ATWT: Jean Passanante must be fired!

[Soapsuds]

I wouldnt mind a Richard Culliton/Carolyn Culliton HW team. I just want Jean fired! What is it going to take for changes to be made at ATWT?

[sema608]

This topic is hot all over the boards. I was a huge fan of ATWT. That was destroyed when the news hit that JP was taking over as HW. She should have never been promoted in the first place! She has managed to assassinate every character on the show just so her boring stories would work. Everything I loved about the characters is gone. Strong women are now weak and man obssessed. The men are wusses and every character doesn't have enough motive to get me to understand why they are taking certain actions. Former loved characters are now on my hate list and IMO, all I see are pods on the show. There is no rooting value in any of them, especially when 90% of them are villains. Did I mention how boring and stupid her stories are? She kills off characters with no reasons whatsoever and the thing that boils my blood is she has no regrets.

That one line she said in her SOD interview was the last straw. I want her and her hack writing gone. She actually thinks she's good at this. How could she even say it's hard to remember history? What kind of HW is she? I'm done with her and sadly, I'm done with ATWT. I cannot go back to it as long as she is HW.

[Soapsuds]

Seriously, are CG and JP watching the same soap we are? Don't they know what a mess of a show ATWT has become? Why is CG letting JP run ATWT to the ground? I am so disappointed!!!

[David V]

I don't think it was unreasonable to expect the show to come down a bit after Marland's death, because of the colossal shoes they had to fill. But Packer/Backus and Culliton are considered to have done a fair job in the circumstances, and they did have to wrap up Marland's storylines, etc. Or at least retrospectively, they're viewed favourably these days because of what came after them.

Valente replaced Caso as EP during Culliton's tenure, in 1995. He was the one who was responsible for letting go of Patricia Bruder et al, so was held responsible for the decline in quality- and probably the fact that Culliton was replaced too. I'm not sure how Valente was regarded at AW, but I've heard he was unhappy at being shafted there for JFP!

I agree Goutman needs to be replaced, but who would you replace him with? How many quality EPs are available right now?

A lot of people attribute Sheffer's first year work to the fact that Carolyn Culliton and Stephen Demorest were still around and say things were different once they left and Passanante came in. Demorest worked at GL under Long and then with Broderick and JER before joining ATWT. He was on the interim HW team for the last two months of 1997, so he wrote storylines which were considered an improvement on 1996-97.

Well P&G took far more drastic action back then and did house cleaning starting at the top with Fitts and Valente. One only hopes that ABC, for example, can do the same with Frons.

You know, the scary thing is that when anyone points out how bad it was then, an answer you might get was "was it that awful compared to most soaps today?" which says a lot for how things have changed for the worse. Especially when you consider how bad AMC has been this year. Because what happened then, was prophetic or served as a prelude to what is happening to just about every soap now. Even my beloved Y&R and B&B

[Ms. Walsh]

I don't recall what happened on AW during Valente's tenure. I'm sure that he was upset that they ditched him for JFP, who really put AW in a bind during her tenure there. From what I heard (and this might not be entirely true), Valente was really upset that P&G moved him from AW to ATWT, which he saw as a second-rate soap. I guess a lot of people believe that he tried to get ATWT cancelled. I don't know if that's entirely true. I mean, yeah, the quality of the show was in the pits at that time, but I don't know if that was attributed to the show having to transition from Marland's storylines, or if it was intentional on Valente's part.

Well, that's the thing: there really isn't anyone out there. Nobody that I know of is really qualified to handle the show. When Goutman stepped in, he took ATWT in a new direction. There were definitely things that I enjoyed, but a lot of my problems w/ him have been occurring since 1999, so I don't see them getting any better w/o Goutman leaving.

ITA! I was thinking about how bad ATWT was during the second-half of 2006, and thought about how bad it got in 1996, exactly 10 years ago when they brought on a slew of new characters that nobody cared about, axed a bunch of the vets, etc. I mean, in 1996 ATWT did that insane story about Nazi kidnappers (or whatever the hell it was ), and look now...Y&R is doing a ridiculous s/l about Nazis coming after people too. I know things are a lot different now than they were 10 years ago, but how bad do the soaps have to get before people just say "enough!"

[David V]

Part of AW's problem since Harding Lemay left in 1979 was the dizzying turnover of EPs and HWs that characterised the last 20 years or so of the show's life. Yet throughout this time, the show could still be very good and up until JFP took over and wrecked things, they managed to maintain their traditional character-driven formula and emphasis on the social classes. The whole Justine thing and killing off Bridget Connell and Frankie Frame were the real JTS moments.

Unless you can try and entice Robert Calhoun or Laurence Caso back as EP.

Funnily enough, there was one thing from that period probably worth remembering: John dumps Lisa via the screen!

[All My Shadows]

This is the current list of CONTRACT cast members on ATWT right. I bolded the names of cast members/characters who are major parts of major storylines. Underlined are major parts of minor storylines. Italicized are minor parts of either major or minor storylines. Those who aren't involved in any story at all are in plain. I also included the year of the performer's first airing so that it can be clear/obvious that almost no one who's been on the show for over ten years is a major part of a major story.

1. Helen Wagner as Nancy Hughes (1956)

2. Eileen Fulton as Lisa Grimaldi (1960)

3. Don Hastings as Dr. Bob Hughes (1960)

4. Kathryn Hays as Kim Hughes (1972)

5. Colleen Zenk Pinter as Barbara Ryan (1978)

6. Elizabeth Hubbard as Lucinda Walsh (1984)

7. Jon Hensley as Holden Snyder (1985)

8. Martha Byrne as Lily Snyder (1985)

9. Tamara Tunie as Jessica Griffin (1986)

10. Scott Holmes as Tom Hughes (1987)

11. Ellen Dolan as Margo Hughes (1989)

12. Kelley Menighan Hensley as Emily Stewart (1992)

13. Maura West as Carly Tenney (1995)

14. Michael Park as Jack Snyder (1997)

15. Terri Columbino as Katie Peretti (1998)

16. Trent Dawson as Henry Coleman (1999)

17. Paul Leyden as Simon Frasier (2000)

18. Grayson McCouch as Dusty Donovan (2002)

19. Mark Collier as Mike Kasnoff (2002)

20. Roger Howarth as Paul Ryan (2003)

21. Jesse Lee Soffer as Will Munson (2004)

22. Zach Roerig as Casey Hughes (2005)

23. Jennifer Landon as Gwen Munson (2005)

24. Alexandra Chando as Maddie Coleman (2005)

25. Marie Wilson as Meg Snyder (2005)

26. Van Hansis as Luke Snyder (2005)

27. Elena Goode as Jade Taylor (2006)

28. Jeff Meek as Craig Montgomery (2006)

29. Alex Charak as Ellwood Hoffman (2006)

I think it is just ridiculous...

[Soapsuds]

Yes, it is pathetic. But I dont see the writers or EP doing anything about it. They think the show is fine the way it is.

[winterguy125]

Yep the ATWT top 13 characters, sad thing is it is always those characters, no one else ever gets to share in there limelight, because story after story is written for these few chosen few. It is very sad. And most of these people have only been around 2 or 3 years, so it is like they are giving all the newbies storyline after storyline while ignoring everyone that has been on cast for decades.

[David V]

You see, that's the sad thing- ATWT has such a talented cast, and the potential is still there to make the show great once more.

One other question is that whilst both ATWT and Days have had some writing regimes that were unbeleivably bad, did they radically alter the histories of their respective shows? Do people here think that the damage done to both shows is eminently undoable?

Past experiences also suggest that going outside the box, i.e. outside the Daytime world, for a HW is also a major risk. In the case of Harding Lemay and Michael Malone, playwright and novelist respectively, it worked. But primetime writers aren't always going to translate to Daytime so well.

[jfung79]

David V, I think ATWT could be fixed fairly quickly by a new writer.

In contrast, I don't watch Days, but my understanding is that it has had huge history rewrites over the years to many of its characters, such as John Black, so it's harder to fix. The difficulty of fixing it may explain why there has been so much upheaval in the cast and in the writing staff at Days now that Hogan has taken over.

[DruRocks]

The potential for ATWT is RIGHT THERE. But ridiculously overlooked.

[Soapsuds]

CBS Fire this women now! I am tired of what she is doing to ATWT. Find a writer that can write romance, intrigue and suspense. Becsuse Jean isn't doing that. She is writing the same story over and over again. Characters changing their personalities in a whim!! All the storylines are so contrived!!

FIRE HER NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Give her here pink slip!!!!!!!!!!!!

[winterguy125]

This show just gets worse by the day anymore, its predictable, boring, and lacking drama and entertainment all together, nothing really keeps me interested anymore, this non-stop focusing of 10 characters needs to stop, so yes Jean P needs the pink slip sooner rather than later, at this rate the show will be totally destroyed by the time it is up for renewal, you would think the show would be starting to tell great stories again, and anything to try to save the show, but if anything all I see is a show that wants to get cancelled.

[ClassicsSoapFan]

You know,the show wasn't all that bad until after Jennifer got sick and then died.

I wonder,is that about the same time Hogan left as a Breakdown writer. Is that about the time two of thier dialogue writers (Josh Griffin and Melissa Salmons) left?

Jean has to go and the new HW needs to revamp his or her staff!