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OLTL: Could Jean P. be an improvement over Ron C.?


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I will admit, I was one of the tons of people on the internet praising Ron Carlivati like he was the second coming of Douglas Marland. That was two years ago, in the two years since I have watched OLTL become a sh!tpile of suck. I managed to never watch an episode of this show up until 2008. I was hooked instantly. The characters were interesting and diverse, loved the vibe of the show. It seemed upbeat and hip, unlike GL at the time which was deader than dead. I got attached to Dorian, Blair, Tea, Bo, Nora, Brody, Layla, Charlie, etc. Now as I sit here and watch this show, I realize I am no longer enjoying it. It went from the best soap on the air, to one of the worst in a matter of a year, and I blame it all on Ron Carlivati.

He has become uninspired, boring hack who is rewriting his own [!@#$%^&*] over and over. He is coming out with this wacky, tacky bullshit that is seriously grating on my nerves. Did we really need to have Jessica almost raped by her damn father, get electro shock treatment and then think she was 17 again? Did Jared need to be killed off to make way for a John and Natalie reunion? Should Marty, a character with numerous connections to the canvas, be languishing on the backburner with no story, no man, no friends? This guy has turned this show into garbage. Killing off young, viable characters like Talia. Bringing on useless, lame characters like Nate. Turning the odd guy in the triangle into a psycho overnight. I am sick of this, and he seriously needs to go.

And would it kill him to write for Cristian and Layla? He went out of his way to give Kish their story, yet he continues to ignore them, he half-assed the Greg/Rachel/Shaun triangle as well. This isn't Frons interference either seeing as though AMC is gearing up to give Angie (Debbi Morgan) a big story.

I am wondering would Jean Passanante be that bad of a replacement for Ron? I tuned out of ATWT for the majority of her stint, but most ATWT fans have said that Goutman was a big reason of why the show sucked. I am welcome to any change at this point, becuase Ron Carlivati has made this show completely unenjoyable for me. I have come to love this damn show, and I want to stick by it until the end, but by god Carlivati's writing just isn't working anymore and he needs to go.

This post by IMissAremid on another board perfectly sums up how I feel:

So I ask would you welcome Jean P. if she somehow became headwriter? They made a big deal about her becoming AHW, which was very fishy to me. At this point I would welcome any and all change from behind the scenes at One Life to Live.

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Here we go again. Everytime a headwriter sucks, people say anyone will be better. Really? Really? Talk about always wanting to learn the hard way. There is ALWAYS a worse headwriter, ALWAYS. Especially if the said headwriter has been worse on another soap in the past.

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Well I never said JP would be better, I was asking you all could she be as I have never seen her OLTL/AMC stints or much of her run at ATWT.

The fact of the matter is this show has been sucking for nearly a year and the ratings continue to tank. This man needs to go.

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OLTL SUCKS and it has been for quite some time. They can continue to suck or try something new. Jean P may in fact be worse but it wont hurt to switch things up bc the current writer is creatively bankrupt. If anything the show will at least have a few months of good material before going downhill again

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I actually think this is Frons interference. If AMC can barely bother to give a storyline to a woman who is an icon of daytime TV, it's hard to expect much from OLTL. Not even getting into GH.

I blame Frons for a lot of the teen stuff and the whitewashing and I tend to blame Ron C for the embarrassing David mugging which brings down everyone around him, the stories involving Todd and Tea and their spawn/Todd as stud of the land/Todd teaching us that re-rape is love, etc. I can't put all of the woman hate on Frons, it is too endemic in every single part of the show now.

As for Passanante, I have no idea what she would be. I can't say I have a very high opinion of her work on ATWT (which involved turning a legacy character into an attempted rapist), or AMC, which involved shooting a young woman in the head and having a black teenager imprisoned in a cage and treated as a dog for most of his life.

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What I dont understand is how come they cant hire new writers? Why take writers from other soaps that have now cancelled? Surely there are smart writers out there who have some fresh ideas. I know writing for daytime isnt easy but still!

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She a recycle writer who help destory ATWT. Why to put faith in this woman. All recycle writers start of with a good record. Then they get burnt out real quick. What these soaps are ignoring is they need new blood to work with their old writers. These soaps never going to learn until they are all out of work.

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No. LOL You're just going to get another kind of suckage.

But as a Ron Carlivati supporter (because of his first 9 months which I will always appreciate), I can say his time as HW is done. The creative juices are gone, and there's just no confidence anymore.

I still don't know how RC is still the head writer because people were speculating he was going to be fired for over a year now. Is it maybe Frons knows OLTL won't be on the air for long, so he's not even attempting to hire a new HW? I look at the Chuck Pratt situation and that came about pretty quickly....but Frons is taking his time with Carlivati? It doesn't add up.

And things aren't going to be better, with any HW, when you have Frons canceling your long term story, even if it's in the middle of the story.

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True, when you suck at THREE different times (in the mid 90's as part a HW team at OLTL, then at AMC, then at ATWT), how can you say it can't get any worse? Of course it can! There's NO HOPE with Jean Passanante.

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