Unfortunately, the button I have to negate your passive-aggressive middle-aged teen angst appears to be broken, Sylph.

 I couldn't care less.

No, your problem with the board is you care so very, very much.

No, your problem with the board is you care so very, very much.

Whatever.

I understand why some people don't like the current crop of stories, but why does that negate all the good he did? Even his most preposterous of plots have character development - 1968 was an important story to tell for Bo. Mendorra... okay, so it will go down as Carlivati's big mistake but it didn't DESTROY anything, it was just a crappy story.

And while everyone is ranting and raving about the hack job he's doing, has anyone actually been watching? Yesterday's episode was really good - the custody hearing was so sad, this new character Vanessa is beautiful and played by a good actress, and the Gigi/Rex/Brody/Shane stuff was suspenseful and scary. Things are getting really exciting and nobody's watching because they are all too busy whining about Mendorra.

AMEN.

I personally think the viewers are lazy these days. They want pay off and they want it now! IMO RC does not write stories that way. RC has a vision in which he uses multiple s/l's to show karma and create parallel's between them. If you look at the storylines playing out right now and actually pay attention despite not liking a certain character, actor/actress, or whatever you will see how all the s/l's are connecting with one another. Good storytelling takes time. Those who do not watch everyday or FF scenes are missing a lot and IMO they are the ones who are hating the show the most.

Edited September 26, 200817 yr by Gordon24

Thank God I turned off that feature long time ago! So I don't have to look at such quotes, cr*ppy art etc.

I didn't realize we could do that! Thank you sweet Jesus!

And a little teaser: something great is going to happen to this show.

Cancellation?

Edited September 27, 200817 yr by marceline

And a little teaser: something great is going to happen to this show.

RC is out the door? That's the only thing good that could happen to the show at this point

I'm back! I love the new spoilers and I can't wait to see what comes next. Off to watch today's show. It sounds fabulous. Yes I am shamelessly fickle. But I am entertained!

I don't believe half of the speculations out there. But, one speculator is claiming that one of the ABC soaps are about to get 'canceled' if the ratings don't improve. And, that everyone of their stunts in the past year hasn't worked like they wanted them to.

Sounds alot like OLTL to me. They've been pulling things out of their hats since RC came on and ratings have barely risen. Or risen and then dropped again.

It sucks. No matter how bad OLTL or the other two ABC soaps are getting. I don't want any of the three canceled.

Edited September 27, 200817 yr by weareclouds

I don't believe half of the speculations out there. But, one speculator is claiming that one of the ABC soaps are about to get 'canceled' if the ratings don't improve. And, that everyone of their stunts in the past year hasn't worked like they wanted them to.

Sounds alot like OLTL to me.

I think AMC is more likely. Their ratings are worse, and they've really tried far more "stunts". JMO.

Nah. I don't think so. There's been far more returns and 'stunt' storylines on OLTL this year than AMC. Plus, AMC just got a new writer. And, they haven't even given it time to improve yet.

Still. If either get canceled. I'll be pissed.

I think AMC is more likely. Their ratings are worse, and they've really tried far more "stunts". JMO.

Nope OLTL has done more stunts, AMC hasn't really done anything, they've been more about returns. AMC's ratings have gone up here and there, OLTL's have stayed stagnant or gone down

I think AMC is safe with Pratt there though

Unfortunately, the button I have to negate your passive-aggressive middle-aged teen angst appears to be broken, Sylph.

Literally laughed out loud!

RC is out the door? That's the only thing good that could happen to the show at this point

Oh, please. I bet you'd be praising him to the highest of soap heavens if he decided to bring Kendall over to Llanview. Todd could be raping Marty all over again. Who cares, as long as Holy Kendall and her diaper bag full of guns were skipping around town.

Edited September 27, 200817 yr by R Sinclair

I enjoyed the show tremendously under Carlivati's pen up through Nash's funeral. Shortly thereafter the wheels started to come off, and I became very bored.

I liked Rex and Gigi until they became IMO the center of Llanview. Now I don't care if Brody kills Rex, Gigi and Shane. I just don't care.

I NEVER cared about Marty ever. I was always Marty neutral. Didn't hate her. Didn't love her. I've tried to approach this current story with an open mind and treat it like the psychological thriller that it is. But day after day of Todd and Marty in one room and him lying to her has become boring for me. There hasn't been sufficient progression to keep me engaged, and what progression there has been, their sexual relationship, has gone too far and I find it repugnant.

I think Tess is the most ridiculous villainess ever and I can't bear to watch her anymore. Natalie stuck in a room throwing pillows and talking to herself (or the monitor) is boring. Jared stupidly stumbling into Tess's web makes him very unappealing to me. Tina's participation, although under duress, is not the least interesting or endearing to me. The best part of that story is the dog.

I don't care about Starr and Cole or what happens to their baby.

Guess what... we DO enjoy mostly the same things!

I said earlier that I liked Rex/Gigi and felt they worked because they WEREN'T together. The angst and longing and secrets keeping them apart, and other parties in the way (Adriana, Brody). But they tied up the Shane secret (which still had legs, IMO) at the end of 1968 with LITTLE fanfare when it was the DRIVING secret for Gigi's entire run, and sent Brody off the deep end and compromised his potential longevity on the canvas, and have gotten totally onto pimping Rex/Gigi as the next supercouple and I hate it. More neutered Rex like he gets when he's "in love" with the "good girl". Ick. Rex/Adriana only got interesting when ADRIANA got interesting.

I feel a connection to Marty, and I'm invested in the story, and see the value in the slow development, as I mentioned before, so we diverge there.

Hate everything you do about the Tess/Natalie secret room story. I believe the intent is to give a new reason for everyone to turn on Tina (as the accomplice) since Tina came back smelling like a rose after being a deadbeat mom for 10 years and the whole Mendorran mess. I want to see someone get mad at Tina!!!

The Starr/Cole baby I like more for the connection it makes between Todd/Blair/Marty and its ramifications than any investment in Starr/Cole. In theory, on paper, I want Starr/Cole to work, but the way the actors bring it across on screen leaves a lot to be desired, for me.

There are many other parts of the show that I enjoy, just not enough to suffer the above. I think many viewers and posters suffer the delusion that what they think represents the majority position. I don't know why they believe that, but it seems almost everyone does. I don't claim to know what the AUDIENCE wants and I really don't care what anyone else wants. I only know what I've wanted and what I was enjoying before this. I endured the summer from hell with aid of my FF button, and when I started fastforwarding the majority of the show, I realized it was a senseless exercise. I am waiting for the resurrection of the BE storyline and the Buchanan quest to restore their legacy. I am waiting for Viki to return and rebuild her relationship with Charlie, and rescue her daughters. I am waiting for Marty to be discovered (but I don't care that much). I am waiting for Dorian to get her comeuppance. When I start seeing these stories elevated, I'll be ready to tune back in. I will be invested in these storylines, and there are others that I will find peripherally entertaining.

Where differing opinions become so polarizing IMO is when any of us presumes that WE KNOW what the AUDIENCE wants to see. That we as individuals are representative of something larger than ourselves. That one poster has the definitive finger on the pulse of the larger viewership. I just don't believe that any single one of us has that clarity. We only know what entertains us personally.

I'm pretty sure this is in regards to the lines you highlighted in my previous post. I very much don't like to speak for anyone but me and I don't believe I'm the voice for a majority, so I am sorry that my post came across that way.

The only characters I think might not be "cared about" by a large group of fans would be Pamela Stuart, and maybe Alex Olanov. And I sure wished I'd never seen Ben Davidson or his plaid shirts again.

So the things Carlivati has done in my list here have satisfied me, and unless I'm out of touch, most long-term OLTL fans. I've not heard many detracting remarks about the characters mentioned above, and they were largely the focus of the first half of the year.

I won't defend 1968 or even cringe-worthy Mendorra, but Carlivati's shown me he's in touch with the characters, what drives the characters, and what the audience has been wanting for a long time.

I was trying very hard to add those qualifying statements like "I think might not" and "unless I'm out of touch" because I do consider myself a student of soaps and because I have aspirations to write I very much pay attention to what people in general do and don't want to see, for all soaps. I buy SOD and read ALL the articles, even for soaps I don't watch. I read all the letters fans send in, to see the trends in what turns fans off to a show and what excites them enough to put that pen to paper and send a letter of praise about their show to SOD. And the common threads I read about are things like "a strong teen scene" or "attention for the vets" or "a multi-generational, layered canvas and storytelling" and more specifically to OLTL "A good story for Viki" or "bring Andrea Evans back as Tina!" which are things I've been reading in magazines and seeing on a million boards before this one (and ON this one) for YEARS. Obviously I'm not working with hard data or focus group statistics, and it's a VERY loose interpretation of an entire viewership, but that's why I was trying to throw in those phrases to essentially cover my ass and say "I may be out of touch, BUT".

I was listing all those things because you said:

I think disgruntled viewers are completely justified in calling for Ron Carlivati to be fired. There were a lot of people on this board who weren't impressed with him from the get go. He made a lot of decisions that infuriated many of the fans. He broke up couples (or stated he would not reunite couples) that many fans cared about. He brought back characters many of us didn't care about. He didn't bring back characters many people wanted. He backburnered or wrote off characters some people really liked. He pushed other characters front and center that many people didn't care about. In short, he did a lot of things that all head writers do, but he did it quickly and definitively and he pleased some people and pissed others off.

This seemed like specific, targeted statement that wasn't specific at all, but I figured from your wording that you had characters and couples in mind and was HOPING you would tell me who you meant because just from what you said, I couldn't think of any major couple that was broken up except for Jessica/Nash, through his death, which drove major story that initially we apparently both enjoyed, but has disappointed us both in the execution of "the secret room". Clint/Dorian broke up, but from everything I read, viewers didn't seem to think it was in-character for Clint to be with Dorian given her long and tortured history with Viki. And when I go to a statement like "viewers", I'm taking it outside myself because I'm trying to consider others opinions beyond my own, not necessarily to justify my own. I do realize I am not the only voice that matters, and I myself could have gotten behind (for example) a Clint/Dorian pairing if it was nurtured and massaged a little better than it was, over a longer period of time.

I was listing characters (new and returned) and couples because I regarded them all or mostly "vets" and from everything I've read here and elsewhere, 2-1, were liked. I've read a lot of complaints about the way certain returns were handled (and agree about some), but the characters themselves were appreciated, welcomed, enjoyed. So I don't know if you were intentionally speaking in generalizations and didn't have anything specific in mind, or did have specifics in mind but didn't want to speak for anyone else. But speaking for others was not my intent, I was just trying to find out the specifics about what you thought his failures were based on the statement I just quoted from you.

WHEW... lol. I'm sweating!

Edited September 27, 200817 yr by DavidEvanSmith

Well looking at OLTL spoilers I might have to give up OLTL.

There are things I currently like:

-Tess/Natalie/Tina.

But I really do not like anything else......

IMO Ron ruiend Gigi/Rex. They were sooooo rootable then as time started to go on and that 1968 SL, I really do not like Gigi/Rex......

I love that people are saying that Ron is doing a good job (and theres no doubting that) its just that if people say its good why are the ratings bad? Ron is in trouble because the ratings have either stayed or went down. Guza is safe at GH and Pratt looks like hes safe at AMC. Ron needs to end this Marty/Todd storyline because it makes NO SENSE. This is not the Marty I loved back in the 1990's. This is a just a retarted Marty which I HATE! Also Ron has botched up the returns. Tina and that Mendora SL was bad..........Marty storyline is worse...........ect...

I'm not here to bag on Ron. OLTL has imporved 100% over the past 10 months but things are going bad.....Also the fall promo for OLTL was also bad....IMO....

All that stuff about "he broke up couples WE loved and put together couples WE hated" is extremely subjective. Most fans hated Clint and Dorian. People either love or hate Todd and Blair, or John and Natalie, who had run their course before Carlivati. The character of Evangeline was also extremely polarizing. There is NO preexisting couple I know of that Carlivati disposed of or beefed up in his first six months (or even today, save perhaps Jessica and Nash, which had also become polarizing) that was either universally embraced or despised by fans, except Starr and Cole, which he had set on a rocky road and has since broken up.

It's easy to say "I loved Clint and Dorian, hate Todd and Blair and miss Evangeline or Jolie, so RC failed the viewers." But what people don't remember is it's just that person saying that.

Edited September 27, 200817 yr by Vee