OLTL: Recap from 1 year ago

[HeedTheMessenger2.0]

Just to think- it was just a year ago that Stacy had just lost her baby and Kim (love her) came to town... and then the whole Stacy/Rex/Gigi fiasco.

No one had found out about Tea's "secret" yet- nor had there even been a mention of Danielle.

Eli just came onto the show (his first day?)- and oddly enough, was making mysterious phone calls from day one.

Matthew was still in a wheel chair - and this was nearing the climax of the end of Nora/Clint and the Bo/Nora reunion.

Fish was o'fish'ially gay yet, and Cris and Layla weren't together.

I guess a lot can change in a year... plus the Ford brothers weren't even around yet to be possible daddies for Stacy's baby

[Eric83]

It's shocking how bad this show has gotten in one year. Much of that resulted from all the people fired earlier in the year. So much potential lost with Rachel and Sky. Honestly, I am more upset over them leaving then Kish.... Not to mention Jared, and Stacy (who had grown on me) This Nat/Jess pregnancy story would have been more interesting with Jared in John's place. Ugh.

I won't even talk about Kim and Clint.

[DRW50]

The roots of the show's biggest problems in 2009 are all in that episode - the truly wretched retcons over Danielle, and the interminable Stacy saga, complete with her enabler Kim.

[All My Shadows]

If only. Then maybe I'd still be watching this crap fest.

[Ann_SS]

Goes to show that OLTL really has been bad for a long time and to think that it was bad before Stacey even showed up. I actually liked Stacey at first. I thought she and Schuyler had tons of potential down line once they got past the horrible Rex/Gigi story. I liked Kim a lot though.

Let us not forget taking Fish, a peripheral character, making him gay, and giving him a major story with another peripheral character. Ah, talk about one of many bad ideas on this soap.

[All My Shadows]

Oliver and Kyle being peripheral wasn't the problem. The fact that these writers don't know how to write for peripheral characters is the problem. Really, they just don't know how to write. A cop and a future doctor, in a genre where hospitals and police departments are regular sets on just about every show, and they couldn't come up with anything for these guys at all?

smh.

[DRW50]

I liked Sky and Stacey a lot, I thought she had real vulnerability and sweetness with him in their early scenes, which Crystal Hunt has rarely had in her performances. I liked the idea of two broken people finding happiness. As soon as she turned against him I knew the character was dead.

I think OLTL has had increasing problems since around mid-2008, the Tessica fiasco and the Todd/Marty rape story and the Old West stuff which was the start of the very bad and overly propped writing for Rex/Gigi. That was also when they started resolving stories in an unsatisfactory manner (the BE takeover).

I don't mean to make it sound like OLTL was always amazing until this time, I'm just speaking of the timeframe from when people started to heavily praise the show again (mid-2007 or so).

[Ann_SS]

I don't agree. You don't give peripheral characters major stories and expect it to work. Why on earth would the wider audience care about them, their romance, and issues?

ITA. I knew that Stacey was doomed once she and Sky were done as caring friends. RC is a tedious predictable headwriter with limited vision. Look how he wasted Michael Lowry as Ross.

The BE takeover was the only reason I was watching OLTL for months. It was good stuff until it petered out with no solid resolution.

The Old West story reminded me of Eternia. Both stories made me tune out of OLTL.

[DRW50]

I think one of the problems with OLTL or most soaps in recent years has been the question of what is a legacy character. OLTL hasn't treated most of the Buchanan children as any type of important characters -- just ask Duke, Drew, Sarah, Invisible CJ.

You can make a character an integral part of the community even if they have few ties, as OLTL did years ago with Marco Dane.

I think it's a mixed bag because I kind of prefer keeping characters on the periphery to trying to make them a new core family, like what's been done with the Edsels, or the Rappadavisons or the Hayes.

[Ann_SS]

This is what was done with John who isn't related to any of the major families. Same goes for Rex and Gigi. Gah, I just realized that these are three of the worse characters, played by three of the worse actors.

Fish was useless, played by a mediocre actor, but I liked Kyle (and the actor) before he became Fish's tortured misunderstood ex-. OLTL could have done a lot with Kyle. He could have been a solid character.Typical OLTL waste anything good.

[OLTL_fan]

I guess Im the only 1 who sees the good in OLTL?

[DRW50]

There's still good in OLTL, there always will be, I just wish the show found it.

[All My Shadows]

I disagree

I'm not interested in characters and their stories because it's "Oh, that's Viki's great-grand-niece," or, "Wow, I can't believe Bo's uncle's daughter's cousin's son"***. Oliver and Kyle were connected to established characters enough so as not to seem like outsiders, IMO. Not everyone has to be a Lord, Cramer, or Buchanan, and really, I think trying to tie everybody into the "core families" makes for an annoying, monotonous show. I don't need Viki's take or Bo's take or Dorian's take on everything. I liked K/O (when they were written well) because their pairing gave Roxy something to care about other than Rex's latest bastard shenanigans. The friendship of Oliver, Cristian, and Layla was entertaining to me, and it was part of what made Llanview feel like a community again. But, of course, your mileage may vary.

What I'm saying is that if I'm engaged by a story featuring new, unexplored characters, and they're not hogging up the show, then I'm all for it. Saying that one is Viki's long-lost son and the other is Dorian's long-lost cousin doesn't automatically make them interesting to me.

*** Who would be Matthew.

[Ann_SS]

Not being related to a major family does not make a character peripheral. A peripheral character as one that has not been well developed, floating around in the background, and shows up occasionally as shoulder to cry on or a plot device. As Carl and I posted earlier, it is possible to establish a character who is not related to anyone like John, Rex, and Gigi.

In any case, maybe you are interested in a romance of two peripheral characters, but I think most people who watch soaps including myself tend to care about the relationships of established characters. Marcie is a much better example of a peripheral character, not related to anyone who after a long time on the canvas became a character that a lot of people grew to care about so her romance with Al and later Michael had rooting value.

It is especially a dumb idea to have to peripheral characters have a major romance when it something controversial as a gay romance. At least, one of the characters should be anchored to the canvas in some meaningful way so that we care whether they are happy or not.

[HeedTheMessenger2.0]

I think most people forget that Kyle was Rebecca's sister- and even helped her kidnap Todd/Tea/Blair or whatever happened with that. So technically, he was connected to the show through another peripheral character who was connected to a main character (Todd). I really liked him though...

As for Fish- I liked him too, but I did like Kyle more. The story would have worked much better if one of those characters turned out to be CJ or another main character- IMO- because it opens up the story by folding more characters into it. But they SHOULD have made it work with who they were using.

It just feels like the whole Stacy/Rex/Gigi/Schuyler/Rachel story was for nothing. It was a waste of almost a year and what came out of it? Only Rex and Gigi- honestly the worst of the whole bunch! They fired CH/Stacy and SC/Schuyler, as well as BC/Kyle and SE/Fish and DD/Rachel who would have been good with SC/Schuyler- and AS/Kim quit (after becoming VERY popular). For months these were integral characters to the main storylines... and it was all for nothing since they were all discarded and now as I said, only Rex/Gigi remain who thankfully have been thrown onto the backburner.