All: Who was the best and worst writer on your soap?

[DevotedToAMC]

Rayfield was bad. Thankfully they got a co head writer for him with Anna Theresa Cascio. If he was the solo head writer, the show would have been a disaster. It was marginal from December/2002 to April/2003 and then it improved in May and June and then McTavish came back at the beginning of July and gave AMC a shot in the arm it deserved and did well from 2003 to 2005. 2006 she tanked

[DevotedToAMC]

I liked her in 2003 with Bianca's rape, Bianca hiding her pregnancy from Erica, Jack/Erica and Greenlee's paternity, Bianca/Kendall bonding and in 2005 I thought she was good too. 2003 and 2004 were her best years in the latest stint (2003-2007)

Did you see McTavish during her first head writing stint (October/1992 to May/1995)? She was on fire during those years! It helped that she had a terrific Executive Producer (Felicia Minei Behr)

[Kylie]

AMC:

Best: Agnes Nixon

Worst: A thousand times over, Megan McTavish.

[R Sinclair]

That's because Agnes Nixon was supervising the writing during that time period. Agnes' presence was heavily felt in the addition of the Fryes and An Li Chen, the Santos family, the racial tension... Cultural, class and ethnic diversity as well as well-written social issues... things McTavish simply can't (or possibly refuses) to do on her own (as proven by her 1998-99, 2003-2007 stints). And, as you said, FMB was terrific as an executive producer and knew what worked and what didn't, and had a feel of what the audience wanted to see.

McTavish's last two AMC stints, her mid-90s GL stint, her OLTL stint and her 2001-2002 GH garbage shows that the woman has no real skill as a dramatic head writer. She writes melodramatic camp. I swear. If Passions were still running strong and JER were to hand over the reigns to Megan, you'd hardly notice the difference.

[juppiter]

I think there's a huge difference between JER and McTavish. JER, except for his recent DAYS stint, has always tried to do something different and succeeded at it. He's never trying to write like all the other soap operas, so if you're expecting that then yeah, he's gonna seem bad. But he's trying to do something different. And as for that "different" thing, whether you like it or not is up to you, but he does plan his stories from beginning to end and most of the time it's pretty original. McTavish is just a bad, unoriginal hack.

[NYC123]

Megan was a stupid writer who could not think of anything original! I Hated that she broke up Jr/Babe. I hated the Unabbortion thing. Like seriously, she had nothing so she went back into history. All of her stories are unrealistic!!!

[aMLCproduction]

Well I have been only watching Days since 92 so my only choices are JER, SSM, LB, TL, BRASH AND CWICKLY and HS I loved B&C and JER's first stint.

Worst, Tom Lagan hands down as well as JER redux

AW, Culliton and Malone were good, worst,...uhm i really don't recall

Sunset Beach I like Guza, and Meg Bennett I hated Chis Whitesell and their last headwriter, i think it was Maggie Depressant.

Passions well alls I can really say is I liked everything up until the monkey left.

Y&R I loved Bill Bell, KA, JS, and LML

B&B BB and BB

[daysfan]

Days:

Best: Peter Brash and Paula Cwikily. They were two of the best writers Days had in awhile. I can't believe Corday fired them so soon, they were fantastic and really should still be around at least as consultants or Co-HW with Hogan.

Margarat DePreist. Wrote some of Days BEST stories and started the serial killer era IMO. After that the storylines got really popular for all soaps in general.

Hogan Sheffer. Yes there was Feb-April but he still does his research and can remember stuff not many other writers remember. He could be better, but is one of the best ever Days has had. So much history is being remembered under him and I am SO happy about it.

Worst: Dena Higley. Do I really have to explain?

Tom Langan. Corday probably had a hand in this but he wrote the whole Teen Invasion thing of 2001 that was horrible! But again Corday probably assisted in that.

SSM. I didn't really enjoy too much of what she wrote at all. At first Nicole wasn't that good, and all that stuff with mechanical chips didn't quite please me either lol

Both:

JER. I personnally enjoyed his 1993-1997 run, but also that really destroyed Days' identity and I consder it highly possible that's why there are so many Days fanbases and they are so fickle: two different versions of Days. JER's and the writers previous and a few after. On the other hand he did bring in an entire new fanbase and even some older viewers enjoyed his writing, but others were driven away.

And his 2003-2006 run had a few things I enjoyed, and the beginning of the SSK was great IMO but all just evolved into something horrible. Then the whole run turned into a huge disaster.

AMC:

Best: Agnes Nixon. The show's creator and who obviously got what it was and was supposed to be!

Worst: Megan Mctvaish. I don't think I even have to explain.

Y&R:

Best: Bill Bell. He was fantastic and I think all around the best writer on Y&R ever.

Worst: LML. I once liked her stuff, but her being promoted to Ep was such a bad move and everything has gone terrible lately.

[R Sinclair]

LMAO at the vision I have of Latham running through the hallways at Television City wielding a knife, randomly slashing employees left and right while laughing maniacally!

[MichaelGL]

AMC

Best: Agnes Nixon of course.

Between:

Richard Culliton-Liked the last part of his tenure on the show. Didn't he finish up the Proteus story, I loved how it ended.

Anna Theresa Cascio and Gordon Reyfield-Cascio I liked. Reyfield, I totally detested his writing. The final months of their tenure were amazing and showed improvement.

Worst: Megan McTavish-Of course. Although I liked her reign from 2003-2004. The rape, Kendall bonding with the Kane women, the trial (Kendall and Greenlee's fight), and Jackson revealed to be Greenlee's father. AMC seemed to be getting back to what it once was. However I HATED HATED the unabortion and the mess she made out of Babe and JR.

[ANDREA LOATHES REILLY]

Anyone who was writing back in the day when shows were character driven and fun to watch.

The nonwriters from this current era should all be hung by their toe nails and beat with a large stick! Then force them to watch their own trash! Now that's pain!

ANDREA

[ChiTownBoi03]

Best DAYS

James E. Reilly: Honestly, I liked both his tenures, though many disagree with the latter. I may be alone there, but it's all good! Although the SSK took an unexpected turn, I don't think I was ever bored and the vets were in my face. Things were happening. Overall, he's the reason I started watching in the first place.

Cwikly & Brash: Again, great writers and I was always entertained. So upset they were abruptly fired.

Worst DAYS

Dena Higley: This goes without saying. This was DAYS' lowest point for me. Awful writer

Meh

Hogan Sheffer/Meg Kelly: I can't say they're the best, I can't say they're the worst. They're just meh for me...for several reasons. I haven't been fully enthralled/entertained yet with their stories, but I *can* watch. Time will tell I guess.

[R Sinclair]

That's how I feel about Richard Culliton's 2001-2002 work at AMC -- it wasn't the worst, but it sure as hell wasn't the best. Things got a little cartoonish and haywire by month six (I'm being kind -- actually things got crazy by month four with Erica's circus of a [Frankie Stone] murder trial that made no sense). I also didn't like the fact that it became the Leo and Greenlee show. Hell, Susan Lucci's Erica was only on for a total of about six out of eighteen months, according to Carolyn Hinsey. Lucci didn't even submit herself for an Emmy nom that year because she worked so little.

[Kylie]

^ I hated everything he did. Blech. I can't be the only one. I don't see what was so great about him.

[Adam]

That was one thing about Culiton. He brought Kendall back... but that story was all about Kendall, had little to do with Erica. Culiton far preferred Brooke over Erica. She was quite a central focus. Culiton I think was miles ahead of who he replaced, and who succeeded him, except for Anna Casico who made AMC utterly amazing when she came in and helped poor Gordon Rayfield.