OLTL | ATWT: Kish vs Nuke

[DRW50]

I think soaps today struggle with writing any three-dimensional characters, gay or straight. I'd probably complain either way about the writing for Kyle because when the show tries to write complex men, we end up with great stories like men raping women out of love. I just think that the character has taken a big lurch, not only is he very nice now, but he also apparently had a great, loving family, which makes it jarring that his sister was a lunatic and that he was so willing to cheat and blackmail people. Now we have this instalove Nick feels for him. I think Kyle is just plot points now. Fish at least seems to be a consistent character.

[quartermainefan]

Kish. First OLTL had a makeout scene btw two guys. It was brief but ATWT never did that.

Nuke gets credit though for being the first and opening the floodgates. GL, Y&R and OLTL all got on ATAT's bandwagon in this dept. Baby steps I guess, and then maybe in five years Sonny and Jason will do the full monty on GH.

I think my biggest problem with Nuke is without the cool evil homophobic and psycopathic father they just didn't seem to have anything to watch. The dad was great though. I love a good soap villain.

[Leia]

Kish because the there is a mult-faceted character driven story with flawed characters dealing with the consequences of their choices. Also they don't restrict the open sexuality of the characters onscreen so we see them making out and I'm guessing having sex soon.

I agree with the complaints about the forgotten character history that preceded their current story. Kyle for example is Rebecca Lewis' brother. Rebecca always referred to her parents as strict bible thumpers if memory serves correct. How is it that Kyle's parents told him he was gay and threw a party for it? The archetype for Kyle's parents should have been Mr. and Mrs. Fish.

[Jennyboom]

I think Luke and Noah's chemistry is so much better. Kish's entire relationship developed offscreen a long time ago. I can't root for something that happened offscreen and am now told that I am supposed to root for it. Luke's coming out and his love story with Noah was so much better and not as rushed. Kish barely share any scenes together too. Maybe to make up for their lack of chemistry. The writing for Kish is not that great. Kyle is dating Nick for 2 seconds and is ready for marriage? Nick isn't a real character. He's just a contrived setup for Kyle/Fish.

Luke and Noah are non existent right now, but Van and Jake say their upcoming story is darker and shocking.

[Soapsuds]

Luke's coming out was nicely done but his love story with Noah was awful and so rushed.

Nuke having a darker and shocking story ...hmmm....well David K is now writing the show. I think Jean P. is co-head writer in name only. Some/Most of her stuff was scraped for David's stories.

I do hear that Luke turns into a mini Damian...LOL. Luke has always been more like his mother than anything else. If this leads to Nuke breaking up for good I will celebrate loudly!

[IcyOne]

Both are a Benny Hill sketch.

[Soapsuds]

Haha...I LOVED Benny Hill.

[All My Shadows]

I understand some of your points, but I have to disagree as far as whether or not Luke and Noah's relationship was rushed is concerned. Luke developed a massive crush on Noah for no particular reason while Noah exhibited not an ounce of attraction -- romantic or sexual -- to Luke. Luke's lil loins got all hot and bothered and so he came out to Noah and then suddenly out of nowhere and, again, for no particular reason, Noah starts acting weird around Luke, and then Show ties it all up in a nice big bow and says that Noah was jonesing for Luke since day one. Oh, I ate it up the first couple of months, but in retrospect, it makes no sense at all to me.

[Soapsuds]

Pretty much!

[DRW50]

I do agree that Noah and Luke were rushed. The story really would have benefited from a slower pace.

Unfortunately, I also have to agree, as much as the story was flawed, and it was definitely flawed (although not as much as the Nuke writing since then...I think the only time they've ever had close to good writing was the Brian story), that ATWT did a better job of writing them as a couple.

Kyle and Fish are:

- a "couple" whose entire history took place offcamera

- a "couple" who had very tense, awkward interactions which then suddenly lurched to Kyle staring longingly at a Fish photo and proclaiming his love

- a "couple" who have had sexual interactions with three different people (Layla, Stacy, Nick) during their storyline while they have not done more than briefly kiss

- a "couple" who have almost no scenes together

And now Kyle is marrying some other man...all because of feelings we never saw develop, with someone we have rarely seen him spend time with. And he's rarely spent time with the man he's marrying either! To have a storyline where you rarely interact with either of your love interests, yet one is your soulmate and the other is your fiance -- how does that work?

I really think they lost a major opportunity with this story. I don't know if this is Frons interference or what, but what kind of a couple barely even speak for the entirety of their storyline? This isn't like Sleepless in Seattle, where you could get away with having Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan not share scenes until the end of the movie.

I think a casual viewer might believe Fish is in love with John. He's spent more time with McBain than he ever has with Kyle.

[Vee]

Wow, darker and shocking - Nuke have never done crap like that before! Cue Evil Dad.

The answer to the topic question is: Kish by a country mile.

I find the issue of Kyle and Oliver not currently being together being used as a point against them to be disingenuous at best. This story is very clearly about them and their issues, together and separate, have driven the storyline for months. The exploration they've had has been vastly superior, scriptwise, to Luke and Noah, who started out with everything going for them and fell apart thanks to ATWT's creative team.

So Kyle and Oliver are not [!@#$%^&*] on-camera or in bed or together - so what? The story is about anticipation, like a thousand other soap opera love stories. You want them to get together, you want them to work out their differences and escape the obstacles and learn to trust again, and you want that because the writing for them made you want it, because the scenes they had (however 'too few' for some posters) made you want it. They talk a lot but are currently leading separate lives, trying to get over each other; they can't. This is not new for a soap opera. To claim that they are invalid because that has yet to happen is, IMO, bullshit - otherwise you could've applied that argument to Luke and Laura before they finally got together. (Or to Robert and Anna Devane - whose history was also offscreen.)

And of course the biggest difference is, Nuke were sort of a craven bid for publicity. "Look, we have two gays, we'll throw them together, there, it's a love story, LOVE THEM." They weren't exactly established as individuals once Noah was introduced. Kyle and Oliver are.

[DRW50]

I don't really expect any gay soap couple to be in bed together, I'm just saying that when you've seen both characters have so many relationships with other people within a few months, and then you see them barely have contact with each other, then the impact becomes diluted.

On a soap, if you can't be there from the start of a relationship, then you can at least have the characters keep running into each other, talking, slowly becoming a part of each other's lives again.

The way it is with Kyle and Fish is that their history was offcamera, we have heard almost no exposition about their time together offcamera, yet they also don't interact very much now oncamera. And they're both new characters, basically. So to a lot of viewers, it will be like seeing two strangers who were once involved before they ever joined the show, and who now barely speak to each other.

I think when a relationship is in its early months, a couple needs more than that to gain viewer interest. They don't have to be joined at the hip, or lose all storyline purpose beyond each other, but as it is now I think these characters have become so drowned out by so much else going on in their storylines and Kyle especially seems to have become a plot-driven character.

I think you need to give fans a reasons to care; I care, because I want gay stories to succeed and I like the work from the actors, but the average viewer may just see the Stacy and Kim antics and the gay marriage story that started so quickly and just shrug the whole thing off as a sideshow.

[quartermainefan]

That's ok though. There needed to be a first, and since Vincent and Passions does not seem to count, Nuke had to do the heavy lifting. Without Nuke there would be no Kish, there would have been no Otalia, no dabbling into gay characters on Y&R, so Kish might be better, but that's ok.

[All My Shadows]

I agree with this, but IMO, Kyle and Oliver now are different (as individual characters) from what they were when the show first introduced them, and to me, that's almost as shoddy as not establishing them at all. Of course, it can be argued that what we're seeing now with each character is development of what we've previously seen, but I find that a lot of the traits that existed in Oliver before are no longer a part of his character, that they've changed him a bit for this story. That's not unforgivable, but it is at least a little messy. Where is the mousy, somewhat ditzy, somewhat nerdy guy we saw when he was first introduced with Tonio and Talia? He's all about the drama now, and that's just a tad boring.