OLTL: Michael Malone question

[Sylph]

What tenure is regarded as his worst:

1. 1991–1994 (this one is not for sure)
2. 1995–1996
3. March 23, 2004 – November 24, 2004?

And why is he so loathed and reviled? What were those awful stories he penned?

And has anyone seen his Another World? What was that like?

[LeClerc]

I don't remember alot of what was going on when he wrote for AW but I do remember one story (probably the biggest story he did) that was really good classic Malone stuff: Toni Burrel's rape and Nick Hudson going on trial for it. This story often gets dismissed because it was obvious who the real rapist was, but people who say that miss the point entirely: the story wasn't about who the real rapist was. It was about a town, families, and relationships divided as everyone took sides.

[leevo64]

Malone's final stint on OLTL was most definitely his worst. The show was a muddled, pretentious mess and relied heavily on the recycling of old stories, bland new characters and consistent rewrites of history.

[Sylph]

Of course it was. He's a very good novelist and wrote a story to reveal character, not to bomb his viewers with idiotic stunts just to improve the ratings.

Why was he fired?

I'm surprised not by the fact that he is hated (judging from this and other boards), but by the amount of hate he receives... What on Earth did he write to p!ss the fans so much?

[Sylph]

I don't know what that means. I do, but the point was that I get the impression he is loathed as much as James E. Reilly. And I don't understand why.

Was that mess his fault or were the execs forcing him to write it?

[Toups]

There was a MM thread a few months ago that discussed some of his work: http://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/index.p...5&hl=Malone

[leevo64]

Well, here's what he would say in a nutshell: "You're going to see Viki, Dorian, and the Lords and Buchanans in a sweeping story involving love, family and intrigue!" and here's what would happen: Viki would get two days of airtime every two weeks while the Santi family took over Llanview. The stories moved slowly, had no climaxes, he killed off popular characters to try and elicit the same response he had when he killed off Megan and Luna, and turned every character into a stereotype. Antonio came from the "poor side of town" but Jessica was a "rich girl." When, in the five years prior to that, had class ever been in an issue between the Vegas and Buchanans? They got along fine. Another Malonian moment: Dorian returns to town MARRIED to the man that tried to rape her daughter and who she thought she killed.

I think the mess was his fault. Had Gary Tomlin still been at the helm I would say that it was partly him due to his hands-on approach, but Frank Valentini doesn't seem to have an influence on the writing since the tone of the show has been so different from writer to writer since he got on.

[Jess]

Michael Malone and Josh Griffith both were writing OLTL in 2003 and much of 2004. JG quit and rumors have it that it was because of network interference.

It seems like JG is doing pretty well at Young and the Restless right now. Malone was very good in his first term at OLTL. He is an excellent novelist. Dena is even doing about half-way decent at Days. Perhaps OLTL's problems aren't the writers.

I think Malone started getting beat up because of the Santi story and because of OLTL's over-emphasize on newbies. I think he did a pretty decent job for much of his second tenure. I hated Jessica and Antonio, too much emphasis on McBain, all the newbies and the Santi story in general. I don't blame Malone for any of those disasters though. OLTL continues to make the same mistakes so the problem is beyond a writer. I think Michael Malone is excellent and I think he would be a great addition to a non-ABC soap.

[LoyaltoAMC]

I'm probably in the minority here, but I wasn't a huge fan of his first go-around at OLTL. I know he tried to take the show back to Agnes's roots of various social classes interacting, but I found his writing pretentious. I was a huge fan of many of the Paul Rauch/Peggy O'Shea/S. Michael Schnessel years until Rauch took the show to new levels of camp. Malone did a total 180, and I don't think it served the show well. The 90s, when Malone first wrote for the show, were not among OLTL's highest-rated years. Not that quality always equals ratings, of course, but again, I see those years as more pretentious than true quality writing. As for his second time with the show, without a strong EP like Linda Gottlieb during his first stint, he was horrible. I never saw his AW years to comment.

[Vee]

As much as I adored his original run and respect so much of what he did and can do, Michael Malone has to take a fair share of the blame for his last tenure on the show. Yes, much of what he wanted to do was hamstrung. That didn't mean what he did put onscreen had to be so often either ineptly written, poorly structured and plotted, or downright bad.

For every Kevin and the Ace story you had several more Jessica/Antonio-style disasters. Everything about his use of Mitch was horrible. The Todd recast worked but the story was so unbelievably cartoonish. And from what I'm told, his AW was a disaster as well. The Toni Burrell rape story sounds fine on paper but he apparently did very little with it. Like the way he foolishly handled the gay marriage and war protest issues on OLTL in 2003 and 2004, everything was distilled to soundbites and buzzwords, not characters and personalities. Toni enters, gets raped, people speechify. Marcie enters, protests, gets lynched, people sing.

[leevo64]

Not to denounce his acclaimed first stint on OLTL, but if you look on YouTube, you can see that while some of his stuff is superlative, like the rape and the Viki killed Victor story, some of his stuff is absolutely pretentious, such as the Billy Douglas story.

As for his second stint, he tried reallly hard to replicate what he did the first time. Jen became the new Marty, and Todd was put in yet another rape trial. Silly stuff.

[Sylph]

Well, after all these posts, let's just say certain things are clearer. He seems obsessed with rape, reinstating the class divisions, homosexuality and newbies.

No one likes him, yet I always had an impression he was a great writer. And I think he still is, only he needs someone by his side to steer the wheel in the right direction.

[mr. sweet]

IMO his first tenure on OLTL was great (Marty's gang rape, Megan dying of Lupus, etc.). When he returned to OLTL, I loved his first year but after that, the show started going downhill. I have no idea what happened.

I didn't know he's the one who wrote Toni's rape...but that was a really good storyline.

[Jess]

You know, I like him and also think his first year of his second tenure at OLTL was good. It's hard to judge ability on OLTL because the show has been such as mess for five years. It has totally lacked any leadership. At one point with Malone, however, it appeared that he was putting crap on the air as a sign of protest. It was that bad toward the end.

[Sylph]

Those last two sentences make perfect sense. There's an interview with him online where he says he would come back to daytime, but only if he were allowed to work with the right team. I'll try to find that one and post it here.