Jump to content

April 20-24, 2009


Toups

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 195
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members

Yes. These last two days, I have been home sick, and I observed exactly what you say. GH actually seemed kind of normal...family and relationship based.

ABC will say "oh no...we need explosions...we need sweeps stunts". They still don't realize that every time they do this, they actually damage their brand a little more.

I mean, I think even tonight's Nightline is, at some level, ABC trying to send the message that the end is nigh for soaps. It's ABC--using its News division-- trying to "soften the ground" for the cancellations to come.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I agree: Frons is the common denominator and, ultimately, the buck stops with him. Until he is fired, it doesnt' matter who's writing the shows or whether they're fired... change begins at the top. (Tho after Frons is fired I hope the new Exec replaces all three Head Writers ASAP)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I was thinking the exact same thing about the Nightline thing tonight softening the ground for cancellations, specifically AMC's since, except for a couple of words from Frank Valentini, it's all completely AMC-centric.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

GH's steep ratings decline reminds me of what Y&R went through during the strike and the beginning of MAB's tenure. No real explanation for the sudden drop. Like with Y&R, I cannot begin to fathom the reason other than people are tuning out in droves. Y&R was able to stabilize and its demos rebound somewhat when they added Sheffer as a co-headwriter and Rauch as the ex-producer. Their team approach has saved Y&R from MAB's indulgence and worse implusive which people have conveniently forgotten. Y&R has also decided to mine its history to find interesting stories. GH has Guza and Phelps running it into the ground and it spits on its history. Look at how Luke gleeful announces that he cheated on Laura so he can be big teeth's father. Who wants to hear that [!@#$%^&*]? If the ratings do not rebound, GH will find another mob family to go up against Sonny and Jason.

ITA about the Nightline show. ABC is preparing fans for the cancellation of their soaps. If the ratings continue to tread downwards like this, I don't see how any of the ABC soaps can make it more than a couple more years. This is close to GL territory in terms of the demos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I could see Frons transferring Pratt to GH if he finally decided Guza had to go. And I could see Pratt being all for that since he probably hates AMC.... what with its older characters and black characters and such.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

New management is severely needed at ABC Daytime, but Anne Sweeney couldn't care any less apparently. I've yet to see why Frons continues to get all of these promotions, while keeping his position at ABCD, something isn't right there.

If these record low demos don't get Guza fired, nothing will.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Very pleased GH continues to sink, but it will continue being a knifefight in the gutter between the shows for lowest place until someone gets Frons and his minions out of the kitchens. I'd rather OLTL keep its creative team and lose the bad airhogs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

If low ratings haven't gotten rid of Kreizman and Passanante, I doube that low ratings will get rid of them on GH right now. I have a feeling that the execs know they are dying so why put the money and effort in them at this time to start over with new teams and work out contracts with these folks. I fear they will stick with the status quo at this point.

As others said this experiment of giving the fans more family drama stuff and the ratings dropping will be what Guza and Frons need to go back to all mob all the time.

I konw some of you are happy and thrilled about GH falling - some because you are angry over things like Liason and stuff. I am not sure how I feel. A show like GH who so many have predicted would be one of the final shows to fall like this really hurts the longetivity hopes of any of the soaps. If GH falls like this and can't recover the genre is dead sooner than I ever dreamed.

I personally don't find GH and OLTL as bad as ATWT. I can't even watch that show. It is so bad. And that has always been my show. I try to tune in and it is sooooooooooooo bad. Right now for me ATWT is the worst show in daytime with B&B not far ahead of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • But by Dinah and Hart...Hart especially looked as if he could not tie his own shoes!  Ed, Holly, Alan, Alex Henry and Vanessa among others were not able to put Roger down....Dinah???
    • The preaching seems to end before the Barnes settle in late December, 1981. The stuff that felt overly religious (the Davidsons believing a miracle will save Lori rather than a surgeon, Jeff's miraculous recovery from a beam of light) was quickly nixed because it wasn't working. The closest thing that you get to that under the Barnes is when Dennis Fraser, the drunk driver who killed Nora and Scott, turns his life over to god. The born-again redemptions out of nowhere seem to stop fairly early into the Barnes' run. I do think Miriam's transformation was much more delicately done with her turning on her bestie Nancy because Nancy was seducing Charles, Miriam's wealthy father, so Miriam offers to testify for the Davidsons in the trial against Nancy over possession of Nora's house. In turn, Nancy repays the favor by pumping an emotionally distraught Miriam with barbituates while Miriam carries on her affair with low level thug turned political aide Norm Elliott. Miriam is used by everyone into her life and finally lands herself in the hospital becasue she has become so addicted to the pills. At the hospital, it is the friendship and kindness of the Davidsons that brings Miriam to a more peaceful place. The Davidsons ability to forgive is both appealing and, at times, dramatically limiting. In this case, the Davidsons lead Miriam to her new Mama, Ione Redlon. Now, under Vinley, Miriam is determined to reconnect with her son, Frederick, and her ex-husband, Paul.   My bigger issue with the Barnes' writing is that they write the storylines with twist endings that sorta come out of nowhere. I know the resolution to the Kate Carrouthers mystery sorta plays out like that so I am curious to see how I feel about that.  The biggest change throughout the writing teams has been the view of morality. Winsor had many characters who could be viewed purely through the lens of black and white, but others explored the shades of gray (often younger people). The brief head writerless period was much better at embracing an action doesn't make a person and there characters were much more gray or at least evil at a more local level (Nancy, in this period, only flirts with her brother-in-law where as later she is actively providing pills to Miriam to keep her addicted and away from her own father). The Barnes, for the most part, seem to embrace this level of political corruption that seems to permeate throughout the show making it clear that power (as well as money) is the root of evil. Even criminal Vince Cardello is presented as less evil than Charles Carpenter, though Carpenter's murder of a resident of his complex was rewritten to relieve Carpenter of any responsibility in the matter. Vinley's work seems more into exploring the why or delving deeper in general. Babs Farley, the hooker who is looking to reclaim her life, is such an intriguing character. She is given such meaningful monologues regretting her decisions and desperately trying to keep away from the hands of her former pimp, Ron Washington, who hasn't appeared yet. Monk and Fernandez seem to be wrongly accused of Lori's attack and there seems to be hints of racism that the show is looking to address. Marianne confronts Gil about his feelings towards God in relation to their mother's death years earlier.  There does seem to be a layer of misogyny to Vinley's work, but it's early so I'll be curious to see how this plays out. There are a lot of attacks on women (Lori is nearly raped, Babs was beaten, Nancy is on the verge of being blackmailed for sex by Tab, and the Russ / Marianne / Gil scenario has hints of toxic masculinity. It's very early so it'll be neat to see if that is maintained.  Jerry TImm lasts about a year I think (March, 1982 - March, 1983). One of the episodes on TouTube has a comment suggesting that Timm was fired by CBN because he had done something in his past that came to light. It didn't seem to be clear what that was.  I like what I've seen of Timm as Gil. He has such a presence that it covers up some of his weaker acting choices. It's unfortunate that he didn't get to play as much of the Gil - Stacey - Amber triangle as his replacement does.  
    • I believe it was Mark Arnold's family that taped all the shows. It was the same with Ariane Muneker - her mother bought a video recording machine in the 1970s, at a time when that type of technology was really expensive John Wesley Shipp's parents also taped all his shows, and has a complete library of every single episode of every soap JWS has appeared on. Same for Cynthia Watros. When the Soap Actors parents pass away, and there are all these VHS tapes in dozens of boxes, it is shame to waste all that. 
    • Personally, I felt that the deletion of the original music from the girls' slumber party episode, and the axing of REM's Losing My Religion from the ep featuring Brenda and Dylan breaking up, were the most painful. The changes really damaged those episodes. I dropped the DVDs after season two, but I've been told by other viewers who kept going that tunes from all the seasons continued being replaced, and the situation only got worse as the DVD releases progressed. Yes, penny-pinching from those in charge was the principle issue, but I wonder how much better the DVDs would have sold if such poor choices had not been made in the name of cost cutting. On the other hand, when Time-Life put out the Vietnam-war era classic China Beach, they dug deep into their pockets and ended up clearing the rights to a whopping 268 (!!!) of the original tracks. This represented 96% of the total. TPTB said that when they were not given permission to use a few of the remaining pieces, they substituted different singers' versions of the exact same songs, in order to preserve the show's integrity as much as possible. The CB set was expensive as heck, to be sure, but to me it was worth it.
    • Oh I knew it was common (I did not realize Muenker's channel was gone - I'm glad I saved all those videos). I just didn't realize it was the case with the rape episode.  I never really felt like she dominated the show in her second stint either, although I can see where she probably did. I can feel it more in some of her first run, because the show was much different before she came in and suddenly a woman we'd seen for a year was [!@#$%^&*] and marrying an entire family.  In that sense Reva is more like Babe than Erica Kane. One of the more infamous AMC lines was, "Babe is love." You just know HB would have said that line about Reva at some point.
    • I disagree; if this were Chris Clenshaw, then I would be worried. But it's a new producer coming in to clearly create the canvas they want to create, and I'm okay with that. Re-introducing characters to shake things up and possibly take some other ones out of the canvas. It'll be interesting to see the finished product.
    • I am ready for our first full week in what feels like a while! They worked Sweeps month!
    • Beyond the Gates: A The Bold and the Beautiful: F Coronation Street: B Days of Our Lives: B- EastEnders: A+ Emmerdale: A- Hollyoaks: B+ General Hospital: C Neighbours: C+ The Young and the Restless: F For me, Beyond the Gates, EastEnders, and Emmerdale led the pack during Sweeps month, with Coronation Street and Days of Our Lives following. General Hospital and Neighbours sit in the middle with what I'd call a "take it or leave it" kind of Sweeps month, and the Bell soaps bombed (per usual).
    • Actors doing this is pretty common. I used to work for a company that produced a very successful sitcom back in the 70s. Actors who were guest stars on the show would ask to be provided tapes of their episodes. I assume they do it for a variety of reasons, i.e. to create a reel of their best work. I know of some soap actors who have uploaded saved work to YT. One is Ariana Muenker, who played Christine Valere on GL. She was uploading scenes from her many soap roles a few months back. Unfortunately, it looks like either she or YT took the channel down. Sharon Gabet and Mark Arnold help the EON YT channel by providing saved episodes. Along with EON eps, Arnold shared a guest stint he did on GL. Those episodes are really interesting because they involve the introduction of Nola's character, which was tied to the Roger storyline. When he came back after faking his death, he hid out at the boarding house. Nola being a snoop figured out something was fishy with him. She ended up helping the police. Very worth seeking out. I don't think anyone else has those episodes.  Makes you wonder if there's more out there than we know of because actors don't want to be bothered to run a YT channel. Can't blame them because it's a lot of trouble, but if only... I agree. While Lucci definitely used her fame from the show to build her brand and get work outside of AMC, Erica was always part of an ensemble. Yeah, she got a couple of whacky stories (like the "unabortion") but she never took over to the detriment of other actors and stories.
    • It must have been sometime in the early 80's. VI said he first heard about Marj Dusay's talent from CH. Hickland worked with her on Capitol.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy