All: Changing The Focus Of The Show

[JackPeyton]

With Days of our Lives recently writing out a slew of main characters and bringing on new ones and focusing on other ones, and Y&R perhaps losing some of its top stars and having to focus on newer people, a lot of debate has came up. Nobody seems to even be open to perhaps the shows being better when this happens. What shocks me about this is that this happens. A lot.

Y&R was once had the Brooks family, pretty much all of whom was written off. When Katherine and Victor came to town, the show switched gears and started to focus on them and people who had been there before were written out.

On Days, in the early 80's in the span of a few months, the show wrote out 15 or so main characters and introduced a slew of new ones. Granted none seemed to have lasted long, however over the next few years the show did bring on characters who clicked and it worked.

So, what are some other examples of shows pretty much changing the focus from one set of people to a bunch of newer people?

I personally think getting rid of patch, kayla, john, marlena, tony was a great move for days. I hope if Y&R starts to lose its core vets they are able to easily switch over to long running characters and bring new people into the fold.

[Carolyn1980]

In 1991, Linda Gottlieb came to OLTL and wrote out just about everyone.

She kept pretty much the Buchanans and the Lords, but brought on a slew of new main characters, from Andrew Carpenter and Marty Saybrooke, to Nora Gannon and Blair Cramer, to Todd Manning and Luna Moody.....and she completely reinvented characters she kept, like Alex Olanov and Carlo Hesser..

And despite all the changes......I loved it. Why?

Because the characters she introduced were so richly drawn, so fully realized....they instantly came to life, and drew your attention to them. They weren't "cookie-cutter" characters that soaps typically add from time to time to up the drama ante.

Never before or since have I seen such a dramatic and SUCCESSFUL metamorphasis of a show so quickly.

[cara mia]

I'll say this, losing Marlena wasn't that big of a deal because Sami was already in place as the central character of the show.

Y&R is not in the same place DAYS is. They don't have a Sami Brady, or even a Phillip (the new Victor) or an EJ (the new Stefano). Y&R had some potential with Adam Wilson (but the actor is gone and the character is now a sociopath) and Billy Abbott (the character has been decimated but there's always hope they can fix him). The main problem is that Y&R lacks a compelling a younger heroine who would be the new Nikki. They tried a while back with Brttney, the wannabe stripper, but she didn't have the charisma needed. It says a lot about the poor quality of the younger actresses on the show when Christel Khalil is the cream of the crop. If Y&R suddenly lost its vets -- Jack, Victor, Nikki, Ashley, Kay, Jill, Sharon -- the show would be utter garbage. Their new/younger characters are mostly unwatchable.

[Sylph]

I'm so glad you brought this up and that it got a thread on its own. (It was part of Star Trek recipe (and here)...)

But with this amount of frustration from the viewers... I'm afraid many wouldn't risk it. There are other reasons.

[JackPeyton]

I couldnt agree more.

And i think that with Days thats where they were able to transition. I mean, Losing Marlena, John, Patch, Kayla, and Tony really wasnt anything big as none had been major players for a very long time. They also had Sami Brady, a main character who had been on the show for over 15 years played by the same actress the entire time whom fans loved to take over, and in fact already had. Furthermore they had other people who had been with the show for about or more than 10 years like Nicole, Philip, Brady, Lucas, Chloe. It also made the show feature long wasted vets like Maggie, Caroline, and Victor as well as push Stefano into a lead story. I honestly feel that this is why days is holding on/doing OK in the ratings. Yes they let go 6 or so core characters whom fans loved, but they also then used the characters that had been on the show for years and featured them as well as slowly weave in new characters.

As for if the show is better without them? I am going to say yes. I am not saying having Marlena, John, Patch & Kayla wouldnt add more to the show, but i honestly dont feel we would see them as anything more than Sami & Bradys parents and Stephanies parents. However, both have Caroline and Roman, even Bo & Hope, to fill a void.

What im trying to say is, if it is done right and these shows have characters in place to take over losing vets isnt so bad. I think thats actuially soaps biggest issue. Yes they have "the next generation" on the show but none are strong enough to actually take it over. And if they are then they already have and are way over exposed. I would love to see GH, esp with its nose dive in the ratings, finally decide to switch gears and refocus the show on Patrick, Robin, Liz, Lucky, Maxie, Lulu. All of them are supporting when at this point they should be lead.

And as for Y&R - you are correct, they have nobody to take over roles left by vets. Who is going to move into the Nikki spot? There is nobody. And i dont mean a carbon copy cheaper nikki clone, i mean a female character who fans love and root for no matter what that can b played like she has. They have NO young lead Heroines, yet the show is over stuffed with young females. Colleen, Chloe, Amber, Jana, Lily, Heather, among others. They have Sharon, who is prob the best bet, i guess.

But Y&R really needs to think about life after Victor, Nikki, Kay, Jack, etc... And again, im not saying stop featuring them at all. Please, feature them as much as you can - but at the same time start building something. Because if Nick/Sharon/Phyliss/Kevin/Lily are the future.... damn.

B&B... oh man. That show is the most in need of strong rootable characters played by good actors.

I agree, and i think thats a big issue. Soaps are scared to take a risk. The only reason Days did it was because they had too. I wish soaps would start planning for the future, even if there isnt one. Act like there is.

[Ann_SS]

Sharon Case, Josh Morrow, Elizabeth Hendrickson, and Billy Miller are the core of Y&R's next generation.

Strangely, I think B&B has a nice younger (relative to their vets, lol) core although Brad won't give them any airtime. I like Lesli Kay as the next Stephanie. Rick Hearst and Heather Tom can anchor any show. Bridget, Rick, Marcus, and Steffy are less talented, but they will do.

AMC is using its younger actors even the bad ones. LOL! They should use Pety more.

OLTL, where to start? It has such bad actors. Ugh. RC should kiss the ground for Langton and Markko, but they are not used properly. I do like Brody and Rachel as future leads.

GH is hopeless. GH has lots of younger actors who should be receiving much more airtime, but TPTB will never let go of Sonny, Jason and Carly so it is doomed.

[JackPeyton]

The problem with those actors is they play awful characters, IMHO. They also dont seem do have any direction for Nick nor Billy and Chloe they seem to be unsure about where to go.

I agree about BB, however the problem is they dont feature those people. They will for three weeks, then they think B&B is a Brooke & Ridge love story and switch back to them and their eternal love.

I agree about AMC. lol. But thats the issue, bad actors.

and you are spot on about GH and OLTL

[Darn]

It blows my mind this idea that Days has a stronger character base than Y&R. Sorry, it just doesn't. The characters flip flop on the daily and are played by mediocre to okay actors. As much as I dislike Kevin or Jana the actors ARE talented and the characters fairly well drawn, this is even more true of Billy and Chloe.

The reason the show could so easily write out John and Marlena is because their story had been told, backwards and forwards, at least a dozen times. There was no more there there. There is still a wealth of potential in the veterans characters on Y&R, their stories have yet to reach a dead end.

[MarkH]

I definitely think B&B could do what Days has done AT NO COST. Your quote, "their story had been told, backwards and forwards, at least a dozen times. There was no more there there" applies perfectly to that show.

Irna Phillips would agree with you. SteveFrame keeps quoting that line from her, about happily canceling a (radio) soap at the top of its ratings because it had "saturated logic". In other words, everything that could be done had been done, and any more would plunge the soap into ridiculousness.

I also agree with you about Y&R being far from the saturated logic stage. That said, a few things (like back-from-the-dead and surgically altered faces so that characters can come back psycho) do suggest that some "saturated logic" might be coming to the fore.

When Bill Bell felt he'd played out the Brooks-Fosters, he QUICKLY wrote them out. Really, if you think about it, that's not so different from what Days did.

And Y&R, like Days, benefited from a certain freshness in doing so. Other soaps have tried this without the same positive effect. So I guess it really depends on how skillfully the housecleaning is accomplished, and how much of the legacy-canvas is retained. Bill Bell kept Jill and Kay, for example. He knew there was plenty more gold in that set of hills.

Right now, Y&R has vast, vast collections of long (1+ year) neglected characters. Winters and hangers on, Fisher-Baldwins, Victoria-JT. There are tons of potential there, but that alone doesn't mean it isn't time for housecleaning. If they're going to keep these prized players and characters locked up forever, that just frustrates everyone. From what I can tell on Days right now, the trimmed cast gets PLAYED. That's a lot better than a gargantuan cast treated as dayplayers.

AND, if the logic is so saturated that we have to bring people back from the dead or with new faces....it may be time to step back and ask yourself "why can't you wring enough drama out of the assets you are already neglecting?" If the answer is, as a creative person, "because they no longer inspire me"...THEN CUT THEM LOOSE and play old characters/create new characters that inspire you.

[JackPeyton]

Exactly.

Be ir for whatever reason - the show no long cares about the characters or they have run the course, when they are done and uninterested them i wish they would write them off. And no, not right away, but if years pass by and nothing for them? Its time to let them go. Stop wasting them. And when characters/actors just dont work, i feel the same way.

I think all soaps could use a good dose of house cleaning and changing things up. At this point i have to question what else they have to lose.

[cara mia]

I am not the biggest Tom Pelphrey fan, and I really think that Greg Vaughn is just adorable, but I always thought the single smartest thing GH could do was recast Lucky with TP and reinvent Lucky as a young Luke. Evolve him from good guy Lucky to angry at life Lucky -- he should be angry after all they way he gets walked on. GH already as Michael positioned to be the next Sonny, so why bring on TP as Dante? What the show needs is a strong counterpoint to the mob, a strong foil for Jason. So as beautiful as GV is, that is just beyond his range and that's why Lucky has not been the center of the show as he should be.

Talent, shmalent. There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE in the passion younger fans feel for Phillip, EJ, Stephanie, Chelsea and the other Days young-ins and what fans feels for the Scoobies on Y&R. Jana of the Brain Tumor is better drawn than Stephanie? Really? Better acted. Sure. Better drawn? No way. If you want so say that Billy Miller is more talented than Jay Kenneth Johnson, fine. But you will never convince me that people care about Billy Abbott more than Phillip Kiriakis. For all the faults of DAYS and there are many, the show actually has root-worthy young heroes and dashing and still sympathetic villains. Y&R started out with a much better history and ratings than DAYS but that doesn't mean that Y&R is necc always better than DAYS in every area.

[YRBB]

This is just an amazingly good post.

Part of the problem Y&R has right now is that the vets have done most everything that can be done... but no-one to replace them. So what to do? Keep featuring the vets, and retelling the same stories in different ways.

[quartermainefan]

AMC did this in the late 80s/early 90s and for me it was the end of the soap that I loved. Characters like Ellen, Mark, Cliff, Donna, Benny, Langley, Myra, Sloane, Tom, maybe some others, gave way to characters I could not really care about (Julia, Noah, the entire Julia family whatever their lame name was, Dimitri and his brother...and eventually they gave way to the nightmare the show is today with not a Tyler to be found anywhere (Greenlee, Kendell, Ryan, Zack, Annie...)

OLTL had another exodus in the same period when Larry, Rafe, Delilah, Wanda, Tina, Cord, Gabrielle all gave way to characters like Luna Moody, Blair, Todd, and Cristian and his entire family.

GH? Monday it starred Robert and Anna, Tuesday it starred Bill Eckert. By friday it starred Sonny Corinthos and 15 years later it is still Groundhog day with Bill Murray.

[DRW50]

Carolyn1980 mentioned above about OLTL managing to dump many of their established characters because they brought in rich, complex new characters.

You could say the same about Y&R in the early 80s. Many characters they wrote out were seen as having reached a dead end. Many of the characters they brought in, like the Abbotts and Lauren, had very strong potential.

I think that's the biggest failing point of many soaps now. They have no idea how to bring new characters in.

And on Y&R, even when they manage, after much effort and convoluted writing, to make a new character click (Chloe), they are so busy twisting or ruining various other characters who should have been important to the future of the show (Shick, Adam, Billy), Chloe is left dangling. The temptation must be there for Y&R to use her to try to make someone, anyone, care about Billy/Mac. If they do, then there goes their best creation of the past few years.

[cara mia]

You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Before Marlena was sent off-stage, the show had taken a good ten years plus to turn Sami into the new heroine. And if money were no object, Marlena would still be there. Phillip & EJ are lead characters now but they also have Victor & Stefano to draw on. Days has flaws aplenty but their transition to the younger set has been done well.

GH has a different problem. The focus was moved from the Spencers and the Quartermaines to the mob stories. That's very different than passing the torch the next generation. In that case the torch was passed to a whole new family. GH doesn't have the new Luke & Laura or Alan & Monica and they are the poorer for it.