Character Saturation/Dictatorship

[Sylph]

Well, I have a case of y&r_fanitis so I decided to start a new thread just because pretty much no one agrees with me that Phyllis (Y&R) should be killed off as soon as possible. And not only her, but a whole armada of other "popular", untouchable characters.

I just detest that whole "vets dictatorship" mindset which is so ever- and all-around present and which states, among other things, that if you can't write for the vets, you suck as a writer (never mind the fact that the choice of vets who should be featured is highly debatable etc.).

Yes, I care for certain characters, yes, I would like to see certain actors featured more prominently. But by no means does that mean that those characters should be featured for the whole of eternity. At any time, they can be killed off just as long as you give me more interesting people in more interesting stories.

Same goes for the teens: if you have good stories, prop them. If you don't, don't show them. It's never the teens for me, it's the stories written for them.

To me that is the key: there is no dichotomy "character—plot", the two do not exclude one another. It is an invented, artificial dilemma; those two concepts should work in pair. Aristotle, the supreme deity who rules above all the drama written and produced in Hollywood, was the one who said that plot is more important. I disagree, for a good story there is no character without a plot and vice versa.

End of rant, or whatever.

And another question: when should a character be killed of? Totally? Any specific criteria?

[bandbfan]

Do you mean have no recurring teens?

[Sylph]

No, no. Balance is the key, of course. A bit of that, a bit of that other etc.

[Vee]

How unlike you.

[Faulkner]

I like how the British soaps do it - they'll just kill anybody. People die tragically in real life - it happens. It's sad, but if it positions your show for good short-term drama and long-term story, I'm all for it. And, crossover stars like Lucci and Braeden notwithstanding, soaps are bigger than any one character. (It might have been a good idea to kill off Lily on ATWT when Martha Byrne left...the character has been played out for years now, and Liz Hubbard might have gotten some good story out if it. And I'm still rooting for a Stuart Chandler death on AMC.)

That said, no soap is in any real position to start pissing off fanbases. They've made their bed with pandering (stupidly) to them over the years, and alienating them will only start speeding soaps to their deaths.

[R Sinclair]

Do we really need to kill off characters unless it absolutely propels good story and will serve as a turning point moment for the show? Nowadays, it seems as if everyone gets killed off just to be killed off -- and then, a couple years later when TPTB realize they've played the death card too soon because of some other story that could've been told has come into their scope, they pull out "they didn't find the body" or "it was a governmental cover up" or "they were frozen in a cryogenic chamber 30 floors beneath the earth in a secret lab beneath General Hospital" routines, and there we go. Characters are back for six minutes and whoops! NOW they're really really dead... until next time.

I think it would serve shows better if all the characters were just on a cycle. I mean, seriously. GH is a prime example of character saturation. The Sonny Corinthos character has run the gamut of story and it's just the same retread time and time again. Sonny has a bipolar breakdown. Sonny leaves the mob, oops, no he's back! Sonny gets a woman pregnant and she loses the baby... and of course, my personal favorite: "Betrayal Upon Betrayal of the Betrayed by Any Other Name is Betrayal" crap. A new mob rival comes to town... OH NO! Will Sonny and Jason be killed? Of course not! They'll just have every single female next them shot in the back, the head, the tit... whatever. They'll never be touched.

And as for dictatorship, do we need to even mention Tony Geary holding every storyline Luke is in hostage because of his eight month vacations? It's not even worth getting invested in any Luke storyline because it'll be time for Geary to leave for Amsterdam and Luke will be on the run again... only to come back and not be in trouble anymore. Why? Because the story's been suspended so long, everyone probably forgot what he ran away for to begin with.

I just think that, in general, if you have a character that's been in story for six months to a year, wrap up the story and then put them on the backburner for several months while another character(s) has a front burner story. So on and so forth. But the need to just keep pumping story after story after story out for these characters simply because the actor/character is popular is what's driving a lot of fans batty. It's to the point where I want to see them killed off just because it means they'll be off my screen for at least several months. But then we're right back where we started... "oops, they're not really dead because a loud ass fanbase sent ten crates of manure to the studio."

I dunno. I, along with the majority of you all, simply want balance. Give me a chance to miss you.

[Skin]

I don't think neccessairly death is needed. However I do think that characters should go out on a high note. I feel that Kendell, Ryan and Greenlee on AMC are all major examples of keeping characters on the show past their initial popularity. To be honest I haven't felt captivated by a Kendell story since Micheal Cambius was killed and she was on trial for murder. I would have liked it a lot more if Kendell went to jail to protect Bianca then to have her acquitted and become this tragedy of a character she has now become. I feel the real Kendell has died and what is left is this sad watered down interpretation. What I loved about Kendell was that she was fiery, passionate, loving and self destructive. She was always more rootable as the Anti-heroine then she was as a heroine. Kendell was more likeable as an outsider scratching to get in then as everyone's favorite poster girl. I think that is one case where the character reached it's peak popularity and needed to be let go. I would think that was more respectable to her character then what has come from her over the past four years.

Ryan is the same way. Since he came back I felt that he has given nothing great and instead his character integrity has been torn apart. He should have stayed gone after he saw Kendell boning Aiden. That would have been more respectable for his character and it would have preserved his likeability.

Greenlee should have left town after Leo died. Nothing since has done anything for her character. She isn't even a fraction of the character she once was back in her peak years in 98-02' and it's just sad to watch a once amazing character reduced to this. I can think of so many more examples but I think those three are the most prominent.

[Graciecat]

Yep, I agree that it's a poor choice to kill off a character unless it's absolutely necessary, or will provide REAL lasting drama. Because most of the time, it doesn't. They'll tell us that killing off Georgie Jones or Emily Quartermaine will be show changing story, but is it really? We got less than two weeks of drama in both cases, and now the deaths of these two legacy characters are largely forgotten. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to ship Georgie off to Paris, and have Nem's relationship crumble and transfer Emily to another hospital. But no, apparently a brief funeral, and the chance for close family members to occasionally bring up these tragic deaths was worth it.

I felt the same way about Dixie. That return was unsuccessful, and yes, they probably should have let go of CM for a while, just so fans could forget about what a pill she's been. But why on earth kill Dixie? So, so not worth it. And so avoidable. And a perfect illustration of why beloved characters with actors who may return shouldn't be killed off- killing Dixie the first time is what gave her that terrible story.

I'm also sick of the trend of gunning down characters, even when they are insignificant to the canvas. If you are going to kill them, why not make it memorable and tragic? I'm thinking of Dominique now. They had a well liked and talented actress who wanted to leave the show, and probably wouldn't come back (especially given that Dominique had few ties to the canvas). If she'd been gunned down by the mob, she would have been totally forgotten. But instead, by making her relationship with Scotty more serious, and then killing her off in a slow, devastating way, and tying it to the redemption of Lucy, they made it one of GH's greatest tragedies. Stone's death was quite similar. If a show is going to kill a character off, then slowing it down and making it have long-term consequences (Serena's birth, Lucy's redemption, Robin's HIV) is the only real way to make it matter.

So in the case of a tired, but popular character like Phyllis, I would say that they shouldn't kill her off. Writing her away would be harder than most others, though, because she has a baby. Maybe the most effective thing would be to begin a slow descent into mental illness for her, such as schizophrenia? It would be interesting to see her trying to control it and be a good mother, but ultimately falling apart and leaving town. It would leave the door open future returns, and have a huge effect on Summer as she grows up. I think that would get you more drama than just having Phyllis get shot, say, and leave the door open so that future writers don't have to say she was secretly alive even though she had a small child waiting/ she was cryogenically frozen/ she was on the run from...bad guys...who wanted to hurt her family!

Yep, I agree that it's a poor choice to kill off a character unless it's absolutely necessary, or will provide REAL lasting drama. Because most of the time, it doesn't. They'll tell us that killing off Georgie Jones or Emily Quartermaine will be show changing story, but is it really? We got less than two weeks of drama in both cases, and now the deaths of these two legacy characters are largely forgotten. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to ship Georgie off to Paris, and have Nem's relationship crumble and transfer Emily to another hospital. But no, apparently a brief funeral, and the chance for close family members to occasionally bring up these tragic deaths was worth it.

I felt the same way about Dixie. That return was unsuccessful, and yes, they probably should have let go of CM for a while, just so fans could forget about what a pill she's been. But why on earth kill Dixie? So, so not worth it. And so avoidable. And a perfect illustration of why beloved characters with actors who may return shouldn't be killed off- killing Dixie the first time is what gave her that terrible story.

I'm also sick of the trend of gunning down characters, even when they are insignificant to the canvas. If you are going to kill them, why not make it memorable and tragic? I'm thinking of Dominique now. They had a well liked and talented actress who wanted to leave the show, and probably wouldn't come back (especially given that Dominique had few ties to the canvas). If she'd been gunned down by the mob, she would have been totally forgotten. But instead, by making her relationship with Scotty more serious, and then killing her off in a slow, devastating way, and tying it to the redemption of Lucy, they made it one of GH's greatest tragedies. Stone's death was quite similar. If a show is going to kill a character off, then slowing it down and making it have long-term consequences (Serena's birth, Lucy's redemption, Robin's HIV) is the only real way to make it matter.

So in the case of a tired, but popular character like Phyllis, I would say that they shouldn't kill her off. Writing her away would be harder than most others, though, because she has a baby. Maybe the most effective thing would be to begin a slow descent into mental illness for her, such as schizophrenia? It would be interesting to see her trying to control it and be a good mother, but ultimately falling apart and leaving town. It would leave the door open future returns, and have a huge effect on Summer as she grows up. I think that would get you more drama than just having Phyllis get shot, say, and leave the door open so that future writers don't have to say she was secretly alive even though she had a small child waiting/ she was cryogenically frozen/ she was on the run from...bad guys...who wanted to hurt her family!

ETA: I wanted to say which characters are prime for one of those slow, tragic deaths. I don't think Kendall falls into the category (no daughter of Erica Kane' should die for any reason), but I think Greenlee might. RB doesn't seem to want to stick around, and it's clear that recasting won't work. Why not give her some horrible disease? Or how about Babe? Sam McCall would also be an excellent choice- tptb don't seem to know what to do with her anymore, but have tied her to many parts of the canvas. I'd like to see her do something incredibly selfless in death, as sort of an ultimate redemption. I'm not sure what exactly it would be, though.

[DaytimeFan]

I am a firm believer in Vet Dictatorship. As far as I'm concerned everyone who survives 10 years on a soap without interruption deserves security in their job because they obviously have something audiences like and want. They helped to make the show a success.

I also believe that killing off characters is something which should be done as a last resort. In real life it's true that people die all the time...but it isn't true that people come back. In the case of soaps this has happened one too many times to be believable. I really think that if a character needs a rest, which does happen, that character simply needs to be written off. Killing off is too permanent and detrimental to the show. Look at GH, it slaughters characters left and right to the point where the whole canvas has been overhauled into a mess. Further, the ageism that is so very apparent at GH disgusts me as a longtime viewer because in practicing ageism towards the actors I feel like the ageism is also being directed towards me (and I'm still very much within the target of 18-49 and will be for over a decade yet).

But if there is one character that needs to go it's Ryan on AMC. Sonny of GH is a close second but I'm afraid the exodus of Sonny would be the end of GH.

[quartermainefan]

Kill off anyone who was hired by ABC in the last 10 to 15 years and is an airhog.

[dragonflies]

IMO when it comes to the point that a character has to be propped 24/7, any character that has to have that much propping isn't adding much to the show.

Prime examples are: Ryan, Greenlee-AMC, Todd OLTL, Sonny, Sam-GH are just a few that come to mind.

[marceline]

I agree with you on vets dictatorship but I disagree with you on killing characters off.

Primetime shows started killing off main characters with good dramatic results and soaps thought they could follow suit. They ended up pissing off fans and cutting off potential storylines for years to come. Besides, killing off characters creates idiotic stories when they want to bring them back: return from the dead, evil twin/lookalike, etc... OLTL did a wonderful job of killing off an entire generation of characters: Jen, Drew, Al and Duke. They're better off just sending them away.

On AMC, they need to write out Marian and Stuart just to wrap them up. And do something with Ruth instead of having her always working or having the flu at special occasions. And get rid of Ryan. He's been a cancer on the show for too long.

On OLTL, it's time to get rid of Todd. He's been twisted into too many incarnations. And Blair lost her relevancy years ago. They should have been writing her as a career woman a la Erica Kane but instead she and Todd look like some twisted version of Sunset Boulevard. And Roxy can go. She came on as a dark, desperate alkie and now she's just comic relief.

[JackPeyton]

I do think that anyone can be kileld off. I dont think just because you have been on the show since 1972 or whatever emans your char can never be kileld off until the actor dies in real life. However, soaps shouldnt just randomly kill people off either, but i dont think thats what Sylph met. Because GH does that all the time. I think what Sylph was trying to say was that its stupid to think that just because its a vet they cant be killed. Just make it a good story, play the ebats, play the drama. As longas the story is good, the show is good. I could be wrong tho.

Same with teens. bring them on if you ahev a story, dont just bring them on to bring them all.

[nicknack]

More people should be written off, but they don't need to necessarily be killed off. Why not take Ridge and Brooke and let them "Travel through Europe". They can be gone for a few months, a year, 2 years or forever, depending on how the show is doing. Let characters like Sonny and Jason go to jail. Off screen jail. If really necessary, they can be brought back. Let characters get offered a job in another city, go off to college, leave the show to for undercover for a year or two.

This coming and going of people adds a slice of realism and there is no need for all characters to be on all the time. And if they are really those type of dynamic characters then they will still work as good characters if they return after 2 years or so.

[Ben]

I'm of the mindset, which believes in vet dictatorship. There are certain characters that last past the norm - they manage a straight run of several long years, and they should be treated with the respect that their job is safe, for as long as they desire. A soap works best when it is balanced, and killing of those of longevity, would only serve to go against garnering balance. What's wrong with characters being featured for ever, anyway? They do, after all, represent history and stability - without them you end up with something like, Home & Away - over populated with newbies that don't carry the show's history pre-2005 (with the exception of 4 characters).

No character (especially a vet) should be killed off for the sake of a sensational ratings stunt, which has no lasting repercussions/character development. It's pointless and a waste. If an actor wants to leave, then that's a different story. This opens up the possibilities of a big, flashy exit, which may or may not consist of death, and should only be considered for the right reasons.

Characters are only as good as the plot, and vise-versa. And teens are notoriously a tricky group to write for. I strongly believe that no character is without a story. Soaps are, after all, a supposed reflection of real life, and no real life "character" runs out of story. If a character is tricky to write for, and they're constantly backburnered (like the vets) then it's up to the writer to take a look, and figure out why they're not writing for that/those character(s). Take Days, for example, Maggie has been on the canvas for years, yet she never has anything much to do. This reflects badly on the writers, because it shows that they either can't or won't write for her, when in reality, if they were a decent, creative bunch, they could. If the UK & Oz soaps (Coronation Street & Neighbours) can create stories for their vets, then why can't Daytime?

And what is with this belief that UK soaps just kill anyone off, no matter their stature? Since when (and it could be an oversight on my part) have they killed off long time characters for the sake of it? This excludes actors who want out, of course, because that's different.