As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Oh, I'm sure there will always be interference but I liken it to... if a writer sits down to write a screenplay and is already thinking about box office, I think that screenplay likely won't turn out well.

I don't think you can focus on all of that while focusing on the technical aspects of writing a good story--it's too much to think about. 

 

I tend to think that Phillips, Nixon, Bell and Marland and the rest just put those things out of their minds and focused on writing good stories (at least while they sat down to write before the network execs could get their hands on the scripts).  

There were lots of soaps that were short-lived even back then but I don't think the great writers allowed themselves to think about all of that when they sat down to write their scripts, it just would've been too much weighing on their minds.

Perhaps today's writers allow themselves to think about this too much and it impairs their creativity and ability to sustain a storyline.  That's something I never considered before.

 

I think we may have discussed this on the boards previously, I know I've thought and mentioned it a couple times (especially before ATWT's cancellation) but I really think that the daytime soaps should've tried to scale back down to 30 minutes.  I mentioned this to someone years ago and I still believe this would be a good idea.  Perhaps this might also have the effect of stabilizing the storylines so the flow is less frenetic and stories sustain themselves a bit better.

Edited February 19, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[adrnyc]

I completely agree with Dramatist Dreamer - soaps could've gone back to 30 min. The casts had already been trimmed (at least in ATWT's case) and the sets pared down. I'm sure everyone involved wouldn't have liked having their salaries cut in half but that's better than being cut 100%?

 

Also, yes, the reason I can't watch soap operas today is that the storylines move at such a frenetic pace. ATWT was the same for it's final 2 or so years. I tried to watch Y&R - the bed hopping made me crazy. Same thing with Neighbours - although I actually watched that for a year and a half until half the cast turned over. Still...the show would focus on a "MAJOR COUPLE" for 2 months and then those same characters, MADLY in love with one another, had changed their minds and both members of the couple were MADLY in love with someone else. 

 

RH has taken 5 years of back and forth with Frank/Jill. ATWT have had Tom and Margo together (yet having problems) for what? 8-9 years at the point I'm watching? Writers knew how to keep the audience invested in the same pairings over such long periods. When did that ability leave soap writers????

[DramatistDreamer]

 

This is an interesting question.  I can't speak for all soaps but thinking about ATWT, it seems to have begun, in earnest, when writers started writing stories as if the characters were players in some type of reality show.

 

By the mid-90s you had shows like The Real World that not only were they ratings juggernauts but they had snared an entire generation of viewer-- a younger generation and we know that soaps were usually on a quest to grab those younger viewers (sometimes to extremes that resulted in disaster). 

It just seemed as though by the late 90s, some soaps (e.g. ATWT) cast their younger characters who looked as if they were plucked from a reality show.

We know that many reality shows had continuing stories but their story arcs usually went from week to week (every week a new explosive conflict or fight, revelation or scandal in the house).  Some soaps may have picked up on this and started shortening their story arcs trying to appeal to the reality show crowd (who skewed younger).

I think the unfortunate thing that many of the soaps didn't pick up on (until it was too late) was that they needn't mess with the technical aspects of how they wrote the stories, what they needed to tinker with was the content of those stories. Some of the stories just didn't move with the times, in terms of contemporary issues and by the '00s, even those stories that did have contemporary themes seemed poorly executed, sort of sloppily written.

 

Today's soaps seem to be experiencing something of an identity crisis, of sorts, IMO.  They can't compete with the cable and the Netflixes and Amazons or Hulus of the world because they're on daytime network basic broadcast TV.  At this point, CW shows and many primetime shows like Scandal are too racy for the daytime shows, so the daytime soaps take a kind of 'middle ground' which can sometimes leave viewers feeling unsatisfied by what they see.

 

Not to mention that all the limitations of writing for daytime will not exactly attract a whole lot of writing talent.  

Let's put it this way, if you're a talented writer and you have a chance to put your energy toward landing a gig in daytime soaps or writing your own webseries that could get picked up by Netflix or get you noticed for your own HBO show, which path would you choose?

Edited February 20, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[robbwolff]

I don’t think it’s a matter of that ability leaving soap writers. Rather, soaps have been adjusting their format to appeal to modern viewers. And it’s just not soaps. In academic research, we’re reevaluating ways to promote our research in a variety of ways since our constituents don’t have long attention spans. For years, soaps have been tinkering with their formats in this regard. Port Charles went for 13-week arcs. Most soaps sped up their stories. One Life and All My Kids contemplated 13-week arcs as well. Watching the reruns of The Doctors on Retro, the shorter arcs are not new. The Doctors was doing them in the 1967-1970 era.

[adrnyc]

@robbwolff   To clarify, my main issue with today's soap storytelling isn't that the stories themselves are super fast but more the couples. (13 week stories - totally fine. That's acceptable. Last I watched, stories seemed to be 4-5 weeks though.) As said above, now you have Character A MADLY in love with Character B for 2 months. Then they break up and move on. Character A is now MADLY in love with Character C and Character B is MADLY in love with Character D - for 2 MONTHS!!! And then everyone switches partners again. They may put Characters A and B back together a year later when they've run out of beds for them to sleep in. Is it so hard to find story arcs for Character A and Character B where they stay together? 

 

Or, even if it's a Frank/Jill or Craig/Sierra type storyline where they keep the characters APART for several years, through several different story arcs but the main focus for the audience is these two characters wanting to be together but kept apart at every turn.  

 

I just can't become emotionally involved in a love story for 2 months. I can't become involved in any love story because I know it won't last the season. I watch soap operas to be swept up in grand romantic storylines that keep me watching day in and day out. Not little lust storylines that make me say "why am I watching this?"

[DramatistDreamer]

I think it's very telling though, that some of the longest running soaps (i.e. those that lasted longer than 20 years) had storyline arcs that ran longer (at least until the late 80s, early 90s).  

Edited February 20, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[adrnyc]

 

Didn't Downton Abbey stretch a storyline over several seasons?  The turkish guy who died in Mary's bed? That didn't get resolved until at least Season 2 but maybe Season 3? (It's been awhile.)  I think that shows that people today can handle a long and drawn out story, if it was presented to them. Of course, I think it helped that Downton was basically a soap. 

[DramatistDreamer]

 

I was going to mention Downton Abbey in an earlier post too!!!

Yes, they as well as a lot of BBC/PBS series are adept at sustaining long story arcs and they remain highly popular with a whole range of viewers, including young ones.

 

To me, it's all about intention on the part of the showrunners and writing staff. Do they have the will?  Because where there is a will, there's certainly a way.

I think the soap genre has convinced itself that they have to drop everything that came before (even those techniques that were tried and true and actually worked successfully) and take up the latest trend.  It's why I mentioned that today's remaining daytime soaps seem to be in something of an identity crisis.

[adrnyc]

@DramatistDreamer  I completely agree with you on everything you said. It's fascinating to me for several reasons. One, just because I love the soap genre so much (although I have abandoned all the new ones to watch the older ones I never saw thanks to the tireless efforts of the fans) and also because I am creating my own soap opera (for reading only, not to produce - I have no money - HA!) and am wondering/toying with how long of a slow burn story I can tell in this day and age.

 

The only current soap I've been watching is B&B - but I'm back in 2014, watching on the CBS app. It seems to move fairly slowly but I think that might be because I sometimes go months without watching the next episode. 

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But I digress...for now, it's back to ATWT - Barbara is out of jail! Laura is snapping Paul's head off for saying bad things about Tom. (I'm assuming she's going to turn out to be just bat $h!t crazy.) And David is back from Zaire for a stint!  Always love it when David Stewart comes for a visit!!

[P.J.]

Well, its not like Downton spent a lot of time dwelling on the dead Turk. What they did (and what American soaps have almost completely given up on) was to play out the consequences for Mary. I think Edith exposed it at the end of "season" two. 

[Mitch]

I love Downton but its just as bad as the daytime soaps...characters and incidents rush by and disappear...they are a big deal and then they arent...take the goofy...totally ripped from soaps..."character comes back from the dead "  who not only had amnesia for awhile, but had a bandaged face and was heir to the fortune but might be a con artist..( I would think that I would know a friend or family member just by their voice but...) Or ..."We are about to loose Dowton...oh..someone dies offscreen so we don't!"

 

I love the show maybe because it took all the conventions and excess of soaps and pasted that over Masterpiece Theater...

 

[adrnyc]

Yeah - I definitely enjoyed Downton because it was just a soap opera set in the past. Like Upstairs, Downstairs.  Although I enjoyed the original Upstairs, Downstairs far more than Downton. And I loved Downton!!  I've never cried so hard at a series ending as I did Upstairs, Downstairs though. My dog actually came over and pawed me out of concern.  

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Edited to say:  As The World Turns comes in second. That was a lot of crying I did when I sat down and watched the final week of the show on that Friday night. (I was in grad school at the time and had to wait and watch on the weekends.) Even though I didn't love the show in its final 3-4 years, I thought it came around a bit at the end.  I bought the final 2 weeks from Soap Classics, and I believe that, when I watched it again, I cried just as hard the second time I viewed that ending. 

 

I'll never watch Upstairs, Downstairs' ending again - I won't put myself through that ever again.

Edited February 23, 2018 by adrnyc

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Have you ever seen the rebooted Upstairs, Downstairs?  That was the first time I ever remember seeing Claire Foy.  Other than that, I didn't really find the reboot to be all that good.

Edited February 23, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[adrnyc]

 

I did - totally forgot that Claire Foy was in it! I am a fan of Alex Kingston,  and enjoyed the second series more than the first, I believe. But yes, I didn't enjoy it in any way as the original. I just go so involved in those original characters. It was unhealthy.

[I Am A Swede]

 

 

The "new" Upstairs, Downstairs was horrible in my opinion. Not even Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh could save that travesty. To be perfectly honest I didn't even think Jean was all that good in it.

But I admit that I'm biased since the original is my favourite tv-show of all time.