Jump to content

Sara A. Bibel's Blog


Recommended Posts

  • Members

Well, I'd like to know the answer to this:

Sara, thanks for this great blog! It's nice hearing from the inside which is so rare. I must say I'm very disappointed Maria Arena Bell didn't bring you and other former Y&R writers back post-strike. I imagine it's probably due to contracts that she kept nearly all of Lynn Marie Latham's bloated writing staff. You can tell it's holding her stories back since they continue to write in the plot driven manner LML taught them. It's improved due to a stronger leader, but still needs the people who know and love the show to truly be great again.

My question is, how did you end up leaving Y&R? How was it for all-but-four of the pre-LML writers being let go? You guys just won an Emmy for GREAT work and knew that show well. LML has been gone since Christmas Eve and the show still hasn't fuller recovered. Biggest.Mistake.Ever. Even worse, one of the people she replaced you guys with was her 21 year old son. It just seemed odd and she had no plan at all. "How many friends can I hire and how fast?" seemed to be the only thing in her mind. Stories, plot points and what little character development we had was often dropped as more writers were added or she got bored. A great example was the dreadful Phillip Chancellor story which didn't include Nina or his son and barely included Jill and Katherine, instead focusing on newbies Amber and Cane.

Daytime should look at Ron Carlivati at OLTL and realize it's time to take risks. What can you lose at this point? If viewers are invested in the characters they're more likely to stick around long term as opposed to the short term stunts which don't even work anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 264
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members

QUOTE (Chris B @ May 17 2008, 01:25 AM)
I'm so happy she answered my question! I really didn't expect that. I enjoy hearing from her, especially since she comes from such a successful writing team. Looking forward to what she posts in the future.

Picking up a thread from here, you should ask her how to fix Y&R. I'd love to see what she says....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Thank you! ;)

Well, she's certainly not going to trash OLTL and say Ron's a hack.

Never going to happen...

QUOTE (Chris B @ May 17 2008, 08:25 AM)
I'm so happy she answered my question! I really didn't expect that. I enjoy hearing from her, especially since she comes from such a successful writing team. Looking forward to what she posts in the future.

Oh, I'm so happy, too. It was so obvious it was you who asked that. :P BTW, she is The Elite.

Not only did she secure herself a spot on a top-notch daytime serial, she is also a Harvard alumna. More elite than that, you cannot be. :DB)

As much as I'd love for her to return to where she belongs, I think she should try to get a primetime gig. Some good, critically praised series or maybe ABC's Brothers & Sisters or CW's Gossip Girl, a show I used to hate until Felicia D. Henderson came in :D (honestly, I'd love her to replace that godawful J. J. Philbin over at Heroes, but I don't think she's a fan of the supernatural, even though Heroes is a soap par excellence). It is time to leave daytime behind, if she perseveres in improving her craft and just doing what she has been doing so far, there is a incandescent future ahead of her.

Can't wait for the next blog entry! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

"But I will say that, in general, head writers who aren't familiar with a show tend to favor plot driven storytelling. In my experience, this rarely makes for satisfying viewing."

AINT THAT THE TRUTH!!! They find a few characters they like and BOOM!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Jay : Sara, how would you go about getting another soap job? Do you apply, Does a head writer approach you? An Executive Producer? I would love to see you working on OLTL. Would you Coast switch or would you stay in CA? Like most television writers, I have an agent who tries to get me work. I would be surprised and delighted if a head writer came to me. I'd certainly jump at the chance to work on OLTL. Heck, I'd jump at the chance to work on Meerkat Manor. If any Estonian soaps are hiring, I'll move there! It‚s a tough time for daytime writers right now. Since the soaps discovered they could put out a show with a smaller number of writers during the WGA strike, writing staffs are getting smaller. The cancellation of Passions made the market even tighter.:):lol:

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

    • Too many returns, that's when you know a show has run out of ideas and doesn't care anymore.  Zoe annoyed the sh!t out of me most times, but the Kat/Zoe storyline will always be iconic and close to my heart (that's the era I first started following the show in near real-time), and probably the only storyline in 21st century EastEnders that had long-term value for the characters involved during their initial run together. However, after all this time and the writing choice that Zoe never wants to see Kat again, I think that ship has sailed and I don't know that it makes sense to revisit it at this point. 
    • Former EastEnders star Michelle Ryan is reprising her role as Zoe Slater on the BBC soap following an absence of over 20 years.  It’s been reported that Zoe will return to Albert Square later this year and that she’ll take centre stage in a dramatic new storyline involving her family.  The news comes amidst news of other big returns, which include Max Branning (Jake Wood), Tanya Cross (Jo Joyner), Shirley Carter (Linda Henry) and Ben Mitchell (Max Bowden), who will also be back in Walford later in the year.
    • I actually love the new fashion.
    • Admittedly, I was a latecomer to ATWT (first becoming a regular viewer in 2000). But I really liked KMH's Emily. I thought she was a very specific kind of neurotic professional character, and I loved her prickly relationship with MM's Susan. I will say I don't think the show did her any favors after Hal died, stranding her in storylines with several of the show's dullest characters: nu-Paul, nu-Meg, and nu-Dusty. I actually quite liked one of her last major storylines, when she discovered she had a grown-up biological son with Larry named Hunter. But then Hunter just sort of disappeared, and the story fizzled out, which was pretty typical of the late Goutman years. 
    • I know the fashions have gotten mixed reviews but I actually like what the new costume designer is putting the cast in. It feels more modern and the more tacky pieces I feel make sense for rich people. They're buying for the brand and the price and we often see celebs in things like this. Especially for a character like Nikki, I feel the more over the top (and tacky), the more realistic it is.
    • Well, her staff pointing out the movie connection never seemed to stop Long from using those plots.  She was right about Vanessa--she needed a man who loved her, which she'd never really had up to then. But as others have pointed out, Long borrowed heavily from Taming of the Shrew to get it done. (which while I kinda disputed that, I get more now, having watched Kiss Me Kate a few times since.)
    • "Holly had her share of the blame..." NO, she did NOT. WOW. That's what you get for trying to be fair and giving these people the benefit of the doubt! The Rita rape episodes do not seem to be available. It sounds like Calhoun thought it was not dramatized, but it was. I saw it when it aired. Yes, it's close to 50 years ago, and memories aren't 100% reliable. I also know that Zaslow reportedly complained that it was written too much like a seduction and that's why the Dobsons portrayed Holly's rape differently. Maybe it started like a seduction and she rejected him and that's when it turned violent. I don't remember that part, if it exists. What I do remember is that Roger threw Rita so violently to the floor that she hit her head. They showed him coming at her from her point of view and he looked all fuzzy. It was an act of violence, not a seduction. Rita kept it a secret until it looked like Roger might be acquited, and then finally admitted it. She didn't make it up, it definitely was not a ploy.
    • I was actually referencing another scene between Roger and Alex, which I think is right after they marry.  But yeah---I'm not really impressed with Calhoun's reasoning. Or the "both recall it wasn't unprovoked" line. Wasn't Holly trying to leave him when he raped her? Oy vey.
    • I know we have discussed the location of Bay City in the Another World thread and the fact that originally Irna conceived of it as being the real Bay City MI, and it was later writers that treated it as a fictional Bay City [probably IL]. This article seems to suggest that that idea was well-established by 1981. I wonder when it started.
    • Desert Sun, 22 December 1983 Guiding Light’ writer looks for fresh ideas By TOM JORY Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) - “Guiding Light” has been a daytime companion for millions since 1937, starting on radio and switching to TV after 15 years. Can anything new, really new, ever happen to the Bauers or the Reardons or any of the other folks in Springfield? “I get really upset,” says Pamela Long Hammer, principal writer for the CBS soap opera since March, “because I’ll come up with this neat scenario and someone will say, ‘That’s like “Strangers on a Train.’” “I think, ‘They keep stealing my material.’ “The way I figure it,” she says, “there are only so many stories in the world. It’s the characters who keep the show new and exciting. All of our stories come from them: I don’t come up with a plot, and then work a character into it.” Continuity is important. Someone out there surely knows all that’s happened, to everyone on the show, in 46 years. How about Miss Long Hammer? "Nope. I care about what our core families have been doing,” she says. “I’m always interested in what happened to Bert Bauer (played since 1950 by Charita Bauer) 20 years ago, but as far as going back and reading scripts, no. “Others on the show keep track,” she says. “I’ll suggest something, and be told, ‘You don’t remember, but five years ago, they had this terrible fight. They would never speak to one another now.”’ Miss Long Hammer, a former Miss Alabama who came to New York as an aspiring actress in 1980, began writing for daytime television while playing Ashley on NBC’s “Texas.” She eventually wrote herself out of the story. Her staff for “Guiding Light” includes nine writers, among them her husband, Charles Jay Hammer, whom she met while both worked on “Texas.” NBC dropped “Texas” after two seasons, and episodes from the serial currently are being rerun on the Turner Broadcasting System’s cable-TV SuperStation, WTBS. Gail Kobe, who was executive producer of “Texas,” now has the same job on “Guiding Light.” And Beverlee McKinsey, who played Iris Carrington in “Another World” on NBC, and later in "Texas,” will join the Light” cast of the CBS soap in February. Miss Long Hammer is reponsible for the long-term story, which can mean looking ahead 18 months or more. Staff writers deal with specifics, including the scripts for individual episodes. She says she draws on “imagination and instinct” for the “Guiding Light” story. Often, that involves inventing new characters. “‘I look at Vanessa (Maeve Kinkead), one of our leading ladies,” Miss Long Hammer says. "What could make the audience care more about her? “Then I think, ‘Why can’t she find a man she can love, who will also love her?’ Voila, here comes Billy Lewis (Jordan Clarke). “Another example,” she says, “is Alan Spaulding (Christopher Bernau). All of a sudden, he’s got a sister no one ever knew about. “They come complete,” says Miss Long Hammer of the serial’s characters, including the new ones. “We know who they are and where they came from long before the viewer gets all that information. That’s one of the most interesting things about daytime, the complexities of the characters.” The writers make a big effort to keep the show contemporary, and four of the leading players are in their late teens or early 20s Judi Evans, who plays Beth Raines, Kristi Tesreau (Mindy Lewis), Grant Aleksander (Philip Spaulding) and Michael O’Leary (Rick Bauer). “Guiding Light,” longevity notwithstanding, is a moderate success by that ultimate yardstick of the industry; ratings. The show is behind only “General Hospital,” “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” all on ABC, and CBS’ “The Young and the Restless,” among soaps. And Miss Long Hammer says she’s convinced writing is the key to even greater achievement. “When I say I love the characters, it’s not a light thing,” she says. “I think what the audience senses is an enthusiasm and an energy among the people who do the show.”
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

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