OLTL not going to HD next year

[EricMontreal22]

Funny that;'s one of the last beloved eras among AMC fans--when Lorrained Broderick became headwriter and Behr and then Francesca James were EP. Introducing Bobby in the Summer was what AMC had always done--focused on a new young storyline for the Summer months--in fact it was I remember thought of as the time as a bit of a return to basics as they hadn't done this in a while yet in the 70s and 80s were famous (infamous) for it. At the same time Broderick had Erica's huge pain killer storyline, tied Bobby into the Maria/Edmund baby story, Brought back a 70s vet, Tara, to introduce Bobby's thorn in his side, Kelsey, used Bobby to re-ignite an Opal/Palmer story, etc etc. In fact I think that was the last time AMC really had a successful teen scene.Bobby was barely even a frontburner storyline--at least not for more than several months he was strictly B and wrapped up in the other stories. Broderick was forced into some slight wackinedss--AMc's rating erosion had been partly because DAYS had been climbign thanks to its wacko storytelling--hence AMC's lame attempt at a voodoo story and Myrtle and Mrs Clause.

E

[EricMontreal22]

Right on. Carl says that Cable's been around for 20 years or more but soap ratings continue to drop--but there increasingly is more cable to choose from, the internet has taken over as an entertainment option, not just a communication tool in the past ten years, tivo, etc.

Look at it this way--primetime network ratings have been eroding--and as onlya few have pointed out not at much of a different rate than daytime, just as much int he past ten years--despite the fact that we've been told that we're in a second golden age of quality primetime programming. Of course ther'e sa difference--networks gain more from primetime because of DVD sales, selling them overseas, the fact that having a show like Lost on your network gives you a cool factor and notoriety etc.

Now I'm not saying that the way soaps have reacted to sinking ratings isn't largely wrong headed. But it's definetly more complicated than "build a quality old style soap and they will all tune back in".

[EricMontreal22]

Wasn;t the gay storyline mainly early 96? (Ah I miss Kevin--I wish they'd somehow miraculousky bring the character back). Even the letting go of Tom I thought was dictated partly buy the unavailability of Tonya P as Livia--he did pop up every so often (though I was sad to see him go).

I'm with your assessment of this time. Yes there was some bad (besides the voodoo mess, the Tanner mess was *awful* on every level though I also wondered if that was network dictated--at the time it seemed like ABC wanted an aussie hunk on every one of their shows--funny the ones from City and AMC were both from Heartbreak High)but it all feels brilliant now (I also liked the intro of Pierce--a character they had troubkles with when they had to let go the first actor, Laura, etc)

I never got why Behr was fired except I guess that ratings continued to fall though again that seemed more due to rating sfalling everywhere and DAYS' climbing. I guess they felt she had been there since 89 (where she helped turn the show around from a decrease in quality in the late 80s). It did seem funny though--Behr had McTavish fired in 95, and as much as I liked McTavish's ealry 90s stint (and feel her haters are unfair claiming that her success then had nothing to do with her) Behr was probably right to, McTavish was starting to lose it a bit as you mention. But it seemed funny that so soon after Broderick was hired by her ABC had Behr let go--she barely had much time to even make it work with Broderick. I'd love ot have James back at the show, but you're right that shee was uneven and seemed ot have less of a sure hand and control over the show. (still the fact she even lasted not very long and we've been stuck with below mecioccre, visionless Carruthers for gaes has me misdified). And then the fianl bti of irony was that a cluessless ABC obviously looked at when their AMC was back in the top ratings, saw it was when McT ws in charge of writing and blidnly hired her back to bad results. It's also too bad Broderick reportedly won't return to the show while Frons is in charge.

Wasn;t the gay storyline mainly early 96? (Ah I miss Kevin--I wish they'd somehow miraculousky bring the character back). Even the letting go of Tom I thought was dictated partly buy the unavailability of Tonya P as Livia--he did pop up every so often (though I was sad to see him go).

I'm with your assessment of this time. Yes there was some bad (besides the voodoo mess, the Tanner mess was *awful* on every level though I also wondered if that was network dictated--at the time it seemed like ABC wanted an aussie hunk on every one of their shows--funny the ones from City and AMC were both from Heartbreak High)but it all feels brilliant now (I also liked the intro of Pierce--a character they had troubkles with when they had to let go the first actor, Laura, etc)

I never got why Behr was fired except I guess that ratings continued to fall though again that seemed more due to rating sfalling everywhere and DAYS' climbing. I guess they felt she had been there since 89 (where she helped turn the show around from a decrease in quality in the late 80s). It did seem funny though--Behr had McTavish fired in 95, and as much as I liked McTavish's ealry 90s stint (and feel her haters are unfair claiming that her success then had nothing to do with her) Behr was probably right to, McTavish was starting to lose it a bit as you mention. But it seemed funny that so soon after Broderick was hired by her ABC had Behr let go--she barely had much time to even make it work with Broderick. I'd love ot have James back at the show, but you're right that shee was uneven and seemed ot have less of a sure hand and control over the show. (still the fact she even lasted not very long and we've been stuck with below mecioccre, visionless Carruthers for gaes has me misdified). And then the fianl bti of irony was that a cluessless ABC obviously looked at when their AMC was back in the top ratings, saw it was when McT ws in charge of writing and blidnly hired her back to bad results. It's also too bad Broderick reportedly won't return to the show while Frons is in charge.

[DRW50]

This was the first time, or one of the first times, they dumped four or five teens onto the show at the same time and pushed big story for them.

Introducing Bobby was one thing, but introducing him with a bad actor who looked much too old for the role, and who had little chemistry with the very weak actress who played Anita, and giving them way too much airtime -- bad idea all around.

The era may have been beloved, but they did have to end up going to the soap press and say, "Oops, sorry," because of these teens. And like all Lorraine Broderick shows, as talented as she can be as a writer, the bottom seemed to fall out within her first year. She's had a mixed bag at all her soaps in the 90s. I do think she got somewhat of a raw deal at AMC and then at OLTL at the start of this decade.

More cable doesn't equal more options. If anything, there's less to watch on cable now because everything is homogenized. When a cable channel gets big, they always end up dumping most of their unique programs, or repeats which haven't already been run to death.

I really do believe that if the soaps were better, people would make more effort to watch. People staying at home still had very busy lives 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. They could have easily found other things to do if they wanted to do so. They chose to watch soaps because soaps spoke to them.

Now soaps speak to some sort of repressed, angry white straight guy who hates women and wants to be in the mob.

[EricMontreal22]

I bow to your knowledge While I grew up with AMC in the 80s (though I wqas born in 1980) and have done a lot more catching up with old episodes of MC, OLTL (my second love, I admit) is less clear to me at least until I became a hardcore watcher in 92 (as a very young teen it was the billy Douglas story that hooked me) so my knowledge of this era isn't as strong as I migth pretend though I have seen hours and hours of footage--and for me I just always assumed what kept Rauch's over the top, rich white tendencies in check was O'Shea's vastly underated writing (it's taken for granted how great Gordon Russell--it's really too bad he passed away when he did--and to a lesser extent Sam Hall was for OLTL but less so with O'Shea) But I didn't know that some of those stories under her were suggested by Schnessel--I don't doubt you at all but am curious where you heard that.

And yeah hack is unfair but I do think the combo of him and Rauch just led to broader and broader camp--I guess he needed someone to reign him in. (Rauch seems to have LOvED him though, if that recent Rauch interview is anything to go by). Maybe in that case he was a bit like McTavish (stay with me here lol I know most think she's beneath a hack). Mctavish to me has undeniable talent bu8t needs to be surrounded by the rigth people--on her writing team and an EP with a vision--it's obvious that McT is more than happy to write what she's dictated to do (ie on One Life it seemed like there was no change when she came in after EP Phelps had been ghost writing herself).

I bow to your knowledge While I grew up with AMC in the 80s (though I wqas born in 1980) and have done a lot more catching up with old episodes of MC, OLTL (my second love, I admit) is less clear to me at least until I became a hardcore watcher in 92 (as a very young teen it was the billy Douglas story that hooked me) so my knowledge of this era isn't as strong as I migth pretend though I have seen hours and hours of footage--and for me I just always assumed what kept Rauch's over the top, rich white tendencies in check was O'Shea's vastly underated writing (it's taken for granted how great Gordon Russell--it's really too bad he passed away when he did--and to a lesser extent Sam Hall was for OLTL but less so with O'Shea) But I didn't know that some of those stories under her were suggested by Schnessel--I don't doubt you at all but am curious where you heard that.

And yeah hack is unfair but I do think the combo of him and Rauch just led to broader and broader camp--I guess he needed someone to reign him in. (Rauch seems to have LOvED him though, if that recent Rauch interview is anything to go by). Maybe in that case he was a bit like McTavish (stay with me here lol I know most think she's beneath a hack). Mctavish to me has undeniable talent bu8t needs to be surrounded by the rigth people--on her writing team and an EP with a vision--it's obvious that McT is more than happy to write what she's dictated to do (ie on One Life it seemed like there was no change when she came in after EP Phelps had been ghost writing herself).

[EricMontreal22]

AGreed there. If we're nitpicking though wasn't it McTavish who moved the storyline from Brooke's beau being POTENIALLY maybe the child pornographer to being for sure (and her shooting him etc)? Either way ithink these more shocking plot points were to some extent pushed on the show by the network--because of lowering ratings and the DAYS momentum.

AGreed there. If we're nitpicking though wasn't it McTavish who moved the storyline from Brooke's beau being POTENIALLY maybe the child pornographer to being for sure (and her shooting him etc)? Either way ithink these more shocking plot points were to some extent pushed on the show by the network--because of lowering ratings and the DAYS momentum.

[Doyen]

I can't get with the rationalization that cable and the Internet are killing soaps. Offering more competition? Absolutely. Killing? No. Well, at least not singularly.

The cable boom started in the late 1960s. Soaps reached their climax in popularity during the 70s and 80s, while cable was steadily permeating more homes nationwide. Which means that for a good 20-plus years, soaps and the other options cable provided existed simultaneously. Yet the explosion of MTV and reruns on USA and TBS didn't stop people from tuning in to see Luke and Laura get married, or Viki go to heaven. Furthermore, Cable and the Internet just doesn't exist during daytime hours. It's there in the morning and during prime time, but are Good Morning America and The View in danger of getting the ax because of JAG reruns on USA, or because of Internet streaming? Hoards of people still tune into American Idol, SVU, CSI and Brothers and Sisters...and during the times when many cable networks actually offer their own original primetime programming, as opposed to just reruns like during the day.

In addition to the soaps themselves being lackluster in content, what's killing soaps are the broadcast networks that air them. They aren't doing anything to keep the genre replenished, nor are they actively trying to target a new audience. They're putting up a futile effort to hang on to the viewers they still have, while hoping that new ones will just happen to tune in. When was the last time a *new* soap premiered? Passions, in 1999. It's been ten years. They're slashing budgets and going very soft on promotion. When Port Charles, Passions, and Guiding Light were cancelled all of them should have been replaced with a new soap. That they weren't is a blunt indicator that the networks have conceded to the notion that the genre is dying, have all but admitted defeat and are patiently waiting for the remainder of it to go belly up.

Seriously, who here isn't up for some new blood? If one of the networks announced that a new soap was coming, I'd check it out...wouldn't you? In addition to them bad production and the lack of promotion, another reason most of the existing soaps don't attract new viewers is because (as we all know) trying to get into a soap that you never watched before that's been on for decades (with six different storylines going on at once) is a tedious experience. Trying to understand who is who, and why they do what they do, can be like trying to read a treasure map. Most of us started watching our soaps because one storyline caught initially our attention, and after months of watching just for it, we slowly start getting into the others. But there has to be some sort of reason to entice viewers to watch. If there's none, then they won't come. That's also a reason why former viewers don't come back, the shows looks too different from the last time they watched, and they wind up lost. If the last time you watched OLTL, Viki was married to Clint and Todd looked like Roger Howarth, what do you know about the characters now? A fresh soap, without years of convoluted back story to try and decipher, would at least give viewers some sort of level playing field to start with.

I honestly believe that there is still a need for daytime drama, and that they can interest and attract a brand new generation of viewers (despite Cable and the Internet.) Again, the problem is that networks aren't trying to keep them alive. They aren't giving the public a reason to care, so they don't.

[DRW50]

I think he was definitely a child pornographer when Broderick was writing. She wrote all the stuff about Laura knowing him, Jim guilting her into keeping quiet, Jim giving the young guy who knew him and knew Laura a lethal heroin overdose to keep him from telling anyone.

There may have been some ambiguity that I'm forgetting but I think he was already very far gone. Then when McTavish came along she made the stupid stuff with him being responsible for the plane crash that "killed" Maria. I hated that but then I didn't like Broderick's resolution that much either (Adam was the owner and responsible for the crash, and then for Liza's miscarriage -- the start of Liza's baby obsession).

I don't know how much of that to put on Broderick and how much on James.

When McTavish started I was sort of hoping for the best, and I did enjoy some of her stories at first, like Dimitri's redemption, Stuart/Marian, Opal finding her son Adrian. I even put up with the Hawkins family headcases, but by the time of Kit Fisher and Adam giving Liza his sperm while she thought it was Jake's, it was all over.

[EricMontreal22]

Re-reading my old posts I have to apologize for my tone--I'm still recovering from the hospital and am stuck on an old laptop that makes typing hard, and editing next to impossible because of a slow connection--so that's my excuse. But I didn't mean to sound like I was attacking you--I'm enjoying the debate.

On that note I am glad it sounds like cable has the same prob in the US as in Canada--when a cable station is established suddenly it stops showing the specialty lower rated programming it promised and starts showing Law and Order and CSI reruns. LOL it's a huge pet peeve of mine. That said I'm not sure how much that affects what people are watching instead of soaps--it's still true that say the avergae person stuck at home sick is FAR less likely to turn to a soap now than they were--because they could watch that CSI, or that random movie on TCM, or a fave childhood cartoon on Toon, or whatever. It's just simply *true* IMHO and can't be argued (and as I said the internet's grasp can't be ignored). This is why primetime ratings have fallen at nearly the same percentage rates for networks as daytime--it's just Primetime because of its status is still higher profile.

I liked the Bobby actor--and thought he did a decent job (I know others agreed) though I will agree with Anita being very weak. I also don't think it was the first time so many teens were introduced at once--what about the early 80s? It also made sense to build up a true sense of a high school--for Michael's story and other reasons (one thing I find lacking in most modern teen stories--the worse being Passanate's hellish turn int he early 2000s when we had all thsoe teens with NO connection to past characters who all seemed to love doing exctacy in the woods, etc, etc) I suppose Agnes Nixon's brief but wonderful 99/2000 return as co head wrtier also launched some teens since she focused on Becca (a flop character--I think she hoped for a tara for the 2000s not realizing that kind of goody goody soap heroine doesn't play anymore) Greenlee, Leo and Scott number two (Cosgrove who I vastly prefered) but they were more a pre college crew.

I actually kinda wish Pratt had commited to trying a teen scene this Summer--cast a new Colby, bring out Petey more, etc. Brown/Esenstein half assed tried a teen scene with that awful band but they didn't even seem to be trying and I don't think AMC right now could be faulted for having too many teen characters (too many mid 20s to mid 30s on the other hand...)

What was the "oops sorry" to the press Broderick and crew gave?? I wonder what Broderick even did at OLTL--she was co writing with king of camp Chris Whitesall, and working under emperor of camp Gary Tomlin that it just seemed such an odd fit. I'd like to think she helped give the stories at the time the little sense of reality they had but...

Re-reading my old posts I have to apologize for my tone--I'm still recovering from the hospital and am stuck on an old laptop that makes typing hard, and editing next to impossible because of a slow connection--so that's my excuse. But I didn't mean to sound like I was attacking you--I'm enjoying the debate.

On that note I am glad it sounds like cable has the same prob in the US as in Canada--when a cable station is established suddenly it stops showing the specialty lower rated programming it promised and starts showing Law and Order and CSI reruns. LOL it's a huge pet peeve of mine. That said I'm not sure how much that affects what people are watching instead of soaps--it's still true that say the avergae person stuck at home sick is FAR less likely to turn to a soap now than they were--because they could watch that CSI, or that random movie on TCM, or a fave childhood cartoon on Toon, or whatever. It's just simply *true* IMHO and can't be argued (and as I said the internet's grasp can't be ignored). This is why primetime ratings have fallen at nearly the same percentage rates for networks as daytime--it's just Primetime because of its status is still higher profile.

I liked the Bobby actor--and thought he did a decent job (I know others agreed) though I will agree with Anita being very weak. I also don't think it was the first time so many teens were introduced at once--what about the early 80s? It also made sense to build up a true sense of a high school--for Michael's story and other reasons (one thing I find lacking in most modern teen stories--the worse being Passanate's hellish turn int he early 2000s when we had all thsoe teens with NO connection to past characters who all seemed to love doing exctacy in the woods, etc, etc) I suppose Agnes Nixon's brief but wonderful 99/2000 return as co head wrtier also launched some teens since she focused on Becca (a flop character--I think she hoped for a tara for the 2000s not realizing that kind of goody goody soap heroine doesn't play anymore) Greenlee, Leo and Scott number two (Cosgrove who I vastly prefered) but they were more a pre college crew.

I actually kinda wish Pratt had commited to trying a teen scene this Summer--cast a new Colby, bring out Petey more, etc. Brown/Esenstein half assed tried a teen scene with that awful band but they didn't even seem to be trying and I don't think AMC right now could be faulted for having too many teen characters (too many mid 20s to mid 30s on the other hand...)

What was the "oops sorry" to the press Broderick and crew gave?? I wonder what Broderick even did at OLTL--she was co writing with king of camp Chris Whitesall, and working under emperor of camp Gary Tomlin that it just seemed such an odd fit. I'd like to think she helped give the stories at the time the little sense of reality they had but...

Re-reading my old posts I have to apologize for my tone--I'm still recovering from the hospital and am stuck on an old laptop that makes typing hard, and editing next to impossible because of a slow connection--so that's my excuse. But I didn't mean to sound like I was attacking you--I'm enjoying the debate.

On that note I am glad it sounds like cable has the same prob in the US as in Canada--when a cable station is established suddenly it stops showing the specialty lower rated programming it promised and starts showing Law and Order and CSI reruns. LOL it's a huge pet peeve of mine. That said I'm not sure how much that affects what people are watching instead of soaps--it's still true that say the avergae person stuck at home sick is FAR less likely to turn to a soap now than they were--because they could watch that CSI, or that random movie on TCM, or a fave childhood cartoon on Toon, or whatever. It's just simply *true* IMHO and can't be argued (and as I said the internet's grasp can't be ignored). This is why primetime ratings have fallen at nearly the same percentage rates for networks as daytime--it's just Primetime because of its status is still higher profile.

I liked the Bobby actor--and thought he did a decent job (I know others agreed) though I will agree with Anita being very weak. I also don't think it was the first time so many teens were introduced at once--what about the early 80s? It also made sense to build up a true sense of a high school--for Michael's story and other reasons (one thing I find lacking in most modern teen stories--the worse being Passanate's hellish turn int he early 2000s when we had all thsoe teens with NO connection to past characters who all seemed to love doing exctacy in the woods, etc, etc) I suppose Agnes Nixon's brief but wonderful 99/2000 return as co head wrtier also launched some teens since she focused on Becca (a flop character--I think she hoped for a tara for the 2000s not realizing that kind of goody goody soap heroine doesn't play anymore) Greenlee, Leo and Scott number two (Cosgrove who I vastly prefered) but they were more a pre college crew.

I actually kinda wish Pratt had commited to trying a teen scene this Summer--cast a new Colby, bring out Petey more, etc. Brown/Esenstein half assed tried a teen scene with that awful band but they didn't even seem to be trying and I don't think AMC right now could be faulted for having too many teen characters (too many mid 20s to mid 30s on the other hand...)

What was the "oops sorry" to the press Broderick and crew gave?? I wonder what Broderick even did at OLTL--she was co writing with king of camp Chris Whitesall, and working under emperor of camp Gary Tomlin that it just seemed such an odd fit. I'd like to think she helped give the stories at the time the little sense of reality they had but...

[jfung79]

A few comments ...

About the original topic, I think OLTL not going to HD as previously planned may indeed be a bad sign that the network is considering pulling the plug, which I hope doesn't happen.

About the "what the average person thinks" posts, all of these are only anecdotal, and my own anecdotal response based on my own experience would be different. To me "the average person" of my generation where I grew up (graduated high school '98 in the Santa Clara Valley, California) has heard of Days of Our Lives and General Hospital because they were on when they got home from school so there were friends who talked about them, and Days/GH had crazy dragged out (Days) or great (GH) stories back when I was at high school -- but they generally would not know the names of other soaps because they were on earlier in the day. Thus I think OLTL does have less name recognition.

About shows of the "present generation" needing to be retired, nope, they just need to find the right formula. Just look at Days -- love it or hate it, it's gaining viewers. Sara Bibel did an analysis of the ratings and found that all soaps (including GL) held on to the same ratings year-to-year in the younger Women 18-34 demo, and it's actually the older viewers who are tuning out: http://www.fancast.com/blogs/deep-soap/deep-soap-the-numbers-tell-the-story-2/

And it's nothing new that cable has given an alternative for things to do when you are at home during the day -- it's the Internet that is new compared to the 90s, plus maybe less people being home during the day now (though I'm not sure about that, with the recession and all).

[DRW50]

I didn't care that much for the actor. They seemed to not even write for him for the entire last year he was on the show so I wonder how much interest they had in him once the hype wore off. He just seemed smarmy to me, and he kept stammering. He's done that in all his roles.

The teen scene, from what I have seen, which isn't that much, seemed more gradually introduced in the early 80s, although I might be wrong. They also seemed to have more depth. The teen scene from 1996, aside from Kelsey, seemed very shallow. I thought Scott had potential, but then they recast him. I liked Cosgrove on GL but I thought he was too old to play Scott on AMC, it jarred me at the time how much older he looked than the actor who had played the part before him. This was also when they took away most of what had made Laura likeable for me and made her a sourpuss with a big chip on her shoulder.

I don't mean to overstate AMC's comments about the teens. I remember a SOW article in 1996 talking about bringing in new teens, and Francesca James said something to the effect that the audience had not responded well to so many teens being introduced, and they had scaled back.

I had such mixed feelings about Nixon's 1999-2000 return. I hated the teens on the show at that time, minus Bianca, who was great back then. I loved Leo but he wasn't a teen.

I still feel like Greenlee in the long run has done a lot of damage to the show.

[EricMontreal22]

I agree with a lot of what you say especially at the end. So just cuz I'm in that kinda mood--I'll point out where I disagree

There is truth to all your argument but I think there's truth to the cable/internet thing too. I wasn't born till 1980 but I still witnessed the HUGE growth of cable options--when I was little I remember we used the 13 channels (12 technically) on our TV dial and the few friends I knew with cable had a couple of movie channels, etc. It was NOT what it was now so to say that cable existed from the late 60s thru the mid 80s as the strong competition it is now is frankly not accurate. I've also said that primetime ratings HAVE sharply fallen--in many instances almost at the same percentage level as daytime. Even compared to say the early or mid 90s when say ER was king--the numbers are not comparable ait's just that daytime suffers from this drop more. So yes cable and the net has eroded that audience. The View does well but it's cheap--and its numbers aren't comparable I'd bet to, I dunno, The Dinah Shore show in the 70s there is some truth I think to Carl's argument that some of this was what networks and the soaps themselves did to themselves. When GH became huge -- to pick just one example-- the networks with the sligthly less huge soaps nonetheless more oftne than not tried to emulate what they saw GH doing--it's this kinda mentality (throwing the baby out with the bathwater) that I think has been a problem with soaps--and honestly has been to SOME extent since the 60s but it does seem to get worse and worse.

[EricMontreal22]

in the companion book to the Museum of Broadcasting's soap exhibition, World's WIthout End, Francesca James gives an amazing quote about how she sees Pine Valley--essentially as a Sirk melodrama complete with emphasis on class conflicts and small town gossip but with the addition of humour. She GOT the show so I wonder why her work as EP (while miles better than what we've gotten since) didn't quite gell--I can't help thinking outside interference is partly to blame especially withm, as I said, falling ratings and the obvious mandate to do more DAYS style outrageous stories.

Still I did like some stuff at the end of Broderick's run--it's true they phassed out most of the teens but they kept Kelsey and Kevin Shefield and I thought the gay coming out stuff they did with Kevin was awesome--it kinda slipped under the radar in the soap press because there had already been Billy on OLTL and AMC had just had the more outrageous gay story involving the shooting but that's fine, it handled even better than both of those worthy attempts. I still can't believe he was completely dropped with the writer change--I don't even blame McTav ish as many do I doubt the execs had any interest in his character and itwas just Broderick who kept him on the canvas) His and Kelsey's friendship was great too.I guess one reason I liked Cosgrove as Scott is superficial--I just found the first Scott so wishy washy, annoying and (mean I know) kinda effeminate that I never warmed to the character or actor.

Sure it can be argued Greenlee did more longterm damage to the show but my point was about when Agnes wrote and created her--and we had the great class stuff with her snobby grandparents, etc. I loved how Agnes brought all that back--Mrs Nelson was common around Pine Valley again, we had the brilliantly funny story of Marian trying not to hurt Opal's feelings yet trying to ditch her to gain approval with the conservative founding leadings of the town--it really felt like classic Pine Valley. Of course part of the problem with Agnes' return was her main focus was the well done Bianca story (and I assume one last attempt at really reshaping the show before she more or less retired and bringing it back to her vision) but she soon had a co writer--first Elizabeth Page, then Passanate and as she started to give them more control the show became more schizo--I guess writing it all was too much work for Agnes but it was surreal that at the ver end of her run we had Passanante's infamous stories like Libidizone. And ironic that Agnes ostensibly came in to clean up the mess McTavish had made and did do a good job (I admit I even loved some of the stories nobody did--like the rebuilding of Brooke's community center and the priest Elijah who she became involved with and turned out to be the drunk driver who killed her daughter--yes it was old school soap opera and I think maybe too much for modern audiences but I was one of the very few who kinda loved it partly cuzof the writing and great actors). Anyway then when Agnes left and they left Passanante in charge the show was EVEN worse than it had been before Agnes came in! I still think that was the worse era in AMC history which is saying something when you think of the Rauyfield era and some other recent ones. (Culliton was infamous for dropped characters and stories but I don't envy him coming in when he did and he did seem to be trying his best--remember the few months before he came in AMC didn't even have a credited head writer--among rumours of being fired Passanante broke her contract and ran to ATWT leaving the show for a good 3 months of awfulness with ghost Gillian and Jessie running around town, etc, with NO plot progression or direction)

[DRW50]

I did appreciate the return of the class system, I just don't like Rebecca Budig as an actress, and the story with Scott and Becca was so generic and poorly acted. The only good thing was Leo, for me. The other stuff about Marian was good character-driven stories. I do respect Agnes for trying to write for Marian. Those few years, that story and then Marian mourning Stuart's "death", were the last time she had a story.

There was some stuff at that time I was put off by. I hated the way Tad acted about Dixie's pregnancy. I hated getting yet another version of Adam is a bad father, why can't he be good like Tad is. I actually started to dislike Tad around this time and that has only increased more and more with the years. I didn't like that they wrote Belinda out and put Adrian with that useless Tina. I hated the exit story for the Dillons. I know that was budget, not Agnes, but it was just shockingly bad.

Other things were more mixed. I thought Erica and the Phantom mask was bad soap parody and seemed outdated for Erica, but I did like the work between Susan and Vincent. I liked the idea of Brooke and the guy who had killed Laura, but the actors didn't have chemistry and the story was rushed.

I'm not going to mention anything with Hayley, Mateo, Jake, because by then I loathed those sanctimonious twits enough that Agnes Nixon could have personally asked for my advice and I still would have complained.

I do agree that things got much worse when Passante took full control. That Gillian shot in the head story, the mess with Alex and her mother and all that, Dogboy, whatever.

I liked Culliton's tenure a lot more than most people do.

[DRW50]

I agree with you.

I think that the lack of interest in revitalizing soaps (they seemed to think "revitalize" meant bringing in young hardbodies) is what is really killing daytime.

I just don't see cable as being that much of an impact. I know that it's death by a thousand cuts, or a thousand channels, but overall there is not that much of interest on cable during daytime. Not these days, at least from what I see. When I go through the channels, I see bad movies that have been rerun a million times. Or I see mildly diverting but obviously scripted "reality" shows shot on a budget of $5 and rerun 500 times. I end up watching GSN. A lot of my aunts watch home shopping, and they've done that for 20+ years, so it's not new.

I think that cable is much more hyped by the media than by the public. Look at AMC. I have seen the media jerk off over Mad Men for ages now, and yet, their ratings set an "all time high" with 2.8 million a few months ago. 2.8 is, considering how many people have the AMC channel, not really that much.