Headwriters who change with their shows

[EricMontreal22]

WOST had an early 70s ep and a later 60s one involving one of Bell's first (of many) borderline incest storylines lol

[Paul Raven]

The fingerprint burner was Brooke Hamilton,Bob Anderson's illegitimate daughter.everyone thought she died,but she returned as Stephanie Woodruff.

1966 Days is on YouTube.

[EricMontreal22]

Koos I posted the first segment of the three Bell written 1966 episodes (when he first started) in this thread for you

[koos]

Thanks! I guess I haven't looked for any '60s Days in a while (the first episode was on YouTube for a while, but got taken down).

[Khan]

As DeeeDee would say, "Pretty much." SaBa fought constantly for attention, but in their attempts @ being "different," they became almost TOO different for the majority of soap viewers. Thus, SaBa eventually became a "niche show," which cannot sustain itself, either in primetime OR in daytime.

[EricMontreal22]

I wonder if one change in terms of writers is up till the 80s anyway, if you were a successfull HW at a past show, you'd stand a good chance of getting the opportunity to have your OWN show created by you. Agnes Nixon, Bill Bell, The Dobsons, even the Hursleys (who were chosen to create GH because of their work on Search for T), etc. Now that opportunity is essentially dead and gone--I wonder if it lessens any desire to be a soap HW.

[Saving ATWT]

People still want to climb the latter and become HW; however, maybe these writers do not try as hard knowing that there will be no long term pay off. Bill Bell, Dixon--they had something to prove and gain, but can the same be said of Pratt, Brodrick, Sheffer? Daytime schedules were always shifting through out the 60's and 70's but everything got too stable by the mid-80's. What would daytime be like today had wimpering shows like GL, OLTL and ATWT had been replaced in the early 1990's? Would we be watching passionately written shows with big ratings?

I've been thinking about AWTW and just realized that the show was doomed by 1999. Too many mistakes had taken place in to short a time. Legacy characters were largly written out and there was NO ONE to replace aging vets--we know CBS would have never allowed a show composed of 60somethings. The show suddenly began to center around Carly, Molly and Katie who had no real ties to Oakdale. Yes, Katie is Lyla's daughter but her youth was off screen. The only hope for a future World centered around Hughes Stewart and Walsh kids.

The same poblems happened on GL, GH, and, to a lesser extent, OLTL. Networks and fans got too attached to a staus quo. Y&R is popular ecause most of the 'vets' popped up in the 1980's and Bell kept them around. Y&R is the only show that hasn't changed much--well, until recently. Worlds Turns was number one for 20 years for the same reason--consistency. I give Ma Bell credit for trying to keep things seamless with Nujack (Billy) and NuJill (Cloe) and NuPaul (JT) and NuVictor (Adam). If World Turns had tried something similiar during the 1980's, maybe the show would be stronger for it. My one issue with Marland is that he altered the show too much with the Snyder family. I would have rather seen new members for the Hughes, Stewart, and Montgomery families.

[Saving ATWT]

Maybe a well done gutting would have been good long term for the show. Bill Bell did it to his young Y&R and it worked wonders. World Turns lost the number one slot and was in a ratings free fall. In the early 80's, the show was pretty damaged.

I don't have a personal feeling on this, am just curious.

[DRW50]

Bell slowly phased characters out while building up already existing characters. He'd taken the time to establish people like Nikki, Victor, or Jack and Paul, who would be able to take over when the Fosters and the Brooks ran out of steam. He kept the core characters he thought still had potential, like Katherine and Jill.

ATWT did the same in a way with the exodus of so many longtime characters and the introduction of James Stenbeck, Margo, Gunnar, and all the international intrigue, but I think it was more sloppily done and it was probably the longtime characters like John, Kim, and Bob who helped ATWT maintain some semblance of identity.

[Khan]

Plus, Bill Bell did phase out much of Y&R's original families, but how he did it (and who he replaced them with) did not alter the tone of the show significantly; whereas, ATWT not only changed in terms of focus, but also in terms of tone and pacing as well.

[YRBB]

I remember watching that episode on YouTube a few years back... It was so wonderfully psychotic Didn't she burn her fingers so that no-one can ID her and then discover she had not burned them enough? Or did she overdo it? I'm hazy on the details, but it was creepy in a good way. They had a flashback of her doing it... Oh God.....

I'm sad it was taken down.

[Khan]

Frankly, that plot twist (Stephanie/Brooke's finger-burning) doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't doing such a thing raise suspicions and lead at least one person to investigate, then discover, your secret?

[YRBB]

If I remember correctly, she made up some lie to explain the "accident"... but I think the doctor was suspicious.

[Khan]

Thanks goodness! These days, medical professionals on soaps will swallow any story their "patients" give them.

[Soaplovers]

I watched an episode of ATWT and GL during Douglas Marland's regimes on each show. I noticed that there were similiar elements but that GL seemed more realistic (i.e. conversations that characters on GL had a better chance of happening in real life then conversations on ATWT).

What surprised me about GL during his first year was how he sort of maintained the Dobson blueprint for the show (i.e. hall of mirror chase between Rita/Roger, Roger falling off the cliff after holding Holly hostage, etc). Was there a big change on how he wrote the characters when he took over the show (i.e. Rita, Holly, Ed, etc)