Star Trek recipe for soaps?

[Vee]

So did I, but he's only sulking because he doesn't have a way to rebut me.

ETA: Yes, the Rapps nearly killed OLTL. But that was JFP's folly. The Rappaports are not a new phenomenon; they go all the way back to people like James Lipton and his families who they drove off a bus on a cliff, or to Paul Rauch's Kim Zimmer family on Santa Barbara. It's the same bad device mis-applied again and again. And yes, Y&R was young at the time it overhauled. But also, it was Bill Bell, and I think Y&R had always been set up as a show of a decidedly different taste than many of the others. Wasn't the scandal over its sex and content when it first aired as opposed to, say, the more stately or homey GL, AW and ATWT?

[Sylph]

The book, e.g., doesn't state there was no history for Pat. It actually states there was, but the studio didn't have the bible, character histories etc. So Lemay decided to create his own histories for many, not all, of these people. That is very different from "There was no history." There was.

You will also find people who are angry at Lemay for what he did. Many. To Steve Frame, e.g.

Irna Phillips also because he fundamentally altered the characters the way she conceived them.

You didn't. But you can dream.

1971? What?

Ta-da!

[Vee]

Oh, I know people were angry at Lemay. There will always be people who are angry. But the show prospered ratings-wise and his results spoke for themselves. And as you say, since the show was young, there was little family history to draw from for characters like Steve. Soaps today are different. There is a great wealth of history. I've already addressed why Y&R is different, as has Mark.

Also, the show was young and malleable, as I said before. The soaps of today are not the same. You can change them, but you don't get to pretend it's the 70s anymore. I'm sure Guza saw a little of Harding Lemay's approach in himself when he declared that GH was now a crime soap about "love in wartime," but look how that turned out - GH hitting 1.9s and 1.8s and unrecognizable, unloved. He wasn't Lemay. He was just a fool. And even Lemay used popular families and characters the audience loved before him - Rachel, Steve, Alice, Pat, Lenore, Ada, etc.

[marceline]

Ack! The Rappaport invasion! You had to bring that up.

The Rappaports were a symptom of the overall disease of JFP, a particularly virulent one, but a symptom nonetheless. There are plenty of people who miss Jen and somewhere along the line Lindsay became one of those precious "vets" so one could argue it wasn't the concept that was bad, but the execution.

[Vee]

Lindsay succeeded despite herself and the shitty writing, solely because of Cat Hickland. During that era, I hated the family, I hated Lindsay, but I couldn't help but care about her because of CH's performance. Lindsay was the original "desperate housewife" who had given everything for an unloving husband, spending her days shuttling kids to and from school and sports, only to lose it all and be reborn for revenge. In the 70s her character would have been a grande dame of soaps. But a character that starts out shoddy will always have an unwieldy foundation, so they ran out of things for her to do. Unless she is paired with a scheming Clint, I see no reason for her to return full time.

[marceline]

How's this for funny? I just finished watching the Lost season finale and you know how I said I'm sticking with this show until the end? Scratch that. Lost just managed to do the same thing that GL did in 1994, AMC did in 2004 and OLTL did in 2007, Lost just managed to piss me off enough to make me say "[!@#$%^&*] it." I got enough from this finale (Rose, Bernard and Vincent) that I don't need to go back for season six.

Honestly, at this rate there's going to be nothing left for me except BOOKS! LOL!

[MarkH]

Well, if I ask you "what p*ssed you off", I'll get in trouble for going off topic.

PM it

[marceline]

I was going back over the thread and I realized that I hadn't answered this question. Yes, Fringe did a very good job of toning it down a bit. No more of the Rambaldi Prophecy I mean the Pattern, so far less of Massive Dynamic until the last few eps, no more of "John Scott's memories" and they saddled Liv with a useless sister and niece in an attempt to make her seem less likely to eat her gun at the end of the day It's still a little X-Files-y but it's much better than it was.