early days, before he found other script writers. However, he always wrote his outlines as did Agnes in the early years of OLTL and AMC. Going to an hour famously blew up a system which worked and gained so much viewer attention. Intimate, tight stories about a family or a few people in a town under the vision of one writer and a small team of script writers worked. The hour doubled storyline, gave networks more control, made every show hire a team of associate head writers and breakdown writers, and more script writers. Head writers were so removed from their stories by the time the episodes aired that they bore little resemblance to the intention (as stated previously). Y&R was able to maintain script quality for so long because Kay Alden, as associate head writer, edited every single Y&R script from the 70s until she was fired. Ron Carlivati doesn't even read the Days scripts; his script editor edits and approves them. Brad Bell barely provides oversight of the daily scripts. He simply tells Michael Minnis the scope, Michael bangs out a rough outline (which says give 20% to Brooke & Ridge, 40% to Thomas and Hope), and the writers have a lot of leeway when it comes to writing their episodes, hence the mess you see on screen. (I used to have a bunch of B&B outlines, but I threw them away...along with ATWT & GL scripts from 2004. Big mistake.) Soaps do their best when the HW has a singular vision which is executed via episodic scripts. The UK soaps allow the series producer to set the story for the next year and their team of storylines work on breakdowns, but their pool of script writers is small which allows for quality even when their storyliners (who are coveted by primetime) move on. Hollyoaks fired their entire producing team, storylining team, and most of their long time script writers two or so years ago and it's suffered ever since.

This show is a joke. It once had a budget of over $100m a year (that was into the 21st century) and now we're reduced to firing the breakdown writers? Shame. Brad Bell fired the actress who played Sally from B&B, but Margo Wain loved her, so she put her on Y&R. Now, thanks to Josh, it's the Sally Spectra Show. I find it unwatchable & I don't see it getting any better.

It's a bit muddled. Breakdown writers take the long term story from the head writer and create daily outlines of the show which the dialogue writers turn into scripts. Usually, there are five outline writers because one writer works on one outline per week. Some soaps have had one or two outline writers; others have had six or more... It just depends on the budget of the show. If the breakdown staff is eliminated, then the HW would - in theory - receive a check for each breakdown they write. Is Sony/Josh allowed to do this? Well, yes. If their contracts were up - or their contract cycles were up - then it's a totally legal move. Smart? No. Legal? Yes.

Sara Bibel confirmed on Twitter she's one of the fired breakdown writers.

Breakdown writers (as of December 2022): Natalie Minardi Slater (Second most senior writer on Y&R after Janice Ferri Esser, who's still writing dialogue.) Jeff Beldner Michael Conforti Marin Gazzaniga Simone Hawthorne

I believe so.

He thinks he's Bill Bell.

I found out about it minutes before I made this post. From what I understand, The Wrap threw together their article...and it shows...