Jump to content

March 3-7, 2008


Toups

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Then, you'd have me, pissed that newbies - including Andrew, Marty, Nora, and Todd - are hogging all the drama; and that I'm being asked to care about some pathetic rich girl I hardly even know.

Oh, wait ....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 183
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members

EXCELLENT POINT! All those "legacy," "core," "vet" characters were once airtime hogging newbies. So what makes one character turn into Marty Saybrooke (Bring her back! Bring her back!) and another into John McBain (Kill him now! Kill him now!)?

The actor? The writing? The interference or lack thereof of management?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I think the reason people were willing to respond to Andrew, Marty, etc then and are sometimes more reluctant to respond to Gigi, Jared, Charlie now - aside from the fact that, obviously, Bob Krimmer and Susan Haskell were brilliant actors - is because of the atmosphere of daytime today. Back then people hadn't been fucked with for years with bad stories, overpropped pets, newbies, etc. In the intervening years, fans have been jerked around, are often downtrodden and angry, waiting to see how the new character will cost someone else they love a place on the canvas. Any new character out of the gate now has to fight to make it a mile with any fan goodwill - and that's even if, like the new characters I mentioned (at least IMO), they have good actors in the roles.

I think we often have a right to be angry nowadays, but I think sometimes we're too trigger-happy. I think Carlivati's newbies have been introduced almost perfectly, and maybe with less of a heavy hand than some of Malone's introductions - but that was 1991-1996. This is 2008. People change, the atmosphere has changed.

As for Todd, the question is how many times can you tell the same story. Almost all his storylines feature him as an antagonist, with romance as a sidestory. I think that's totally appropriate for his nasty character, and that he should always be the antihero and not the Romeo, but Todd has revisited the rape over and over and over. I thought his material last week was brilliant, and did unveil another facet of his neuroses, but there's only so many places that can go that Todd hasn't gone to before. He can be a continuing antihero, but not every story should be about his psychosexual hang-ups. He's quite frankly starting to run out of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Certainly a lot of posts in regards to the state of OLTL. Keep in mind, just because writing is brilliant and the balanced usage of the cast members of all ages it does NOT translate into higher ratings.

Look at "Santa Barbara" when it was on air from 1984-1993 for an example, it was a critic-loved soap, multiple-Emmy winning, fine actors, great writing, etc, etc and got lousy ratings year in and year out.

Often times when I watch OLTL on SoapNet, I fall asleep through the show but there are some good things here and there. However, I find Todd's endless behavior quite predictable, Dorian/Viki's fueding quite exhausting, Jerry verDorn miscasted in Clint (I'd prefer seeing Clint Ritchie instead), Starr/Cole pairing is cheesy, why can't Nora & Bo be together, Roxie is nothing more than a prop, Gigi & Jared characters are overrated, John & Nash characters are extremely overrated, Blair is a wimp, don't get me started on the annoying Natalie, so on and so on.

Perhaps Asa should never been killed off, maybe it's time to give a full-time contact to Tonja Walker's Alex, also bring back Tina with Andrea Evans, god forbid write out the boring Vega family off the canvas, transplant a backbone to the character of Lindsay, and immediately put Erin Torpey back in the character of Jessica which would really "spark" the show with some huge excitement and naughtiness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

A couple of things here . . .

Don't the soaps always experience a little post sweeps drop. I always remember that in March and June the soaps dip a little bit. It doesn't seem like its that much different than normal . . . except . . . last year GH experienced such a huge boost from February sweeps and it didn't happen this year. The only soap that really seemed to get any boost from sweeps was Days . . . and that wasn't huge.

On a positive note, 5 soaps have shown modest to quite decent increases in total viewers from last year. That has to be seen as a positive things. ABC soaps not so much, but, at least all 4 CBS soaps and DAYS are up from this time last year. I'm trying to pull something positive. Just call me polyanna. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Oh what I wouldn't give for Erin Torpey to come back as Jessica! Unfortunately, she just recently told another columnist that she has no interest in returning to the East Coast, OLTL or the role of Jessica. She's enjoying her music and her life in LA.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • She was great on there. And Wings. And so many shows. I don't feel like we get those character actors as much now.
    • Cady did have a southern accent as Dixie in her first few years playing the character... but it started to minimize the longer she played the character (which tracks because my aunt had a heavy southern accent when married my uncle and years living in the north has softened it quite a bit). Her initial stint playing Rosanna was partly due to mirroring the previous actress and eventually developing her own take on the character. And the thing about her take as Kelly on Y & R was that she was too sedate when she first took over playing the role (she was supposed to play a woman that had recently lost her child.. and trying to keep things together) and then went OTT crazy and didn't play it well.    And I don't care to remember her attempt at playing Jennifer on Days. I think this Pamela character is the first time she's playing a character from the start and I think she's like a kid at a candy store.  She's having so much fun trying different things... and I hope eventually she decides to settle on a more consistent character for Pamela (perhaps her love of accents is a character trait based on something traumatic that happened to her in the past maybe).
    • That's sad. I remember her mostly from ER and the shortlived, yet very funny, sitcom The Powers That Be.
    • As always loved seeing Ric with Liz. I hope the show forever keeps them in each others orbit even if it’s just platonic. I’m sure she’s going to cut him out when she finds out he’s blackmailing Alexis though. So darn.
    • I have to be honest I’m really struggling with this show. I love everything with Eva/Leslie/Ted/Nicole/Kat and enjoy Dani and Bill’s shenanigans (I’m on the Hayley needs to be recast train now tho), Chelsea is second to Kat as my favorite Dupree grandkid and I loved her coming out to her mom. The show was on a truly great run with the big Leslie and Eva reveal at Nicole and Ted’s anniversary party and the fall out has still been good even with the unnecessary Ted recast and them making Leslie kind of dumb by exposing herself too much unnecessarily. The real problem for me started when they rotated back to way too damn much screen time for Derek/Ashley/Andre (if anyone should have been up first for a recast it was these three IMO). They tried way too hard to drum up drama between Ashley and Derek and the actors were clearly fighting for their mediocre charisma less acting lives to make it work but none of it landed, just horrible. Naomi and Jacob and this weird homeless woman story are also BORING. I can see where its potentially going but IDGAF at all, my only hope for them is that they’re building a triangle with Naomi/Jacob/Kat because Jacob and Kat have stronger chemistry together than their current love interests (Eva is the only one who can make the awful Tomas work). Martin, his secret and still cringe worthy acting got kind of interesting with Bill dropping hints to Smitty but they completely lost me with that lil fakeout scene at the country club. The lame “teenagers” (air quotes because Samantha is no Bianca Lawson and never beating the black Andrea Zuckerman allegations) can get off my screen as well. Joey creeping on Vanessa is grossing me out at this point, I actually quite like Vanessa and Doug now but Joey falls totally flat as a villain and someone we’re supposed to buy Vanessa being enamored with. I’m glad they’ve finally set up something interesting for Vernon and Anita to do with this girl band reunion instead of Anita wringing her hands and telling us she feels darkness coming and Vernon giving a civil rights speech every episode but yeah… People who’ve posted with me for other shows know I’m not one for fast forwarding or hate watching either, if I find a majority of a show is not working I usually just quit but because of what this show represents for me as a Black male soap fan I really want to stick it out. Its just become a challenge lately. I saw Guza has left the building and I REALLY hope we hear about some more BTS changes. The additions of Tracy Thompson and Jamie Giddens don’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence from me tho. Honestly praying hard for a new EP to replace JHC, a lot of the stuff that annoyed about her PC and AMC runs has started to match up here. I’m giving the show through the Summer to rectify some things but IDK how long I can hold on tbh. Its been a struggle to even finish some of these episodes lately.
    • I agree. I liked the episode but it felt jarring to suddenly return to a bunch of plots that had been put on pause since the Nurses' Ball started. Although I did like Laura popping in at the end to tell Alexis that millions of dollars have suddenly disappeared from Ace's trust fund. One set of scenes that made me feel optimistic for the next few months were between Sofia Mattsson and Rory Gibson. While Rory has been good as a darker, colder Michael this week, I was worried that he might not have much range. But he really warmed up with Mattsson, and I thought that (for the first time) Michael and Sasha had some genuine chemistry.
    • Next week is going to be such a sad time... I just feel it based on what was shown today. I'm wondering if the whole John being bandaged thing being a throwback to how he first arrived on the show was a Ron C idea since it just seems as though this would be something he would come up with.  If so, it's good that Cwikly/Ford are in charge with the implementing of the idea instead of him. Just a delayed thought from the Ciara scenes earlier in the week, or last week.. and how she had an odd way of dressing/acting.  I chuckle because little Ciara did say that she admired and wanted to be just like Kristen when she grew up.  So the fact that her outfit choices are so odd/off beat and her manner is a bit OTT just fits.. especially since Eileen's Kristen had an odd sense of fashion and that frantic OTT undertone to her delivery. With that said, a part of me wonders how Eileen's Kristen would have handled the scenes being done this week in regards to John's situation.   
    • My god the smirking was back in full force today. He almost started smiling after Johnny mentioned he wouldn’t be there if EJ hadn’t raped Sami. I will say I did like seeing him with Dee as they’ve always had great chemistry.    They really are giving a lot of false hope with John getting better. I wish they hadn’t done that. Monday is going to be devastating. I really liked all the characters mixing and mingling today.  Nu-Rachel is still too sweet for me. Loved all the flashbacks. Everyone looked so young. Really enjoyed Brady’s scenes with John today.  
    • Valerie Mahaffey Dead: ‘Northern Exposure,’ ‘Dead to Me’ Actress Was 71 Loved her. I've never seen her Doctors work. 
    • Valerie Mahaffey Dead: ‘Northern Exposure,’ ‘Dead to Me’ Actress Was 71 I just loved Valerie on my early '90s TV shows. This one gets me. 
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy