P&G Slams Douglas Marland

[stenbeck212]

Well, I did my part by leaving a rather testy comment in response. Or two.

[P.J.]

Alina's nothing but a P&G mouthpiece. Marland didn't mean a headwriter should let the show stagnate. And she neglects to mention that the "newbie filled" Doug Cummings mystery unfolded over the course of at least a year, and the suspects were tied to more than one plot. Not like a month, like the Dusty/Cheri murder today.

[stenbeck212]

I don't see why they have to piss on his grave because they're tired of having a stream of hacks' efforts compared to his earned legacy. Idiots. And HE shoved plots down viewers' throats? That's rich.

[P.J.]

^^^Word!!! If Marland changed the direction of a character, the foundation was laid, and the motivations explained. Turning Babs into a bitch was hands down, the best transformation EVER.

[YRBB]

That is so angering!

There are legends like Bill Bell, Agnes Nixon, Douglas Marland and Kay Alden that have given so much to soaps and should be respected, not trashed.

By the way, could someone post Marland's 10 rules here? I followed the link but it won't bring it up.

[stenbeck212]

The link is a dead end, but I was able to scrounge up a couple more points:

Read the fan mail. The very characters that are not thrilling to you may be the audience's favorites.

Talk to everyone; writers and actors especially. There may be something in a character's history that will work beautifully for you, and who would

know better than the actor who has been playing the role?

[YRBB]

Oh, that's great, thank you so much!!

It just goes to show you what a genius that man was--and how easy, if the HWs listened, it would be to make their soaps better.

[DeeeDee]

It's no worse than the incessant Bill Bell bashing going on elsewhere...

[Ryan]

............this is why I don't post at the P&G boards.......

[EricMontreal22]

Have clips from the racy year long cable soap Marland created, One Day in Eden for Showtime (i believe a year before Loving) ever surfaced? I always wanted to know more about that soap--it's early stories on taboo subjects liek homosexuality and light nudity etc but nothign seems to exist except people who say it was better than most early cable soap attempts (Maybe I should start a new thread for this)

The things I'd argue is in many of the cases (the one about GH in particular--maybe the audience liked the characters who were ther ebut the ratings were basement level dire--if Marland hadn't changed them quickly Monty woulda fired him and the show probably woulda been canceled--and keeping a show and a job probably take precedent--and it can be argued that if ratings were that low, even if the existing audiences enjoyed those characters it wasn't working

[EricMontreal22]

Where's that?

Thething is I think the rpaise for these great scribes can get overwhelming--Doug Marland wrote some lousy stories (his mysteries on ATWT particularly sucked) bill Bell was obssessed with incest and did some out fo character bad shock stories (that Y&R guy with the tatoo on his head and the garbage compactor, the piranhas, etc), Agnes Nixon agreed to a lot of silly things that didn't work (Santa Cluse, villain sells soul to the devil) and had a tendancy, as did Marland and especially Bell come to think of it to rewrite their own stories (Bell's first five years of B%B beign the worst example) and I think tis' fair to point out these flaws. But it doesn't, to me anyway, take away anything fromhow great and important all three writers were/are

[stenbeck212]

One of the really arrogant assessments is that Marland stuck his new families into the mix at the expense of others just to further a new agenda. But in a landscape of wealthy power players, doctors and lawyers, GL and ATWT gained a perspective on the working class once the Reardons and Snyders were added. In an era of Dallas and Dynasty, at least someone remembered that those of us without mansions are interesting too.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I do agree, but in the case of the Snyders, they really did end up becoming the focus of the show. If anyone new got into ATWT now, without researching the show, they'd probably believe the Snyders were the original core family of the show, whereas the Hughes were only a secondary family. Of course this isn't Marland's problem anymore, but he did get the ball rolling.

[stenbeck212]

^Actually Marland is credited with reinvigorating the Hughes family after they had become fractured in the early 80s. Frannie was as much of a force as Lily, and Bob & Kim became parents yet again at a late age in the midst of Kim being stalked. Then Sabrina arrived. Then Nancy and Mac got together. Then Andy's alcoholism led to Bob's affair. Then Margo was raped. The only long term family Marland gave a lesser role to was the Stewarts. I don't see how he got "the ball rolling" on an issue of balance that any writer should know how to fix themselves.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

^Oh I agree there, I just meant the rapid expansion of the Snyders in the past 20 years was pretty daring. I just meant in retrospect if Marland knew that they'd morph into the dominant clan of the show.

But, was ATWT really in that much trouble before Marland's stint? He seems held to such a high regard and I do admire his talent and his contributions to both ATWT and GL. However, just how bad were the writing stints of Caroline Franz and John Saffron (1983) and Tom King and Millee Taggart (1984-1985), prior to Marland's second stint as HW?

Did Bridget and Jerome Dobson (1979-1983) have the same success on ATWT, like their glorious and esteemed tenure on GL?