ALL: Are you a Nixon or a Bell??

[SteveFrame]

I have not see that theory about nostalgia killing us on this board. It must be in one of the daily or monthly discussion threads which I don't go into at all anymore. I gave up discussing the daily activities of soaps awhile back - actually before I gave up watching the current soaps. You cannot discuss any of the 8 soaps rationally and objectively anymore. There are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many fan bases for every show that jump on your if you ever suggest that Kendall or Jason or whoever is getting too much focus or they may have done something wrong. So I just avoid them like I would the plague.

Anyway this new fangled idea of nostalgia is killing soaps is a modern thing. I have seen it on a few other boards. The new age fans get tired of the old characters and feel that everything needs to be new. There is a movement in religion very much the same way these days. They want to delete a lot of the old standard songs like Amazing Grace as they feel they have served their purpose and lets get rid of them.

It is all this new age movement.

But as to the nostalgia thing soaps are a generational thing. Just like there is generational viewing where it is handed down from viewer to viewer as well as new viewers coming in - that is the new type of viewing Eric and I were referring too where viewers are influenced by their friends to start watching. You have to have both to make a show successful.

You have got to have those viewers who grow up watching - who learned to watch with their parents or grandparents - but you have got to have those viewers that get excited and come in too as with stories, etc.

If you get rid of the characters that the older viewers are familiar with you lose them as viewers but with a soap you also lose a lot of the history of the show and completely cut out a generation of viewers along with a generation of the show.

It is not necessarily nostalgia that is killing shows. For me I don't necessarily want the shows to go back to being all about the characters they once were, but I do want them to become traditional soaps again. And the last time they were like that on a full time basis was the late 1970's and early 1980's. That is when we had the generations represented on the majority of shows. There was balance. There was still good storytelling that featured a big chunk of the cast. Yes the emphasis had started to be toward the young. But even Gloria Monty who started the youth craze knew to give charactes like Leslie, Monica, Rick and Alan stories along with Luke and Laura. She really did wrong by Steve, Audrey and others, but she did use Edward and other older characters alot. So she didn't completely ignore the older generation. They weren't just after thoughts as they are today. They were used in scenes with characters they should be used with and such.

Soaps were also still respectable. No I don't mean that every actor wanted to do them, but at least they were being ridiculed for having characters being possessed or being cloned or constantly dying and returning from the dead. Those things have done more to kill soaps than anything else.

Soaps then you could praise on a regular basis unlike today when yes soaps can still be good, but they only come in spurts. They are for very short periods of time.

Those are the things I want back and not just certain characters or couples.

[All My Shadows]

I don't think that nostalgia is killing soaps, but damn, some people are just pathetic and completely illogical with what they want to see on the shows today. The type of poster I hate is the one who goes "I hate all of the younger characters, I love all of the older characters, they should be the ones in the frontburner storylines...all of the younger characters should be killed off! And I'm only 23 years old!!!!" The concept of balance and what these shows are truly about completely goes over the idiot's head in their quest to be liked by older soap fans.

Personally, I love older characters, but I also love younger characters. It's underrated how important younger characters are on these shows. Yes, yes, the older ones have decades of history, but what about insuring decades of a show's future? In whose hands will that lie? Some characters and performers won't be around forever, none of them will. You have to plan your show's future to insure that it won't be lost in generic soap hell (too late for some shows, right?).

It's so absurd and, dare I say it, so [!@#$%^&*] stupid to want no younger characters and all older characters. And then it's even worse if you say that you want the show to be the way it used to be. From day one, AMC paid very close attention to its younger characters, they drove much of the story. So tell me why these so-called AMC devotees believe that the path to the show's greatness consists of having 88-year-old James Mitchell in a hot and heavy love triangle? Did I miss the paragraph in the show's summary about octogenarians having wild sex? Imagine Kate Martin in a hot and heavy love triangle in the 70s, when she was younger than what James Mitchell and Eileen Herlie are now. I'm not saying that characters need to be done away with, I'm just saying that after certain amounts of time, it's actually quite silly to have characters in their 60s, 70s, and 80s doing the exact same things that they were doing..........back in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

That said, though, one of my biggest pet peeves is how some shows are so disconnected from their past. I'm not in favor of each episode being an hour-long flashback, but I want to at least feel like I'm watching the same show that was on the air 30, 40, or 50 years ago. And that can be achieved without being old-fashioned and overly nostalgic, you know. People are interested in stories of human emotion that don't involve with the supernatural, science fiction, and action and adventure. Name one soap on the air today that debut with those elements already in place. When DAYS premiered, who would have thought that a soap about a country doctor and his family would one day tell the story of a psychologist possessed by the devil? And who would have thought that the grand little society town of Pine Valley would some day include corporations out the ass, one on every freaking street.

To me, respecting a show's history isn't something that is accomplished only by storyline parallels and frequent clunky dialogue that mentions old characters ("OMG, Becky, you're cheating on Jack with his step-father's step-father? That's just like what Peggy did in this very same town in the summer of 1972!!!!!"). To me, respecting a show's history is keeping the history relevant and in tact by having the bloodlines of yesteryear's characters still running today. Jennifer's death on ATWT in 2006...there was heavy talk about her grandmother's young death as well, and it made sense. Barbara was there and she knew her mother, Kim was there and she knew her sister. You didn't have so-and-so talking about a character than he or she didn't know anything about. I don't see how that satisfies people, honestly...it's so silly when the characters come off as fans of the show they're on.

Eh, it's a long-winded post, I'm sure, and I guess some people wouldn't like it, but it's stuff I've been thinking about in regards to soaps the last few days.

[SteveFrame]

For the first 10 years of AMC more than any other - and those 10 years are the years Agnes Nixon was the most involved with the writing. She turned more of the duties over to Washam in 1980 there abouts.

But anyway, Nixon set up AMC with a 3 tier branch of love stories - triangles.

Charles/Pheobe/Mona

Nick/Anne/Paul

Tara/Phil/Erica

They represented the 3 generations and each of those 3 stories branched off to merge with one another and influence the others.

Throw in there other stories across those generations too:

Joe & Ruth finding love together.

Jeff & Mary's tragic love story.

Linc & Kitty that cross sectioned with the Nick story and even at one point Linc's story touched the Phil/Tara/Erica story.

You have got to have the generations represented and you have to have them touching one another.

No man is an island is an old statement and that should hold true for soaps esp. No character should ever be an island. Their story needs to influence others. Not every story being umbrella but they need to connect.

AMC has not had that in a lonnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggg time.

And AMC in particular did for a long time not ignore it's older characters in regards to love. Phoebe found love with Langley well into her 60's. They don't have to be the big focus, but it can happen from time to time.

Even ATWT let good old Pa Hughes find love late in life. Pa Hughes served his purpose always to be used as a support for his family. He was there when he needed to be. He never was front burner. But he represented a very important part of ATWT esp. to his grandson Tom.

Today's ATWT doesn't even use Nancy the way she should be. Instead of using her in scenes she should be in they use her to prop Katie. It makes no sense at all.

[EricMontreal22]

Lotsa good stuff here I wanna address--but in All Her CHildren (yes again) Agnes mentions that the Mona/Charles/Pheobe story was meant to be VERY backburner--neither she nor the network felt the desired demo would have much interest in it and it would be played more in teh background. SHe was shocked when she started doing her college lectures, and checking mail, and many of the youngest fans were most interested in that storyline!

But I agree with your post. I guess we should be thankful AMC is allowing a woman in her 60s and a man in his 70s to have a frontburner story--but Adam and Erica are hardly (characters or actors) the average older person...

[SteveFrame]

No they are not considering Erica Kane is only 45 years old.

[cct]

Personally, I don't care if it's young or old, vet or newbie, if it's a good story, play it and it will succeed. I think all the ranting about this is a smoke screen for what's ailing...the stories are weak, played out, or ridiculous. Erica the Showgirl? Weak, I don't care if it featured a vet. Baby Switch? Strong story even though it featured newbies in Babe and KWAK, and relative newbies, albeit legacy characters in Jamie, JR, and to an extent, Bianca.

And every soap has seen its share of flops even in the past (Cobra, anyone?), but I agree that they've become more consistently poor in the last ten years chasing...well, I don't know what they're chasing anymore. Can't be youth.

[All My Shadows]

See, I agree with you. Mona, Phoebe, and Charles were in their 60s and 70s throughout the run of that triangle, but were they *the* frontburner item throughout all of that? That's the thing. So many people want the older characters to be the focus, completely ignoring that most soaps were at their best when they told stories about everybody. These people want to rebel against youth focus so much that they hop from one extreme to another, they want nothing but vets and that's it. I remember when the ABC promos for the entire network came out, someone said (very confidently, I'm sure) that AMC should have been recognized, I think, by Erica, Adam, Tad, Jesse, and Angie. Fine, I love all of them and they're all actually somewhat major characters right now. But how does that accurately represent the whole show, what AMC is supposed to be? How does that represent any of the shows themes and how does that separate it from any of the other soaps? Well, put them all in the promo because they're vets, blah blah blah. Vets don't make the whole show. The key to balance is balancing the entire cast. Putting Opal on more times per week is not adding balance to AMC. It has to go much, much further than that, I think.

[SteveFrame]

I agree with you.

One of the biggest problems that I saw this year with AMC when I tuned back in was that unlike in the past even when the vets were featured so much during Angie & Jesse's wedding and stuff - the show was still disconnected.

It was still this story here and this story there and nothing influenced the others much. Back when Nixon did those stories I was talking about they weren't big umbrella stories but when you were watching the Phil/Tara stuff what they did directly affected Ruth & Joe while at the same Joe was caught up in Paul's story in many ways. What Mona/Charles/Phoebe did influenced what happened with Erica, Paul, Nick, Anne and even Lincoln.

No one was an island.

But these days you have this section of Pine Valley isolated over here. And then another section over here. And even though all these people are related in one way or another it just doesn't seem like it. Yes during Angie & Jesse's wedding Kendall and gang popped in here and there but it seemed so out of place - not as if they were part of it at all. Like you said it is just like throwing Opal in there just to say hey we are balanced. There was just no purpose.

I still go back to once again that in the 70's and even earlier - and I am talking about even when the shows were an hour long in the late 70's smaller writing staffs could producer tighter blocked and laid out shows with less people than the larger writing staffs can do today. You would think that more people to do certain jobs who have less responsibilities could do it better. But more hands have ruined the pot.

[EricMontreal22]

Pratt is getting better at that than B&E__we have characters dicussing their friends' probs that don't directly influence them, etc--we haven't had much of that for a long time. But you're right that disconnect is a bit prob with current soaps. classic AMC had such a great sense of community.

[David_Vickers]

Definitely more of a Nixon fan. My 2 fave soaps of all-time are ONE LIFE and AMC, and I'm glad to say that AMC is really looking more like the soap I know and love, especially over the last month. Now I love DAYS quite a bit too, but GH, which I did love, I now just watch as a habit but it's been a major disappointment over the last 4 years and I am thinking about seriously quitting it after watching it for almsot 30 years (I'm 39 btw). Anyone got an ideas on which soap I could replace it with? I'm thinking about going to either Y&R (which I here is now a lot better) or ATWT (which I have watched on and off over the years and am more familiar with the characters on there).

[cct]

Hm. Too many cooks spoiling the broth. I can see that. It's like playing Telephone, something gets lost in translation as the line gets longer and longer. Ironically, eliminating the breakdown step hasn't alleviated this issue. Of course, I'm not sure any soap actually has a "vision" these days.

I will agree, though, that Pratt has captured more of the "coffee klatch" than has been on here in quite a while.

[Sedrick]

I come from a long line of soap watchers...I began watching as a little kid with my nanny, and my mother, aunts, cousins, and older sister (the early-mid 80's). In fact, during that time period my entire family, male and female, were watching all the primetime soaps religiously, with Friday nights being the biggest night of the week as our entire clan got together to watch DALLAS (the annual season finale episodes were like a holiday for us!).

Anyway, as far as daytime goes, my family was interesting in the fact that by the time I came along we were basically ABC people. As a kid, in my community GH and AMC were THE shows everyone was watching, the ones my college-age cousins scheduled classes around...my Aunt Brenda would come home for lunch everyday at noon and I'd watch AMC with her (until she became a Born-Again Christian and began to preach to me the "evils" of soaps)...However, as devoted as we were to ABC, everyone in my family was hooked on Y&R too except for me...even as a kid I was in love with RYAN'S HOPE!

I was always a Nixon myself...I know that my family members truly embraced her shows because they featured characters and situations that we could identify with and relate to...Nixon's greatest character IMO isn't Erica Kane, it's Pine Valley! Nixon truly did create a town that felt so real and community-like that drew people who lived in areas like that right into the drama. I think perhaps that is perhaps the current-day AMC's biggest problem is that it has lost the integrity of the spirit of Pine Valley itself.

In addition, as African-Americans, the Nixon shows, AMC in particular, presented positive portrayals of people of color in prominent storylines at a time when Blacks on TV were hard to find in either daytime or nighttime. There is an entire generation of African-Americans out here today who will always cherish the memories of the love story of Angie and Jesse...it holds a special place in our hearts. I posted here back when AMC announced the returns of Debbi Morgan and Darnell Williams of the intense reaction it caused among my family and friends, most of whom had given up on AMC a long time ago.

As for Y&R, as a kid I HATED it. It was to me very dark and moody, and so painfully slow-moving, especially considering the fact that I was so accustomed to the fast-pace and action-orientated drama of the ABC shows. I was engrossed though with the Jill/Jack/John story though back in the day because it was so clever and dramatic with Kay's photo puzzle...that is one of my favorite plots of all-time!

When I grew up and actually began to analyze and study the art of soap opera, I fell in love with Bell's style too, although I didn't become a faithful daily viewer of Y&R until towards the end of Bell's tenure before Kay Alden took over. I can now appreciate Bell and his style more as a mature adult.

[Ryan Chamberlain]

Nixon. Her writing style and her soaps in general have the top spot in my books. I love it when they can add humor to a soap opera.

[Paul Raven]

From SOD August 87

A Working Relationship - Bill and Lee Phillip Bell Have a Unique Partnership that Includes Their Family

"We don't write together per se. we talk together a lot," Bill Bell explained when asked to describe how he and wife Lee collabarate. "Lee is a pipeline and a source for good story material - especially when it comes to social issues - but we don't sit down and write out projected storylines together in a formal sense. We just sort of make it up as we go along. Lee is very pivotal to a lot of story and character ideas, but I am the thrust of the show. I do all the daily blocking for B&B, that is, I do the outlines for the scriptwriters. I block both shows in the long term sense. And if you have to sort of streamline an operation if you're going to be doing the amount of work that we're doing. But there are really no shortcuts in terms of the thought process. You have to work on something until it feels right. At least, I do, I go on my instincts.

A storyline is a process of trial and error. I've always said to everyone that I work with that there is no such thing as a bad idea, because any idea can be a catalyst to a better idea,it may open the door to something else. So,there aren't that many disagreements in that sense of tension. Tension stifles people and that is the last thing you want when youre working as a group trying to create something.

Lee and I tend to mesh. Lee plugs into my psyche and we have created some very memorable story together. we read each other well. and I think that we understand that,a key to a partnership is that,ultimately,one person must prevail. It's never the kind of thing where we are at opposite ends of the spectrum and then I prevail. It's usually that i know I am going to be developing a story and i know what feels comfortable and what doesn't. If it doesn't feel comfortable to me, I don't do it. I can't do it. I would say that I think there should be a separation of responsibility. If you want to keep compatibility. If you're both working on the same words and on the same scene on the same scripts,sooner or later, you will have differences of opinion. You're bound to. In a working relationship, those differences co-exist.

One exciting aspect of working on a new show - and even Y&R - is that my whole family is there. The kids are learning so much about the business (Lauralee plays Cricket on Y&R, Bradley is on B&B's writing team while Bill Jr. is involved in production).

Frankly,that is one of the reasons that B&B exists. CBS had been after me for ten years to do another show and I felt I had my hands full with Y&R. but I wanted them to see the excitement, to see everything that goes into the making of a serial. So, we're all in this together. People ask me what we do to get away from it. the answer is nothing. we don't want to get away from it. we thrive on it."

[EricMontreal22]

I think I felt the same way about Bell. I was a weird, kinda snobby kid (go figure ) and was surprised when I became hooked on AMC, never thinking I'd love a soap (even tho iw as only 11). But even then in '91 I checked out other soaps--liked OLTL under Malone and Loving soon--but was turned off by how dark, moody, and slow it seemed. It wasn't until later that I grew to appreciate and even love aspects of Bell's style.

The point about Blacks, in particular and to a lesser extent other minorities like Jews etc--being more prevalent under Nixon is no small point. She introduced fairly minor Black characters while headwriting Guiding Light in the early 60s, and had to fight with P&G to have them on (according to the 50th Anniversary book). They were given a trial run and P&G was actually surprised that ratings *didn't* go down. LOL It's interesting to see how with each soap she did she made Black characters a more and more prominent part of the canvas--but even in the 70s it was still a bit of work to get them approved for major stories. (in All her Children she talks a bit about finally being allowed to write a major story for Frank and Nancy on AMC--this was in 75)