Predicting OLTL's Demise....why?

[DeeeDee]

They're still Hope's primary parents.

Clint & Viki had money/nannies but still raised their children.

Cole & Starr treat Hope like Tina did Little David Vickers.

Not really.

Teen parenthood is still parenthood.

Starr acted like all she ever wanted was to get Hope back but when she got Hope back it was like an anchor tied around her.

Now what should be a huge responsibility for Sole in raising Hope they don't have to deal with cause Hope is just a plot point.

[DaytimeFan]

Just curious, are you saying that you think DAYS and OLTL are similar in how they're streamlining themselves or different? From my view as a 20+ year DAYS watcher the show got rid of old/dead weight and embraced their new actors or those who hadn't gotten work in ages, OLTL seems to be doing the opposite.

Also, is it your view that DAYS is creatively dead?

[LeClerc]

I agree with this assessment.

In the "Does Frons favor OLTL or AMC" debate, it tends to get overlooked that he flat-out stated that he is a fan of OLTL going way back, whereas AMC never really piqued his interest.

Of course at one point he also said that Guiding Light held a special place in his heart because it was the first show he worked on, and a year later his response was basically "Who cares?" when he was asked how he felt about GL's cancellation lol.

[DRW50]

The main thing I enjoy about DAYS is that, sometimes, you get to see some great performances and great dialogue, which wasn't the case as much over the last few years of that show before the firings started. Victor and Maggie and Vivian and Kate and Stefano, and a few of the younger actors. There's a lot of crap to wade through but I don't think any of it is horrific, just dumb. What I like is that I feel like yes, the show is bare bones, but in becoming bare bones they also punched through the artifice that could no longer sustain them. JER's era. The supercouple era.

OLTL doesn't have that clarity, it's very muddled. It has some great performances and great dialogue, but they're at the point where much of what stands out as good is being written off and most of what is horrific actually seems to be getting even more prominence. It would be nice if Viki got more story and airtime, if Dorian got a different type of story beyond the very plot-driven OTT ventures, if Blair had some purpose beyond propping and being degraded, and if John, Todd, and Rex and their adventures in misogyny were not front and center, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

[bbmm]

I'm still enjoying OLTL, but I'm not a long time viewer, I've only been watching since May 2008. The fact that 4 actors were fired in the same amount of time makes me think it's to make room for a bigger name. Maybe Thorsten Kaye is coming back? I don't think OLTL is on it's last legs, yet. It will survive this year because with Oprah going off the air next year, ABC is going to wait before they make any final decisions. But if the time comes for ABC to cancel a soap, it will probably be OLTL. I think the exile of Kish and John/Natalie reunion are Fron's doing.

[Vee]

You catch on quick.

[DaytimeFan]

I try.

Thanks for noticing

[SOAPSFOREVER]

It's lazy writing. It takes a lot more time, energy and talent to mine the emotional veins of a story, which Ron and company don't seem up to these days. There are way too many scenes in OLTL these days. It's too choppy. There's no time to invest in a scene or the characters. Ron needs to slow the heck down, give the viewers some emotional payoff. Though I really think he needs to be fired. He's burned out.

[Soapsuds]

To think he was being praised left and right by almost everyone here at SON not too long ago.

RC seems to have the same thing that happened to HS.

[Toups]

Not too long ago? What are you talking about? LOL It's been almost two years. The height of Ron's praising came in May/June of 2008, and before that he was getting a lot of praise for his work from Aug/Sep 2007 to Mid-Feb 2008. Ever since July of 2008, Ron's stock has been falling (of course at times going go up a bit). I personally think Ron needs a Co-HW because he's burnt out and he's emotionally beaten down by not being able to write some things he wants, so the passion isn't there anymore.

[Soapsuds]

Toups in your opinion what stories do you think RC wants to write and hasnt been able to??

[Bright Eyes]

Jared/Natalie. There is no way in hell he would have killed Jared off. It is highly publicized that RC wanted Jared and Natalie's wedding to be a HUGE event. But that all went to [!@#$%^&*] thanks to Frons.

[MichaelGL]

What about this adoption storyline I keep hearing about Charlie/Viki that got nixed by Frons?

[applcin]

I didn't know that "dirt" but I suspected as much. After the way RC had written for Jared & Natalie for nearly 2 years, I noticed the shift. Too bad. I really liked them together (obviously!) and not really interested in a John/Natalie reunion...or much else on the show for that matter.

OLTL seems to be existing in a time loop, repeating the same old same old (Todd, Blair, Tea and musical beds), Jessica's storylines not only duplicating Viki's on so many levels (sexual abuse, the DID, a romantic quadrangle--Viki/Clint/Niki/Harry vs. Jess/Antonio/Tess/Nash--amnesia (Viki doesn't remember Clint but falls for Joe Riley's twin, Jess forgets Brody and falls for her first love)--but even repeats Jessica's own storylines--let's make Jessica mentally unstable again and let her fall for someone other than her boyfriend...Jess/Brody/Cristian is just a Jess/Antonio/Nash rehash. Resurrecting dead characters and dead relationships. Dragging some stories out til nobody cares anymore (if they did in the first place) while cutting short other stories that had more potential. The most featured people are the ones who seem to be phoning it in the most. It's a mess.

[DeliaIrisFan]

I think in a very real sense, OLTL has now died creatively at least three times in its history - in that it completely stopped being what it was originally supposed to be. The down side of being the progressive soap opera that was supposed to break new ground is that it's had the furthest to fall, and it sure has fallen. The Carla/Sadie Grey story is rightly the stuff of soap opera legend, but what this show ended up doing to two preeminent African-American actresses was surely one of the ugliest chapters in soap history. I have my doubts about how daring and edgy the Malone/Gottlieb era really was, but when the dust settled, arguably the most memorable and lasting things about their two biggest accomplishments - the coming out story and the gang rape story - were that 1) OLTL was the show that let an almost famous Ryan Philippe get away (when they all but purged everyone involved in their first peripheral gay storyline) and 2) Todd the gang rapist was "redeemed" and repositioned as a romantic lead and irrevocably tied to the core of the show, where he's been ever since more or less. Oh yeah, and then to further twist the knife, since then one of Malone's other peripheral gay characters was dredged up to be a plot device in a story about a gay serial killer who murdered a bunch of people, and every few years we get some particularly offensive retread of Todd's misogynistic history (the rapemance, Marty testifying on Todd's behalf, etc.).

Now, when soaps have never been more desperate, OLTL is going for broke and repeating all of those ugly moments: Todd has never been depicted as more of a dashing romantic hero, and

As far as I'm concerned, what's happened to OLTL again and again makes me seriously think that maybe soaps on daytime network tv cannot evolve, will never reflect the reality of the 21st century, and deserve to become extinct as we know them. And Ellen Holly and Lillian Hayman and young Ryan Philippe were before my viewing time - I'm just completely burnt out from what's happened this time around.

But, as has been pointed out, creative death is not the same as ratings death. OLTL thrived financially for years after it got rid of the Grey-Hall family, and it has had its ups and downs since the first Malone era. Who knows what will happen now? Banal, milquetoast stories about the mostly banal, milquetoast characters who will presumably be left on the frontburner now could pay off, or at least help it stay afloat for a while when all network tv is bleeding advertising money and most of the cast who will be left and presumably getting a lot of pay probably come comparably cheap. But I can't imagine very much left for me to want to watch.

Well, yeah, he was built up to be the savior of OLTL if not all of daytime and then quickly torn down as the biggest hack of all, when in fact he's probably neither. Carlivati seems to be a more pleasant person in interviews than Sheffer, though, and particularly as the first openly gay head writer of a soap, it has to suck for him to have to dismantle a story that he probably took great pride in. The problem is so far above the head writers, IMO, and I don't know who people are expecting next that will be do so much better when the deck chairs on the Titanic are rearranged next. I can't imagine most of what's on-screen these days is what he really wants to be writing. I think he seems to have talent, he's a lifelong fan of the show, and under different circumstances he probably could have done so much more. But the same could be said about more than enough veteran head writers with proven successes who have come through this show (and the others) in the past 10-15 years.