"The Audacity Of Soaps"

[quartermainefan]

By RAAKHEE MIRCHANDANI

It was a dark and windy night. The leaves trembled on the trees, the front door mysteriously opened, spooky music filled the room, and a body lay face down in the living room, wedged between the sofa and the coffee table, bullet wound to the back.

"Uh oh! I got blood on the couch," says the pretty corpse, suddenly coming to life. CUT!

The couch cushion is flipped, the scene continues.

"Wait, wait. That's the unloaded gun, right?" asks a prop guy. CUT!

"Cue the legs," director Steven Williford yells, snapping his fingers and pointing to the extra with the hot gams.

"Cue the breasts," an actor jokes. "That's what I would say if I was in charge."

CUT!

Betrayed lovers, angry glances, "who's your daddy' dialogue - it's just part of the daily grind at "All My Children," one of New York's longest-running soap operas. The details of this murderous scene are under wraps until May sweeps, though you can probably guess the general idea. Here at the ABC Studios in Manhattan, there will be blood, pistols and sex, and that's all before lunch.

Soap operas are the great American television legacy of evil twins, disfiguring car accidents, portals to hell, secret trysts that yield even more secret children and characters who repeatedly perish but somehow always come back. Yet "All My Children' finds itself as one of the last of a dying breed. This month, "Guiding Light," a show that began on radio 72 years ago, announced its final show would air in September. Despite recent attempts to freshen the show's look, including new shaky hand-held camera taping, ratings dropped 21% between women aged 19-49.

Other soaps - "Another World" "Santa Barbara" and "Passions" - have shuttered recently as well.

"It's been happening for years," says a source on the set of "Guiding Light," which films at CBS Studios in Manhattan. "We've seen a steady decline in ratings annually. Sitting down for an hour to watch something is a real investment in time that people aren't willing to make."....

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05032009/posto...htm?&page=1

for the rest of the article.

[YRBB]

And this concludes the "We Have No Idea How A Soap Is Done, So Please Tell Us The Obvious" portion of the day.

I am so tired of this horrible, condescending soap articles. I don't even know what the purprose of this article was.

[Faulkner]

LOL...Santa Barbara has been off the air for almost 20 years.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

LOL! Well, this article is from the New York Post.

[All My Shadows]

LMAO Exactly.

And Julianne Moore and Taye Diggs were never on AMC.

Silly, silly people, thinking they know what they're talking about. Anyone here could have written a better article. Many already have...they're called posts.

[CSF]

All My Children could survive until the end of time! Why? because it is a soap that was born to educate, yet entertain it's viewers about the social injustices of society. It was crafted to explore topics such as rape, incest, abortion, eating disorders, discrimination, autism, AIDS, child abuse, the list is endless. It was drama that morphed into a silk purse that pushed the envelop and became an icon on American television. Under the hands of a competent writer who is socially responsible and cares for the betterment of humanity (which is the foundation of All My Children), this show could thrive.

The Young and the Restless could survive until the end of time as well. Why? because people love to watch other people. We will love to watch the things that unfold in the Newman boardroom. The battles at the Chancellor estate. There is a sense of continuity in Genoa City. It lives on through each generation. The Abbotts and Newmans will always be rivals, just like we will always have our own rivals and that trickles down to each generation.

I detest The Bold and the Beautiful because that show has the ability to do wonderful things. There is an entire world that they can explore, in the high-end realm of fashion. Yet, they choose not to. People love the camp stories, they love the over the top, the scandals. There is so much they could touch on. Fashion Week alone has more entertaining behind the scenes drama than B&B has ever had.

Guiding Light could continue to be the longest running program in broadcast history, but CBS and PGP destroyed it. Guiding Light has a wealth of history a good writer could reach into. Yet, they abused it. When I think of a show like Guiding Light, I think of the word's Nancy Curlee used to describe it, "running to the porch light at the Bauer house." A place that is safe and is built around a strong community. When I think of AMC, I think of humanity, and reaching out to others. Y&R conjures up images of beauty and youth, the things we all try to hold onto for as long as we can.

I'm not sure I get the entire point of this article, but when I see lines saying "this soap is the last of a dying breed." All soaps are a dying breed because of the poor choices executives have made.

[CSF]

As a soap fan, I'm kind of insulted by the above statement. Do we not sit down for an hour of primetime television?

[quartermainefan]

I don't. I record everything on my DVR and watch everything commercial free. I guess I am part of the problem and this is why I think the BBC system works: charge an annual fee for every TV set, the money gets used to produce TV show commercial free. I'd pay.

[CSF]

But in a sense, I feel like that statement is so broad. Even when you record via DVR, primetime is like 45 minutes of programming commercial free. Soaps are like 38 minutes commercial free. So in a sense, you are devoting "almost" an hour of your time anyway. Even if you watched the show live in it's actual time period, most people will talk to someone or grab a drink or a snack or do something during the commercials. IMO, when people say things like "People don't have time to invest" it's like a copout. We are still devoting almost that hour of our time to watch, even if we are watching after it's already aired. They might as well say, let's just cancel all programming.

[Rakesh]

Not only was I disgusted by that article, I was also insulted. That !@#$%^&*]!

[All My Shadows]

In their defense, I think they are referring to it as a day-to-day thing. It's an hour (or 38 minutes or whatever) five days a week, as opposed to an hour once a week. It's so much easier to DVR a primetime show (or just watch it online)...as long as you have that one spare block of 43-45 minutes somewhere during the week, you can watch it any time you please. For daytime, you'll need at least 3 hours to watch a week's worth of shows (or in B&B's case, a little over an hour and a half), so it's harder to keep up.

[DeeeDee]

:D

[DavidsMuse]

So who is the "pretty corpse" with the "breasts" who bled all over the Chandler couch before she died?!

[MTSRocks]

Fail!