January 2010 ATWT Thread

[Saving ATWT]

Yeah, it was dumb. Molly, 'cause she is a skilled reporter, was able to get the goods. It was so lame and unrealistic. The writing for Molly is off, too. I want her paired with Dusty even though he is a good match for Janet. I have never been a Janet fan but they interact well.

Come to think of it, the writing is pretty off for the majority of the cast but especially Paul, Emily and Babs. The scenes with Bob and Kim have actually been well done. I didn't even expect DK to do anything for them but the scenes have actually been sweet.

[Mitch]

No offense Saving, but your thinking is very close to TPTB with their blinders on : ) (and one of the reasons the shows have no depth and viewers leave in droves) Just because the miniscule portion of the miniscule audience the show now has, barely remmbers that a character exists, is no reason not to feature that character or how that character can impact the show. Who is Dr. Reid anyway..he didnt "exist," at all before, but that doesnt mean he can't make an impact. Tying him into John and Iva means that he would be Margo's bro (another pain in the ass bro to make Margo give a low simmer) and Iva's kid...(so he is a SNYDER dammit) tying him into the two main families and also tying those families together.(Margo simmering and Emma throwing a bible at him..think about the sweeps scenes lol!!) The fued between Bob and John is remembered by most of the audience, it took up over 20 frekaing years of airtime...and can easily be explained to those who dont. I never was around for the Lisa/Ellen Stewart fued, but when I was in college I appreciated that Marland would throw in Ellen rolling her eyes at Lisa and Lisa giving Ellen a jab. It gave the show depth, just like life.) A Chris/MJ fued would be fun and way to honor history while making story for the present and the (nonexistent) future.

Lisa is not a lost cause as she has been off canvas too long (freaking Roger Thorpe was off canvas for what 10 years and he kicked GL back to life) Sure she can't do the business thing, that is Lucy's area, but she can and SHOULD be back to mentoring the lost children of Oakdale. One of the main reasons GL died is that they got rid of all the vets and the ones who were left were never seen or off in a box somewhere, so those "connections," that are so vital to the PG shows was missing and gave GL a disjointed, cold, depressing and empty feel.

Kreisman's job as head writer is to manage his team and put all the pieces together. So, yes, the man who brought in his jack off fantasy actor as a deaged James, has him running around hypnotizing people with flashlights and whos stories arent cohesive IS a very bad head writer. You are just begging to see the missed connections, dropped plot lines and missed opportunities which is Kreizman's hallmark. On top of saying he is a bad head writer (Davey is a good single episode writer and should never have been promoted) he is a very, very lazy head writer.

[Mitch]

I will give Kreizman credit that his use (so far) of the Hughes vets has been better then his track record on GL (but then he had his head stuck so far up Ehlers, Goldin and Pelphery's asses that no one else got a damn thing to do) his use of Bob and Kim and Nancy have been good (I actually think he would use Wagner more if she was up to it.)

[Saving ATWT]

I, only in part, agree with your statements regarding the use of 'history,' in this case with the Dr. Oliver situation. There are various arguments as to why millions of viewers have left daytime and, most epecially, why the genre has failed to attract new viewers. New viewers, especially younger viewers, are key and not just from an advert perspective. The are vital to a show's long term prospects simply due to the fact that these viewers live longer.

Why has an entire generation given up on soaps? I don't buy into this being a problem having to do anything with a disregard for history. As I see it, soaps tapped into the dreams/aspirations of the Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, and the early part of Gen X; however, something more aside from the disregarding history is at play here when you see stats they suggest less than three million Americans under 25 watch soaps. Something else caused Gen Y to almost totally shun the genre. What is that something else? I don't know! I will suggest that daytime became rather static in the middle 1980's with the networks doing very little to shake up their programming as opposed to the 60's and 70's when shows came and went every few years. New viewers turned out to sample new offering such as OLTL, AMC, Y&R.

I'd argue that Y&R is a show most associated with late Boomers and Gen X and that, to this day, the success or failure of this particular show has broad implications for the entire genre. Y&R totally reinvented the genre and gained viewers for shows like ATWT: to this day World Turns ratings are effected by what is happening over at Y&R.

Every generation seems to have had its show and they never developed anything that worked well for GenY. B&B, oddly enough, gets older viewers who hang on from Y&R. As a result, they have tried to twist the current shows in ways TPTB thought would attract these newer viewers. All of this twisting made history unimportant to showrunners. Total failure happened. It would have been better to cancel a few shows or start fresh by creating new families. In my view, World Turns has needed a new family for a very long time and this is even reflected by Marland's plans for the show before his death.

A good generational example of what I'm saying is that World Turns was always is grandmother's show; Y&R was my mom's soap; my younger cousin loved Passions: each generation sort of mocked the other's favorite soap while proclaiming the virtues of their fav. I was the freak and always loved ATWT.

TPTB should have probably done more to create new shows and let some of the older programs go. I do not count NBC's sorry attempts with Sunset Bech as a very good example.

Sorry for any typos--just woke up.

[Mitch]

Interesting points, I don't of course agree with them all but the are valid and interesting. I do agree that is how TPTB think (and *one* of the reasons soaps are dying...just one, mind you there are tons of others reasons, like the lack of creativity and diversity and imagination..I would go a step further and say that the one thing missing from the soaps is love, and I don't mean overheated love in the afternoon scenes, I mean the people in charge of the shows dont seem to *love* them and love the genre. Its as if they are embarrassed by it and want to change the shows into something they are not.)

Anyway, I think the reason that soaps have lasted so long is that they are multigenerational and have been around for years. The reason I even started watching the PG/CBS soaps is that they were on when I was growning up, so when I hurt my leg in high school and was laid up for a few weeks I got interested in them as I knew the families and yes, Lisa, Bob, Bert, Ed, etc. were still there. Shows can adapt to a new generation without sacrificing its identiy...as GL and ATWT did in the 70s, 80's and yes, the early part of the 90's.

It think new viewers arent turning into the shows as they havent moved with the times, and I dont mean that Bob and Kim are still on, I mean that we have a gay couple who can't be shown in "intimate," moments...but we do have bad 80's sci fi with Mick as a deaged James who hypnotizes people. The funny thing is, that creeky old storyline which screams GH from 1985 is TPTB;'s ideas on how to be "young and hip." But just dont show those queers doing anything "nasty."

More and more info about the demo things is that they are bullshit and it was started by a study in what the 50s or 60s and advertisers have stuck to it. But they pay the ad rates so TPTB have to dance to their tunes, only they go about it ass backwards.

I do agree that young people are vital to a shows continued health, I think we just disagree on how to get them.

[Saving ATWT]

To a certain extent, we are on the same page as far as TPTB lack of love for the genre and 'shame' factor. Soaps have failed to connect with people under 40 years of age even though TPTB have done everything to aim and target this group. To a certain extent, soaps are seen as lame, cliche by younger people and this is, in part, the fault of the media. Time Mag took a certain classist pride in attacking the entire genre, especially ATWT, through out the 1970's, 80's.

I also think soaps have failed to placed characters in modern situations, give them current and realistic problems. We hear a few words about the recession on World via Mike's situation but no real focus has been placed on such a timely issue. A great storyline might be Carly loosing her money in a bad investment and Jack getting laid off from the police force. Imagine Jack and Carly fighting to save their home? HIV/AIDS is totally missing regarding the Luke and Noah story. No one has a child with birth defects. Men almost never get cancer on soaps and almost all sickness is painted female thing.

I also think every soap should do a weekly wrap up show for online/weekend airing important beats in case viewers missed an eppy. With the internet, soaps can easily, with good editing, weave clips together much like you see on YouTube with NUKE. Each week of soaps sould be repackaged as 4 or 5 hour long stories: Carjack, Nuke, James/Mick/Babs. I don't know how all this would work but it would be a new revenue stream for soaps and create more options for viewers.

[Mitch]

I think that some of the problems you mentioned above, would be major downers (lol now I sound like the TPTB) Wheeler, kinda, sorta tried that with GL at the end, but we would have people talking about being unemployed to an internation jewel thief or a hitman...and the magic soap solutions would appear to save the day, (money would be found to save Buzz's bad business decisions) it made no sense...(plus, medium sized city Springfield became a semirural, rusty city,) Soaps need to be able to combine realism with fantasy, which is what they used to do in the 70s and some of the 80s.

I think the online thing is interesting but kind of risky. What would stop people from just watching online? I did that with GL at the very end, for one reason it looked better on my computer then on my screen, where it looked like a piece of crap, and I could FF anything Cooper, or stupid (Grady, Cyrus, the fat girl, Daisy) which, really, was the whole show practically.I think if you package the show as a Babs/Mick day, Carly/Jack, it would just contribute to the further segmenting the audience and the fans. It used to be that all storylines intersected and impacted one antoher,so if you just watch one you loose out, but it aint like that now...hence why I could watch GL and focus on the Spaudlings, and Bauers, and parts of the Lewises and tune out the Coopers, Reva and Jeffie, and the nonentities that Wheeler loved..and not miss out on anything.

Back to the show itself...can someone wake Hensley out of his coma? He never was the best actor, and believe it or not, I love understated acting (instead of the TP/KZ/JD variety where they scream and yell and their fans are "riveted," as they "knock it out of the ballpark") but this guy is in coma territory. If I was Lily I would have ran off with hot Damien, psycho or not.

[JellicleCat]

Of course AIDS/HIV is missing from the Luke & Noah story! Neither of them sleep around, they barely sleep with each other. Isn't it a bit stereotypical to mention AIDS/HIV with them simply because they're gay?

If anyone should have an AIDS-scare on this show it should be Emily. She's done her fair share of bed-hopping, and she worked as a prostitute for a while.

[Mitch]

Very true, but it would make sense if they would show Nuke discussing the use of safe sex, etc, since HIV has hit the gay community so hard..especially since so many young gay guys are thinking AIDS is a thing of the past. A good way to do it is to have one of them want to forgo condoms (it would have to be Luke, that little queen would insist on not using them to prove that Noah would be with him and only him...) but have the other partner discuss the importance of them, or better yet, find an older gay guy in Oakdale who could tell them about all his friends who have died of AIDS and that it is very easy to make a mistake, especially when you are young and horny. I do agree that they don't as it would indicate they are having it off with each other, and I totally agree with you that there are other characters who have far more to worry about then Nuke..though I think a good storyline would be that Emily walks into the hospital and crys to Susan, "I have a bad case of the CLAP!" (What is the clap anway?)

[Saving ATWT]

Emily having the CLAP would be hot--we could call her The Clapper! Soaps need to deal with more modern issues, situations, and something like this would have been great after the Hooker Story. A good writer just needs to watch a few episodes of Dr. Phil to get a feel for where the pulse of America is right now. I'd love to see a new couple come to town where the husband spies on the wife, always thins she is cheating, texts her like 40 times a day, and treats her like a prisoner. This was just on a talk shows and these programs have done a far better job of talking about social problems over the last decade. It was be great to get to know the couple/his and her motivations. Seeing her fear and his insecurity as we learn more about the couple would be tense. This is just one example, possibly one that would work out badly on a soap, but it is time for the genre to be about more than Jack and Carly's 10th break up and yet another case of cancer. You made a post earlier about the show being all Snyder and I totally agree. That is the main reason why I can stand this silly Mick Dante sham. I enjoy being non-snyders such as Barbara, Paul, and Emily Stewart. Also liked your stalking about the idea for GL using the younger characters. I see no reason for a show to hold vets as wallpaper. If a showrunner can not find more than 8 eppys per month on a regular basis for an actor, get rid of them. I've felt for a long time that ATWT has a bloated cast.