2008: The Directors and Writers Thread

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Nelson quotes an interview Paul Rauch did with SID in this week's Suds Report. But, does anyone know when Rauch allegedly worked for ATWT? I thought his only connection to the P&G universe was through AW and then GL. By the time he was hired as EP of AW, Bill Bell had already been at DAYS for a few years. Also, I thought P&G found Rauch from outside of the daytime field in the early 70's when he was given the EP position at AW.

http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/The+Suds+R...n_NB.htm?isfa=1

[R Sinclair]

Ew, I totally agree with you. Such a poor excuse for drama.

[sheilaforever]

The first IMDb traced signs of Rauch go back to 70s. Bill Bell however wrote for ATWT from the late 50s to Days in the 60s...

And Rauch surely didn't start his career as an EP. He propbably used to be an assistant or low-ranked producer back in those days. Maybe someone knows any details?

[Khan]

IIRC, Paul Rauch worked as an executive w/ CBSD in the '50's and '60's. That could be how he worked with Irna and Bill. It's also how he first met Mary Stuart (Jo, SFT), whom he later hired to play Meta Bauer on GL.

[LoyaltoAMC]

I believe that it was Rauch's predecessor, Laibson, who hired Mary Stuart when McTavish put Meta back on the canvass.

[Khan]

Oops, lol.

Thanks, LoyaltoAMC!!!

[Toups]

B&B:

- Rex M. Best back listed as Script Writer on December 8

OLTL:

- Sharon Lennon first listed as Script Writer on December 8

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Who the hell is Sharon Lennon?

[R Sinclair]

Veronica Sandbridge's second cousin.

[Toups]

I was about to post almost the exact same thing! I was gonna say she was Veronica's cousin.

[boldfan01]

Exactly. The whole thing was even set up weeks ago when Ridge and Steffy made references to the fact Rick's vintage convertible - one that, unlike the cars of today, had no console separating the passenger and driver sides - was now in Ridge's old parking spot. Everything was geared toward a situation where it would be ambiguous as to whether Rick was at fault for his crazy schemes to take Ridge's place that put Phoebe in the car with him, or whether, as Toups said, Phoebe "killed herself" by her reckless actions in the car. So now the blame game begins, but with Phoebe the victim of this tragedy, who's going to believe that she was at fault?

It kind of echoes the Cassie death on Y&R, in a way - but unlike that story, where the only thing Daniel did was get so drunk that Cassie felt the need to take his keys and drive him home, the B&B version leaves room where Rick might shoulder some of the responsibility.

They should have done more with establishing Phoebe's hidden resentment toward Rick and Taylor as the reason for her going away. Heck, they should have shown her going away in the first place, since we never saw her leave L.A. I know Mauzy was busy on Broadway, but couldn't they have arranged for her to fly to L.A. on an off day from her play to tape some phone calls home or something? I can actually buy the idea that Phoebe only said she was OK with Rick and Taylor for her mom's sake and went on tour so that she didn't have to face her former boyfriend shacking up with her mother. But it would have worked better to have seen it than to have found out about it two days before the big death scene.

Yes, that's basically how it was with Storm. I remember those scenes of Katherine Kelly Lang/Brooke barreling through the hospital in reaction to the gunshot and the look of shock on her face when she got to the room and found her brother dead on the floor. There was no dialog until that point, when Brooke spoke up and sobbed that Storm had left Katie his heart.

B&B actually tried a variation on this on today's show when Ridge arrived back at the house to tell everyone about Phoebe. There was dialog, but we never heard it because of the musical montage as the camera moved from Ridge to Steffy and Thomas to the others in the room as they realized what happened. Maybe they knew they would do this with today's scene and decided that doing it with Phoebe's death was too much?

At least with Macy's death, the script writer (Y&R's John Castellanos, aka John Silva) admitted he left the "out" that would let them bring Macy back later. Unfortunately, the flashbacks that showed the death were re-edited into a different order when Macy finally came back, in effect rewriting history, and that kind of muted some of the impact of Macy's "return from the dead." As for the Darla death, I see similarities to the Phoebe death in that both cast doubt on who was at fault (i.e. the question of Taylor's guilt with Darla seems similar to the question of Rick's here). I wonder if that's intentional or not. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[dm.]

Why don't they just leave an empty space instead of writing crazy names like Veronica Sandbridge or Shannon Lennon? Is it a rule that they need to credit at least someone?

[boldfan01]

But what if that was the point? We, the viewers, know that Phoebe was just as much at fault for her death as Rick was, if not more. But are the grieving father and twin sister who have axes to grind with Rick going to believe that? Or the "hell hath no fury like Stephanie" grieving grandmother? Or even Lt. Baker, who found out during Ridge's 2007 trial for Shane's death that Rick slipped through the fingers of the hands of justice for shooting Grant? (That was the story that introduced Baker, in fact). Heck, even Rick is blaming himself, and he knows what happened. But the rest of the characters don't, and given the anti-Rick sentiments in the show of late, there may have been some intentional irony in the way the accident was written by making it clear that Phoebe may have been to blame.

[Dr. Jay S.W.]

[Toups]

Thanks, Jay.

I wonder if she'll last or if she'll be another short lived OLTL SW like Veronica Sandbridge, Scott Sickles, Tamiko Brooks.