Ok, so the weekly ATWT thread has inspired me to start this thread on how to bring ATWT back to its roots again, I have brought up lots of ideas and so have alot of other posters in that thread, and I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread just about this. So what are every one's opinions on how to make it better?

Quit recycling stories. ATWT seems to be recycling the same stories over and over. Emily had a gun and shot Paul. Now Dusty has a gun and wants to shoot Craig. Iris comes in to her daughter's life to ruin her relationship with Will and now she is back to do it again plus get into some money. I love Terri Garber but give her something else to do then the same thing.

Next, put your vets: Bob, Kim, Lisa, Lucinda and Barbara in a major storyline with Nancy playing a supporting role in it.

More romance on the show. And I don't mean like Mike and Katie had. That was not romance it was boring nonsense!

The best way? Get rid of Jean Passanante. She was good at first, but the show seems so stale right now.

1) Give Barbara Ryan a love interest and a story

2) Kill Jade off ASAP. This is the worst & most useless character in the history of the show. The actress needs to go back to school as she is not cutting it

3) Show more of Bob, Kim, Lisa, Lucinda

4) I am sick of seeing Nancy being used in story with Katie. Show Nancy with her family.

5) Get rid of the current Craig and bring back Hunt Block.

6) More romance and less death

7) Perhaps show the characters in their work environment. I remember when we use to see Emily working at the newspaper, Lucinda in her office, etc. Now the only people we see working are the ones who work at the police department and hospital

8) Bring back James Stenback

9) Get rid of boring Holden and bring Damian back as Lily's lover.

1) Give Barbara Ryan a love interest and a story

2) Kill Jade off ASAP. This is the worst & most useless character in the history of the show. The actress needs to go back to school as she is not cutting it

3) Show more of Bob, Kim, Lisa, Lucinda

4) I am sick of seeing Nancy being used in story with Katie. Show Nancy with her family.

5) Get rid of the current Craig and bring back Hunt Block.

6) More romance and less death

7) Perhaps show the characters in their work environment. I remember when we use to see Emily working at the newspaper, Lucinda in her office, etc. Now the only people we see working are the ones who work at the police department and hospital

8) Bring back James Stenback

9) Get rid of boring Holden and bring Damian back as Lily's lover.

I definitely agree with 1-8, but a big nooo to #9.

2) Kill Jade off ASAP. This is the worst & most useless character in the history of the show. The actress needs to go back to school as she is not cutting it

Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

She's the most interesting and 3-D character in the younger set.

Anyway...

1. If they're gonna make Carly a bad girl make her a B-I-T-C-H! Not this stupid, lame attempt at rebel Carly. It's pathetic.

2. Get Henry away from Katie land ASAP!

3. Backburn Will and Gwen. Give some of their airtime to Maddie/Casey, so they can move past the Gwill cheerleader aspect.

4. DO something with Barbara. A man... burn her again...ANYTHING!

5. Stop pimping thugs as heroes. I'm looking at you Dusty Donovan.

6. Backburn Paul. Meg has loadssssssss more potential without him.

7. Snyders are OK at the moment. Don't have a problem there.

8. More family moments. Interaction with Tom, Margo, Nancy, Lisa, Bob, Kim, Emma.

9. For God's sake, give us a GOOD holiday episode. The last two years have sucked.

That would be awesome if Carly was given her edge back. I hate this watered down, houswife version we have right now.

1) Give Barbara Ryan a love interest and a story

2) Kill Jade off ASAP. This is the worst & most useless character in the history of the show. The actress needs to go back to school as she is not cutting it

3) Show more of Bob, Kim, Lisa, Lucinda

4) I am sick of seeing Nancy being used in story with Katie. Show Nancy with her family.

5) Get rid of the current Craig and bring back Hunt Block.

6) More romance and less death

7) Perhaps show the characters in their work environment. I remember when we use to see Emily working at the newspaper, Lucinda in her office, etc. Now the only people we see working are the ones who work at the police department and hospital

8) Bring back James Stenback

9) Get rid of boring Holden and bring Damian back as Lily's lover.

I agree with all of them except 8 and 9. We already have James in town in the form of Craig.

Anyway...

1. If they're gonna make Carly a bad girl make her a B-I-T-C-H! Not this stupid, lame attempt at rebel Carly. It's pathetic.

2. Get Henry away from Katie land ASAP!

3. Backburn Will and Gwen. Give some of their airtime to Maddie/Casey, so they can move past the Gwill cheerleader aspect.

4. DO something with Barbara. A man... burn her again...ANYTHING!

5. Stop pimping thugs as heroes. I'm looking at you Dusty Donovan.

6. Backburn Paul. Meg has loadssssssss more potential without him.

7. Snyders are OK at the moment. Don't have a problem there.

8. More family moments. Interaction with Tom, Margo, Nancy, Lisa, Bob, Kim, Emma.

9. For God's sake, give us a GOOD holiday episode. The last two years have sucked.

I agree strongly with 5 and 6. All of them are good ideas. But forget about #9. We haven't seen a holiday episode in years. Douglas Marland sure knew how to do holiday episodes. They had family interaction yet drama surrounding it.

1. Give Luke a boyfriend or some kind of Relationship

2. Fire Jean Passionate

3. Fire Chris Goutman

4. Put Katie, Craig, Carly, Mike, Emily, Simon, Dusty, Lucy on Backburner for a long time to come

5. Let Paul and Meg have a real relationship instead of it always being about Craig or Emily

6. Let Barbara and Chaz hook-up I think they would be a hoot

7. Get rid of the stupid Gwen Sings storyline

8. Give Casey and Maddie something to do (do these two even exist anymore)

9. Give all of the vets a storyline, that is intertwined in someway

10. Start to do story lines based on Business like in the old days, Bring back Worldwide, and BRO and several of the others.

11. Bring back some of the exteneded family members.

12. Speed up the show, it moves to slow

13. More Murder mysteries, or a mystery of any kind

14. Make the storyline's less predictable

Oh, I do have something to add. When an old character is brought back, it would be nice if JUST ONCE the original actor was at least contacted about coming back instead of a recast automatically being chosen. That may be my one gripe with Chris Goutman as EP.

Where to begin...

1. Fire or backburn Paul, Craig, Dusty, Lucy, Meg, Mike, and Simon.

2. Restore the Stewarts as a core family by bringing back any or all of the following: Ellen, Dee, Annie, Annie's quads (preferably, two sons and a daughter or all four), and Allison.

3. Give Luke a love story/boyfriend.

4. Let Maddie and Casey's relationship grow and develop their characters.

5. Give the older vets some real storyline. If this means breaking up Kim and Bob, go on ahead.

6. Make Nancy a source of advice for everyone, not just Katie.

7. Bring back Don Hughes and his family (wife Mary, daughter Christina, son Ryder).

8. Bring back John Dixon.

Oh, and just because I NEED to see her in action...

BRING BACK BARBARA RODELL AS JOYCE COLMAN! Lisa needs competition!

I haven't been watching ATWT long but I know what I'd love to see.

1) Luke getting a boyfriend. Luke is the reason I started watching the show and the lack of him may be the reason I stop watching. I don't want him with Elwood, though. I want to see him with a typical soap hunk. He deserves the best, in my opinion.

2) For Dusty, Meg, Paul, and Emily to actually start making some kind of sense. They're all so one-dimensional. Dusty is holier than thou and annoyingly macho. Meg seems like she was an interesting character but now a doormat to Paul. She tries to be aggressive but never succeeds. Paul is just lacking in any depth. Emily is psycho and the fact that she has never had to answer for anything she's done in the past year doesn't sit well with me.

3) For Casey and Maddie to get some depth. I find these two boring and them making moony eyes at each other doesn't fascinate me. I want to see Maddie stop being so cute all the time and I want Casey to have something more to do than be Gwen's prop. What are these two about, other than waiting for the right time to have sex? From what I've read these two were no angels in the past so why are they suddenly so damn sentimental and boring now? Where are the faults and conflict?

4) Will dealing with his insecurities and etc. Will is a character I should like. He was the weird kid growing up and he should be a character that breaks the mould, instead he's weak, whiny, and self-depricating. Will's low self-esteem could be a story, but instead it's all about Gwen.

5) For Kim, Barbara, and Lisa to get a story. I love these women, especially Kim, who has this regal look about her that I envy. These women are the foundations of a soap and not to showcase them in criminal.

I really wish they would use Bob, Kim and Lisa more.

I agree about giving Carly back her edge.

Show Lucinda at work more. Bring back the corporate intrigue.

Keep Simon on for good.

Love interests for Henry and Babs.

I haven't been watching ATWT long but I know what I'd love to see.

1) Luke getting a boyfriend. Luke is the reason I started watching the show and the lack of him may be the reason I stop watching. I don't want him with Elwood, though. I want to see him with a typical soap hunk. He deserves the best, in my opinion.

2) For Dusty, Meg, Paul, and Emily to actually start making some kind of sense. They're all so one-dimensional. Dusty is holier than thou and annoyingly macho. Meg seems like she was an interesting character but now a doormat to Paul. She tries to be aggressive but never succeeds. Paul is just lacking in any depth. Emily is psycho and the fact that she has never had to answer for anything she's done in the past year doesn't sit well with me.

3) For Casey and Maddie to get some depth. I find these two boring and them making moony eyes at each other doesn't fascinate me. I want to see Maddie stop being so cute all the time and I want Casey to have something more to do than be Gwen's prop. What are these two about, other than waiting for the right time to have sex? From what I've read these two were no angels in the past so why are they suddenly so damn sentimental and boring now? Where are the faults and conflict?

4) Will dealing with his insecurities and etc. Will is a character I should like. He was the weird kid growing up and he should be a character that breaks the mould, instead he's weak, whiny, and self-depricating. Will's low self-esteem could be a story, but instead it's all about Gwen.

5) For Kim, Barbara, and Lisa to get a story. I love these women, especially Kim, who has this regal look about her that I envy. These women are the foundations of a soap and not to showcase them in criminal.

Great post!

Ughh..where to start?

1. Backburn the teens. Especially Gwen. I hate Will & Gwen but I think Gwen has probably got to be one of the most overrated new characters on daytime as of late. I have never gotten what was so great about her. They had to change Carly's history to give her a past, not to mention make her a complete [!@#$%^&*]. They rewrote Casey's character, they castrated Will (which I will talk more about in a moment...), etc. I think Jennifer Landon is also one of the most monotonous actors on the show. Sorry, but I have never been on the Gwen/JL bandwagon. The fact that she is monopolizing so much airtime with her boring storylines is one of the main reasons I tuned out of the show. I also don't care for Maddie & Casey. Two mediocre actors who happened to have a somewhat exciting summer story..other than that, I just don't think they're that great. Luke & Jade are probably the best teens on the show right now but they are either being backburned or being painted as characters we shouldn't root for.

2. Bring the Stewarts back. We still have Emily & Susan but even they hardly interact with each other. I'd love to see Alison back. I think she was far more interesting than all the current teens put together.

3. Get Will away from Gwen. They need to stop writing him as this romantic hero and have him acknowledge his problems. I don't need him fixed...if he's going to be this psychologically messed up guy, then let him be! Enough with this sugarcoating crap! Jesse Soffer is more than able to make it work so why are the writers not using his talents to their advantage???

4. Simon isn't the problem. The fact that they keep bringing him back without any real story direction or reason to root for his character and the people he interacts with are the problems. They had 6 months to work with but instead, they were stuck in story limbo not showing Matie for months. Not only that, the way they write these characters is atrocious. There is very little development and when there is some, it's not believable. If they can't find anything new to come up with, then they need to get rid of these actors instead of wasting everyone's time.

5. Don't make Craig a one-note villain. They got rid of him to pimp Jennifer & Mike. They brought him back to pimp Emily, Dusty, & Lucy. Arghhh!!! So many things wrong with those situations!

6. I used to love Paul, Meg, & Emily. What TPTB did when they decided to have Paul & Meg sleep with each other and make a baby after she SHOT him really ruined everyone in their inner circle for me. I don't see how it can be fixed and I think this is a case where the horrible writing can't be set aside and forgotten later. I can also say the same thing about the whole Mike/Katie/Simon/Carly/Jack fiasco. I don't see how anyone can root for any of these characters anymore..there is simply no direction or understandable motivations to root behind here.

I could go on and on but those are some of the reasons I've completely gotten over this show and most likely won't tune back...ATWT has been disappointing me since the middle of last year and hasn't intrigued me long enough since then to stick around.