GL now has 4 Head Writers

[rain1]

There's been a restructuring of the writing staff at Guiding Light. In place of David Kreizman serving as sole headwriter, two headwriting "teams" have been created, the first consisting of Lucky Gold and Chris Dunn, the second consisting of Jill Lorie Hurst and David Kreizman. Donna Swajeski will be writing scripts.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Thanks, rain1! This show is just beyond repair though, I doubt this will have a major impact on things.

[YRBB]

This doesn't sound too bad! It kinda sounds like a step towards the British way of writing soaps. I hope it works!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Yes, I was going to say that! However, I don't think that system quite fits with American soaps, sadly.

And there's no really strong writer in that team. GL's had head-writing teams before, but Nancy Curlee was there, and GL doesn't have a Nancy Curlee these days...

We saw the disaster that was the Stephen Demores, Patrick Mulcahey, Millee Taggert, and Sheri Anderson Head Writing team back in 94-95. They're all good writers, but it just didn't work. Which is why I think Nancy was pulling all the strings in the Nancy, Stephen, James, and Lorraine team.

[MichaelGL]

Don't they see the problem lies with the people they already have? Lloyd Gold, Chris Dunn, Jill Lorie Hurst, and Kreizman, they've all wreaked havoc on GL. And Swajeski, I've seen nothing from her on GL to say she's not involved. Just get rid of the writing team and the EP already!

[sungrey]

Not to mention Swajeski is an overrated writer herself. I know it's not a popular opinion with some people, but I didn't think her AW was all that and a bag of chips in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Let's see how this works out. I'm not too thrilled with this, but if it results in stronger stories and COUPLES WE CAN ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT, maybe it will work.

[skiman12082004]

I hope it helps. Anything would be better than the crap we are getting now. Maybe this will be a good thing. DK obviously has burned himself out. Adding three HW's may inspire him.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

LOL! I so agree! AW was one inconsistent mess for its last 15 years or so on the air. There might have been some greatness here and there, but AW severely paled in comparison to its P&G sister soaps, GL and ATWT. Swajeski's AW just doesn't compare to Curlee's GL or Marland's ATWT.

I know many look at her AW as a good time for the show, but I've never found that to really be the case from what I've seen of it.

[Dale]

I wish I knew if GL has intentionally and deliberately abandoned the traditional narrative approach to soap writing, or have the people running the show completely lost their way? I mean, if EW told me that the what we are seeing on screen is deliberate and that she is happy with it, my decision to stop watching or not would be much easier.

[brimike]

I'm not really sure I understand how this works. Two mini-head writing teams? So... what? They split the layout of the week in half between them? I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like this will over-complicate things.

What's with all the "futzing"? There's no need to re-invent the wheel here.

[MarkH]

And who plots out the OVERALL long-term story for the show? Ellen Wheeler, the "executive director" (per Kim Zimmer)?

The short answer seems to be that Team A takes characters 1 through 10, and Team B takes characters 11-20. This ensures that the two character groups NEVER interact. I'm sorry to keep paraphrasing Kay Alden, but the show NEVER sounds like the show.

It is UNENDING DOOM, no? Is this really a competitive thing...where the best team wins?

Wasn't Lucky Gold the pre-Kreizman HW who crashed and burned??

I wish they'd just cancel the thing already. Not because I wish that historical treasure to die, but because I cannot hear a single voice in favor of preserving the current limping zombified corpse of what once was....

[Dr. Jay S.W.]

I think all 4 will be HW's. It's like if Brown, Esensten, Guza and Pratt were all HW's of a show. B&E are a team and Guza and Pratt are a team. Maybe new "teams" are being born. That's what I took from it.

[RoseVioletDaisy]

One HW team does one thing one day and the other team has a whole different plan for the next day? What kind of assinine way is that to run a TV show? If this was also Wheeler's idea, then she absolutely MUST be fired! Period! She's a menace not only to what little is left of GL but to the soap genre itself. Not only has she turned The Grande Dame of Daytime into a complete and utter laughingstock with her TinkerToy cameras, refrigerator box sets replete with card tables and office furniture that Staples wouldn't even sell, crappy generi-rock screeching over bad, meaningless dialogue, the obvious lack of any decent wardrobe, makeup, and hair departments, and the desperation of it's actors to flee at warp speed but now the show has instituted the complete and utter abandonment of any cohesive narrative structure whatsoever in addition to the horrific and irreparable butchery of every character, family, and relationship on the show?! It's this the freaking twilight zone! What does this incompetent loon actually have to do to get fired?! Piss on a Pringles can on-the-air?

[Chris B]

GL doesn't really seem to have long term stories. Everything is very self-contained and primetime-y. They don't do cliffhangers or leave you wanting to tune in the next day, ever. I don't expect to see any change really. The only good thing is that if they are splitting the cast up, we may see people more evenly.

[MarkH]

Wait...but this actually happened.

Guza and Pratt were HWs, and B&B were HWs.

Except...Guza and Pratt were doing General Hospital and B&E were doing Port Charles. Two different shows. THAT's the way I can see two different teams working.

All on one show. Four different chiefs divided into two teams? Not so much....