A relationship which actually has some fan support and which I would like to see continue.

You aren't the only one.

But that's the problem.

No matter how popular they are or potential they have, they are never going to make anything happen if they can't even get a portion of Gex's airtime/story unless they're subservient to their white peers.

Whether that's Frons call or Ron's it needs to be addressed.

And today I am watching the view and what comes on a OLTL promo..featuring...guess who?? YOu guessed it.....Farah and her awful story with JPL. She is proposing to him...ugh...The other part is Jessica and the ridiculous high school story with Christian in it. No wonder this show is drowning. They are promoting the wrong stories. But to be honest what great stories do OLTL have to promote?? Can anyone name one??

It's surprising they haven't run a Real Kelly campaign given Gina couldn't have been cheap.

Edited March 18, 201015 yr by DeeeDee

It's surprising they haven't run a Real Kelly campaign given Gina couldn't have been cheap.

Dont give them any ideas. Although they did run a Kelly returns promo when she first return which seems no one cared to watch.

That is something ALL soap writers are guilty of however, I do concede that those are usually my least favorite stories.

However, I do think Kish, Paris, The BE Takeover, Nash's death, Adrianna's wedding, Lindsey's Woman of the Year, and Matthew's paralysis were examples of original stories that not only stood on their own but were very well-written.

This is very true, there have been several stories RC has told that have been original.

I think Ron is a very smart, savvy guy who thinks outside the box. I hate that term, but I think it's pretty appropriate when talking about him. A lot of his ideas are great and fresh, and he obviously loves the show. He doesn't come off like some bored, bitter hack who's content with recycling stories. Daytime could use more people like him. The problem with the writing is in the execution and the dialogue. The pacing always seems off. There's very little build to the stories, very little obvious momentum that makes you want to keep tuning in. The dialogue is atrocious, some of the worst in daytime. I alternately cringe and laugh during some dramatic scenes. It doesn't help that the show has its share of horrendous actors front and center who are unable to elevate the dialogue to above the cringeworthy. These issues are obviously the fault of the breakdown writers and scriptwriters, but he should be held accountable for at least these issues.

The headwriter is responsible for all aspects of writing. He or she dictates the pace of the show, based on his/her daily breakdowns for each episode. If he doesn't want 30 scenes in a show, no one is holding a gun to his head. RC makes that decision at OLTl. As for the dialogue being atrocious, while there is a script editor who's partially responsible for what gets through to air, RC as headwriter should be reading the final edited scripts before they go into the network and making additional changes if necessary. OLTL has very "clever" or "arch" dialogue. The characters don't speak as "real" people speak. It sounds written, not natural. It takes the viewer out of the moment. The real genius headwriters (Marland, Bill Bell, Irna Phillips, harding Lemay) know that. They aren't saying, "Look how clever and brilliant I am" (or how brilliant my scripts are). RC comes off this way to me. He's trying to appear hip and fresh, but so many of his stories don't resonate because they miss so many important emotional beats.

There is never any major followthrough to any story. It's all stunt, stunt, followed by a shrug. From the BE takeover to Matthew's paralysis and conflict with his parents somehow becoming about the wooden Danielle.

I don't understand why more people are not critical of RC as compared to other soap writers

Say what?

Frankly, in comparison to other soap scribes, I think it's about equal.

Edited March 18, 201015 yr by Khan

I really think he'll be out of a job soon, or demoted.

There is no way I think ABC is supportive of this guy anymore.

There is never any major followthrough to any story. It's all stunt, stunt, followed by a shrug. From the BE takeover to Matthew's paralysis and conflict with his parents somehow becoming about the wooden Danielle.

Argh Danielle! I can't think of a bigger "f*** you" to the audience than Mutant D. They continually referenced that SISP was six years ago then Ron just makes Danielle a teenager because he feels like it and expects the audience to suck it up even going so far as to make a joke about it. I know soaps do stupid things but that shows such a disrespect for the audience. It's no different than Erica's unabortion and I hope Dani suffers the same fate. Does anybody need a transplant?

I really think he'll be out of a job soon, or demoted.

There is no way I think ABC is supportive of this guy anymore.

Enter Jean Passsanante.

Despite all of Ron's missteps, the thing that I feel when watching OLTL is a sincere love for it by the writers and producers.

And despite my anger about the show writing off Rachel, and dismantling the sense of a "community" with all walks of life, races, and sexual preferences- (And again I am not a KISH fan) I still feel that the show is one of the best left. Which is not saying much. But my opinions of what works on OLTL are not always very mainstream. I thought the Todd/Marty "Rapemance" storyline was brilliant. As were the performances.

And when I watch Y&R, I do not feel that sense of caring about the show. You can almost feel Hogan's disdain with every line.

This!!!

This IS a really strong point. But the other side of that is the fact that he cares about long term viewers and attempts- i said ATTEMPTS- to reward our loyalty.

Edited March 18, 201015 yr by Llantano Incorporated

Possibly because Ron is gay, and many in the soap press as well as posters on this board are gay? And they don't want to knock him for what he's done in bringing gay stories to the daytime canvas? Just asking the question.

It didn't make a diff with James E Reilly

That's definitely where I feel Nelson Branco is coming from, with his "OLTL is the BEST SHOW IN DAYTIME" bullshit. He's just hot for the head writer and executive producer and wants to screw them, both. And, of course, there are people who suckle from Branco's tit and ingest the same "love" for OLTL -- without realizing how blind and biased it is.

?

With Nelson I think it's the humble pie thing as well--he's praised OLTL as the best for a while now, and damnit he's not gonna be wrong.

It didn't make a diff with James E Reilly

Sometimes you are what you eat.

Even if it's your own young.

Firstly, we know why Viki wasn't on very much: Brian Frons. Viki is always downplayed in virtually every story they have given her since Paris, immediately after which, let's remember, Frons allegedly tried to fire RC. But Dorian, I thought was on plenty. As for the other question: Why wouldn't both Dorian and Viki be pro-gay, though? And as per it being an election issue, yes, they played up the issue of "the gay vote," but "the gay vote" does exist. IIRC, OLTL admitted at the time that there was creative license applied in making the GLBT vote such a pressing issue for Viki and Dorian, and one can certainly find fault with that license if they want to. But on a show with a starship from Heaven and an underground city, I found nothing so horribly unbelievable about slightly playing up a social issue in relation to a political storyline; I thought it was very progressive and daring for OLTL to say that this one issue was very important to Llanview - which is a fictional city anyway. This is fiction - why not do it if it sends the right message to the audience?

I agree with much of what you say about RC's era Vee, but I do agree here. In theory, I agree with you. But I just didn't think it was well done. They still haven't addressed if the gay marriages got legalized or not--Dorian dropped that, there was very little about the importance or reasoning behind it, more just the weird Nick being secretive, etc, angle, and while I found parts of the ceremony itself touching, most of it I found cartoonish. I dunno, to me it did kinda undermine what was going on with Kish at the time. Maybe if they had done it later as a seperate story I could see it more as the idealized fantasy you do.

Why did Wanda come back with Joe? Why did Roxy stay on in Llanview with Nat? I mean, YMMV on the characters but this is not the first time we've had such people crop up and stay around on the periphery. I don't mind them, but that's me.

Yeah I don't really mind the Moe/Noelle stuff--they've hardly jeopardized screen time.

I don't remember anyone giving a [!@#$%^&*] where RC had come from in the ranks. I certainly didn't. In fact, at the time his HW announcement was made I suspected he would be a hack because he was coming from the existing creative team. IMHO it's a rare thing when anyone from the existing writing staff is a boon to any soap as a HW.

I was under the impression I've been doing that all along, and I doubt I'm alone.

I think you have, but I will agree with Leia. I do think some of the soap press have overpraised RC because he's an example of what they've been championing--someone rising from the ranks, fresh blood instead of just re-hiring McTavish or (worse) Leah Laiman.

My feeling about the latest story was, it's 2009, we've moved past that, why continue to 'debate' like FOX News if the show would rather just take a stand and stick by it? Agnes Nixon could've debated the Vietnam War in AMC in the '70s, but instead she (and Rosemary Prinz) chose to simply let Amy Tyler and Ruth be antiwar, and felt it was the right thing to do.

I agree that we didn't need a big anti gay marriage thing at this point--I just found the story poorly executed.

Not to be too much of a grump, but you're wrong about the Vietnam war on AMC. Agnes speaks in a NYTimes article from '71 I believe about soaps going more social, and in one of her Paley videos how ABC had no probs with it but felt she had to show the other side, something she didn't really want to do. But in the end she did (granted to as small a degree as she could) via Pheobe and Charles (both actors hated spouting things they didn't believe in, the actor playign Charles in particular).

Later in 1987 in one of the Paley seminars, she addresses why she hasn't had a heavier gay storyline except the Devon lesbian one. She says shge's been trying to do one for a while but ABC wants her to strongly express the other side as well, something she said she'd refuse to do because she doesn't want any audience members sympathizing with characters who feel being gay is a choice or wrong (this is an example of what I love about Agnes' writing but I know some--like Sylph on here--hate), so she was trying to work her way around that (she does say one reason she made Cyndi the one with AIDS was to combat the view it was a gay disease.

I honestly don't remember them having a 3-day wedding. I may have blocked it out. But I don't mind a large cast of recurring players; I like the sense of community.

I barely remembered the wedding--and yeah, I agree.

Edited March 19, 201015 yr by EricMontreal22