Writers and hate vs. indifference towards a character

[DRW50]

Thanks for finding that. It's never nice to see a parent slap a child but considering I wanted to slap Michelle for about 3 years I can't complain. What a terrible story that was though.

Indifferent towards Ashley but I think they really do hate Nikki. My guess is if Braeden wasn't so important to the show, Nikki might be gone.

I often wondered whether Kriezman also hated Blake or just didn't care. The fact that the other headwriter, blanking on her name, used Blake as a supporting figure very heavily in GL's last year, shows how effortless it was. All Kriezman ever did with her was have her throw herself at sleazy Jeffrey, write a blog, and go in a coma.

[Paul Raven]

Sheffer took the blame for the treatment of Lisa on ATWT,

[Gray Bunny]

Even though a few choice Matt/Vanessa fans were a bit obsessive, they were spot-on when it came to Rauch/Brown & Esensten's treatment of Vanessa in the late-90's. Constant remarks about her age versus Matt's (i.e. Clone Reva's remark to Josh: "Who's that? Her son?"). There was even that business about Vanessa contemplating a facelift because Matt was flirting with Beth. They made her a harpy shrew to Matt and later a comatose victim of Carmen's. They clearly had it in for this role and perhaps the actress.

[bellcurve]

There were also rumors of Rauch sexually harassing Maeve Kinkead when she worked on Another World, right?

[DRW50]

While I can believe Sheffer hated Lisa (and any vet), that treatment continued long after he left ATWT.

Yes, the rumor was that P&G moved Maeve to GL because of the issues with Paul Rauch.

[R Sinclair]

Ugh! I don't know who either of those characters are, but if I was supposed to feel bad that he slapped her -- I don't.

[Mitch]

To add insult to injury, she went into a coma and no one ever mentioned her, or who was taking care of her kids. Also, she drank poison champagne (ment for Jeffy) and they never followed up on it, or showed who did it, or even have the cops investigate it. This was leading into what could have been an interesting whodunnit with Jeffey (or making him an outright villian) what with the reveal of him as Liv's rapist, impersonating Richard to screw Cassie, blackmailing Dinah to fulfill his weird obsession with Cassie and using Blake. But as usual, any promise in Wheeler/Kriezman's GL fell apart and it was droppsed and Jeffie a hero (GL had fallen so far at that time they were practically going to the crazy actor fan's houses to blow them.

I think Kriezman hated Ross, as he stood in his precious Buzzard's way of being the patriarch of SF..Blake he just didn't get.

[Adam]

This is a great topic Carl! I have long thought about this myself. I think alot of the time we as fans read to much into the "hate" certain writers have for certain characters. I think in most cases its just general indifference, or not a good sense of what character's the majority of fans want to see featured and how they want those specific characters portrayed. It is definitely MUCH easier to see what characters the writer's like. I think in an environment such as a Frons-ABC where certain actors/characters are mandated by the higher-ups to be in front burner storyline and to be crafted as "sympathetic" whether it fits with the character or their actions or not, it makes it especially hard to assess what character's the writer's love and are indifferent too.

Back to your original point here is one example that springs to mind.

Megan McTavish on AMC: I think clearly this woman was not a fan of the Janet character (or at least a sane, reformed and viable Janet).. I think it was well documented in the soap mags at the time of McT's return in 1997 that she did not like the direction the character Janet had taken. So what did she do? She put her with Trevor and made her into this soft, stepford wife. Janet when she was reformed never lost her edge.... but she certainly did under McT.

[DRW50]

I think Janet did lose something of her edge for most of Broderick's last year as headwriter - most of her stories were about winning Amanda over, then Trevor. Broderick started up the story with Trevor. I do wonder if they might have had more plans for Janet to go off on Tim, if Broderick had stayed, but I felt like they were using Tim to help further Janet's redemption.

McTavish did little with Janet, but she did write a story for her (the Axel Green stuff, which I enjoyed) for about 5-6 months, and had her resolve her differences with Natalie once and for all.

I do think McTavish must have had issues with Janet becoming sane, based on what she did after her 2003 return, but at the time of 98-99 I didn't feel her Janet was a lot different than Broderick's version.

[~bl~]

Dinah was supposedly visiting with Blake daily while Blake was in a coma, though we didn't see Blake on screen for nearly six months and she was barely mentioned. According to what they told LK, it was something about how they wanted to focus on Jammy at the time. The boys supposedly were in boarding school, and Clarissa at first was staying with Vanessa, which made sense.

DK admitted a few months after GL went off the air, that it was a mistake to kill off Ross, as at the end of the show the character was missed. Supposedly the aftermath of Ross's death plot was cut according to this article, though that is understandable as it seemed nearly everyone hated it.

[soapfan770]

The first writer who came into my mind with this thread was James E. Reilly and his two stints at Days. I don't know how much is fact or fiction with the man but I heard he hated Matt Ashford as Jack and that's why Jack was totally destroyed with his '93 exit and then of course killing off Jack three years in a row (03, 04, 05). On the flip side Reilly LOVED Hall and Marlena despite the ridiculousness of the stories. I've heard he also loved Carly before TPTB pushed CC out.

Latham hated Jack too on Y&R making him be the bad guy in several stories much like MAB/Sheffer/Hamner/Rauch have done.

Speaking of Sheffer, while its obvious who his ATWT and Y&R favorites were/are, what about his stint at Days besides the whole "Sami is Katie 2.0" crapola? You know, I thought Sheffer and Days might have clicked but things went horrificly wrong.

[rhinohide]

Hear Hear Carl! I swear I just saw NSA on a Dunkin Donuts coffee commercial, and I may be swearing off coffee (not likely however).

so is the writing by focus group a relatively new phenomenon?

Dena Higley certainly showed her favorites, but I don't really want to rehash.

[bellcurve]

[Pine Charles]

I hated reformed Janet. She was so boring. I can take her less crazy, but THIS:

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26WucGOKa7Q?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26WucGOKa7Q?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26WucGOKa7Q?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

?

HELLZ NO!

[Paul Raven]

Sheffer and Tom Hughes/Scott Holmes.

MAB & Co with Melody Thomas Scott/Nikki