Ellen Wheeler hopes to save the daytime soap....

[JONNYSBRO]

Okay LOL I wonder what all of you thought of Ellen Wheeler when she was an actress not an executive producer. I think Wheeler was always an excellent actress. She was fantastic as Marley/Vickey as she originated the role. She was amazing as Cindy the AIDS victim on AMC and she was very good as Marley when she returned in 1998. I always thought Wheeler was a great actress. Now as an executive producer she has done so much wrong. First David Kriezman is the type of guy who should have stayed on the writing team but never been promoted to head writer. The new format and only love can save the world is just stupid. GL needs a new executive producer who can bring it back to the old soap it was. What did you think of Ellen Wheeler as the actress?

[Soapsuds]

EW is a hack. Trying to make GL like The Hills..please...I cant stand The Hills. I dont watch The Hills. So why would I watch The Hills 2: GL style?

[Sylph]

I hate the show, but I like the glossy trash shots and production design. Just like I watch the cr*p CSI: Miami only because of the aerial shots.

[Dan]

Amen! Ellen, if you really want to create a new daytime version of The Hills, go ahead. No one's stopping you. In fact, it might even be a good idea. But don't use our show to do it!!!

If you want to save the soap opera, completely stripping it of all characteristics of a soap opera isn't going to help. Because despite what you think, not that many demo darlings are going to find this show. And they haven't. Take a look at your latest demo Ellen: 607,000 viewers with a GL 0.9 rating. That isn't good! All this experimentation is doing is driving away established fans and it will take an act of God to get them back.

So if you want to helm this new show, fine. Cancel GL and replace it with this new show. You already have in spirit. Let's make it official. At least then, the reputation of my favorite show wouldn't be tainted by this abomination.

[ReddFoxx]

I don't think trying to completely change the genre is going to save it, in fact it will only help finish it off. The filming style on Guiding Light is awful, it doesn't even look like a soap opera.

[EastMA2]

After 4+ years of falling ratings while she has been the EP, I still don't think she gets that she totally destroyed GL and tried to fix something that didn't need fixing. The writing was the only thing she should try to improve.

She frustrates me so much because she seems delusional and won't step aside and admit that her ideas have killed GL.

[Dan]

That's the problem. She was also trying to "improve" the writing. What she should really do is step the hell out of the way and let a good writer improve the show. And no I don't mean her frat-boy love interest Davey Kreizman.

[dragonflies]

GL wouldn't need saved in the first place if it were for her and her hack writers

[JONNYSBRO]

GL was almost cancelled in 1996 before Paul Rauch came in and the ratings skyrocketed. The first two years of Rauch I loved. The show had never looked better and the production values were fabulous. Back then Rauch even had the money to take GL on location during the San Cristobal storyline. The problem is Rauch stayed too long at GL. He was there for 6 years. Then Conboy came in and was all style no substance. The show never looked better but the writing was atricious. Then they promoted Wheeler who had been directing/producing for P&G since 1999 when AW was cancelled. The show was okay when she took over but she has been plagued with such budget problems. This new format while it has improved was awful when it started and the writing was terrible. I heard Ellen Wheeler is a devout Mormon and a very religious woman. That is why her only love will save the world theme comes from. The big problem with EW getting fired is that Barbara Bloom loves her. Bloom is a big Ellen fan and Wheeler did win best drama at the emmys last year. Bloom has told her to make changes to the new format. It is looking better and it was Ellen's idea for the new writing teams. I think they wanted to make a change in the writing but Wheeler loves her David Kriezman. Kriezman has been head writer for four years at GL. The reason Wheeler keeps her job, is because Bloom loves her.

[Soapsuds]

The GL sets are so bad. I couldnt stomach the court sets today. They are just awful. Who the hell approved such awful sets? None of the sets are appealing anymore. The other day Beth was letting Alan in to some run down house of hers. It looked the roach motel from hell.

[Contessa Donatella]

"Ellen Wheeler is a believer through and through. If anyone can save the soap, she can. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to light a few more votive candles."

I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, there's no question in my mind that without Ellen Wheeler & the work she's done, especially given the shape she got it in, that GL would already be off the air.

Soaps need to be recreating themselves, once again, and in a way it's a hardship for the soap with the least amount of money to have to bear the burden, but it's also rather natural that it might fall to them. Given how chicken-[!@#$%^&*] so many in daytime are, though, it has been supremely brave of her to propose it & for P&G and CBS to both support the idea, as much as they do actually support. Their support is better than a lack of it, or opposition, but mostly the soaps are on their own!

Yes, I know, it may be shocking but I love GL. And, I love the new look & feel & theme and continue to find it refreshing to get outside & away from such formal sets. It's still a surprise to me, too, because the reason I have long preferred P&G soaps is that they reminded me most of the aspect of soaps that was like a teleplay, like the theatre, so I was uber-leery of the changes. It was only when they took me outside that I realized how stultifying it had become inside. Now seeing more & more soaps, especially CBS soaps as Sara Bibel blogged last week, I think it's great to see daytime begin to try some things that are fresh as well as that are from their beginnings & from their heydays.

[Contessa Donatella]

That's not what the article said. Instead the article talked about what's being changed & what soap opera staples EW is clinging to (their way of putting it, not EW's, or mine, just the article's).

[Contessa Donatella]

I was thinking back to when I began to watch soaps with my mother, in the late 60s, and I didn't know *what* a soap opera was, either, when I got on board. I just rapidly became hooked. And, I think that's probably true of many people who began watching soaps traditionally, with their mother, with their grandmother, with their babysitter, with their friend & a mother or whomever in that household.

People don't seem to begin watching shows that way anymore, specifically soaps!

Me, I'm still angry at Mary Alice Dwyer-Dobbin, at Paul Rauch, at Jon Conboy, at Ellen Weston, at Brown & Esensten since I consider the modern downfall of GL to have begun when a major California affiliate was allowed to drop the show, with the clone storyline and by trying to maintain 3 motifs simulataneously: Springfield, the mob and San Cristobal. (Or San Cristobel as I can never remember which was AW's spelling of it & which was GL's). And, then, of course, there's what Jill Farren Phelps did to the show, but that's another argument.

[detroitpiston]

Please Donna B continue! Let it out lol!

[MarkH]

"Ellen Wheeler is a believer through and through. If anyone can save the soap, she can. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to light a few more votive candles."

I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, there's no question in my mind that without Ellen Wheeler & the work she's done, especially given the shape she got it in, that GL would already be off the air.

Soaps need to be recreating themselves, once again, and in a way it's a hardship for the soap with the least amount of money to have to bear the burden, but it's also rather natural that it might fall to them. Given how chicken-[!@#$%^&*] so many in daytime are, though, it has been supremely brave of her to propose it & for P&G and CBS to both support the idea, as much as they do actually support. Their support is better than a lack of it, or opposition, but mostly the soaps are on their own!

Yes, I know, it may be shocking but I love GL. And, I love the new look & feel & theme and continue to find it refreshing to get outside & away from such formal sets. It's still a surprise to me, too, because the reason I have long preferred P&G soaps is that they reminded me most of the aspect of soaps that was like a teleplay, like the theatre, so I was uber-leery of the changes. It was only when they took me outside that I realized how stultifying it had become inside. Now seeing more & more soaps, especially CBS soaps as Sara Bibel blogged last week, I think it's great to see daytime begin to try some things that are fresh as well as that are from their beginnings & from their heydays.

See, I completely agree with the need to reinvent. I think the stylistic changes at GL may be one example of the kind of reinvention that is needed. I think possibly continuing to play with the shorter-lifetime soaps (maybe not telenovelas, but shows with defined 3 or 5 year end points) may also be something to do. Creating new "soaps" for new audiences.

The one thing I'm not sure of is whether we ought to be transforming the EXISTING soaps. I fear they carry too much baggage, and can NEVER be "cool" with new audiences.