Jeff Probst on why Soaps are OVER

[Sylph]

The problem is that luxury became accessible, and the glamour was gone. Rolls-Royce is now a symbol of vulgarity (just take a look at Phantom), not of social prestige and status. Armani suits are nouveau riche-y: it's now impossible for 'proper people' to wear them even though the cut is gorgeous and textile so sumptuous. They've become vulgar. Suits illiterate tycoons wear.

Or take the example of the pineapple. I've read this somewhere, I think it was in the newspapers, but pineapple, once the fruit kings used to be painted holding (King Charles II), now appears on top of the most common thing you could eat – Hawaiian pizza. It comes in tin cans!

That is why there are no stars. Nothing is so unattainable as it once seemed to be. With the magic gone, it lost the lustre.

[Sylph]

Which is what I was saying. I wasn't attacking or offending. You cannot compare the two, because now there is so much trash, it is so instantaneous and when one affair ends, another starts. Before, this kind of stuff used to take years and you couldn't dream of filling up the TV space daily with such vulgar inanities. It was also far more tame. That makes Probst right. It is the celebrities. It's just that he doesn't quite realize the far-reaching consequences of his thesis and all myriad of truths that lie within. He just wrote a fluff piece, but as it usually happens, one with much more value than the sight reveals.

[R Sinclair]

Serialized storytelling and soap opera aren't one and the same. Soap opera is a form of serialized storytelling and, sadly, that form is on its way out -- for now or even for good. However, I don't think it's on its way out due to "celebrity" as much as I think today's "celebrity" is an example of the kind of storytelling today's viewers look for.

The problem, I think, some soap fans don't want to admit is that they are unwilling to embrace a change in the way soap opera is presented. When Carruthers went to stedicam and film look for All My Children in 2006, a loud NOOOOOOOO came from the crowd. "We want our traditional, 3-camera live look back!" When Wheeler added the fourth wall and went to Peapack for Guiding Light, a similar vociferous revolt happened. What you personally think about each show's respective change in production technique aside, nothing can change or evolve if you keep it in the same confined structure it's been in for 60 years. Limiting the way you tell a story limits the stories you're able to tell. Therefore, American soap opera has been retreading the same old tales and there's nothing fresh to draw in a newer crowd or keep the attention of the longtime crowd. It's been done before... and those of us who have seen it three times over already on just one show alone know this.

As for me, I detest "celebrity," and that's what drove me away. I left All My Children because of the shallow, unlikeable characters and their overwhelming sense of entitlement and hypocrisy. They've been doing ridiculous, hateful things and thinking that they can get away with it because of who they are. That's exactly the narrative we're being fed in regard to these celebrities. Lindsay Lohan showing up in court looking like Catherine Tramell? Honey, please. It's akin to Erica acting like Liza -- the District Attorney -- is only pressing attempted murder charges because she's jealous -- not because she allegedly shot a man in the back. Why am I supposed to care for you when you think you deserve better than me?

*Drops mic*

[DRW50]

I agree that fans often don't embrace change.

I do wonder sometimes if they would embrace change if the quality was there. In most cases with a sudden production change, the writing was so poor, and that hobbled any effort because it was bad on top of bad. It reminds me of when there was so much hype over The City and how it would revolutionize soaps, but no one bothered to actually write a storyline.

[Sylph]

Like I said: evolution.

[All My Shadows]

I was one of the biggest critics of AMC's FilmLook era, and I still stand by that. It did absolutely nothing to help the show, the ratings still fell, and the stories were still crap. I'm all for change that actually makes a difference, but I'm not gonna let TPTB turn my head with nonsensical changes while they continue to ignore true evolution.

I generally liked GL's "Life happens here" set-up, but that show was so dead and broke down by that time that they were never gonna be fully able to do it right. It looked great on paper, and it would have looked great on screen, but it was too late, and CBS never seemed particularly interested in seeing it through.

Never mind the fact that "the stars" were all miserable and lived terribly unhappy lives. They were just as f!cked as today's stars, but even worse because they had to keep up appearances.

[Sylph]

It was all a sham.

Today's world is different: the lives of celebrities' develop in front of us in real time. How much filtering, direction and stagedness there is, is a different but interesting question.

[Khan]

Exactly. It didn't matter that GUIDING LIGHT was now coming to us "Live! From Beautiful Downtown Peapack!"; or that AMC invested in new camera and/or editing equipment to hide what shrubbery and Susan Lucci's personal plastic surgeon no longer could. Updating and revolutionizing the way a daily soap opera is produced means nothing if the story, the one thing its fans care most about, is not there to make it all worthwhile.

[quartermainefan]

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie I think are the two that could have fit into old Hollywood. They don't even need to make movies, they just live their glamorous perfect lives and their fame still towers over most of the others. They never take a wrong step, and when they get involved in scandal it all reminds one of Elizabeth Taylor stealing Debbie Reynolds' husband.

[Khan]

Ah, Eddie/Debbie/Liz. A delicious (and deliciously tawdry) love triangle between two former best friends that had little-to-nothing to do w/ the man they were fighting over...and that eventually evolved into the tumultuous Dick & Liz relationship. Now THAT is good soap opera.

[jcar03]

Honestly, he has a point. Look at the Two and a Half men thread on this board. It had 2 pages of post and is now up to 10 pages discussing Charlie Sheen's latest antics.

[bellcurve]

I was one of those voices that went all "NOOOOOO" when Carruthers switched to the filmlook and I remember you were like, "Can we stop the shaky, complain-a-train cam discussion." LOL. That reaction may also have to do with the fact that it we were beating a dead horse weeks after AMC permanently switched to that way of shooting.

But, for me, my complaint wasn't that AMC switched to a new look. You're talking to someone who still gets a hard-on watching old clips of The City and someone who appreciates stellar production values, great directing, and outside-the-box thinking. For me, it was the actual execution of that idea. I thought alot of what I saw was very half-assed and unimaginative. And there was even one episode I saw where it looked like the tape was so processed, so "filtered" that it was going 15 frames a second.

The same with nuGL/Peapack. There was very little thought or planning into that style of shooting and Ellen Wheeler really didn't put 100% into the idea. Maybe the money wasn't there. But there's no excuse why GL should have looked the way it when they switched. They spent about five or ten episodes of 2007 doing "test" shows for this new style of shooting(one I remember was Reva/Lizzie in the Ramada, or as Vee affectionally calls it "daytime's first snuff film"). The planning for this was lazy and Wheeler should be ashamed of herself for it. PGP(or even Wheeler as EP) could have hired some consultants that worked on reality shows or independent film to come in and show her creative ways to produce GL in that style. I'm not opposed to handheld cameras, but on a network TV series you have to at least look good.

One of the more embarrassing moments from Peapack came in a scene from a wedding and Dinah and Mallet(or maybe it was Shayne) were outside talking and at one point it was cloudy, then, during the middle of the scene, it was raining, and then in another part of the scene it was heavily snowing(like inches on the ground) and all of these shots were mixed in this one scene. Now, common sense should tell someone that if, IF you're on a tight schedule and you can't re-shoot those scenes, then why have Dinah in a place where the precipitation can be "visually" seen? Or even better, find an indoor location where those scenes could have worked? I'm pretty sure that the Weather Channel can accurately predict the weather in Peapack, NJ so that last minute production changes can be made. I mean, it's not as if they needed a permit, everything looked so gonzofied anyway that a simple release form would have worked.

I'm not entirely against innovation in daytime. I think one of the reasons soaps haven't progressed is due to the way most fans haven't been able to embrace change. But said innovation has to look right. And, for me, AMC and nuGL didn't. And I don't think it's all budgetary either. Alot of it(especially in Wheeler's case) is just plain arrogance.

[bellcurve]

The stories got better, but by that point, it was too late.

And at this point, I'll take The City's razzle dazzle anyday over what passes for soap opera on the remaining six.

[SFK]

What nuGL needed was a person or persons with taste who could have pulled those lifeless fluorescent buzzing office scenes together. I KNOW they had more budget than the film school kids I know who would have turned all of those sow ears into silk purses. There were scenes that were downright YouTube "couple of friends just messin' around" amateur quality. The City had that one huge skeleton set that worked beautifully transforming from one apartment/place of business to the next. I realize TC probably a few more pennies but they made their pennies work regardless. I think the creative team behind TC would have done a better job dazzling us visually had they been in nuGL's predicament.

[SFK]

I agree bellcurve, there was something special about TC where you could just sit back and ride on the wave of its vibe, it had a cool vibe going. Good music, good look, good cast, witty and interesting even if not terribly exciting. I think I just fell hard for it, the concept, the location, being a high schooler with New York aspirations, it worked for *me*. And all its razzle dazzle was artistic, not lurid with half naked people. Sydney's penthouse and Buck's bar are two of the best soap sets ever, and Tess' agency and Angie's clinic totally worked. Attractive, functional, realistic and cost effective uses of the space.