ALL : How would you redeem the characters you hate?

[CassieFan]

The title says it all.

AMC:

Ryan, Krystal and Zach sit down at the breakfast table and they eat poisoned pancakes (courtesy of Alexander Cambias).

[Cat]

^^ LOL, technically, that's not redemption. That's just writing them off.

Honestly, with GH? Only leaving the mob permanently and falling back in love with Brenda can redeem Sonny now.

[alwaysAMC]

AMC:

Cameron Mathison would kick the caffiene pills and review his tapes from the Gillian era and remember how his acting use to make Ryan likeable.

Zach right now is just a lost cause. He could return to his days when he cared about Kendall, the kids, and Josh - was friends to everyone without feeling like he has to protect them from everything - and not qualify the means that "justify" his ends. (Yikes, does that make sense...haha)

Kendall has been redeemed so far from her pre-coma days. I'm enjoying her again after hating her for so long.

[Faulkner]

I almost feel like the only way for Zach to be salvaged is to make him a straight villain...and I think he'd be pretty great in that role. None of this "he's damaged" bullshit.

[ian]

On B&B, the only way to redeem Ridge would be to recast him!

[bandbfan]

On B&B, Katie should go away for several months, keep Heather Tom in the role, and have her return and completely ignore the past year or two.

[Antoyne]

Whatever Y&R have done to Amber to take a completely unlikeable character and make her one of my favorites now in the younger set, is something all writers should do.

[R Sinclair]

Ryan needs the Reese Treatment. For far too long, he's been glorified as this hero, when in reality, he's just a very good con. Not an excellent con, because I haven't bought this hero routine at all. He needs to have everyone around him treat him like garbage and plot to deny him access to his children.

J.R. needs to be recast. I am soooo not a Jacob Young fan.

Tad needs to confess and pay the consequences for torturing and killing Greg Madden. Not only that, but every time in the future he feels the need to be a hypocrite and judge others -- he says to himself, "but wait... I did kind of kill a man and kept it to myself for years."

Krystal's being redeemed for me. She's being seen as the trainwreck she's always been -- instead of the 1950's pearls-while-she-vacuums Martin Housewife she never was.

Jesse needs to remember that he and JENNY were best friends -- and realize that Tad's only using him, like he always does. Everybody's Tad's "best friend" when he wants to break the law and get away with it. Oh, and quit taking orders from Ryan as if he's under Ryan's personal employ... and go back and say "Oh, yeah... about that cop you punched unconscious? I'm gonna have to take you in..." And the last thing, he needs to NEVER ACT LIKE A CORRUPT POLICE CHIEF AGAIN! I was actually impressed when he arrested Angie -- but then lost all respect when he participated in framing David.

Aiden Turner needs to give this pairing with Melissa Claire Egan his all and actually bring Aidan to life. We all know I'm a huge MCE supporter and I will resent Aidan/Aiden even more if she has to carry him.

I'm through with Zendall. Those two can eat their poison pancakes and go to hell.

Blanche: "Please, God, let him get caught. Let him go to jail... Let him rot and die in a prison cell with the rats gnawing at his eyes!"

Dorothy: "When you pray, the kitchen almost becomes a chapel."

Even that fate is too good for Zendall at this point. Cold, heartless, self-centered asswipes.

[detroitpiston]

Kill them off.

[Cheap21]

I almost agreed but many times that just makes me hate them even more especially since death seems to canonize them straight to sainthood with the other characters constantly talking about how great dead person is

Recasting helps in redeeming alot of characters I hate

[MichaelGL]

There is no way to redeem Jeffrey, even if they recasted him (I've thought of casting Lane Davies, but still the past fo Jeffrey O'Neil can't be redeemed).

A murder mystery involving the character's death would be a great sweeps stunt.

[Heyou]

Most of the characters I hate are solely due to the actors themselves therefore they would need a recast or simply writing the character off the canvas.

[DavidEvanSmith]

This is a GREAT thread concept.

The last time I enjoyed Ryan on AMC was when he was a con man, seducing Gillian in a sauna. Does anyone remember that very suggestive scene, where he was pretty much feeling himself up to seduce Gillian? TEN YEARS AGO. And I think the only reason Ryan is so widely disliked is because he's been taken so far from what he was established to be, a rogue with con-man tendencies. Once you try to make them your hero, the audience is lost. The audience buys in at a certain point, and TPTB are thrilled so they go through this process to "redeem" them and make them the center of the show when in essence it is destroying everything we liked about the character in the first place. Why can't actors that are cast in certain roles just play those strengths?! This is why we have so many characters that have no definition, no identity and are pretty much interchangeable.

The writers are at fault because they don't know how to keep a character true to form and still keep them fresh. David Hayward was a prime example because he had burned out SO badly by the end of his last stint, but you bring him back after a little while and kill his daughter and BOOM he's back to the VERSION of David that the audience enjoyed.

We need evolution in characters, but that can be done without turning them into some sainted, watered-down shell of what they once were. Very few writers have been able to get it right, especially with any character created in the last... 15 years?

So I guess my blanket answer to this would be to get the character back to basics, have an event that brings them back to the point in their life where they were most enjoyed by the audience as a majority. This is why the Marty storyline on OLTL isn't working. She wasn't most enjoyed by the audience, and didn't reach the height of her popularity as Marty the Party Girl... the audience hated it then, and it's even more hated now because she's TOO OLD FOR THAT and she's got a son that needs her to get it together. I think she reached her peak when she forged through the recovery from the rape with the help of her friends and loved ones and evolved into a romantic heroine. Marty the survivor is a lot easier to connect to than Marty the Party Girl who is a therapist but has no idea how to handle her emotions.

Stop trying to sell mobsters as heroes, too. The audience really ISN'T dumb enough to buy into it, no matter what TPTB think.

[Wizzerkat]

I agree with the don't sell them as heroes thing. If the writers/EPs really want to turn characters into heroes, make it a SLOW transition. Have the person really do something to earn it, too. It doesn't have to be any huge overt act. It can be lots of small ones. I can't stand when a character is shoved down our throat as something they really aren't. Ryan on AMC is a perfect example.

[DaytimeFan]

When it comes to Ryan Lavery and Zach Slater there is only one solution: write 'em off permanently! Those two have swallowed AMC whole.

Now, for everyone else, I think recasting does a lot of good because character hate comes from 2 main things: crap writing or a crap actor. I think crap actors are much easier to solve than crap writing.