Broderick

Glad they've finally committed 100% to a youth storyline!!

It's kind of hard to imagine having any kind of anniversary without Miss Rowell, as Dru was such a vital character throughout a well-remembered decade (the 1990s), and Shimmy's Malcolm made the biggest splash of any newcomer since Lorie and Snapper back in the 1970s.

I'm sure Eileen Davidson wanted something "dramatic". To me, her very best scenes are more of the "everyday variety". For instance, there's one scene where Terry Lester's Jack is giving her a sermon about how worthless Brad Carlton is, and the whole time Jack is talking, she's fanning her face with a manila file folder like she's burning up in frustration. When Jack finally leaves, she exhales so hard her bangs rise up off her forehead, and she takes her thumb & index finger and does the "gun-to-the-head" suicide gesture. There's another scene where Terry Lester's Jack is presenting her with a dossier about Tim Sullivan, and she tosses it into the fire, rolls her eyes, and prances out of the room. Those are the types of scenes where she REALLY excels in my opinion.

She annoyed me from the get-go 😉 Although her presence wasn't "all-consuming" at first, the way she became later, it was the constant barrage of compliments that I found so eye-rolling. No one could ever say, "That little girl gets on my nerves.", or "We've had better models than Cricket." Everyone had to spontaneously compliment her each time they encountered her, and it was just too much at times. Jeanne Cooper said it best. Paraphrasing -- "Her father placed her in an awkward and potentially damaging situation, but she rose to the occasion." I'd agree with that. She steadily became a better actor as the years went by, but there was such an OVERDOSE of her during a certain period of time, and her father wrote her character in such a saccharine and predictable manner. It could've easily backfired even worse than it did. She would've always been fine as a supporting character, but as the central heroine -- nope. Not when she was 18-20 years old. And those scenes where she would offer wise advise to older characters or smile politely while that little pregnant teen Mollie said, "Oh, Cricket, I wish I could be beautiful and popular like you!!" Yuck.

😂

Yeah, Lauralee appeared as an extra a few times in the very late 1970s/very early 1980s, because she wanted to be on Daddy's show. Bill Bell arranged with John Conboy for her to board an airplane, put her little suitcase in the overhead compartment, and take a seat directly behind Kay Chancellor. She was about 10, lol. She was bitten by the acting bug after her few little stints as an extra. She started appearing as Cricket around 1983. Eileen Davidson & Terry Lester had the thankless job of saying, "Wow, Cricket is a WONDERFUL model. She's so beautiful, talented, and incredibly sexy." Michael Damian was assigned the job of walking in and saying, "What a beauty!!"

I think the reason they're not doing that (the first scenes) is that often the actor's first scene didn't focus on his/her character, but on someone else entirely. If I remember right, Braeden's first scene featured him hovering over Brock Reynolds like a vampire, announcing he wanted Cathy Bruder tried as an adult rather than as a juvenile. Later on, he began having scenes that were more about HIM, but that first one was entirely about Brock. Ditto with Tracey Bregman. Her first scene was a showcase for Traci Abbott, lol. In Lauralee Bell's first scene, she was a nameless little girl who sat behind Kay Chancellor on an airplane.

That's probably Josh Giffith's brother and sister-in-law, hobnobbing with Amanda Beall's parents. lol.

lol. That's great! I watched that episode a while back. Jack Smith was the dialogue writer. The way he handled Ridge's "arousal" -- which was stressed so much in the outline -- is he had the models (2 of them) preen and pose in their cruise wear, right in front of Ridge, taking off their sarongs & tossing them toward Ridge while he batted his eyes and grinned. Vivian, meanwhile, recited a planned press release for the cruise wear, referring to the swimsuits as "hot, smoldering, revealing every alluring curve". Then Caroline entered the office and reminded Ridge she wouldn't be sleeping with him before the wedding, but "good things come to those who wait."

Right, I can't imagine an outline would have "cut-to", "TC", or "one-way" in a scene description -- those are terms advising how the cameras will capture the action -- and wouldn't include any dialogue other than some specific passage the writer is insisting on including in the script.

I think Josh Griffith is pretty terrible. And while I'm sorry the breakdown writers lost their jobs, they didn't seem to be doing anything at all to liven-up a drab show. The stories themselves (which supposedly come from Josh) are awfully dull. I'm hesitant to even call them "stories". The scene breakdowns and dialogue, unfortunately, are about as mechanical and cut-&-paste as the "stories" are.

I couldn't view the Fair City outline. Unfortunately it says, "File not available." I'm sure the breakdowns vary from show to show (or from era to era). The breakdowns written by headwriters are probably brief, concise, and are more like an email message to the dialogue writer: "Kay, honey, here's how I want you to do it." The outlines written by individuals who function strictly as Breakdown Writers are likely far wordier and far more detailed.

That's probably right. Lauralee Bell says that one of her strongest memories of her dad was his "ever-present red pen", for making correction notes on scripts. Kay Alden said that when she and Jack Smith were still at Y&R (during Lynn Marie Latham's reign of terror), she and/or Jack read every completed script and marked it. Miss Alden said she learned to ALWAYS keep the next script to be edited in her purse, because one time she got into an elevator without a script, and the elevator got stuck between floors. She was trapped in the elevator without a script to edit and panicked over the amount of editing time being lost. Please do!

😂 I was thinking, "That's REALLY overkill for a breakdown!" Usually, the breakdown script just gives the setting ("INT. DEVON'S APT") the characters ("DEVON, ABBY, AMANDA"), and a brief description of the scene to be scripted ("DEVON and ABBY have made love. Resting on sofa. AMANDA walks in. FOCUS on her shocked reaction".) If the headwriter has produced the breakdown, he/she might include a specific passage of dialogue to be used. Otherwise, the dialogue is entirely up to the scriptwriter. That's been my experience with them -- just a brief roadmap for the scriptwriter.

An hour of original drama is too unwieldy for one person to control creatively on a daily basis (IMHO). Bill Bell was lucky in 1980 when his show went to an hour, because he'd been training Kay Alden for 6 years, and she'd learned his "style", what he wanted from a scene, from an episode, from a story arc. He said later that he could review a script and honestly couldn't tell if Kay had written the dialogue or if he'd written it himself; she'd learned to impersonate him that well. Most writers aren't fortunate enough to acquire a protégé who can follow their thought process that well. But it came from writing side-by-side at his dining room table and him looking up and telling her, "That's overwritten, Kay. Simplify it. Cut those six lines into four lines. Try this ..." Even so, Y&R fell apart when it went to an hour, because the process was now spread among Bill Bell, Kay Alden, Jack Smith, Elizabeth Harrower, and a couple of others. Things didn't get smoothed-out again until Sally Sussman was hired in 1982 and brought some fresh ideas into the room, and learned to write in the same style as Bell and Alden. I can't even imagine being Harding Lemay when "Another World" went to 90-minutes. I agree -- an absolute waste of time and energy. That breakdown is WAY overwritten. I've seen others that say, "Lily and Devon disagree, and Lily is hurt by his attitude." That's it. I expect Josh Griffith and Amanda Beall will write shorter, more concise outlines than the example presented here. Plus they'll have the outlines themselves at the weekly Executive Meeting, which means the "thrust document" can be omitted from the process entirely, saving even more time and energy. Also the second weekly meeting (to review the outlines) will be unnecessary, since the outlines were presented at the first meeting instead of the (absurd) thrust document.

That's very interesting (to me). Based on what I gathered from Kay Alden's discussion of her experience circa 2005, the cumbersome process had basically turned a Head Writer into "an overworked editor" and "an overworked proofreader", who went around with a briefcase full of tentative thrust documents, approved thrust documents, tentative breakdowns, approved breakdowns, script drafts, and completed scripts -- all from different timeframes. You might be writing a thrust document for the first week of April, then editing breakdowns for the last week of March, then proofreading a completed script for the third week of March. It was too entirely too mechanical and seemed to be stifling creativity entirely. I can understand the network and SONY wanting to know the long-term story material. But having to present a weekly "thrust document" to executives from the network and SONY seems downright comical to me. What could they possibly contribute to it? And then having to present breakdowns to those same executives a few days later is equally absurd. Again, the executives' input is creatively worthless. The creative process of being a head writer is probably stressful enough (generating storyline ideas and utilizing the cast in accordance with their contract requirements), without having to "appear before the principal" like a high school kid several times a week with big stacks of papers to get approved, and then "grading papers" like a teaching assistant. I'd hate it.

I actually wondered if the Writers Guild of America had forbidden them to work during the shutdown, because they clearly did nothing to improve the quality of their scripts, although they'd had weeks & weeks to rewrite and improve. I wouldn't have been able to stand it. If I'd written material for television under a time constraint, and suddenly the time constraint was lifted, I would've redone mine. Every word of it.

Yes, I think the initial creative vision -- if such a vision ever existed -- gets lost in all these (unnecessarily complex) layers of passing around an idea. I might've had a *great* idea for an episode 3 weeks ago; but now I've had to write a thrust document about it, had to meet with my bosses about it, had to assign it to a breakdown writer, had to edit & change the breakdown writer's work, had to meet with my bosses for a second time about it, had to farm it out to a script writer, and then had to proofread the script, edit it, and change it -- and by that time, I'm on a whole new idea, and I don't even care about the idea from 3 weeks ago anymore. The mechanics of generating my idea from 3 weeks ago have completely neutered it. If it could've come to fruition that day, it would've still mattered to me.

Paul Raven, I guess what I'm saying is that if you're a creative writer -- (and Josh Griffith probably isn't) -- then you're going to shoot your Creative Load all over the long-term projection and all over the thrust document. After that, your Creative Juice Shooter will go limp. The thrust document, which has your Creative Juice spilled all over it, then goes to someone you barely even know (the breakdown writer), who spends a few days on your thrust document creating a more detailed outline of a script, which might ultimately bear no resemblance AT ALL to the way you envisioned it when you first Shot Your Creative Wad on it. It comes back to you, and you have to edit it, change it, recreate it in the image that you'd originally wanted to present it in the first place. Once you've spun your wheels dripping your Creative Juice all over it for a SECOND time, you've got to get it approved by the network and the distributor. Now it goes to a scriptwriter, whom you might barely know, and that person is going to take it a slightly different direction than you'd planned when you first Thrusted. It then comes back to you, and you get to change/edit/correct it AGAIN, long days/weeks after you'd originally seen this script in your head. It's basically taken THREE LONG STEPS to create a completed script that you'd originally envisioned in your own (creative) mind weeks ago. You've spent days working on it, when you could've just done it yourself the first day, with a small team sitting around you in a "writer's room" where EVERYONE is shooting their Creative Wads all at the same time, in unison, toward a common goal that everyone understands and can discuss face-to-face while they're working on it.

[I left two steps out in my dissertation above. When the "headwriting team" meets with SONY and CBS on Monday morning, the headwriting team presents not only the "long term projections" but also a weekly "thrust document". The thrust document tells the executives what will be happening in the upcoming week. The SONY and CBS executives issue their opinions on the "thrust document". SONY and CBS can basically say, "We don't like your thrust document, Mr. Griffith; go back and work on it some more." If the executives APPROVE the thrust document, then it's ready for breakdown into 5 scripts -- hence the 5 breakdown writers. The headwriters then meet with the 5 breakdown writers and hand them the approved "thrust document". From the thrust document, the breakdown writers craft the flow of the 5 individual episodes. By Friday afternoon, the breakdown writers have completed their episodic breakdowns of the thrust document. The headwriters edit/change/correct the 5 breakdowns and then present the 5 edited breakdowns to SONY/CBS on Friday afternoon for approval. If the 5 breakdowns are approved, they're then assigned to a scriptwriter. The scriptwriter's completed script is then given back to the headwriter.] In my opinion, the headwriter should SKIP the "thrust document" entirely and simply write the breakdowns. This constant "pass around" of thrust documents, breakdowns and completed scripts seems to me as though as it's thoroughly zapping the creativity from the writing process. Instead of being able to write something clever, you're just going over the same crap repeatedly -- first a "thrust", then a "breakdown", and then a script, EACH of which must be edited and approved by a million people.

Miss Alden gave us a "modern look" at the process circa 2005. It was very convoluted, and Miss Alden made the description far worse by saying "uh, um, uh, um," while she attempted to provide details. Basically there's a "story conference" on Monday morning, in which the "head writing team" (who were Miss Latham, Miss Alden, and Jack Smith, at the time) meet with CBS and SONY and present Latham's story projections to the executives. CBS and SONY either approve or disapprove. If they approve, go to the next step. If they disapprove, rework the projections. Then Monday afternoon, you meet with the breakdown writers and give them a "broad idea" of the day's script. The breakdown writers are then assigned a specific script to breakdown further into individual scenes. The breakdown writers then submit their completed breakdowns into the "story editor", who at that time was Jack Smith, I believe. He makes sure the breakdowns line-up with what the "headwriting team" had asked the breakdown writers to do. Jack Smith would make any necessary edits/changes to the breakdowns, subject to the approval of Miss Latham. Then the breakdowns would move to the next step -- being approved by CBS and SONY. Once the breakdowns were approved, they would be assigned to a script writer. The scriptwriter then completes the script from the breakdown. The completed script then came back to Jack Smith, Kay Alden, and Lynn Marie Latham for them to edit/correct/change. Once the edits/corrections were made, the script then went to the executive producer, who had the authority to make additional edits/corrections, if for example the script was too LONG or too SHORT or had something in it that the director wouldn't be able to accomplish on screen. I'm the ONLY person on the board who feels this way, but I found the entire "breakdown process" to be a ridiculous waste of everyone's time and money; plus Y&R's breakdown writers are obviously not using much creativity to make Josh Griffith's drab stories interesting. I'm sorry they're losing their jobs, but they were being paid to complete a task that the headwriter and/or the assistant headwriter should theoretically be doing already.

I agree. I'm more concerned about Josh Griffith being the Executive Producer than I am about him writing the breakdowns. I'm obviously sorry the breakdown writers lost their jobs, but they weren't impressive. (Probably because they function under a stale head writer.) If he steps-up the writing, then the production values will obviously suffer. If he takes the production job seriously, the writing will suffer (even more than it already is). It's a no-win. I don't think anyone's got enough time to be the executive producer, the headwriter, and the breakdown writer all at one time. Not on an hour-long show. Will be interesting to see him try, though.

Kay Alden indicated she not only had to submit storyline projections to SONY and CBS, and also the outlines themselves. That's really overkill, as far as network/production oversight. (Henry Slesar from "Edge of Night" was another head writer who did his own outlines and some of his own dialogue, in the days when there wasn't so much oversight. He was always listed as "Story by Henry Slesar. Teleplays by Henry Slesar and Steve Lehrman.")

Probably so. Who knows what kind of ghoul will follow Griffith after his eventual collapse. Griffith is obviously suffering from a severe lack of creativity. I realize a lot of his staleness is the result of CBS (and SONY) interfering in the headwriter's work, and that's likely to continue. But with the ratings being as dismal as they are, you'd think someone at SONY, at CBS, at Y&R, would say, "Hey, this ain't working," throw out the model entirely, and try something completely different. I see this move as at least TRYING something different (cutting out the middle tier of writers), even if the motivation is strictly financial. Right now, the show seems to have about a dozen (not-so-talented) individuals churning out garbage that three or four talented individuals should theoretically be able to do more creatively and more efficiently.

I think it's a step in the right direction. Yes, Josh Griffith is a horrible writer, and he'll fall flat on his face. Then he'll be replaced with a better writer (hopefully), and we'll likely see a big improvement in the cohesiveness of the show. Kay Alden said in the 1970s, she and Bill Bell wrote all the scripts by themselves. Their "breakdown" was done first thing in the morning while the two of them sat at Bill's dining room table on Lakeshore Drive. Bill took out a scrap piece of paper -- such as the back of the envelope the utility bill had come in -- and jotted down the names of several characters he wanted to feature in the day's episode. He and Kay would spend a few minutes chatting about what each character on the envelope would be accomplishing in that particular episode and how the episode would end. Then they would sit down at their typewriters. Bill would write three of the five acts, and Kay would write the other two acts. They would then collate their pages, call the overnight delivery service, and ship the script by airmail to Television City in Hollywood. The next morning, they would breakdown a new script and start again. To me, that's the sensible way to write an intelligent script. With the show now being an hour instead of thirty minutes, you'd likely need three (or possibly four) individuals on the team to complete the script. (Two people could possibly still do it, as there's no longer a 5:00 pm deadline for an overnight mailing service; you just hit "send" in your email.) The current breakdown writers and script writers are, for the most part, lazy as hell. We saw that with our own eyes in 2020. Television production was curtailed for several months due to the pandemic. Several scripts had already been written but hadn't been taped yet. If YOU were one of the writers, what would YOU have done during the shutdown? I know what I would've done. I would've taken every single script I'd written that hadn't been taped yet and re-written it to make it BETTER. There was no time constraint whatsoever; you had literally WEEKS to polish each script and make each line of dialogue sharper, cleverer, and filled with subtext. It was a writer's dream -- to have all those "bonus weeks" to polish his scripts and make them perfect. I fully expected that when production resumed, we would see on our screens the smartest, best-written episodes in the show's history. What did we get instead? Complete crap. These writers didn't bother to revise one word. They just left the garbage they'd completed before the pandemic sitting on a table somewhere, and when production resumed, the actors picked up those dusty, cliché-riddled scripts and started spouting the drab dialogue that had been written months ago. If the writers are THAT lazy, better off without them, in my opinion. Hopefully this (drastic) step will encourage the dialogue writers to do a better job.