Reflections on Head Writers

[EricMontreal22]

Kevin wasn't written out, he was dropped. RIght around when McTavish came on board (a bit after) there was an explosion at SOS--Kevin was working there and that was the last scene we saw him in. I believe ABC may have even sent out a press release saying something like "The character didn't die" etc, they just conveniently forgot abou thim at the time. Tons of people blamed McTavish but I bet if she had her druthers she woulda loved to give him some scandalous gay story--the truth was apparantly ABC was pretty against the character sticking around anyway and Broderick was the one fighting for him. Without her he left. Shame the actor was REALLY appealing--it prob helped that I was just sorta starting to go through the same things at the same time--and watching it with my mom and seeing her positive reaction to the story meant a lot to me--but I really missed the character.

Youtube had some clips recently of when Opal was persuaded to persuade Kevin (her ward) to go to a deprogramming shrink. Having a friend who went through all that a bit later and watching the clip again recently it was *really* well done, and quite brave for ten years ago (it's sad that soaps have moved SOO slowly in their treatment of gay characters--back in the 90s I woulda thought every soap would have at least one gay couple by now...)

The gaslight with second Will was another time I kinda started not watching as closely (so FMB was prob smart to get rid of McT) so I don't have a clear grasp on the story--just that I was happy to see Will's actor back cuz I found him hot (I also liked Del, prob one reason I always hated the beefhead recast).

I did love the whole Carter Jones crossover story McT wrote for apparantly both AMC and Loving (which got me hooked on Loving)--with him kidnapping NuBlind(he helped cause her blinding) Natalie. I HATED nuNatalie (who seemed liek such a pushover compared to the orgiinal) until that story and was sorry when she was killed off trying to tell peopel that Laurel was an embezzler. Man so much of that era was just what got me in love with soaps--I'd rush home every lunch hour from school to watch lol.

the Ectopic pregnancy was McT I'm pretty certain. Pierce was a prob--the first, best actor was fired for sexual harrassment right? the second one barely lasted. Then Maxwell Caulfield, who I love came in the role and was ridiculously miscast, and had that whole wife from Cambodia or whatever... There's an essay about soap viewing habits in that great collection of soap essays published in '97 for the Museum of TV's Soap exhibit where they talk about gay viewers--at the time AMC had the highest percentage, one reason why ABC greenlit the Michael Delaney story. They mention that they polled the gay men and they all found Pierce (number one) the hottest guy on the soap, the straight women went with tad--and they talk about how they think some of that was the character history, etc. It's an interesting piece.

Man discussing all this makes me sad about AMC the past 8 years... (And I kinda liked the Santa story too--didn't he come back the following xmas for a cameo? I have kept every single Xmas episode of AMC since I started watching, on tape, and recently rewatched the climax with the two Myrtles fighting over him lol)

[DaytimeFan]

You summed it up really nicely Robyn! The Killing Pool was just so good, you could tell that Sally Sussman Morina planned it out in great detail and wanted to give the fans and Eileen Davidson an exit storyline that was worthy of the brilliance Eileen embodied on DAYS. It was GREAT and the reason why I believe Sally Sussman Morina was a terrific writer who was brought down by Langan and Corday.

[Jess]

I think the Natalie as a Buchanan story was a huge mistake and I hate that Jess was de-buched. I think OLTL jumped the shark when they made these decision.

Onto Malone. I thought the Storm of Change was very well done and I enjoyed Al as the radio voice. I liked that they brought back Angel Square. In fact, I enjoyed much of their first year. About all I hated was Antonio and Jessica. In the second year, I actually thought McBain was an interesting character initially. I liked him very much as the FBI agent. Once the show started centering on him, he became less interesting and that is a real shame. At that time, I also liked Walked Laurence and wish they would have kept Walker rather than turning him into Todd. I thought Walker was an interesting character and I believe turning him into Todd was a misjudgement. I hated that they killed off Gabrielle and Max and I really hated the entire Al Holden switch. I agree with you on the Santis and Tico and thought the woman who played Sonia was excellent. I also think they should have stuck with plan a and made her the bad character instead of Tico.

There were things I liked about Higley's tenure. I actually enjoyed the Tess/Jess story very much and believe the Tess and Nash romance was excellent. Making Jessica a victim of abuse did not bother me because I did not think it did harm to Viki and I also think Viki being less than perfect is enjoyable. I never have liked Queen Viki and Princess Jess. Also, Jessica was written as such a moron during the last few months of Malone, it was nice to see her being young and fun. Too bad they had to do it with Tess rather than Jess. Also, I hate that anytime Viki or Jess now are angry, an alter has to pop out. That is lazy and uncreative writing. What a waste to have stick up her butt all the time. I admit I really liked the execution story. I also think her newbies were better than Ron's. I liked Layla, Miles, Nash and Tallia. Otherwise, she was pretty much a bust.

On an unrelated note. Regarding B&E on AMC, they are better writers than that. I wonder what happened.

[EricMontreal22]

Jess I'm glad you said that about B&E--I'm somewhat embarassed for championing them but I really did love Loving/The City under them (and no matter what anyone says, I am certain they deserve most of the credit for Angie and Jesse--they have always written well for those actors). Even this year you see story ideas that coulda been really good--but the execution WAS awful. Basically a good story would start and then NOTHING would happen. The almost year long Richie/Annie saga is an example--you had inspired moments like Richie teamed with Janet that went NOWHERE. Anyway...

Max and Gabrielle weren't killed off (thank God) but I know what you mean. I forgot about Al as the voice of the night or whatever--that was one of those great Malone touches. I also wish they had stuck with Walker Lawrence more. Sonia was played by one of my fave City actresses, and she was given the short shift, I agree.

I did like Tess/nash under Higley. The fact it was abuse that set her off into Tess didn't bug me--as we learned from Malone's first era truthfully very few multiple personalities are set off without some sort of sexual trauma. I just felt it was told in a gratuitous fashion--or I dunno. It's a touchy subject for me, but it irked me in ways none of the similar child rape stories on AMC have. (Jess and Tonio were unbearable under Malone it's true). I do wonder what her full original plan was for Miles... The character seems completely gone which is a shame as I liked him and the actor.

[Skin]

I think people are making a mistake when they say that McTavish third stint at AMC was a complete and total disaster. 2003-2005 were VERY strong years for her and netted huge amounts of critical acclaim, emmy nominations and wins and also AMC had strong ratings at that time as well. It was only her last year that she was completely horrid in the 06-07 year, however during sweeps she was almost ALWAYS able to get a rise of ratings and the ratings were no where NEAR as bad as they currently are now. She knew how to work the show and how to cause reactions from people and also knew had to make fans invest in the show with high staked stories which is why people tuned in. It wasn't as bad as what people would like to think. Atleast viewers cared about what happended to the characters weither it was anger, sadness, love, ect. now I don't care about anyone on the show.

Say what you will about her but she was able to get veiwers involved, which is more then I can say for the writers that came after her. Other then Crash and Jessie and Angie what more could anyone potentially be interested in? Megan atleast was able to do more then one story at once.

[Sindacco]

But the Killing Pool had one major plothole and that was Edmund as the killer. Because during the night of the murder, we saw Susan arrive at the Blake House, then the scene went over to Violet and Edmund at the pub in England. It would have been impossible for Edmund to get to Salem that fast.

But it was still one of SSMs best stories. But my favorite of all was Franco's Murder. I wasn't happy that he was killled because he was my favorite at the time but the story was so well written.

My favorite time of SSM as writer was summer 1998.

- Build up to Franco's murder.

- John, Hope, Roman and Billie in Lugano.

- Craig vs Mike for the chief of staff job.

- Stefano controling Vivian (I know alot of people didn't like this but I did)

- Hope, Lily, Stefano, Vivian, Ivan and Celeste on the Empress Express.

- Bo meeting with Greta in the bayou

[R Sinclair]

Yeah, Phoebe didn't have a "storyline." She made an appearance, is all. Big difference a bunch of people don't seem to get. Phoebe has one scene in an episode and all of a sudden PHOEBE HAS A STORYLINE!! :D Um, noooo... she was just wheeled in to service someone else's.

It wasn't Broderick who came up with the Santa Clause story, it was Millee Taggert (who was her co-head briefly, then fired shortly after that Santa Clause story).

I'm so confused. It reads good, hope it played out well, but I'm still... so confused.

Yeah, that was back when Tad was hosting The Cutting Edge after Erica was fired due to her drug problem (which, coincidentally happened due to a segment on TCE where she was doing a fashion show up on a high scaffold. She was shaking her ass at Dimitri and got to close to a pyro display as it went off and she fell off the scaffold and hurt her back). I hate the fact that I have the end of the previous episode to the Laurel shooting, and the beginning of the actual episode and then the tape cuts off.

It's funny -- I was literally thinking about the Gas Lighting story as I was getting out of bed this morning. Odd. I haven't thought about that story in years, either.

Oh, please. It's all a matter of taste. Nobody's "making a mistake" thinking McTavish's third stint was a shitfest. If you enjoyed that tripe, then that's fine. Speak for yourself. But I didn't like her plot driven, revisionist history, ALL ABOUT PIGGY BABE & RYAN storytelling at all. I didn't invest in any of the storylines because I knew they were all sensationalistic crap JUST to get ratings. For me, the Great Baby Switch ruined any rooting value for the horrendous new additions named Carey, and had a piss poor payoff. The Fight Club story was horrible, and somehow, even after almost beating his wife up, Ryan came back a hero. The Madden/Unabortion story was atrocious. The Budget Cut Killer Satin Slayer was the laziest serial killer ever. The show was just dark and sorrowful and angsty and tragic and miserable and death, death, death... Beginning with a rape and ending with a serial killer. That's not what I like my soap to be. So was it as bad as I think it was? Hell yes. Thank you very much, have a wonderful day.

[cct]

Thank you, RSinclair, for helping me remember the name of the talk show, The Cutting Edge. I remember Liza came back to run WRCW. Now that was a workplace, not this Fusion crap. After Erica, it was Tad. Briefly Liza? Then I know Hayley took it over and it became The Wave and when that show syndicated was how they wrote Hayley out.

Personally, I take no shame in thinking that the Baby Switch was one of the best AMC stories, as I've said in other threads. It's the stories, not the writers. You have made me take pause, though, because that is where the Carey-hate began. Shame.

Talk about selective memory, though. It wasn't that long ago, and I had already erased Fight Club. Gaslight Will was quite a few years ago, but Fight Club should've been on the surface.

I kind've liked the whole Gothic Wildwind/Budapest storyline. I remember complaining that Natalie was down in that damn well too long at the time. That was when my aunt was dying; we were taking care of her and we had AMC on, and she said, "Is that woman STILL down in that well?" LOL. My favorite was probably creepy, crazy Helga. What a loon!

A big Wildwind bust, though was the stupid Corrina/Leopard/Anton's parentage storyline. I think I just disliked the actress who played Corrina; she always spit all over the place when she talked. Was this late McT or early Broderick? Whoo, boy, Anton. Talk about bad acting. My wife always said, "I just wish he'd stand there and look pretty."

Eric, you know what I hated about waste-of-space Del? That they never addressed what happened in btw. the time Winsor Harmon-Del left with SMG-Kendall and the time AM-Kendall stepped back into town. That could've been good.

All in all, Broderick was definitely the last Golden Era of AMC.

[R Sinclair]

McTavish created the whole Wildwind/Corvina/Leopard/Anton story.

Actually, Liza never hosted TCE. Adam used a dummy corporation to buy WRCW and canceled TCE which put Tad out of a job. When Liza was looking to create a new show, Ryan submitted a video tape Scott made of Hayley at Amanda's slumber party -- Wave was born. After being syndicated, ABC picked up the show and that's when Hayley moved to California.

The GBS story an okay idea, but it was the moment they let Babe and Krystal in on the switch is what killed the story. Watching a beloved core character, Bianca, get scammed by two new slutty characters we had just met a couple months ago and weren't exactly in love with was an absolutely HORRIBLE idea. You don't get us to like two questionable new characters by having them do such a despicable thing to a character the audience as a whole watched be born and has watched grow up over the last twenty years. Somebody wasn't thinking clearly. Frons even admitted that the original idea was to have Babe in on it from the beginning -- which clearly would've sealed Babe's fate with this show.

[Jess]

I do not think that B&E were truthfully given much of a chance at AMC. You know everyone usually gives new headwriters a lot of room to "clean up" what was left by behind by the previous administration. They never received that liberty. The show was totally focused on a very few characters when they came on board. That changed and they deserve credit for that. They had some good stories. I think Jesse/Angie are a great example. I think B&E write romance better than any current writers with the possible exception of Kay Alden, they just do. They wrote Tess and Nash as consultant when they were at OLTL for example. I did not like the vampires on PC, but my goodness, the two lead couples were great, and that was B&E. I personally would love to see them at another show. I personally hope they go back to DOOL because I sincerely believe that show has a lot of potential and could benefit from their help.

On OLTL, I totally agree about the story of the Tess reveal being told in a gratuitous fashion. If you tell a story like that, it should be done with sensitivity. I agree with those who say that soaps should not be PSAs, but I do think when they tell stories that effect people's lives, they should be told in a fashion that is sensitive to that. It was almost rushed. I think OLTL was scared of that story once they got into it.

[RobynIsHere]

Why? People on Days fly from Paris to Salem in the same episode.

[Sindacco]

So? It's still impossible.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah with maybe a mini almost comeback when Agnes returned.

I LOVED Wildwind/Budapest. The wife in the attic carted out on Natalie and Dimitri's wedding day, Edmund's true parentage, that damn letter fragment being in the wildwind fireplace for MONTHS it seemed that proved it, the location shot in Budapest, Erica trapped in that crypt lol, Helga falling off the roof, loved it loved it loved it. I had completely forgotten the Corrina/Leopard mess--i think that was kinda an attempt to do a followup story that flopped. The irony is Anton was later reteamed with Sarah Michelle G--he played Dracula in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! lol

Yeah I'm shocked nuDel stayed on the show as long as he did--they NEVER addressed his past, I think mentioned his relationship with Kendall once, it seemed like from the start they made no pretense he was sticking around

Jess exactly--there are topics that are touchy and have to be addressed well. I dunno even the scenes we got like having to hear and see bits of the video tape that was filmed of Jess being sexually assaulted *ICK*--that's when it starts seeming they're just doing it to be sensationalistic

[David V]

McTavish is sensationalistic and formulaic as a writer, everywhere she goes she exhausted her usual plot devices. Sometimes the stories verge on being misogynistic, too.

[Vee]

Oh, yes, Gabrielle most certainly was killed off. Gabrielle was murdered by the Music Box Killer on New Year's Eve 2004. Her body was found next to the ladies' room toilet. Fans have not forgiven the show for this, and they shouldn't.

While Malone did some good things when he came back, and I liked some of his little flourishes, virtually all of it was drenched in campy excess, and the ultimate sin: Pretention without content. You can be as quasi-poetic as you want to as long as you back your artistry with real meat and character work. That's what Malone did in the '90s, but not last time. Maybe it was because he had the wrong EP or less Josh Griffith, but he seemed to want to do the same wacky stuff, like sloganeering with couples who could be distilled to catchphrase lines (Joey and Flash as "the priest and the punk," a line said over and over onscreen), or flirting with big social ideas and stories but then reducing them to base elements, a few screamed emotional scenes, and no real payoff or exploration. The vets were totally marginalized. It was like watching Malone's amazing original run on coke, and it was sad for me. I felt the Santis story did not work, full stop, because it was not an ABC mandate. This story was created to use Malone's favorite hero of the streets, Antonio Vega, who the audience despised at the time, as the central character, who was to discover that he was in fact a druglord's scion. That was what everything hinged on: Antonio and friends, with lots of Gothic trappings, Antonio and Lisa Lo Cicero roughing up a long succession of dayplayers from "the Santi crime family," and Tico spitting out pseudo-Tennesse Williams lines at Jessica ("joo are like a vild burd ah have caught!") that somehow led her to marry him despite the fact that she seemed to barely even like him. How could that story possibly do anything but fail? I liked Lisa Lo Cicero on The City too, but that character (Sonia) had no chance.

Higley was far worse, however, because while Malone merely was outrageous and ADD, Higley was lazy and posturing, saying that her loathsome, disgusting stories had real depth and meaning, when really they were played as sleazy as possible, with - as her own writing team has since admitted - no real interest in exploring the huge human ramifications.