All Soaps: Daytime Brokers - Let the Creativity Begin?

[NorrthCafe]

If you were a failed daytime writer, producer, or director, it rarely mattered that your tenure with a show was considered a creative low point. You could easily screw up one soap and move into the same position (most often) with a different soap. Guiding Light aired for the last time on Sept. 18th. Fans and soap critics are speculating that ATWT is the next to go. What do you think the impact will be on the power brokers of daytime? There are many fewer places to retreat to when you've performed poorly with one soap.

Will writers, producers, and directors continue to offer lazy storytelling (if you're a fan like me who believes they are)? OR

Do you think the cancellation of GL, along with the possible cancellation of ATWT, will light a creative spark causing TPTB to fight to save the jobs they have now? Where are the out of work writers/producers/directors of past canceled shows ending up? Where will those left in the industry go when this is all over? It has to weigh heavily of the minds of those still in the industry.

[aMLCproduction]

If nothing has changed by now, nothing will. It starts with letting the head writer actually write. No side bars. Then you have to take risk and hire newwriters with vision who understands the genre

[Greg's GL]

Good thread, NorrthCafe. I suppose I'm a little jaded by now. Over the past 15 years or so, I got my hopes up everytime a new regime would come to GL promising to "give the show back it's heart" or "to be respectful of the show's rich history". Most of the time, I ended up very disappointed in what the new regime did to my show.

I don't think much will change if ATWT does, in fact, get canceled. It comes across to me in some interviews - I think Frons was the last one - when talked of GL getting canceled, it was almost like it was a bug on his shoe that he should have scraped off a long time ago. Like the show was beneath him or something or his shows were so much better. So I don't think it's had an effect at all.

Really, the last true "newbies" as far as writing goes was Lucky Gold and Hogan Heffer. I suppose Lucky's "writing" days are over since GL is off the air. But look at what Heffer's done - taken 3 shows to ruins. After his failed stint on Days, why on Earth would MAB hire him? But she did. And then there's Rauch whose worked on more soaps than I care to think about right now.

Nothing is going to change IMHO. It's an incestuous business and I don't think there's much interest from outside talent to jump into the party. Sad.

[NorrthCafe]

I'm all for fresh blood in daytime, aMLCproduction. I just keep hearing excuses from current writers and PTB why that can't happen and why new writers wouldn't be able to understand the genre and survive it... well, the CURRENT PTB don't seem to understand it or survive it either. What do they have to lose?

Greg's GL, I use to cringe whenever a new EP or writer used those words. Like you, I knew they meant BUBKES! to the person uttering them. None of them ever wanted to hear what fans had to say. Fans were with their respective shows typically longer than the revolving door of writers, EPs and directors... and they still thought we were too stupid or our points of view too myopic to be considered.

[MichaelGL]

Isn't OLTL's Ron Carlivati a newbie?

[Faulkner]

Carlivati had been working on OLTL since 1996, 11 years before he was promoted to Head Writer.

[NorrthCafe]

The only highly touted newbie I can remember in recent years was K Boof and I'd become giddy with the idea that she could end up as a significant player in daytime after hearing an interview of her on "WOST" (man I miss that site). Unfortunately for her, some of the actors backstage seemed to despise her and made her life miserable. She didn't want to do traditional soap storylines, at least not the way they'd always been done. I don't know that I've ever heard a soap actor advocate for 'fresh blood' in the writers pool, either, but maybe for obvious reasons.

[jfung79]

I'm confused what you mean by this. Lloyd "Lucky" Gold started writing for soaps in 1982 with Another World, and also wrote for OLTL for many years, so he was far from new to the industry. Also he is now an Associate Head Writer on ATWT and appears to be off to a strong start. GL was his first headwriting gig in 2001, but David Kreizman and later Jill Lorie Hurst became head writers years after he did and GL was also their first headwriting gigs.

Anyway, I think it is a good thing that head writers are usually people who have written in soaps before. Experience is good. And it is even good that some move from soap to soap - keeps things fresh for them and gives new insights if the person who is moving is actually talented (which is not always the case).

As for the main topic, I don't think anyone intentionally sets out not giving their best ... And I don't think you get quality work from threatening someone. I think ATWT is getting better, but I think it could have been better even without the threats. If the shows were given full creative control by the networks (and by P&G in ATWT's case) and sufficient resources instead of starvation budgets, they would already be better.

Despite GL going, I still have optimism that daytime soaps will not die, so I don't think there will be lots of people needing to go into new forms of media. I am very happy that so many GL writers have found new employ already on AMC, ATWT, and B&B.