Unpopular Opinions

[Adam]

I have gathered that based posts of yours. You also seem very high on Curlee as well, know? I unfortunately am too young to be overly familiar with Marland's work, but I have seen a few snippets from his last stint on ATWT and it was just soap perfection. He GOT the genre like no one else I think.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

No, I was making a general post. I'm not sure what you look for in a writer, as Marland and Lemay's styles have so many distinctive differences.

I adore Marland, and I got into soaps during his final years at ATWT. For traditionalist, I meant Marland really cared about core soap stories about families and multiple generations. Nothing wrong with that, in fact, I prefer it. Lemay by contrast, seemed to operate from the opposite spectrum, but kept a lot of the traditional stuff.

No, I don't have a "list." I hate labels and everyone is far too different or similar for me to even consider grouping them in a specific order.

[rangethatrover]

I have never "gotten" Agnes Nixon or her AMC. Ever. Janet in the well caught my interest for a month or two. That's it.

Bill Bell to me is the plotting and payoff master. The 1940 potboiler melodramatic scripts somehow worked for me. Y&R proved that a soap can look like a film.

[Khan]

More than that, Marland's was a soap where there was truly something for everyone: romance, adventure, suspense, corporate intrigue, topical issues, family dramas, etc. You name it, he probably had it covered.

In a way, Marland represented (to me) a combination of Agnes Nixon's (and Wisner Washam's) and Bill Bell's respective writing style. Like Papa Bell, he could craft these amazing tales that would spin on and on for months, hardly ever leaving out any important story beats; yet, he also could bring to his canvas the same fondness for larger-than-life characters, humor, and topical relevance that Agnes always brings to hers.

The only other writer who came closest to that combination, IMO, was Nancy Curlee. In fact, I believe her and Marland's approaches to writing GL were extraordinary similar. Never were more of the regular cast utilized on a regular basis (or to great effect) than when those two were in charge of the stories. And I think it says a lot, too, that her writing staff included not only his best writer (Patrick Mulcahey), but Agnes' best writer (Washam) as well.

It proved it, but did it really need to be proven?

Perhaps, I'm just a hard-ass. If I've said it once, however, I've said it a thousand times: people don't come to a daytime drama expecting anything other than that. If they want films, if they want primetime shows, hell, if they want puppet theater, they know where to go get it.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Curlee's style always struck me as a mixture of Marland, Nixon, Bell, and Lemay. But overall, she definitely came out of the Douglas Marland school of soap.

She had the community thing down pat that Marland excelled the best in. She knew how to do these wonderful social issue storylines without being too preachy like Nixon, and a lot of her stories would create other storylines that had longterm effects like Bell, and I've always thought Alexandra/Nick/Mindy was her tribute to Lemay's Iris/Rachel/Mac - triangles that were deeply unconventional.

[Khan]

Exactly.

And you know, I've seen Lemay's name and reputation as a writer sullied, not just here, but in other places on the 'net as well. Granted, his ANOTHER WORLD was "before my time," but I do give the man props for trying to elevate the genre into something resembling art. I only wish he had done more to preserve the Matthewses, so the "haters" wouldn't bring that up at every turn.

[rangethatrover]

It proved it, but did it really need to be proven?

Perhaps, I'm just a hard-ass. If I've said it once, however, I've said it a thousand times: people don't come to a daytime drama expecting anything other than that. If they want films, if they want primetime shows, hell, if they want puppet theater, they know where to go get it.

-It raised the bar. I see nothing wrong with making something that looks beautiful.-

[Khan]

Fine, but it's like when Gloria Monty took over GH and suddenly, everyone else was working at double-speed to mimic her success. They were so busy doing that, they forgot that it wouldn't have made a bit of difference to the folks at home w/o good, solid storytelling backing up all those new, humdinger production values.

Everyone wanted Bill Bell and John Conboy's young, pretty, scantily clad actors and soft, romantic lighting, b/c they thought that would appeal to the youth. However, if even a young person is watching LOVE OF LIFE, let's say, or SEARCH FOR TOMORROW, there's a reason why they're watching, and it has nothing to do with how good (or not) everyone looks with half their clothes on.

[Delia]

I know a lot of people will disagree with this, but I really don't think Anthony Geary is a talented actor. Sure he can cry on cue, occassionally, but often times it is just lazy acting. Always the same old shtick with him.

[Khan]

Here's another unpopular opinion: it's one thing to say, or to agree, that classic RYAN'S HOPE ('75-'78) should be used as a visual textbook for aspiring soap scribes. It's quite another to sit down and actually watch it. Day...after day...after day...after day.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I might have stated this earlier, but I absolutely HATED Michael Malone's first stint on OLTL (I, of course hated his second stint too). Too preachy, too obvious, lame character creations. He tried WAY too hard to leave a stamp on that show. Malone couldn't plot a story to save his life, and his OLTL felt like one drawn out PSA after PSA.

[Delia]

Well, I respectfully disagree because I thought Malone did incredible work during his first stint at OLTL. While his second stint there and his short stint at AW proved he was more of a fluke than anything. Way to over reliant on murder mysteries. Plus, he had to work with that 'Dirty Dancing' producer Linda Gottleib, who Erika Slezak despised. Anyways, during his first stint he wrote some of the best stories of the 90s, which included his most well-known story, which was the gang-rape of Marty Saybrooke. That story provdide Susan Haskell and especially Hillary B. Smith with incredible material. The court room scene wheen Nora realizes that Todd was truly guilty and then expressed that to the jury has to be one of the best written scenes that I've ever seen on daytime. But that story was lead into by the previous story of Megan's death. Megan had lupus and so did Marty and, if I remember correctly, they shared a hospital bed. Megan's death was one of the most tragic deaths on daytime up to that point and Jessica Tuck was phenomonal in it.

And I haven't even gotten into the wonderful and touching AIDS quilt story, with Billy, one of daytime's earliest gay characters. But the best of all of Malone's stories was the one which started when Dorian, with a returned Robin Strasser, was charged with Victor's murder because of Viki's influence and new found evidence. Dorian eventually got off because of David Vicker's testimony, but she got back at Viki by seducing Joey. Of course she eventually fell in love with Kevin. Viki, at this time, was having a difficult time with Joey and Dorian's affair and her divorce from Clint. And this all lead up to one of the all time best confrontation scenes between Dorian and Viki, during which Dorian revealed that Victor had sexually abused Viki as a child. Viki had repressed those memories and when they came back to her so did her other alters, Tommy and so forth. That scene was AMAZING! Strasser blew it out of the park and my recap doesn't do that story justice. It was great.

Maybe I've gotten a little long winded here, okay I have, but the Malone era was definitely my favorite time watching OLTL. His work was so well thought out and involved many characters that reached back into the depths of OLTL's history. His past as a novelist, I think, greatly helped him because he was new to the genre. He wasn't a recycled old script writer. I never found his work "preachy" or obvious and in the case of the AIDS quilt story I found it to be very touching. He harkened back to Nixon more than any other previous OLTL writer had since she left the show. He mixed great intrigue with socially relevant stories with a little bit of humor thrown in. And I never found his character creations to be lame; David Vickers, Marty Saybrooke, Nora, and Todd, all his creations, were fully realized characters. Plus, after he left the show it became a disaster.

[rangethatrover]

I don't agree-to a point. I loved his social issue storylines, I never thought they were drawn out PSA's and they weren't embarrassingly scripted like Bill Bell's. (Jessica's AIDS speech at the Abbott dinner table I will never, ever forget - its a scream). Alex and Carlo were awesome characters. And of course I loved Marty. I also loved Sloan Carpenter (and Viki together).. Viki/Niki/Tommy, ect was brilliant in my opinion, and probably the last time OLTL was brilliant from production to writing.

But that being said, the show was terribly boring at times, for every great storyline there was a huge dud. Luna grew tiresome. Alot of lame ass characters like Suede, Luna's moron brother- the Starship Troopers guy-

And I don't think he was trying to leave a stamp- that was GOTTLIEB- I think he wanted to bring OLTL back to its roots- its real roots- not Paul Rauch style, but Agnes Nixon style.

[rangethatrover]

Delia, interesting that you brought up Megan and that entire week of flashbacks. I remember the show hit #3 again.

But I think Marlena De Lacroix (who was always mixed in her reviews of Malone) had a review in SOW and she hit the nail right on the head.

She said that all those excellent episodes and flashbacks did everything BUT make old time or new viewers want to tune back in again! The heroine died! Jake left town! And since the entire show was focused on Megan and flashbacks- and they didn't try to introduce the audience to new storylines and characters to make them keep watching, that Malone missed a huge opportunity storytelling wise and audience wise. And its true. I have all those episodes on tape. It is all Megan and various characters in the hospital room, Jake trying to escape from the prison in Jaba City, and a few scenes of Eurasian Blair here and there. And sure enough the show went right back down to a 5.6 from a 6.1.

OLTL has always had issues with soap basics. I don't know why. Stacey is a prime example.

(I should add that it was when Gottlieb and Malone were doing the whole "short arc " style storylines when they were wanting to "reinvent the wheel". Well that style failed miserably and Malone ended up ditching that method.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I hated the way Malone wrote social issues. It all felt so unnatural to me, he wanted the audience to take the side he specifically presented IMO. I compare it to the way AMC did their social issue storylines at the time, and there's no comparison. AMC always did them much better (when compared to Malone's handling of them). They also kept coming one after the other with Malone. Agnes Nixon knew how to space her socially relevant storylines out, she didn't force-feed it to her audience, which is how I felt Malone did it.

I also felt Malone preferred writing for his characters, and never had a firm understanding of OLTL's characters prior to his regime.

The only writer I've felt really carried out Nixon's vision for OLTL well was Gordon Russell. He's by far one of the most UNDERRATED soap opera Head Writers of all time. He never gets the credit he's due.

Gottlieb's production values were marvelous though, the show never looked better.

I believe Khan has stated in numerous posts his critiques of Malone's work, I hope he'll share some in this thread.