Ways to save OLTL

[DRW50]

I would say the problem with OLTL isn't the lack of families so much as they just do not work in a family unit, either through a process of neglect, or through really bad writing.

DAYS has more vets, as your rundown pointed out so well, but probably what makes their families work better for me than what we have on OLTL right now is the families generally seem like families, good and bad. Brady/Victor, Kate/Phillip, Sami/Brady, Kate/Lucas, Caroline and Bo and Sami.

In terms of numbers, the Buchanans still have a large showing, but it's been some time since I truly believed that Bo cares about his nieces, or even Clint. They have slowly whittled away his bonds with them, scenes to remind us of how they care about each other. Overall there is no Buchanan spark anymore. Bo is somber, Clint is somber, Natalie and Jessica are somber. David is written a recurring pariah and all around loser, so he will never provide any change in the family.

The Lords have become a long and painful violation of generations of women. What Victor did to Viki, what Mitch did to Viki, Natalie and Jessica, what happened to Jessica as a child, what Todd did to...every woman in his family. It just clouds over them. There should be potential for great scenes between Todd and his family, but after what Todd did to them last year, and the continued ignoring of what he did to them, it's killed those relationships for good. Jessica having fun with him at Viki's wedding was probably one of the most skin-crawling scenes of the year, in my opinion. And it seems like almost as if they realized how shallow these relationships have become, they've given Todd a new family, one which will have no ties to the Lords or Blair, but the introduction was a pointless rewrite and the Ross story was awful, and TSJ seems to be as checked out as usual. It's very forced. Oh look, Dani's woodenly reading off a rant -- she must be the child of Todd and Tea. I think they saw Tea was popular on her return but didn't exactly use her in a way which helps continue her popularity. While not really adding anything great to the canvas, all this story does is just reinforce how pointless Blair, Starr, Jack, and Sam have become.

The Cramers are doing OK, Dorian has a certain prominent role in town, and her own point of view. She has some decent scenes with Starr and Langston. Blair has been phased out of the show for over a year now and I don't know if this will change. I think the best opportunity for the Cramer women was when Melinda, Addie, Blair, Kelly, and Cassie were all around. Obviously this cannot happen today, but I still wish there was a way to identify the different personalities and drives in the family. As it is they've become a lot of women who just happen to have scenes together.

I think viewers accepted or will accept recasts if the writing is there. Many people seemed to realize Roger Howarth wasn't returning and accepted TSJ, and many still do, but so much has gone downhill for this character, to the point where he's become a bump on a log. Rachel is a very important character, but aside from the rushed triangle with Greg and Shaun, she's been right back where she left off over ten years ago; everyone's counsel, Tea's hand-holder.

Marty could have been a compelling character, with all her demons and baggage and complicated relationships, but they gave up after Tarty.

So you have these more established characters who hang in the breeze, and you have characters like Rex or Gigi or John or Tea who are slapped on to try to redefine the show or plug gaping holes, and I don't think it works. They aren't strong enough to warrant the airtime or the one-dimensional nature of all their stories.

I don't mind the recurring characters or their relationships as much, because I find them more genuine than some of the older relationships, probably because they haven't gone through the wringer. Stuff like Kyle/Fish/Layla/Cris, Kyle/Roxy, Markko/Langston (although I wouldn't mind seeing Markko in another story).

I think the rot starts at the top with the current canvas. How to fix that, I don't know, but I hope OLTL gets the opportunity.

[Khan]

How about "All of the Above"? If OLTL is going to be saved, then Frons has to stop meddling w/ the show and start promoting for it for a change; and Carlivati has to stop writing camp and start writing genuine drama again.

DeeeDee: "Yep."

[Khan]

Oh, no. Not another long-lost Lord. I don't think I can take it. LOL!

I do agree, though, it would be nice to reintroduce the Woleks. Especially Wanda. I miss Wanda. She was exactly the kind of character OLTL excelled at, once upon a time. And even if Marilyn Chris agrees to return only on a recurring basis, it beats never seeing her at all.

[Vee]

I find the suggestion that OLTL has less family drama than DAYS laughable. Every time I tune into DAYS and see the Horton house, a tumbleweed rolls through while poor lonely Maggie makes tea for one of the six young kids who now run that show.

OLTL is not perfect but DAYS is not a model I wish to emulate. That show is a ghost town.

[NorrthCafe]

For me, the huge difference between Slezak's Viki and Day's DHs John and Marlena is that while the OLTL writers have turned Viki into a, primarily, support player - they've also kept her relevant when she was given a frontburner storyline (the Paris Texas storyline for example). Days writers chipped away at the integrity of 'John and Marlena' a little bit at a time so that by the time they left, what hadn't you seen from them a million times before? Almost everything John ever did was timed to memory loss of some kind.

Had OLTL writers made the mistake of linking all of Viki's storylines to her DID, she would be much easier to get rid of, but they were smarter than that and I hope it stays that way. Given the 'trauma and drama' of other soap characters, it's nice to have characters like Viki and Clint (and to some degree Bo and Nora) who provide a teeny bit of normality to the soap. They are the kind of characters who provide 'refuge from the storm'.

[DRW50]

That's why I said I think OLTL has more families left, which I do give them credit for, but doesn't really give a family feeling, at least with some of the families. Other than people huddled together when someone is being terrorized or is in the hospital, I wish we had more of the basic little day to day scenes of family members talking or caring about each other. I don't think we get that now with the Lords or the Buchanans; sometimes with the Cramers.

[You're Soaking in it]

I guess it's a case of different perceptions here. I think that not only does OL have a better sense of family than the other soaps on the air, but I also really feel a sense of community between all the characters - something that I can barely detect in other soaps. Everyone and everything feels connected, and paths can cross in unexpected ways. OLTL often surprises me in small but significant ways.... and it is rich with sharp dialog. The show stays interesting with just the interaction between characters, and in doing so, they follow through on EVERY potential beat - no potential conflict is ignored or glossed over.

Other soaps either skip over the idea of rich dialog, or resort to boring filler merely to stretch time before a conclusion. As much as I love AMC (for the show it used to be, anyway), I can't tell you how many times we've watched frustrated at why character-A is not confronting character-B about what he/she did to character-C's family. There are actors who are goldmines of powerhouse dialog delivery, and in a medium plagued with missed opportunities between characters, I think OLTL is exteremely good at realizing those moments.

For example... Someone here made mention of Dani's tirade against Destiny as if it were a bad thing. I say, that's something I want to see. For the writing to have ignored their conflict would have been the real shame.

[DRW50]

My problem with the scene is there was no real conflict. The scene amounted to:

- Dani yells at Destiny while making herself look like a hypocritical twit with selective amnesia

- Destiny passively takes it, as Matthew, who had once been her friend, says nothing

- Markko and Langston say, "Gee, who does she remind me of?" because apparently a wooden tantrum is supposed to make us proud she is the Todd/Tea miracle child

It was a very clumsy way to get a point across, and managed to make everyone involved look bad.

I think there's a difference between community and family relationships.

I agree there is a sense of community. I don't really see any strong bonds between family members now. I don't see them between the Buchanans, they have become two separate entities (Clint and kids, Bo and Matthew) only tied together because Clint and Bo are warring over Nora. I don't see them between Todd and his children and Viki and her children, unless you count random scenes of Viki and Natalie saying Todd and Tea are a divine supercouple. I don't see any real relationship between Blair and her children now. Even Natalie and Jessica only ever seem to be united because they are constantly losing their husbands and their minds. Viki and Clint just interact with their kids because the kids are constantly going through trauma. Rex is so selfish that he could barely bother to care about Natalie's pain because he was so obsessed with meeting Mitch.

OLTL is good at some friendships and at some overlapping stories, but the core families are in a very poor state, in my opinion.

[DeeeDee]

Starr & Matthew reacting to Jared's death was so weird cause they've been so far removed from those relationships for so long.

Jess, Nat & Starr are cousins yet the only time they interact is when Hope's involved & Matthew was close to Cole yet they haven't interacted much since the accident.

[You're Soaking in it]

Well, I remind myself that we could always go back to the Dena Higley years... or the post Lorraine Broderick (as Associate Head Writer) portions of Malone's last stint ... or Megan McTavish's run. Then I realize how good we have it. But maybe that's just my opinion.

[DRW50]

I see what you mean, but the problem for me is that RC was better at this type of family interaction only a year and a half ago. So I'm judging him by his own standard, not by the previous writers. There used to be stuff like Jared and Matthew and Cole playing video games. Then it was sort of like, never mind.

Even comparing to past writers, I would say that, although Higley's Todd was not exactly to all tastes, his relationships with his family were much better defined and more beneficial to the characters. What Todd did to his family last year was monstrous, and the show choosing to ignore it just makes it even worse. One of the key building blocks of Todd's character was his relationship with Viki, Jessica. Take that away, and take away most of what made his relationship with Starr compelling, and you have this bored, empty guy who has a lot of instarelationships with the rewrite Dani and with Tea, who hasn't been around in ten years.

I don't mean to overshadow what OLTL does right. I think they do friendships and family without blood ties in a very real, meaningful way which is an everyday part of life. It's something I don't see on most other soaps.

If I'm complaining about something it's what has become of their families. And since OLTL was, for many years, a show built on families, I think this is part of why the show has been hurting this year.

[You're Soaking in it]

I think here is where we start getting down to the core of people's different perceptions: You see, I never (I mean, never EVER) had been able to digest Trevor St. John's Todd. I just could not connect... I just thought of him as a big, abusive jerk WITHOUT the compelling subtext that Howarth brought. Then enter Florencia Lozano as Tea, and something finally clicked for me while watching scenes with her. And I welcomed the Dani story. TSJ's Todd, for me, finally became tolerable and - dare I say - even interesting.

And I have to wonder if it just came down to the endless merry-go-round of story between Todd and Blair. I know, they'll always be in each other's orbit. But I actually think FL brings out a better energy in TSJ. (Don't get me wrong: I see the "phone it in" moments people talk about... I say these comments, having to put those aside.) On the subject of family, I'm interested to see how Dani and Starr mesh with the other.

So, yeah, I like Tea's presence. My partner is, as usual, on the same page. He couldn't stand Todd before - - usually, fast-forward button it was! But ever since Florencia came back (who, by the way, my partner had never seen before), things just gelled better. She's compelling to watch, and I feel like TSJ and Kassie DePaiva's scenes with her are great stuff.

[DRW50]

I see what you're saying. I can see where people might feel TSJ's Todd is his own for the first time, since they have shed him of any baggage left over from RH's era. They can rewrite his history and hope people will embrace the change. After the awful stuff he had last year I can understand why people have enjoyed something new.

I don't mean to say, "Well, you're wrong if you like Todd now." I apologize if I came across that way.

I guess to me TSJ looks as bored as he usually does. It would be one thing if Tea and Dani brought a great spark of life; perhaps if they did, then the Ross storyline might have been more tolerable. But Todd looked so bored and sometimes slightly nauseous during his wedding to Tea. He wasn't any more invested in her than he was in seeing Blair bleeding to death on the floor a few months prior. Then we get to this Dani reveal, and Todd is again, aside from having another new piece of property, generally bored. He couldn't have been any less interested when he was in those scenes with Starr talking about Dani. So we get Dani, who has been shoehorned into the show for a tedious "She hates her father but soon she will see his perfection" saga, and who has taken away any interesting story Matthew had, and Tea, who spends all her time crying and yelling and feeling sorry for herself and being told how awesome she is. I think it all comes across as very forced and just points out how grafted on these characters are to the canvas.

I think it helps if people have never seen Tea before. I saw all this with her the last time around, the weeping and wailing and the martyrdom.

Even then, I wonder if people would have enjoyed her if they'd brought her back this way, instead of as the tougher and crazier woman who appeared before she reverted back to the old stuff.

[Ms. Chandler Quartermaine]

Ummm bring back the stunning Renee Elise Goldsberry as Evangeline....I miss her, this would totally make me a permenant viewer again instead of a casual one.

[Vee]

I also think OLTL even now has much more family and sense of community than other soaps these days. I understand judging RC by his own apex (pre-strike), and I miss the stuff they did with Cole, Jared and Matthew too, but I think when judging it against an entirely different show, such as DAYS, where they hollowed out the vets and left a very streamlined cast which I barely recognize, you have to use a different yardstick.

I still think there is a great deal of that kind of homespun connectivity in the show, despite its flaws. I think Todd is the biggest black spot on the show now, and I think he's become unrecognizable. Just because his connection to his family was better in Higley's tenure, though, because it was pre-Tarty, does not mean family connectivity overall was better. Even without Tarty, Todd rarely if ever interacted with his family under Higley (and when he did, it was in ridiculously OOC scenes such as "let's have Natalie help Todd cook for Evangeline"), nor did almost anyone else. Higley had virtually no interest in OLTL's families and when RC took over I immediately saw a huge shift and change for the better. That's continued, although I'll agree Todd is not what he once was.

But I just plain don't feel the family/community stuff rings false on the show at all. It does much moreso for me on every other soap, where they only try on holidays. OLTL does it all the time. Just because I may not like what Todd has done, or who Rex is in love with, or how he treats this person or how that person has treated another, doesn't mean I think the way OLTL then utilizes these families or communities is therefore false. We have seen Clint, Bo, Nora, Matthew, Nigel, etc. all together constantly this year, excepting the period when Jerry Ver Dorn was in contract negotiations; we have seen plenty of Viki with her girls this year, and Dorian or Blair with their families, whether or not you may have liked the story per se. I think the storylines are a separate issue from how OLTL may treat the families.