AMC: Friday, April 10

[Sylph]

Hm... Then one has to wonder:

1. If she was horrible, Elizabeth Korte would have pushed for her dismissal.

2. If she were not horrible on GH, how come she sucks at AMC? I don't buy that whole "not every writer is suited for every show". If you're a mediocre writer, perhaps, but if you're really good, that makes no sense. At first she might have been afraid of the new show or something, but now... Her reputation is going down the drains slowly...

[Adam]

I agree with you.... Its a cop out to say a certain writer is not suited for a particular show.... its hard to assess her work currently as she is just listed as an AHW along with Walsh and Daran Little......

[MarkH]

Exactly, so why compare? They are different, each brought a certain pleasure...

[R Sinclair]

I was just thinking about you, darlin'... LOL!

Anyway, in my opinion, she was showing growth -- learning the characters, writing good dialogue... but she was cut short due to, allegedly, Daran Little's absence. She hasn't written a script, I think, since February. So I guess she's mainly focused on layout, thrusts and outlining (since we can't say "breakdown" or else JHC will shriek: NO MORE BREAKDOWN WRITERS!!! -- kinda like NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!).

As far as being a hit or a miss, Sylph, she is a good script writer. Elizabeth Korte apparently saw that because Korte assigned a all of Sam McCall episodes to Thomson. That's the reason why GH's team is what it is. There are brilliant people on that writing staff. Including Guza. His stories may not be the best, but he knows a good writer when he sees it and knows just how to use that writer's talent to his benefit.

Unfortunately, we have Beldner as an editor. I've "heard" that GH's editor Korte is the one who assigns outlines to script writers. And the way she does it is fairly obvious. Dillon Quatermaine heavy episodes were always written by Micheal Cinquemani. Carly heavy episodes went to MVJ. Carly/Sonny fight scenes went to Susan Wald (I miss her, too), and Mac/Quatermaine/Confrontational Scenes went to the fearless Mary Sue Price (fearless, because she GOES THERE).

IMO, I think AMC needs a better editor and a person who is able to understand their SW's. Pratt seems to be getting there. Again, IMO, Rebecca Taylor (who I think is the weakest link on AMC's SW staff) has been handing in decent material FINALLY these last few weeks. But, also IMO, Pratt's been challenging her. She's forced to get out of her box. We know I dislike her writing so you know I mean it when I say she wrote that COMPELLING episode on 2/13 which was set up for Greenlee's death. She wrote very beautiful dialogue for David and Krystal last week as well. A woman who spends most of her time writing scenes where characters villify David and make him seem like he's the Devil. She actually was able to get outside of that and write emotionally charged and history based dialogue for that character -- a character I think Rebecca Taylor doesn't understand.

But, back to my main point, I don't think Thomson's been given the right story or the proper characters to write. I think that someone on the writing staff -- preferably Pratt -- should ask her which characters speak to her. Play up to her strengths. That's clearly what Guza does on GH. As I've mentioned in other posts, despite what a lot of us might think of his particular type of storytelling, the man is a writer's writer. He knows how to get the best out of the writers he's working with to make his crap shine.

[Kubla Khan]

I thought Tracey's scripts were good. Sure, her first episode was rocky, but whose first isn't? But it's hard to judge her, because she's written four scripts since the start of the year, and she hasn't written a script in nearly two months. She was hired primarily as an AHW, and with Michelle Patrick back in the saddle, she is not needed to write scripts.

[NYC123]

I thought Susan ROCKED it!