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

[cct]

QUOI??!!

You cannot be serious.

[Vee]

If what's Wheeler's doing is the only thing keeping it alive, why is GL still overbudget? All the permits and licenses for shooting? Gas fees? Leasing property and houses? It's overbudget.

And sadly, in talking to most GL fans, I think they'd sooner see it cancelled than like this.

Exactly. Thank you for putting it so concisely, as compared to what I tried to say on page 2.

[Contessa Donatella]

That is certainly something that some fans think & feel & I respect that, but there are many other fans who do not think that. I am one of them. I watch it, I TiVo it, I transfer it to my computer & edit & keep some of it. If others do not, that's not a problem to me.

Frankly, the fans who think the show would be better off canceled will never see the GL they want to see. It's gone & it won't return. It exists as do many other shows in classic soaps as they can be found either in rebroadcast or in watching old tapes. But, surely, that is a known.

[Contessa Donatella]

At this point in time traditional soap opera fans - no matter what their age - have a well-deserved mistrust of TPTBs & what they will deliver compared to what they promise. That's not entirely unlike primetime traditional shows & their fans, these days. Ever since the power shifted to the suits (above the studio level) and away from the creative types (when HWs drove creative vision & good strong EPs implemented their vision, primarily) soaps have moved more & more intro trouble. What soaps do best is character-driven story. And, when it's done, and done well, it's never something you get tired of. But, gee, how long has it been since we've seen pure character-driven storylines on a show? It's been a long time. What we have more recently had is degrees of more or less character-driven and of event-driven.

[Contessa Donatella]

In general our views of the GL on the air now are so different that they could literally be different shows.

I don't agree with you, specifically, on any of the 3 points I quoted here, but even if I did, the idea that what you're describing is new to soapdom seems utterly unreal to me - much less describing realistic firsts! Too many other soaps out there suffering from sick soap syndrome & many of them began suffering from it fairly long before GL.

However, I will say that GL in its past had many waves of new execs coming in with new mandates from above where then characters & stories & ongoing histories were kicked into out of space where some came back down different & some were gone.

Of course, you do have a point about logical narrative vis a vis the clone, the painting through time, the earthquake & the flashflood, Lorelai, etc. Not even mentioning the plane crash boink to provide a child to save Lizzie. Although, it's true, that that last one is a soap staple - just one that is way overdone.

[Vee]

Those problems are not new to soaps, but generally they come about due to incompetence; foolish production teams would attempt to do certain things, but instead lose control of any semblance of coherence or narrative or structure. What is new is GL's stated, deliberate rejection of anything remotely resembling continuity, history, coherent narrative, and consistent characterization. They not only have those problems, they seem to embrace them by claiming it's the wave of the future. At least the last dead P&G soap, Another World, went out with a fraction of dignity. They would never have resorted to this.

It's not that they're new problems, it's that they're still unacceptable no matter what the show or who's involved.

There's a lot of GL on old videotapes or on Youtube, as you mentioned. From a lot of different eras. And a lot of those eras are good, and they grab people, people might not have ever cared about GL before. The characters, the history grab people, the same as it would when someone new watches any soap opera. But you can't ask those people who either are just discovering it, or have invested decades into GL, to just accept this show as it currently is when it's not even a shadow of those good years, not even a mockery; it's simply something completely alien. To tell fans young and old who enjoy GL's best years, be they in the '70s, '80s or even '90s, to turn your back on all of that and tell them that they're wasting their time and might as well not watch it if they can't get onboard with the current, unwatchable program, is to drive GL's ratings down even further. What is it now? 1.5? 1.8? When only that fraction of viewership is left supporting what the program has become, and the rest of the concerned fans are left in the cold, you have to ask which is the majority, and who exactly is the problem here. Although personally, when it comes down to freezing actors changing in the car and holding the crew equipment, I think that's enough of a problem in and of itself. It's like Ed Wood Does Soaps. "Alan Spaulding: Your motivation is...you've got to get through that door!"

[Soapsuds]

Stands up and gives RVD a standing ovation!!

[Contessa Donatella]

And, the first year her budget had already been spent by her predecessor, so she began at a minus point, in a world of budgets shrinking constantly.

I completely agree. Wheeler has reason to be proud of herself & the genre & fans to be proud of her.

And, she was told by Bloom, among other things, that she had to do something about having so few sets but with no more space or more money being made available to them, actually as was the usual, less money.

Apparently Bloom's mandate also involved that so many of the sets were dark. And, it's true in retrospect, even though they had already innovated so they no longer had to pay for construction crew shifts working 24 hours a day, breaking down, shipping off to New Jersey storage, unloading from New Jersey storage, erecting, on & on endlessly, never stopping ... that it was dark & so somewhat depressing just from the point of light, space, claustrophobia, etc.

And, except for the $$ legacy of Conboy, she walked knowingly & willingly into it.

I honestly can't imagine that Y&R would have tried. I mean this is a soap that can't deal with going without fresh flowers, working fireplaces, etc.

And, surely people know that it's not as if GL had the possibility of getting any HWs who would do better! Many of the excellent HWs that might have done it for the love of it and the meager paycheck had already sworn off returning to daytime, working for P&G or working for MADD (which applied previously). GL couldn't afford any HWs with prior experience that would be really good for them & that's why going with a writing team promoted from within was their best possibility. And, some good stuff has come out of them & continues to come out of them. Right now I count their writing better than writing has been in the past few years at AMC, B&B, DAYS, GH and ATWT since Wheeler's mentor Goutman has gone off in some unusual direction and since the last great storyline on ATWT was an umbrella storyline that was written around 2 swapped babies.

[AddictedToSoaps]

I second that!

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, if you ask me, the incompetence has come from above, as I said. And, I don't agree that GL has stated what you describe. And, that's certainly not what I see on the screen every day.

But, as to AW fans, heavens, many left before the end. Beginning with the horrific things that JFP and then Charlotte Savitz did to it, their were waves of long-time fans leaving, even as some new fans came along & some fans from before dropped back in, confused to see some of the utter crap.

Other than that, as to AW, I can only mention Passanante & Laiman & Lumina. That was worse than all of GL from Jan. 2007 through spring 2008.

Even for fans like me who were there every day till the bittersweet end, as Goutman was returning some dignity to the show, there were plenty of times without dignity. I could add JFP and Maggie de Priest & the incredibly misogynist serial killer storyline which JFP began using to cut down on overall cast numbers!

I was responding specifically to quotes about 'first evers', which they ain't. But, as to what is & isn't acceptable, apparently most of the soaps should have already been cancelled if we go by that. Now, people have a right to feel that way. But, there are other ways to look at it. One is not to look at today's soaps as if they were or needed to be yesterday's soaps. Not everything is or can remain timeless as if it existed in a vacuum.

I don't know anyone who is saying these things. And, this isn't about some majority rule issue, never has been. Do you think the majority of fans at the time would've agreed with running off Jane Eliot & Doug Marland & leaving that story 1/3 done?!! Do you think the majority of fans at the time would've agree with doing away with Morgan & Kelly?

And, GL is one of those soaps that suffers in the ratings because the ratings are designed to gather numbers & extrapolate from them for shows that are on in all affiliates during the same time period. But, it's not just about ratings. All ratings really do is set the rate card $$ for advertisers, so it's about money. The other aspect of the money equation is how much it costs to produce the show. You need both numbers to know whether a show gets to stay on the air.

[EastMA2]

I make it a point to email the actors every so often to let them know that the audience is aware that they are only doing what they are ordered to do and to give them credit for hanging in there. Can you imagine how embarassed these actors must have been when they shot these last few courtroom episodes where there is a bi-level courtroom? Brad Cole had to look UP a level to the jury. You could practically read his mind at how ridiculous it was. Does Wheeler think that is reinventing the genre and will grab viewers?? It was rather embarassing to even watch.

[Contessa Donatella]

This was the first of the interior sets that hasn't worked. And one of the days they really had some totally bad camera work, movement left & right & close & backing up, on Cassie on the bottom level, back in the more unofficial area, near the exit/entrance. They've been getting better all the time, since the launch, on this, on that, and this went back to uh-oh. Of course, it makes sense that if the set didn't work that it would cause other problems, too. However, I heard some of the most realistic simple dialogue out of a judge's mouth on a soap - even though one scene would've really realistically been held only in chambers.

I will say, though, that the show made me tear up & cry a little & when a show makes you do that, they are fulfilling their purpose, regardless of technical oops & sets that won't work. I can't imagine any other standing set they could've used though - maybe an interior in NJ?

But every time any soap changes something, it is stressful on everyone at the studio. Most shows have done away with breakdown writers & this stresses the remaining writers. Also, most shows have cut down rehearsal/s from where they were in the early 90s to basically none now, in steps & stages. In the studio, actors run lines in their dressing rooms. In the field, on location there never have been any dressing rooms or other rooms for any such purpose, so, sure, they run lines in the cars. Meanwhile I feel sure that Wheeler is the first EP in the modern era of soaps to give up her office to a set.

I mean, nothing, overall, is more stressful to people who work at the studio than the constant & continual possibility that they may be losing their jobs because of more cast cuts or being canceled. And, for every show that has been canceled, most of those jobs are not replaced. Most of the veteran actors aren't going to land in new jobs where we can watch them there.

[Vee]

Other than that, as to AW, I can only mention Passanante & Laiman & Lumina. That was worse than all of GL from Jan. 2007 through spring 2008.

I disagree. It was bad, but not quite as bad as Olivia pining for Jeffrey to the strains of unlicensed muzak, or any number of other stories that have sprung up on GL in the last several years.

That's true as a simple principle, but I think you have to admit that among fandom, those who think GL as it is now is "tomorrow's soap" are few and far between. If GL's ratings didn't speak for themselves (which you claim they don't), the suicide watch and/or ghost town atmosphere that embodies most GL boards certainly does. Almost no one is out there. Almost no one can stomach it. Almost no one wants to watch it. How does being the lowest rated soap on the air indicate "the wave of the future?" And it's awfully nice of Ellen Wheeler to offer up her office, but in reality, that office looks ridiculous on-camera and using the studio offices for everything makes it all look incredibly cheap, not to mention out of place in the universe the show claimed to want to create. Almost nothing looks right, nothing at all. People think it looks tacky and cheap. They hate the music. They hate the camerawork. They hate almost all the characters thanks to the writing. There's almost no one left to care about and no real story. So what does GL or its fans have left? Nobody owes Ellen Wheeler goodwill from her old job while she wrecks her new one. For as many puff pieces as she gets printed, the facts are on the screen, and for a lot of us, there's absolutely nothing there to watch. Just a random collection of scenes, where if you listen only to dialogue and ignore any context or history, the show almost half-works, but not really, not if you watch more than a week, because by then it's on to a new story. EW was promoted too quickly for a job she couldn't do (and her mentor isn't doing great anymore either).

And even if you could dismiss that as just the Internet, you've been around long enough to know that there are certain inalienable touchstones for daytime drama, including domestic drama, family, and history. That's what they're all built on, especially GL. How can you dismiss the way GL has eaten through its core families, core characters, and burned away so much of its history, continuity, and storytelling and call it "tomorrow's soap?"

[Dan]

Honestly, it pains me to say this because it means defending some horrible stories, but I must. Those stories were horrible, but at least they were stories with some semblance of a beginning, middle, and end, with a dramatic structure to tie those points together.

The GL of today provides such a loose continuity that characters change motives and personalities every two weeks and the turnover between plot points is so spastic that it's hard to keep up. It's appears almost as if story ideas are pitched by aiming at a dartboard on each day's taping.

Part of that, I concede, is part of the budget problems. Other characters can't be brought on to serve the story's demands so established characters must change to do so (of course, if the stories were character-driven, we wouldn't have this problem).

Personally, the ONLY way that this experiment will succeed is if the show becomes again ensconced in family life. You can't produce a budget on a shoestring and then write stories with characters so outside the realm of reality the audience cannot relate to. That means ditching Cyrus, Grady, Daisy, Jeffrey. I don't think that even the Spauldings have any room in this format because how can we believe that such a mega-corporation would set up in such a small town and have press releases outside in a field? Not to mention that the "take over Spaulding" story has become so convuluted that it's simply not worth following.

So now that we have dropped those characters, it's time to focus on the Bauers, the Lewises, and the Coopers and the internal and external relationships among them. Use up some freed money to build or shoot houses for all the families and set the stories there. Do we really need a freakin' nail salon? A field? A park bench?? A half-finished cruddy looking house?

But then, all that would take someone with a vested interest in soap opera, not a half-assed reality show.

[Dan]

I will agree with this. However, that is because the entire hallmark of daytime since its very inception has been relative stability. Things, until the last decade or two, built slowly compared with most other mediums. Actors built their roles over a period of a few years. Some even grew up on the show. Although there were changes in focus among all soaps (GL changed many times from a spiritual soap set in Five Points to two different locales and several different core families), they were not overnight. Now, in the interest of trying to stay alive before the death knell, all soaps have sped up their attempts to shift focus. I mean, how many "Plans to save DAYS" covers has SOD printed? Of course, by doing so, they never give anything a chance to catch on, nor do they realize that fans want at least a bit of that stability and consistency back. The only thing IMO that will save soaps is longterm CONSISTENTLY well-written story telling. A bare minimum of six months. In fact, the only regimes that receive that kind of chance are the ones that are consistently bad (McTavish, Reilly, Highley, Kreizman). So there's really no wonder that soaps are hemorraging viewers.