Per request, the failures of Brown&Esensten

[soapfan770]

The Grant family certainly dissolved under Rauch. Dahalia hooked up with Sugar Hill and they both left town, Marcus and Griffin both disappeared. David and Vicky both had off-screen exits, and Vivian was poisoned by Holly and then never seen again while Charles only appeared for the next few years every once in a blue moon. Worst exit had to of course be Gilly, which occurred under McTavish.

BTW, here's another article about the hiring of Lloyd "Lucky Gold" for GL:

[DRW50]

He's certainly aware of that now.

This made me

Yeah...

[soapfan770]

On aside they did change their minds on Sheffer early as evident by their review of ATWT in 2002:

[DRW50]

That was pretty much how I felt about the show by sometime in 2001, but then I was so judgmental because of his awful, awful interviews and obvious contempt for the vets.

At least they were ahead of the soap magazines, which I think continued to hype Sheffer and his ATWT all the way into 2004. SOD even told us how hilarious it was when Julia raped Jack.

[EricMontreal22]

Thanks so much! Didn't they write more of Dynasty than just the last season? The last few? Not that I know anything about Dynasty except its first few years (except that most fans don't think much of the later years lol...)

I've always been a kinda defender of them, just because I thought their time at Loving was very good (but they of course had the focus of the Serial Killer storyline, which apparently we now know was largely EP Burke's idea anyway--and of coming in after nearly a year when Agnes Nixon had returned to the show and helped get it on a very strong path), and, despite a shaky first 8 months or so, I'm a true blue The City lover which was their show (even if Nixon was a consultant it doesn't seem she did all that much, this time). The last 6 months particularly were really quite strong all things considered (and this was when my other two ABC soaps, AMC and especially OLTL were starting to massively slip, which made it look all the better).

So, even though I knew people felt they ran both GL and PC into the ground (I never knew they worked at DAYS), I was optimistic when they joined AMC. Their main prob at AMC is it was DEAD boring. Maybe we should have had a cloned Erica. NOTHING happened except the endless repeated Zendall "Crash" storyline with bits of intriguing other stories (Richie Annie's bro, etc) sorta happening on the very peripheral backburner. The show wasn't anything really offensive (except shoving Zendall down our throats) but it was just... very very blah. (They also did Ghost Dixie right? And... I can't even remember much else).

[Vee]

Yeah, I believe they're the ones that did Dixie's ghost. That seemed to come out of viewer complaints that the Kate/Kathy story had gone on too long and lacked Dixie's presence. It seemed like a grudging, token response to viewer discontent.

B&E are not the worst HWs I've ever seen. They did a handful of good work over the years, and a lot of very bad. I thought some of their early stuff at AMC could have worked but they ran it into the ground. And I liked PC until Caleb - they managed to tell some interesting supernatural stories later, but ended up eventually disappearing entirely into random coupleswaps and mysticism, to the point that Kevin and Lucy were forever broken up and almost everyone on the show was a vampire. And even before Caleb it was no bed of roses; every "mystery" ended up being blamed on Greg Cooper. Then there was that Scott/psychic spies story.

[EricMontreal22]

I know this is blasphemy, but I wonder about their work by this stage anyway. OLTL was unwatchable immediately before they came on--and they made it watchable, and fun the first few weeks (even if we were suddenly overwhelmed with those fantasy sequences, and other flights of forced whimsy) but their year as a whole was hardly brilliance, to me. I was a OLTL watcher though and not much of a GL one so I can't comment there...

[Chris B]

Don't credit them for the greatness that is David Paulsen (the HW of Dallas for it's first 8 years) who took over Dynasty during it's brilliant final season. Those two were only scriptwriters. The PC stint was probably their best. They executed the novella/supernatural idea well during many of the arcs. As I currently watch the show from the beginning, I do prefer the hospital based stories, but their PC made me a fan.

[Vee]

Their OLTL was a real mixed bag. I loved some of it, hated other parts but it still felt like OLTL. The Labines did not want to be there, however. I think they could've been wonderful at GL despite some crap, but Rauch clearly had it in for Labine for some arcane reason and would have blocked them no matter what. To her credit, Labine said she fought for a major story with the Buzz/Holly/Billy triangle (which I, at least, liked) and was stymied by the network despite positive focus testing. I do think her Holly/Olivia story was supposed to cast Olivia as the lonely dyke crushing on straight Holly, though - ugh.

[EricMontreal22]

Ghost Dixie gave us a handful of good scenes--tormenting Adam (well at first), the Tad/Dixie dream episode but like much of their stuff at AMC at the time, it kinda went nowhere till it just ended. It's funny, because after their run at The City I probably would have been happy with the news they were coming to AMC (though maybe worried about some elements--of course Burke came from there instead and her run as EP at AMC was utterly useless).

(And yes I think Ghost Dixie was meant to give T/D fans closure--in hindsight they prob wish they hadn't bothered, but I know the dream episode was well enough regarded it seemed)

So the repeatedmentions of them being HWs at Dynasty at some point are largely exagerated?

You prefered their work at PC over Loving or The City?

[Vee]

That dream episode was nice, but I couldn't shake the vibe I got off it of "there, are you motherfuckers happy now? Back to Tad and Krystal."

[EricMontreal22]

No it did and it definetley was an improvementon Leah Laiman or whoever was there right before. I guess they were let down by the fact that they didn't get their own soap, as it seemed they might.

+1

[DRW50]

Two reasons I hated the B&E era of PC:

1. Rafe/Allison. Hate hate hate. Stuttering angel and squeaky voiced woman. Jamal thrown to the wolves.

2. Kevin goes nuts because he's pricked with a needle. Lazy, shameful storytelling.

Before Rafe I thought their work on PC wasn't too bad. Carolyn Hinsey panned "Time in a Bottle" but I actually liked that.

I thought the Labines had some interesting ideas on OLTL but I was blinded by their bizarre loathing of Blair and their endless propping of Kelly and Tea. All of which has come back to haunt the show in the past few years.

[EricMontreal22]

I just never cared for Todd's parrot.

[Vee]

wrong thread