Members SteveFrame Posted January 24, 2009 Members Share Posted January 24, 2009 Believe me as much as I didn't like the Josh story I never want McTRASH back at AMC. Never ever. That is as bad as the Days of Our Lives fans who kept saying give us back JER when Higley was so bad. I loved JER as much as the next person when he was at the top of his game but his last stint on Days lost so much. I say never to McT coming back even for a short stint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jfung79 Posted January 24, 2009 Members Share Posted January 24, 2009 Why do you think Pratt would work well in the Oakdale universe? The thought horrifies me, considering what he did to ruin the once-great GH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsmith2k2 Posted January 24, 2009 Members Share Posted January 24, 2009 I've liked Pratt's writing at least through about the end of Dec, beginning of Jan but haven't been feeling it so much in last few weeks of Jan. I agree almost every word of Steve's critique of Josh's killing and the heart for Kendall. I was glad Josh was going to be gone but, Wow all the wrong notes have been hit when there is heart-breaking drama to mine from heavy hitters, but it was so cold and mechanical and just flew over the immediate emotional issues on hand (even for a few days and then move into the longer term costs to everyone). I also never want McTravesty back, so many problems go back to her. She's also the one responsible for bringing the mob to PV when she brought in a casino boss named Alexander Cambius, Jr. Someday, somebody at ABCD was gonna make a Sonny out of him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dragonflies Posted January 24, 2009 Members Share Posted January 24, 2009 Be careful what you wish for, Pratt would decimate every character on ATWT. The show is a hotmess under Pratt. The soap mags are panning the show just about every single week. You know what's bad? I find Pissant's work to be far more tolerable than Pratt's. I can watch ATWT and not want to throw something at my screen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tigger7 Posted January 24, 2009 Members Share Posted January 24, 2009 Actually, if you look at the ratings from Tornado week to what we have now, Pratt has three points of where the total viewership spiked: the week after the tornado hit, Thanksgiving and right around the holidays. As soon as the tornado aftermath was essentially over, when Thanksgiving was done and now the holidays are over, he's dropping again in numbers. So people came to watch the tornado spectacle and they were home to watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted January 24, 2009 Members Share Posted January 24, 2009 I shudder to think of Pratt at ATWT. The characters are already in place for him to run wild with, especially the constipated thug Dusty Donovan. Oakdale was at its best as a warm, friendly town where bad things happened along with happy moments; the show has declined as Sheffer and then to a lesser degree Passante changed the focus to a more dark place which was all bitterness and ugliness all the time. I know you can't force happy happy joy joy on viewers, one viewer's idea of happiness is another viewer's idea of propping or forgetting history. Yet I believe AMC viewers are waiting to see some balance, and some warmer moments. AMC was never a completely dark soap until the last few years. The show has lost its core identity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NYC123 Posted January 25, 2009 Members Share Posted January 25, 2009 If AMC and Fron's every bring back Megan McTavish.......RIP AMC......... Megan has RUINED AMC! Its's McT/B&E's fault for the hole AMC has been in. Thankfully Pratt has been able to restore the AMC I fell in love with. Also remember McT RUINED AMC in 1998! It all went downhill from there (except 2000-2002) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted January 25, 2009 Members Share Posted January 25, 2009 AMC started going downhill for me in 1996 and 1997 (the stupid Maria/Dimitri one night stand and Maria, in spite of being a doctor, not realizing she was pregnant until months later; Erica's babynapping; turning Dimitri into a mustache-twirler; Tad and Gloria; teen characters who were boring and unsympathetic with the exception of Kelsey; Jamaica; Hayley being drugged and raped by Tanner; poor use of Skye; the poor recasting and reintroduction of Jake Martin; Brooke/Pierce; the plans to fire Robin Mattson and turn Janet into an evil Brooke doppleganger which were only stopped because of fan outcry). I was hopeful after McTavish's first few months, because she finally gave Opal a story, she penned the wonderful Stuart/Marian romance, she redeemed Dimitri, she wrote the powerful final months of Bianca's anorexia storyline, she started the Ryan/Gillian relationship (at the time Ryan was actually a very entertaining character). The Lee Hawkins story was bad but I was still enjoying the show until Kit Fisher, and Adam's sperm rape of Liza. Then everything got worse and worse. Even after she was fired, I didn't think the show had a major improvement. The last time I enjoyed AMC and felt like I was watching the AMC I knew was Richard Culliton, in spite of his many flaws as a writer. I'm not sure if my memories are being too generous to him or if it's just that Culliton was the last headwriter before Frons took over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SteveFrame Posted January 25, 2009 Members Share Posted January 25, 2009 AMC in the last few years well most soaps in that matter reminds of the saying from the movie Hitch: “Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It’s the moments that take your breath away.” ~ Alex Hitchins (aka Hitch) AMC used to be brilliant and everything about it was great. Everything was not stupendous but the episodes and the stories were all great. The show overall was consistent and brilliant. It would have weak moments and weak stories, but overall the show ranked high. Today AMC for me in the last few years is not measured as a whole but it is for those episodes, those scenes, or those few months that seem to be brilliant or at least moments that take your breath away. For instance this week overall was a bad week for the show for me, but the scenes with Jack/Erica and esp. the one with Tad/Krystal were those type of moments. I was dumbfounded by the acting and the raw intensity of the emotions in those two scenes. It is sad that you have to start judging soaps by those moments or those brief periods but as a soap fan that is what we have to do these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted January 25, 2009 Members Share Posted January 25, 2009 I agree, you have to take what you can get. I miss what used to be AMC's hallmark, the over the top comic characters who still had moments of being grounded in reality, the strong friendships (which made sense and had some complexity), the sense of family, the wide spectrum of romances, the diversity in age and race, the adept handling of social issues. AMC was also not about one character. Even Erica didn't hog the show. There wasn't the type of hogging which has happened with Ryan, Greenlee, Kendall, Zach, Babe (when Alexa Havens was in the role). Some of the positive points are still there, but the overall tone of the show has changed over the past 10 years, especially since Frons took over. That formula did AMC proud for decades and I've never known why they moved away from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Southofnowhere Posted January 25, 2009 Members Share Posted January 25, 2009 The problem with Mr.Culliton is he NEVER finished a single story. He would start a story and then drop it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jfung79 Posted January 25, 2009 Members Share Posted January 25, 2009 He didn't drop most stories, he just let them develop into something else. For example, Bianca falling in love with Frankie became Erica on trial for killing Frankie became part of the Proteus umbrella story, ultimately resolved when Vanessa was revealed to be behind it all. And the Proteus story did end once Leo and Vanessa died despite people saying it never ended. It was just a long-arc story. Also, he was fired before he could really delve into his Frank Hubbard story, then the character was dropped but it wasn't his fault. Some stories he told that were shorter included - 1. Opal finds a man, but Palmer scares him away. 2. Joe Martin's health is not as good, so David wants him removed as Chief of Staff. Joe retires as Chief of Staff, but gets the board to choose Jake, not David, as his replacement. 3. Greenlee picks Leo over Jake, and exposes Laura for the crazy she has become. The only thing I really remember him dropping without explanation is whatever he had planned for Tim Dillon, when the actor decided to leave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kimmiemae Posted January 25, 2009 Members Share Posted January 25, 2009 I completely agree with your assessment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MichaelGL Posted January 25, 2009 Members Share Posted January 25, 2009 I'm surprised people didn't see a storyline like this happening with Pratt sooner. I mean it's almost exactly what he did on GH; sacrificing other characters in order to prop up other characters. I don't know what Pratt's writing was like before he and Guza teamed up on GH and destroyed that show bit by bit, but it seems as if a little bit of Guza has rubbed off on Pratt's writing. A prime example is that it seems as if Zach is the Pine Valley's own version of Sonny Corinthos. jfung79 I always thought I was the only AMC viewer who really enjoyed Culliton's run AMC, esp compared to what we had to endure months after he departed. Nice to know I'm not alone. Now for the ultimate shocker: I actually tuned into to watch a few episodes of GL this week, and they weren't all that bad. In all honesty they were good with a few exceptions, but I'm not going to nit pick. I think I might drop in on my old soap a bit more leading up to GA's return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MarkH Posted January 25, 2009 Members Share Posted January 25, 2009 Interesting observations. I think GL may now be on a writing upsurge. Having figured out their production issues, now they are focusing on the creative product. For those who say GL looks bad or sounds bad...I really don't think so. Now, I confess I watch it on the laptop, not TV...so we're talking about a smaller screen. But in that context, look and sound are fine. My CBS affiliate is dreadful (they promise it will be better when they go digital in February), so I can't judge anything by the quality of what I get on the TV here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.