This fascinating 12-year old article from the highlights a lot of ATWT problems that are still talked about today:

IN MY OPINION

by Margery Scott, Soap News 2/19/98 issue

ATWT has been without a focus and wandering, without a clear direction ever since Doug Marland passed away. Once his story line ideas were gone the show was all over the place and got worse as time went on. It would be difficult to decide whether 1996 or 1997 was the worst year.

To explain what I mean by focus, the easiest thing to do is look at a soap with focus: Y & R. It has its own problems but focus is not one of them and that, in my opinion, is why it is the Number One soap. The focus of Y & R is and always has been Victor Newman and his family and secondly John Abbott and his family. Very few things happen that do not touch, affect or concern one of these men's lives.

ATWT had such a focus years ago with the Hughes family and the Stewart family. The Stewart family became defunct and then we had Lucinda Walsh and the Snyder family. Much of Marland's story was focused on these two. One of the first big mistakes made in ATWT was to get rid of the Snyders. Emma Snyder, as portrayed by Kathleen Widdoes, was the soul of the show. The audience cared for her and her family. After the departure of Craig and Sierra it looked as if a new family was building for Lucinda. The long lost sister and brother, Royce and Neil appeared and then just as quickly disappeared. Then Samantha appeared and disappeared and has now been recast.

It seemed to me that the enormous mistakes made in 1996 and 1997 were partly the result of someone at the top trying to replace the veteran actors with neophytes. The younger actors obviously didn't earn as much money. But I think even more than that someone had the mistaken idea that they would somehow appeal to a younger audience. The actors who had made this show great were doing bit parts and back-burner stories while the audience suffered through: the Kasnoffs (Mike, Mark, Sara), Zoë, the new Paul, Ryder, and Ben and a girlfriend for him, ad nauseum. That year (96) we lost Andy, Evan, Ellen, Duncan, Shannon, Mac, Iva, Julie, Caleb, Roseanna (not a loss IMO), and the original Samantha. These changes alienated long-time fans.

No one cared about the new characters or the actors who tried and failed to create new roles. The next year (97) the only good thing that happened was that Jon Hensley returned to the role of Holden Snyder and Michael Park created the role of Jack Snyder. We lost the original Connor, which was probably the single stupidest move anyone made, and replaced her with Susan Batten, whose portrayal of the role bore no resemblance to the character, Connor, the audience remembered. Again, not learning from the mistakes of 1996, more new characters were created and dominated the story lines: Camille, Lew, Sara Ruth, David, et al. Anthony Herrera is a wonderful actor and I like him. But bringing him back from the dead again to recreate the role of James has not been a success. He is a good villain, but the writing stinks. This "James" seems a caricature of the former one. Also bringing Damien back from the dead was just another contrivance to keep Holden and Lily apart for yet one more time. Not a clever move and the repeat of a story line that at this point was nothing but irritating.

I have to mention the character of Molly separately. This character's development has been bizarre. She so totally dominated the story line that Holden and Lily's wedding was focused on Molly. Allowing the seriously disturbed Molly to be the "star" of their wedding was the single worst scene I have ever watched on ATWT in 30 years. The audience, who had been waiting for over 10 years for Lily (as portrayed by Martha Byrne) and Holden to be married, was outraged and rightly so. If ATWT has reached its lowest point, in my opinion, that was it. The audience is fed up with Molly (and that is an understatement to say the least.)

As for writing, words almost fail me. In my opinion good writing whether it is a soap or a best selling novel should be character driven. The character is developed by his/her life experiences and the story follows the character and is true to that character. It seems to me that recent writers have gotten it just backwards. I have this vision of the ATWT writers sitting around with a Rolodex in which are a finite number of possible story lines (and all, by the way, hackneyed) and they spin it around and choose one at random. Then they have a deck of cards with possible characters and a few wild cards thrown in and these they lay face down on the table and again choose the number of characters needed. From there they proceed to "write." And what the audience gets is what we have, a story with no focus and no direction. Many times it has seemed like an experiment: let's try this and see if it flies. Thud!

If this soap is going to survive someone (the head writer?) must give it a clear focus: The Hughes family, the Walsh family, or (I hope) bring back the Snyder family. Create stories for the characters the audience cares about. ATWT has as fine a "regular" cast as there is in daytime. Don't spring new characters on us and then let them run away with the story. New characters should be introduced very slowly and have a connection with the focus of the show. (Again I refer you to Y & R). Equally important, the writers are going to have to be more creative. Your audience knows all the "stock" stories that have been told and retold, cycled and reclycled. So Ms. Broderick I have a challenge for you. Let's let Lily have a normal pregnancy and a normal delivery and a healthy baby with no hysterical life-threatening contrived "drama." If that happens I will begin to believe that ATWT is looking toward the future and I'll willingly give it another chance.

This article is clearer and easier to read. ATWT has had only a few good moments since Marland passed.

It upsets me to no end that, for so long, people have been aware of the problems that plague daytime, but no one has decided to do anything about it. Can someone please hire a writer who can--and this is just off the top of my head--write? You can't convince me that there aren't young, capable writers out there dying to get a job.

^Executives need tired, washed up "writers" who will not object, will not cause trouble and will just do what they are told. Puppets. Young talents will have the delusion that they can actually write and do something, you know, original and thus are dangerous and unwanted. Sad.

I wouldn't necessarily put the blame at Broderick's feet. According to Eileen Fulton at the time, P&G shot down just about all of Broderick's story ideas and what was approved was totally watered down.

That year (96) we lost Andy, Evan, Ellen, Duncan, Shannon, Mac, Iva, Julie, Caleb, Roseanna (not a loss IMO), and the original Samantha.

I don't disagree with any of this (although I don't think that Caleb was any loss, and the show had really done Duncan and Shannon no favors in their last few years in Oakdale), but only Rosanna and Samantha left in 1996. Iva left in 1994, the others in 1995.

I wouldn't necessarily put the blame at Broderick's feet. According to Eileen Fulton at the time, P&G shot down just about all of Broderick's story ideas and what was approved was totally watered down.

I do blame a lot of it on P&G but some of it did remind me of some of Broderick's poorer work at AMC and at OLTL. The psychos, the baby switches, the new, not very interesting characters...

I have to wonder how much was FMB. Perhaps MADD was more to blame, but FMB made some very questionable decisions during her tenure, right off the bat being the Allyson-Rice Taylor/Susan Batten fiasco. She seemed to have a tin ear for what to say to the press, between letting the way that was handled (with Batten basically saying she got a job because she wanted one and MADD and FMB were her friends), and then some of her hilarious comments trashing OLTL to TV Guide once she got the job as an ABC Daytime consultant.

And for whatever reason she seemed to push Liz Hubbard's buttons in a way no other producer did before or since. While one can debate the merits of Lucinda, as I know a lot of people have little time for Liz Hubbard's performances, the way she left the show in 1999 was one more punch the show did not need.

There were some decisions which were big, big mistakes, like the Reid Hamilton storyline, and I still wonder who was responsible.

Edited July 4, 201015 yr by CarlD2

I never accept "the blame the meddling executives for the bad stories" argument. It is an excuse that is used when headwriters and producers suck. If they were talented ATWT and the other soaps wouldn't have so many of the same crappy stories over and over.

I think the clock started ticking on ATWT the minute Doug Marland died. No writer since has loved the show as much, IMO. And his talent for keeping stories consistent is unparalleled.

Exactly. I can't imagine that the PGP executives were just waiting in their offices, biding their time until Marland died so they could at long last sink their claws into this show. Obviously, no one person or group of people can hold all of the blame, but the writers deserve their fair share.

1994-1995 was an interesting time for the PGP soaps. Their longtime Executive In Charge of Production Ed Trach retired in '94, and suddenly all of the PGP soaps faltered and never got any better.

Trach was the last one who really fought hard for those shows and "got" them, I think. Ever since he left, those shows never really recovered and just threaded along.

Edited July 5, 201015 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

I honestly did feel like ATWT was looking up in fall 1995. I guess it was just short term but even the dumbest story at the time (the crazy Orlena gaslighting Lily) had some good moments, and the rest had some potential or was actually very good, like the John/Lisa trial, the Mike/Rosanna/Carly triangle, Kirk/Sam, even the sop to the "teens" with Dani/Jeremy/Nikki. Then the bottom fell out at the start of 1996, and it never did come back. The other times when ATWT was supposed to have improved I never really saw it myself -- FMB's good moments were very very short-lived, and then the supposed greatness of early Sheffer passed me by as I was so horrified by the way he destroyed one of my favorite characters, Craig.

I didn't think the show was all that bad following Marland's death when Richard Backus and Juliet Law Packer took over. It wasn't Marland good, but the show was still recognizable and consistent enough.

Truth be told, even Marland's last year or so probably wasn't all that great story-wise, but of course better than what followed.

Edited July 5, 201015 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

I don't think the show was ever really bad until 1996. I think that 1994 was a weak year, because I loathed Holden and I loathed Mike/Rosanna and I was disappointed at Shannon's poorly written return, but some of the other stuff was good, like Janice's reign of terror, and the buildup of Orlena. Looking back I would have found more to enjoy in 1994 if I had known what was to come,

I know some did say that Marland was already running out of steam creatively by the end, and 1992 had some weird stuff, like Tonio holding Bob and Susan hostage. I don't know, I haven't seen 1992 in quite a while.

When did Andy exactly leave in the mid-90s? It always seemed to me his stories were wildly all over the place in the late 90s, from alcoholism to sleeping with the barely legal Nikki Munson to being the father of Hope Maynard. I believe the call to fire DeFritas happened early on in Sheffer's term in 2000, and Sheffer wrote out Andy quickly with a fallen off the wagon and going to rehab episode.

Marland's final years? A lot that we saw from 1993-1995 came from his bible, like the Kasnoffs, only with drastic revisions. A few years ago the November 2nd, 1992 episode of ATWT surfaced on the old WOST site and boy was it a downer:

--Darryl Crawford went flying out of a three-story window while struggling with Gavin Kruger in front of Frannie

--Ellie had her abortion. After it was over, Kirk, who didn't know about it, called her at the very end of the episode.

--Holden came to the Snyder farm for the very first time following the accident which caused his "permanent memory loss" and pretty much alienated everyone with his extremely icy demeanor. Lily cried for most of the episode in Iva and Angel's arms. Holden seemed turned on by his doctor.

--Viki Harper had given George Jessop the orders to kill Carolyn Crawford.

--Scott and Lucinda sat around drinking watching 1992 election results as Tom(Margo had just been raped just months before) was in the running. Scott bemoaned being a black sheep in his family, while Lucinda felt blue due the fact she felt Iva had taken over as the mother figure in Lily's life, not mention Iva being involved with John at the time.

Marland seemed to have gotten to dark for his own good perhaps?