McTavish's stories are all bathed in misery and angst. They're dark, depressing and absolutely demoralizing. If you enjoy that kind of storytelling, then sure, her third stint was FANTASTIC! Starting off with raping Bianca, following up with babies being born while two young women are stuck in a cabin in the middle of a storm, only to have the women drugged and have their babies stolen and told they've drowned in a river after a staged helicopter crash, only to have a man with a brain tumor go on a killing spree, just to have him blow himself up with his dead brother in a cave, just to have Ryan join fight clubs and physically assault his wife and then drive off a cliff, following up with a twisted doctor who brainwashes women into giving up their babies, only to have him buried alive and then subsequently killed in an earthquake just to have his "son" find him and dig him up in a park on July 4th... Then, yes. That horrid [!@#$%^&*] was absolutely riveting. Fantastic. Great ideas...

But for a show that's not supposed to be such a dark tragedy, it just didn't fit. I've read rumors that she was pilfering a lot of ideas from a story bible she had written for her own soap creation entitled Purgatory. I brushed it off at first, but considering how dark and sorrowful her third stint was, it could be true. No one was happy for four years. No one had joy for four years. No one was able to love or be loved for four years. Everyone was just suffering and miserable and doing dark & despicable things to one another. A lot of talk of God, and sins of the father and Jesus Christ dying on the cross...

Oh, by the way... IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY! JUNE 1!

Well happy birthday Sinclair! See the Off Topic folder here

Look at this wonderful post! I wonder who wrote it...

I totally agree with you. I never thought McTavish had any touch to lose, too. I was too young to know about soap writing back then (McTavish's stint went from when I was 12 to 15/16) so I wasn't looking at it as "Oh, McTavish is doing a wonderful job writing!" I just knew I enjoyed the stuff that was going on at that time. It wasn't until I started writing, myself, at the age of 16, that I started paying attention to other writers, and noticed Lorraine Broderick's work from 1995 to 1997 and I enjoyed that immensely, too. So by the time McTavish came back, I was out of high school and was like, "Ooh, boy! This should be good!" because I knew by that time, that she wrote the stuff with the tornado, and Tom and Livia, and Hayley and Brian, Mimi and Derek, and Who Killed Will... But it wasn't very long, maybe about four months into her return that I started seeing her writing has atrocious (Camille Hawkins, Comatose Mateo and his coma visions, etc.). The Bianca/Anorexia storyline was good... but that was stuff Broderick had already put into place.

Then that's when I realized the change in executive producers.

I hadn't realized up until then that FMB had left and Francesca James took over during Lorraine Broderick's run. And then Jean Dadario Burke took over in the middle of McTavish's second run.

I started noticing certain trends in McTavish's storytelling. Someone always has to get raped (Gloria, Julia, almost-Hayley during her first run... Kit Fisher during her second run), people always go "missing" for months (Marian was locked in the mausoleum by Lee Hawkins, Dixie collapsed in Braden's NYC apartment due to her heart condition and remained there for weeks), sixteen characters have to be in a room during a storyline's Big Reveal and/or the reveal has to happen during a party, wedding or funeral. Blonde characters are often sluts with hearts of gold. There always has to be a hero because women a weak and defenseless without them. There has to be at least one explosion a year, and characters she just doesn't like will not be written for -- at all. She will totally rewrite at least three characters' histories and she will completely make Jack an overprotective ass wipe!

She's a formulaic writer. If you look at GH and AMC (since they're her latest efforts, respectively), the way she wrote Jax is the way she's writing Ryan. The way she wrote Sonny is the way she's writing Zach. The way she wrote AJ is the way she's writing JR. The way she wrote Carly is the way she's writing Kendall. The way she wrote/created Courtney is the way she's writing Babe.

Jax/Ryan = White knight, rescuer, hero.

Sonny/Zach = Brooding, dark, complex man with a questionable business

AJ/JR = Angry, drunken rich kid who marries a nubile blonde who feels sorry for him and allows him to take advantage of her

Carly/Kendall = Impetuous force of nature, insecure and untrusting to a fault. Self destructive and at times, exceedingly overbearing

Courtney/Babe = Blonde ingenue who chooses to look past a man's dark and destructive qualities and desperately wants to be the one who changes him

While she can't be blamed for the bulk of history of the GH characters, she created GH's Courtney (maybe named for her realitive Courtney Buglar?), and AMC's Kendall, Ryan and Zach... And she's made it no secret from most of stories that she pilfers from others' as well as her own previous creations.

Megan McTavish is James E. Reilly... without the innovation.

'Toups' date=May 31 2008, 03:53 PM' post='598683]

Hmmm......I just found out about these interesting tibits:

1. The crash storyline was orginally McTavish's idea (the car accident). The stuff that happened after the car accident came after her firing.

2. Greenlee being innocent of Spike's deafness wasn't a rewrite.

i just thought some things need to be highlighted

McTavish's stories are all bathed in misery and angst. They're dark, depressing and absolutely demoralizing. If you enjoy that kind of storytelling, then sure, her third stint was FANTASTIC! Starting off with raping Bianca, following up with babies being born while two young women are stuck in a cabin in the middle of a storm, only to have the women drugged and have their babies stolen and told they've drowned in a river after a staged helicopter crash, only to have a man with a brain tumor go on a killing spree, just to have him blow himself up with his dead brother in a cave, just to have Ryan join fight clubs and physically assault his wife and then drive off a cliff, following up with a twisted doctor who brainwashes women into giving up their babies, only to have him buried alive and then subsequently killed in an earthquake just to have his "son" find him and dig him up in a park on July 4th... Then, yes. That horrid [!@#$%^&*] was absolutely riveting. Fantastic. Great ideas...

But for a show that's not supposed to be such a dark tragedy, it just didn't fit. I've read rumors that she was pilfering a lot of ideas from a story bible she had written for her own soap creation entitled Purgatory. I brushed it off at first, but considering how dark and sorrowful her third stint was, it could be true. No one was happy for four years. No one had joy for four years. No one was able to love or be loved for four years. Everyone was just suffering and miserable and doing dark & despicable things to one another. A lot of talk of God, and sins of the father and Jesus Christ dying on the cross...

Oh, by the way... IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY! JUNE 1!

Happy Birthday, Sin!

I don't always agree with you but this time we are completely in sync. You have best post in this thread!

Hmmm......I just found out about these interesting tibits:

1. The crash storyline was orginally McTavish's idea (the car accident). The stuff that happened after the car accident came after her firing.

2. Greenlee being innocent of Spike's deafness wasn't a rewrite.

Well, I stand totally corrected then.

Ignore everything I've ever posted about my thoughts on AMC. :-) (Except everything awful from the last two years can be traced back to Spike's conception. I still stand by that, damnit! LOL!)

I will say this though - I still think something major happened behind the scenes, because there was definitely a major shift in the show around November/December through April.

But I guess my speculation was way off. Oh well. Wouldn't be the first time!! :lol:

ETA: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, R SINCLAIR!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited June 1, 200817 yr by brimike