Marlena De Lacroix's "Only the Bests" List 2008

[rangethatrover]

You are kind of dead on Marceline!--

Nelson is fun, He writes like a bipolar and bisexual sex maniac.

Right now he is totally after Maria Bell's sweet ass with Ron's in a close second..

But beware, if you do something that ends up on air that he doesn't like (Todd/Marty) he will leave your sorry ass in the alley where he found you and move on to the next soap writer or producer!

I like his passion for the medium very much. And it also helps that he loves the two shows that I do. But I also like Marlena's intelligent, experienced, and intellectual approach.

[Dr. Jay S.W.]

Haha, I can see that. He's passionate lol.

[Cashton]

I'm just gonna say it - I think Marlena is an egotistical bore. Branco may be "unprofessional" but at least he's fun to read.

[Dr. Jay S.W.]

Marlena is a great columnist who deeply cares for what she writes about. My only thing is that she comes off gimmicky and whether anyone sees it or not, she's just like Nelson in the way she flip flops depending on what everyone else is liking. Also, the shots she takes at him, isnt the way to handle that little feud. I will admit, if they keep the little feud up, I will be entertained much more than I am by the soaps.

[Aaron]

Word.

[Cashton]

You're very diplomatic, which is rare on a soap board. But it just irks me to see someone so self-congratulating - "most experienced". As if her thoughts and opinions are so superior to everyone else's. And calling her readership "thinking fans"? So if you don't like her writing you don't think?? Please!

[Dr. Jay S.W.]

I can see that also.

[rangethatrover]

I enjoy Marlena's website and LOVED her column in SOW back in the day. Calling her fans "thinking fans" is not offensive to me at all. And I completely disagreed with her negative assessment of OLTL. So its not like I agree with everything she says.

Her website is alot better than most of them, where you have all these trolls obsessed with certain couples and acting pathetic and psychotic (essentially how the entertainment world thinks of soaps and the fans)

Everytime I see two characters names combined, ala TARTY, I want to vomit. Its embarrassing.

[Vee]

Branco is nuts, but his attitude has never had a bearing on how I feel about Ron Carlivati, including when he had some sort of grand mal seizure for something like five months because OLTL did not invite him to a party. I make up my own mind. Same goes for people here. I mean, "handprints?" As compared to who's, Bob Guza? When people let things get so meta that they can't focus on what's onscreen I screen them out, not the show. I was always uncomfortable with the over the top ludicrous praise of RC as Agnes Nixon II or whatever, because I knew backlash would develop fast, and it did. But I do think he's very talented, despite some big mistakes, and has saved OLTL.

[marceline]

In all fairness that isn't just a soap thing: Brangelina, TomKat, JenBen, etc...

But getting back to the column, Marlena talks about a lot of stuff. Carlivati is just a bullet point in a much larger essay. How sad that a discussion of a year's worth of soaps comes down to two topics: Nelson Branco and Ron Carlivati.

This is the reason soaps are screwed.

[DeliaIrisFan]

Marlena is definitely a rare breed of soap journalists who does her job with integrity. I've been a fan since I was a teenager, and I take "thinking fans" to mean that she is writing for fans who think, who are free to agree or disagree with what she says. By virtue of forming an opinion about what she says, they are thinking - instead of mindlessly buying the same crummy soap rags week after week at the supermarket because they've been fooled again into thinking one of the same three characters is going to die this week.

I think Marlena is onto something in that Ron Carlivati is the most compelling character on soaps this year, but I don't think he has DID or that it's any big mystery why the show is uneven. I think most soap writers learned their craft decades ago when good head writers laid out a long-range story, executed it pretty much as planned unless they were inspired to do something even better along the way, and usually stayed with the show until they started to run out of ideas for those particular characters and moved on. I don't think that necessarily prepared them to respond to number-crunchers telling them how to do their job halfway through a story arc.

Whereas Ron learned by spending over a decade at OLTL as a revolving door of head writers came in, cleaned up the messes their predecessors left behind (sometimes to much acclaim), only for their (at least in some cases) seemingly promising new stories to get derailed by network interference and be fired in short order only for the cycle to start all over again. My theory is that Ron has learned from that unique perspective how to clean up his own messes - or, that is to say, the particular messes that have happened since he has been head writer, which may not have been his ideas in full, if at all - and pick up the pieces and craft stories out of them that are, at least initially, more promising. Another writer might have stuck to their guns about Mendorra til the bitter end, and for all we know Ron's original idea might have been much better that what made it on the air, but Ron swallowed his pride and cut his losses and wrapped it up and gave us that lovely Viki/Tina airport reunion scene when Tina was literally on her way home from it. I had no real interest in OLTL by the end of last summer, so I just found myself watching less and less, but then I tuned back in a few months later and it is more interesting. Todd is being called on the monster that he is, the aftermath of the Tess nonsense is having huge ramifications, Tea and David are back at least for a little while, Viki is back with Charlie - there is some good stuff. It may well get derailed soon enough too and I may drift away again, but it's nice to think the show will be recognizable if and when I come back to it. Because meanwhile, the things that I initially liked about Ron's work were still there when I tuned back in, so there was no need to get used to a whole new writer with a completely different style and new favorite characters.

We could ask, "Is the real Agnes Nixon the one who saved Another World in the '60s and created OLTL and AMC in the '70s, or the woman who decided to put the entire cast of AMC onto a boat with a punch bowl that had been spiked with the date rape drug, and start having sex with anyone they could get their hands on?" Do we need to ask that question, though? If Ron were around a few decades ago, when by all accounts soap writing was a far different process, I think his work would speak for itself. Since he wasn't, and he's here now, I would rather watch a writer who genuinely loves this show and actually thinks of characters he used to like to watch and tries to find a way to work them into the current story, than someone who is writing for OLTL because it was the first show to offer them a job after they got fired from the last one. But that's just me.

As for "fawning" over any writer, these days head writers probably have more of a say over their own destinies than those of their characters, so I think we've been at a point where the players behind the scenes are the most distinctive and interesting "characters" in daytime for a while now. I also think a genre that focuses on (a heightened version of) everyday life lends itself to writers putting some of themselves into their work, and audiences connecting to writers on a personal level. I don't think it's anything new, but we can find out more info about people, including soap writers, in the age of the internet. Ron actually looks like a soap opera leading man, and in a sense he grew up on OLTL so there's some good will toward him from longtime viewers (in addition to ill will, rightfully so, about some of the stories that have transpired in the past year, which may or may not have been his ideas). Ron is one of the few soap writers who was born in the same half of the twentieth century as me - and I genuinely feel that there is something fresher and more current about his writing than that of most soap writers these days. I have a lot of respect for Agnes Nixon too, so I don't fault Marlena for praising her one bit. But a lot of what I like about Agnes probably has to do with the fact that I would agree with her on a lot of things, and when I've seen her interviewed or make cameos on her shows she seems like the sweet grandmother that I wish I had. My all-time favorite head writer, Claire Labine, is a hippy who lives in Park Slope and whom I bet has seen a lot in her lifetime and learned to have compassion for people, not unlike the majority of the people in her age range whom I would willingly choose to spend time with in real life. These writers bring their own experience to their stories, however distorted it may get by the committees that are now involved in writing these shows, and they strike a cord. I don't see anything wrong with that. I will admit that I too would get in line to have Ron put his handprints on me, but I swear that's only a small part of it!

[DavidsMuse]

Like it or hate it, LZ was written by Jean Passanante, not AN. I've wished many times over the years that AN had never left!

[SteveFrame]

I loved the choices and love Marlena's column. I am a fan of both Nelson and Marlena and enjoy them for who they are and for the things that make them unique. I hate when people get into debates over who is best or who is worst instead of discussing what the column is about.

They both make excellent points at times and they both have their own style of doing things. Why it is turned into some kind of contest instead of just an effort by both to further the genre and preserve the genre is a big mystery to me.

I agree with the other person who said it in here - I hate the couple names. At first I thought they were kind of cute but they have gone way too overboard and they just feed into this frenzy of love forever united and couple craziness. And I don't care if it is more than just a soap thing. I think the naming thing has been around longer with soaps and it became a general thing after that.

I just hope it fades away and I would love to see our jounalist who used to try and push for the betterment of the genre quit pushing them. I loved when Marlena's column called ABC and AMC out on the real Greenlee promos. And I so hate when one of the journalist will buy into the faux Lily or something like that. I have seen several do that, and they are constantly using the couple names and even some of the bait the fanbases.

If soaps are going to survive we have got to get into the mode of doing what is best for the whole show. I wish the journalists would help to push that idea.

End of rant.

Good column. I didn't agree with everything, but overall nice choices.

[Jess]

I agree with Marcelena's point on the column. I think Nelson is a joke. I agree with Marlena that he is unprofessional and a joke. But is a column the place to carry on that feud? REgardless, he is shameless and unprofessional. Marlena does admire Agnes Nixon's work. Nelson uses his column to prop his buddies and punish people that don't kiss his ass. The guy is unprofessional. He trashed CBS for weeks because he could not get interviews. He trashed OLTL for not inviting him to a party. When he got back on the mailing list, I guess Ron C. became Soap God again.

As far as Ron C. He's overrated, overhyped and not a good writer. Outside of soap boards where people coo over him, he is a total flop. His story lines are rewrites of previous stories, he has brought on more newbies than any previous writer in a very very long time. The Paris, Texas, story was simply Alice OLTL style. He is campy. The BE takeover was interesting for one week and then it went away. He won an Emmy for the Asa funeral which was notable only in the number of fan favorites who returned for the show. When he sucks, his admirers, who seem to be more complimentary of him than OLTL, say its Frons' fault or the fault of the writer's strike or the that it took him months to fix what Dena left behind. The rare moments when he does something original, well that is all Ron. He's become a star not a writer.

Now I do give Ron credit for one thing, the number of people watching continues to decline. The only people who continue to watch are those who, for some reason, enjoy his stuff. Bring on an entire new cast and drop enough viewers, and the show gets to the point where all the critics are gone and the only people still watching are those who love the camp and the newbies. Ron is at that point.

[Sylph]

What a spectacular post this one is...