OLTL: Discussion for the week February 23

[SFK]

In general, I'm pretty sick of everyone turning out to be related, but I agree that David as Bo's son is a much more interesting way to go. We've lost our dear Asa and all potential scenes of that father/son reunion with David, and with Tuc coming and going all the time, David would turn out to be little more than the occasional thorn in his brothers' sides. But there's a whole new interesting dynamic as Bo's son. Bo is Bo, he can't deny his sensitive side. But dear Lord, if Rex is Bo's son too?? Wow. For years Bo couldn't keep a woman to save his life, but he sure hit the son lottery.

[Antoyne]

"I'm a Buchanan now, I have no sense humor.'

Golden.

[DeliaIrisFan]

It's apparent to me as well, which is so sad. I still believe Carlivati cares about this show and has so much potential. Valentini too, probably...his first move as EP was bringing back Robin Strasser all of those years ago, and at a time when the network's other shows are bleeding veterans, the only longterm cast member he has let get away that I can think of was Phil Carey - who has probably been more central to the story in the past couple of years than Audrey Hardy has been to GH or Joe Martin has been to AMC in decades.

I never expected miracles from RC with the current state of the industry, but this is disappointing nonetheless because he held his own for so long against whatever network mandates and rewrites. In any case, I appreciate what he's done and I sure hope he's not on his way out. I don't think any other head writer is going to do any better under the circumstances, and in fact I don't think anyone else will slip in the little touches that keep bringing me back to OLTL.

And in some ways, OLTL under this current regime seems like the last link to the golden era of NY-based soaps, when soaps were tied to the theatre community. GL, with its new production model, is at a crossroads - at its worst, technically, it comes off like a cable infomercial but if it works out the kinks it could be more like an indie film. Either way though I don't think it will ever feel like the stage again. AMC and ATWT seem to me like mostly a mix of newcomers who will probably leave for Hollywood at the end of their contracts and veterans, many of whom are wonderful, but whom I associate with being in soaps for a long time. But OLTL still has genuine theater actors in minor (and, in some cases, not-so-minor) roles. The highlight of the week for me was Pamela Payton-Wright as Addie, the unlikely voice of reason trying to talk Dorian and David into doing the right thing with the Buchanans. It's unfortunate that OLTL felt compelled to trade in one Broadway matriarch for another when Addie came on full-time (or did they? Does Patricia Elliot not want to work regularly anymore?) but we still have Peter Bartlett and Kathy Brier, and I get the sense that a lot of the longtime soap actors on OLTL who come from the stage still keep one foot in each medium. Don't get me wrong, OLTL has its share of dead weight in the cast, but there is still a core group that I find I am always interested in seeing how they will react to whatever improbable plot device has been thrown at them. I fear one more change behind the scenes could dilute that to the point where I don't care anymore.

At the moment, not so much, but for me the difference is that even when things get pretty bad, there is hope that RC will regroup and make the show entertaining again. By the end of the summer I never thought that anything interesting could be done with Jessica's multiple personality and the Todd/Marty mess, but by November I was eager to see what would happen in spite of myself. It was over-the-top, but it was entertaining and it felt good to be watching something that felt like the soaps I grew up watching. I probably won't watch much for a while now, but I do have hopes that he can pick up the pieces of the current state of things and get the show going again sometime soon. He seems to be good at that, rather than digging in his heels and trying to implement whatever his original vision was before it got mangled by the number crunchers long after anyone has stopped caring. The return of

seems promising, at least. Sadly, I think last week was worse than when the Mendorra story climaxed last summer. Both had elements of "let's get this over with and move onto something somebody actually cares about" but a royal wedding-beheading in a fictional country being a free-for-all is easier to accept than a DNA test being so botched, because it's within the realm of the average person's experience. The lab technician scenes were just so wrong for so many reasons.

I also really hate that although Ilene Kristen finally got a scene of substance and she played the hell out of it - like she does everything - it was something like # 5 of the 10 paternity revelations/lies/half-truths in the week. I wonder how many people hit fast-forward when they saw where the scene was going because they were burnt out from all the parentage scorekeeping, and missed the best scene of the week (along with the aforementioned Addie)?

I agree with this, and if anything happened to make RC change course, my guess is that it was Phil Carey's passing, not any great love for the 1968 story. Without even the potential for Asa's "ghost" to make appearances, truly what is the point of Asa being David's father now? Who would care? The only potential ramification was the video will codicil, and that itself was so absurd that I'm happy to part with it. Now, the prospect of Bo, David, and Matthew all smoking up together is a potential light at the end of the tunnel for when this "just say no" teen stuff ends and Tuc Watkins makes his next appearance.

[Cheap21]

I dont think Phil Carey's death had anything to do with this. That was an unfortunate coincidence. It was obvious that they were heading in this direction from the 1968 story last summer. The seeds were planted months before any of this transpired