I get what he's saying, and I'm one of the ones who thinks killing off Bryant Montgomery was one of Hogan's worst decisions ever. The episodes surrounding his death though, were some of the best work under Hogan. It was really the long-term execution that failed, and made Bryant's death seem meaningless. That's on Hogan.

The logic behind a character's motivation should be part of the overall story, not left for the scriptwriter to invent on a daily basis. I think that would "de-hackify" stories a lot.

That was always my problem with it, that even though the loss of Bryant (ATWT) has continued to play into Craig's character long-term, still the long-term repercussions of that death, the loss of a core character, didn't live up to expectations! But, I thought it was Jean Passanante who thought it would be a grand idea to kill off Bryant? Of course, sure, since she was only co-HW, the buck does not stop with her.

In fact, to me, the most interesting thing that Tommy said today was,

(To be fair, I still stand by my post-Bryant-death episode, with one exception - since Kim Onasch was incapable of crying on camera, I *should* have used that to my advantage and given her a monologue about the guilt she felt because there were no natural tears... in other words, I should have written TO her strengths, instead of AGAINST them. That's part of a writers' job - to take an actors' limitations and make them work for the story, instead of against it)

I completely agree with him, in a way, about Kim Onasch, but perhaps he gives her more credit in the accomplishment of her craft, since the idea of her delivering a monologue as to why she couldn't cry, etc. makes me cringe. I can't find any actor strength in that situation to play to, except to minimize her. Maybe that's harsh but I just think she did not have the chops to play Bryant's death actively, so maybe have her sedated? I know, that's not a very modern approach, but, ...

With that one exception, however, overall, the immediate grief reactions were dead on, absolutely great soap!

And, the other thing TC made me recall was talking to people like Anna Stuart about how in the world she ever came up with internal motivations for some of the things that Donna Love did in the last several years at AW! She was a master at it. And, there's another part of the soap by collaboration (or committee) aspect, where actors themselves take what is written & make it more (or even more) believable.

That was always my problem with it, that even though the loss of Bryant (ATWT) has continued to play into Craig's character long-term, still the long-term repercussions of that death, the loss of a core character, didn't live up to expectations! But, I thought it was Jean Passanante who thought it would be a grand idea to kill off Bryant? Of course, sure, since she was only co-HW, the buck does not stop with her.

From what I understood, Hogan credited her with the initial idea. TC obviously just thought it was a good decision, since he was only a scriptwriter. Interesting that he brought up Kim O's weaknesses, when it was it Hunt Block's inability to portray grief that ruined the story for me in the short term and the long term.