What headwriters would you like to see create a new soap?

[Doyen]

Any headwriter (past or present) from any soap.

Call me crazy, but I would be interested in seeing Dena Higley create a soap. She stunk at OLTL (don't know how she is at DAYS), but I think a lot of it had to do with her writing style just not being the right fit for the show. If she was given her own universe, I wonder if she could create something interesting.

[Rakesh]

Dena Higley

[marceline]

I'm definitely a fan of Michael Malone's. He's created some of my favorite characters and storylines, plus I just like his style. He writes like an author. But at the same time when he goes off the rails he REALLY goes off the rails so I believe he'd need a co-writer, preferably some young upstart who's completely new to the genre (and a background in theatre if I had my druthers.)

And I can't help but be curious about what Agnes Nixon would do right now if she could create a show from scratch right now. The same for Nancy Curlee.

I know this thread is JFF (just for fun) but given that anti-nostalgia is my personal cause, I feel the need to say I'm less interested in what a current or past HW would do than in what someone outside the genre would do. I heard an amazing interview Ira Glass did with Joss Whedon where Joss talked about among other things, the hurdles he's encountered bringing his shows to life. (The network didn't want Firefly's Wash and Zoe to be married, Dollhouse was too "whore-y") and what he thinks about TV and its future.) and it occurred to me that IMO no one, absolutely no one, in daytime approaches their shows with the same level of passion, intelligence or fight.

[MarkH]

I'd want it to be somebody new, outside of daytime.

So, my mind automatically goes to Alan Ball or someone he has trained. But I'd like to see that kind of fare brought to daytime.

But I have a completely OTHER idea, motivated by a thread over at Usenet. Someone there bought the pre-TV radio episodes of Guiding Light. And it is utterly compelling. Just riveting, actually...as an estranged wife shoots her husband for inadvertently killing their son...but that doesn't begin to summarize the complexity of the story. It is really psychologically layered, and almost reads more like a thriller than a soap.

And so that has provoked us to talk about whether, like Mad Men, a retro soap--set in the glory days--couldn't actually be an incisive commentary. Not a parody...but either a remake of a soap from that era, or at least a soap SET in that era. When illegitimate children and divorce and all that stuff were taboo, and had to be skirted around. I think it could be just riveting. Of course, about 6 people would watch it, LOL.

[Jonathan]

I want to see what Kate Hall can do. She's good at scriptwriting but I want to see what story ideas she has.

[aMLCproduction]

Me, myself and I. The best new head writers are blog writers

[aMLCproduction]

It doesn't matter which HW besides myself I would want to create a new soap. The writer won't be able to write, the HW will be told what to write. And besides, if the writers can't get it together now on the current soaps that's airing, you can forget about a new soap

[DRW50]

I would like to see Claire Labine get to create another soap.

I'd also like to see the Cullitons have another try.

[aMLCproduction]

I love the Cullitons. They are so underrated.

I'd rather have Labine at Y&R.

[DRW50]

I doubt Claire will go anywhere with Rauch as EP.

[aMLCproduction]

Not to sound dumb Carl but why do you think so?

[DRW50]

Supposedly he never liked her at GL and worked to make sure she was fired.

[aMLCproduction]

Wow, compared to what he is producing at Y&R

[jfung79]

It's obvious from my sig that I am a Culliton fan so they'd probably be my vote as well. Port Charles was great the first couple of months with the great Irish Catholic Scanlons alongside the Baldiwn family as the two main families, Eve and Julie's secrets and rivalry, all the other interns, and focusing on the young sweet innocent love of Joe and Karen.

Then they were fired after just a couple months, and all that was lost -- starting with Lynn Marie Latham's slow as molasses, dull pacing and character rewrites like Matt being an FBI agent; then Scott and his parents disappearing from the show; then an invasion of other unrelated characters under other head writers; and then the final nail in the coffin with the supernatural stuff and the 13-week chapters. Joe and Karen, who should have been the focus soulmate bedrock couple of the show, slipped away within the first couple of years. I would love to see an interview with the Cullitons where someone asks them what they think about what happened to PC (and where they don't mince words!), and where they can dish the real dirt about what happened to make them fired by Wendy Riche (who I like too) so soon.

I think David Kreizman, Lucky Gold, or Ron Carlivati might create a vibrant, relevant, yet fun 21st century soap from scratch, so I could vote for them too.

But I also agree that the best writers for new soaps might well be fans. I don't read fan fiction blogs, but I am addicted to the fans' work in the PGP/TeleNext Media-endorsed Twitter roleplay continuing Another World.

[aMLCproduction]

Actually RC's PC was the best PC. Even the numbers refecleted that. After they fired RC and CC the ratings sank.

Why did they get fired anyway? PC had a great solid start!

RC's AW was getting good until they fired him.

I think Malone and RC would make a great CO HW team.

In this Post RC= Richard Culliton