October 4-8, 2010

[Southofnowhere]

CBS needs to replace 2 of the Talkers with a right&leftwinger.

Bristol Palin and if she didn't already have a show in the works i would say Roise ,somebody WAY out in left field.

[bellcurve]

I don't think they will go for the drama until the ratings go south. I think being the anti-View, in the fact that they don't yell over each other, argue about politics, or look like they are uninterested in being there really helps them with offline, female viewers.

[Jeff]

All I did was point out Monday's episode of OLTL was higher than the Talk's debut, I am not "rejoicing" in anything. Yes, I watch OLTL, but I wouldn't classify myself as a "OLTL fan" as you put it. Not sure the point you're trying to make

[Cyberologist]

Exactly it doesn't take much to please me but when I see writing that says you only invested $100,000 a few months ago and then today writing that says you lost $5 Mil you invested I'm going Huh?

And this is just one example of the type of writing that makes me head for the exit door..its actual torture to watch some soaps for me...I am a soap opera lover but damn its like being on the rack with some shows.

[Saving ATWT]

The View is pathetic and hosts like Joy, Elizabeth, Rosie or Whoppi know sh*t about politics. I guess the network wants them to come off as 'rugular' people but dummys talking politics is dangerous. The View should be the liberal Fox talk show. I wish the major networks would avoid this stuff and let PBS and CSPAN handle information.

I'm pretty sure Mooves did the tape because this is supposed to be a show about moms and thus family. They will probably show Ozzy in the future. I expevt The Talk to eventually thrive; however, CBS has always been bad with topical shows and The Early Show; CBS This Morning; The Morning Program and The CBS Morning Show sort of prove this. No network has flipped morning shows like CBS over the past 20 years. I remember, as a kid, watching Faith Daniels read the news. Anyone know what happened to her? She was supposed to get Today and then came Katie. Was a kid, didn't know talent, but remember her as really pretty.

[EricMontreal22]

I agree, and I disagree. I know it's pretty presumptious to say this, but I do think modern soap viewers demand smarter writing than maybe some in past generations did. (For various reasons--some are that the average viewer may be more knowledgeable now about how things like hospitals work, writers also have to now keep in mind that characters and audiences now are much more knowledgeable about things like birth control, people now have cell phones that don't always fail, most public buildings have surveillance tapes, etc, Also the average soap viewer now doesn't have the soaps on in the background "for company" while doing the ironing--a horrible stereotype but one that has some truth).

But I do think that there's some truth to the above. Even in the mid 90s when I first started reading about soaps online, people then were complaining about how their soaps were much better 20 years before. Maybe they were--but many of those eras are now, of course, regarded as pretty good (Labine's GH, etc). But that's almost an unavoidable evil in any of these type of discussion forums.

That said, I don't think anyone can deny that more and more the soaps are depending on things that have NOT benefitted them--like much more pronounced interference from network heads (something you see soap writers starting to complain about even in the late 80s), focus groups, etc. I would disagree that the ONLY problem now is budget cuts--if that were true then the soaps should, despite such cuts, be doing perfectly fine in all respects.

[EricMontreal22]

I only saw a brief bit of The Talk today (when they were discussing the gay bullying)--and I got the impression one thing that was meant to seperate it from The View was it was less confrontational and argumentative (Lord knows why that would be appealing). I was hoping someone would at least make a jibe or mention to Leah Remini about Scientologists' issues with homosexuality, it felt like the elephant in the room to me, but maybe that's just my bias.

[EricMontreal22]

These are the same people who obssess over a .1 demo difference making one soap a sure fire cacelation and one set to live on 3 more years...

I do have to agree that The Talk got next to no promotion from what I could see--the only people I knew aware of it were those who were fans of any of the women involved. I never saw an advert, or anything similar--that said I've never seen an advert for any of ABC's soaps (maybe GH once?) outside of their soap opera lineup...

[DRW50]

I don't think modern soap viewers demand smarter writing, I think modern soap viewers just want to be entertained, and generally I don't think soaps even do that. Or they want characters that are understandable and can be cared about, and soaps don't know how to do that either. If you watch most soaps you get half-assed stories that make no sense and characters who are confusing, or repulsive, or both. Soaps can either be smart and hip, or they can be simple and show people we are invested in. They now fail at both. They have such contempt for viewers that they only care about their own fetishes or on trying to get to viewers who have and will never watch soaps. I also think past soaps had smarter writing than today's soaps. They are hilariously out of touch. On GH right now you have stories about one character who burned through $10 million in two months, and another person who lost $5 million in several months in a bad investment. Who wants to see that??

There's always going to be nostalgia, especially if you grew up watching a certain show. I have some nostalgia for the early 90s P&G stuff for that reason, as others do for late 90s GH. Generally for me a lot of late 90s soap was not that good and the recent years of poor quality hasn't changed my opinion. I guess it depends on the show, but at the time, I enjoyed Y&R and still do when I see some of those episodes again, but I loathed JFP's OLTL and no amount of nostalgia makes me ever like that sh!t.

[EricMontreal22]

I somewhat agree with that--but I do think that writers sometimes think they can get away with stories they could have gotten away with easier 30 years ago (like the constant Who's the Daddy stories--seriously, 2/3 women I know around my age, if not more, are on the pill or know all about birth control--even if they did have a drunken one night stand). I will agree that most of these stories were also better written and played back then, so that's a factor.

And of course there was some AWFUL AWFUL soap opera back in the 60s, 70s and 80s--anything James Lipton wrote for example. But most fans don't remember that (and why should they), and there was enough good to great stuff to balance it out.

[DRW50]

A lot of soap isn't available from the 60s or 70s and what is available in large numbers is some of the better stuff. I think if we saw more of the weaker stuff from that era we might have a different opinion. Of course more of the 80s is available but even that is relatively scarce, and we can watch it faster, so it doesn't seem like as much of a grind as today's stuff which is still stories stretched out for eons. Soaps now have years and years where absolutely nothing happens, then if something you want to see does happen it's over very quickly. Those at soaps now just cannot write in a soap format, or, I'm guessing, any format. I think episodes of Punky Brewster would be too much for them.

[EricMontreal22]

I do agree with all of that. I think one problem with pacing though is they don't know how to pace for modern audiences-- It was much rarer in the old soap days to assume that an audience would catch an episode 5 days a week--at least the majority of the audience (in All Her Children--yes Sylph I'm bringing up your fave book again--Agnes says something about the assumption they make is that the average fan catches three episodes a week, even though she goes on at some length that the writing she always finds the hardest and most embarassing is how to incorporate hte necessary recap).

Nowadays, with lesser viewers, and with way more ways to watch the episode if you're not home at the time, I think most viewers who would call themselves a fan of a certain show, DO watch (or fast forward ) every single episode. I dunno, I'm not saying that the current crop of network execs, EPs and HWs in charge would have done better back in the day (though I think this is true in some cases--and of course we've seen once great soap people--or at least very good--utterly fail recently), but I do think it has affected some things.

[marceline]

Or a Fortune 500 company like Chandler Enterprises being run by a couple of 20-somethings out of their living room, the famous Llanview/Atlantic City wormhole or a mob that traffics in DVD's. That's the stuff that makes you think they aren't even trying to write something decent.

[Sylph]

And there's your evolution theory. Perhaps you could sell that to people 30 years ago, but not today. They just refused to catch up with the times and act like people with brains are watching this.

[DRW50]

It's interesting though because I think some soaps from 30 years ago were much more intelligent than what we have today. GL and Ryan's Hope, for instance. OLTL. AMC.

I think one of the biggest failings of soaps was to never transition out of business stories once the Dynasty era ended. Or at the very least sometime in the mid-90s. There is no reason why the Chandlers need to still have business stories. Just bankrupt them all. Say that Adam has enough stashed away to live comfortably with Brooke and that his kids are now grown and can fend for themselves.

AMC used to be about haves and have nots, and people struggling. For years AMC had a parade of grifters and desperate characters. That might be interesting now. Ryan was certainly more interesting, at least to me, before he became an overnight mogul.

Of course other soaps, like GH, are guilty of not transitioning out of their own bad habits, so that's another failing. To not adapt.