March 3-7, 2008

[brimike]

BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll be laughing about that all day.

The thing is, I think RC is talented (I'm not wearing the HTofC robes or nuthin'). He's certainly not the WORST head-writer in the world. He definitely understands these characters, I just feel like (as you said, Marceline) he's focused on a very narrow field in Llanview and is trying to recapture something that existed a long time ago on this show. I want to see OLTL break new ground, and if anyone can do that, it's RC. I just haven't seen it yet.

[Vee]

I can totally see your point. With hyperbole and belittling like this, who needs a concise point of view other than "I WANT EVANGELIIIIINEEEE!!!"

Nelson Branco is an idiot prone to ridiculous hyperbole of his own, but attacking Carlivati on the basis of what Branco says independent of him is stupid.

[JackPeyton]

i dont know why ABC doesnt understand this and give the ax to the one man that it has everything to do with. BF needs to go.

[Ryan]

I'm not wearing the HTofC robes either...though I do donate to his campaign

It's hard to break ground new ground when so many things have gone wrong with the show. I think he's doing well right now. The stories are interesting, characters are interacting and the vets are front and center w/o backburnering the younger set.

[brimike]

True enough, Ryan. Which is why I still have faith in the guy. I'm hoping once the post-strike episodes start airing, and we get to the heart of this Allison story, we'll all have better things to say. My biggest complaint is almost every front-burner story on that show is about parentage (Rex/Shane, Charlie/Jared, Asa/David, Jess/Allison [pre-strike]). It's getting a little repetitive. But since a lot of that is strike material, I'm holding out hope that May Sweeps will knock our socks off.

[brimike]

Wow. Just saw the 18-34 numbers.

75% of the soaps are below a 1.0. Yikes.

[Toups]

I've said this before and I'll say it again.......Desperate times calls for desperate measures.

[marceline]

*sigh* just a couple of questions...

1.) What does Evangeline have to do with ANY of this? If you want to disagree with me fine. But could you at least disagree with the the things I actually say?

2.) Did you read my original comment? If so then you'll see that my criticism of Ron is based on his own failings and not an "attack" based on Branco's meth fueled ravings.

Enjoy the potluck.

[Noel]

I'm just in total shock. Especially with Guiding Light's numbers. I just don't know what to say here. I'm...I'm speechless.

[Ryan]

I honestly don't see why people have it out for RC (I mean come on, we share the same initials, that alone makes him freakin awesome....j/k). I understand the complaints for OLTL during the strike. Gary Tomlin did a good job of trying to keep RC's plans going, but it still wasn't RC's work. He's back, fixing storylines and trying to get the show back into pre-strike shape.

I hear fans of other soaps (including myself) complaining about the lack of vet use, lack of interesting storylines, lack of character interaction, etc, etc. We get the things people complain about on OLTL. Can someone explain to me exactly what the problem with RC's work is? Because I really can't see a big problem.

[Toups]

That's too funny. I love it.

[brimike]

We need a Marty Saybrooke/Billy Douglas. Or a BJ/Maxie. Or hell - I'd even take a turkey baster! SOMETHING to stir the pot in daytime again. When was the last time we all were foaming at the mouth over something on ANY network? Was it really DOOL's serial killer? God, that's sad. That was almost five years ago.

Nuke came close, but just fell to the wayside like every other homosexual story on a soap (and we ALL saw that coming a mile away).

[SoapQueen89]

Again, DAYS gets more viewers and lower numbers than the higher numbers and lower viewers than GH is getting. I'm not going to ask it just give me a migraine.

[Vee]

I would pay more attention to the specifics of your weekly complaints if not for the fact that everything you say essentially goes back to the idea that the show was so much better when Malone (actually Higley, judging by your preferences, but we'll get to that) wrote it, and that the Williamson family and that verbose, diamond in the rough Vincent were/are the only minorities on the show. If I've read you properly, the gist is that only Michael Malone understood how to do contemporary soap (starring Evangeline, of course) and Ron Carlivati is just a white upper-class WASP who wants to take the show back to the 80s (when Evangeline wasn't there). After all, only Michael Malone understood that Viki, Dorian, Nora and the core families don't draw ratings and that endless amounts of John McBain and the Williamsons (and Evangeline), as the only minorities, were the way to go (with extra Evangeline)!

Except Malone didn't understand almost any of those things. Yes, he frontburnered the disgusting John way too much. But in his original run (the good one) he wrote heavily for all these dreaded vets you talk about. And yes, minority leads, which are extremely important (but not if they're not Evangeline, apparently). But the only minorities that got major screen time in his last tenure on OLTL were Antonio, Tico, Antonio, and, once she grabbed her ticket on the John Express, Evangeline. And when HE was writing the show, she was only a sidebar in a story with two white people - not very progressive, no? In Malone's second run (the mostly bad one) he also wanted to write for all these older characters who are now, as you might put it, "eating up the airtime" today, but he was blocked. What he did put onscreen last time was, at best, a very mixed bag. And only Dena Higley was the writer who really turned it into The Evangeline Show that you have lovingly detailed for us. If you really think it was all Malone's master plan for Evangeline to become as integral to the canvas as you envisioned her being, with John, Cristian, Todd or anyone else, in some huge supercouple, I don't think you knew his work as well as you think you do. And I think you would have been bitterly disappointed in what he did if he'd really been allowed to get anything but his worst, most youth-centric writing onscreen.

Basically, all I take away from you is that if it doesn't adhere to Dena Higley's ethos, it's bad. Because what you've described as a good OLTL, and what you've dismissed as bad, was never Michael Malone's sort of thing, even at his worst low. Even he wouldn't have come up with Vincent.

I will, I will. We're serving punch and pie and roasting cheerleaders on the barbecue while people break out into gospel song for no apparent reason. We would invite you, but...but...we can't stop thinking about John!

God, I am so mature.

[Jess]

I think his work is boring and it is focused on too few characters and too many newbies. I also think it is based on a model that is about a decade old. I will admit, I don't watch anymore so I can't really say what he is doing now. I will also grant that the newbies are a Frank obsession. Maybe you are right and when RC comes back he will be the gift to daytime that many posters over here say that he already is. I watched his work when folks were saying ain't he great the first time. I didn't think he was. I thought he was boring.

I also agree with Marcellina on most of her points, particularly that disliking RC's writing and OLTL right now has nothing to do with Evangeline or John McBain or anything else except for the very reasons that people say they don't enjoy the show. You and I exchanged words over this mass generalization that it had something to do with McBain. I have never been a McBain fan. Maybe some of us who don't like RC's writing just think it's a boring show. If it become interesting, I will watch.