ABC May Be Ready To Trim Its Daytime Drama Lineup: Will 'All My Children' Go?

Guza grew up in soaps, in GH and others; I think he knows how they work very well. He's just grown to disdain them, I think, especially following his brief "heyday" doing slasher flicks in the early '80s (Prom Night is mostly crud, but the Canadian slasher Curtains is awesome). When he took over in the '90s that show was brilliant, and in his best years I felt it rivaled primetime, because he knew what he was doing on every level. Even today you have various Daytime Confidential podcasters and others excusing years of [!@#$%^&*] on GH on the basis of the show's incredible dialogue and breakdown staff - which has kept it out of the hole for years, I might add - or on the basis of some story arcs which are well constructed in theory but do not play well or fair onscreen. Guza can be talented. He just has become a joke to everyone but himself. And did I fear what was coming when the firing rumor about him came out? Yes. Because bottom line, Guza has decades invested in this show and knows it inside and out even as he wrecks it. I would still be happy to have him gone, but I seriously feared another Megan McTavish scenario, which was as jarring a change from the Riche/Labine/Guza era as you can get. Guza is an example of someone who knows daytime, could help daytime, but has grown to loathe daytime.

I have wondered for a long time whether Guza's heyday was mostly just down to finishing Labine's work, and having Riche there. I remember when he came back in late 1997 with huge hype and within six months I began to be bothered by issues like poorly paced stories that had no real resolution (the Bobbie/Carly story, the Laura/Stefan story), misogyny (Laura being written as the one to blame and hate in the rape reveal story), blatant character trashing (Tony Jones), telling stories that never seemed to be what they were supposed to be (Brenda celebrating "independence" by sitting around all day talking about her man), Quartermaine hatred and dismissiveness, Jason worship, etc. It finally got to the point in 1999 where the show was just lengthy, paralyzed conversations at the docks for what seemed like half of most episodes, with the other half being a daily chorus about how wonderful Jason was and how anyone who doubted that would burn in hell.

Edited March 23, 201114 yr by CarlD2

As much as I hate to admit it, in the AMC v. OLTL debate, I can see how OLTL might appeal to a certain younger female demo. Particularly 7th-10th grade coming of age girls who are taken by the flash and trash of Aubrey/Cutter/Tess/Ford and the schmaltz of Starr/James (and maybe even Matthew/Destiny every 6th Tuesday) as they come home and catch the last two thirds of the show after school. Of course no kid is watching AMC unless they're watching on SoapNet anyway, they just aren't home yet, but even if they were, Colby and Asher aren't even Degrassi material. What's sad/frustrating to me is that OLTL is perhaps doing something "right" judging by what seems to be popular these days, oversexed trash doing outlandish things and being applauded for it. I have young female cousins who've said in conversation that "Rhianna deserved it!" ( ) Ohhhh, so that's where Todd and Ford fans come from.

You know, for the first time in terms of soap cancellation rumors, I think we're going to dodge a bullet here. I think they'll give AMC another year to tighten up the ship. I just don't see them wanting to put a talk show at 1 PM, especially with Oprah leaving the airwaves leaving the late afternoon slots wide open. I also don't see them bumping OLTL to 1 PM and GH to 2 PM.

Realistically, even if ABC does decide to launch a talk show, couldn't they just put it at 4 PM anyway, instead of giving that time to the affiliates? Since Oprah is on ABC at 4 PM EST in the majority of markets anyway, I could see this being a mutually satisfying move and a wise business decision.

Call me crazy, but I don't think AMC is going anywhere..........yet.

Edited March 23, 201114 yr by juniorz1

OMG. I'm appalled.

I dunno though--I know this is a recent phenomenon, but Twilight "proves" to soap execs that a young female demographic digs a lot of this misogynistic, old fashioned "romance".

Vee good point and fair enough about Guza (I had no idea he wrote Curtains, a fave of mine, lol). IMDB seems to think he HW AMC when Pratt was writing, but doesn't mention his time co-HW Loving which I remember thinking was at the least decent.

Eric, Port Charles was ahead of its time...

With the vampires and all.

Edited March 23, 201114 yr by Pine Charles

What Twilight and to a lesser degree OLTL do is a facade of empowered young women - women who are trying to make choices and don't care what anyone else says. Of course these choices are about creepy men who are bad for them, but it's still painted as some sort of pseudo-empowerment.

Most soaps don't even do that. Instead you are more likely to get something like the Kristina abuse story on GH, which implied she deserved to be beaten and also painted abuse victims as liars.

And of course Dark Shadows will get accused of biting (no pun intended) off of Twilight if folks can get their heads out of Depp's ass long enough to even ponder.

Well, I think the way he handled A.J. and the Quartermaines was always a huge problem, and admittedly even then you could see how much Jason and the mob were beginning to be deified. And yes, Laura slowly became irrelevant as Guza fed Tony Geary's now-multi-decade ego trip. But in the first couple years I forgave these growing issues because I thought so much of it was so [!@#$%^&*] good, and I also think Wendy Riche mitigated some of that (though she also forced some bad couples and shut down some he wanted to do). We could not have known where we'd end up when he came back. But I loved Stefan and Bobbie, as well as the Laura issue, and Luke with Alexis, even as he was deconstructing Luke and Laura.

Bottom line, we could see the flaws but I felt the show was so [!@#$%^&*] good anyway. Even Sonny and Carly, which started out so foul - IMO when Sarah Brown was in the role they were perhaps the last supercouple, as opposed to the joke they became. The writers ignored the outrage; they knew what to do and how to do that.

Eric, Port Charles was ahead of its time...

With the vampires and all.

HAHA Actually I'm shocked One Life hasn't tried out vampires as a great idea from Frons. (it's true PC just was canceled right before the sudden Vampire romance boom, right? He must cry himself to sleep over that)

What Twilight and to a lesser degree OLTL do is a facade of empowered young women - women who are trying to make choices and don't care what anyone else says. Of course these choices are about creepy men who are bad for them, but it's still painted as some sort of pseudo-empowerment.

Pretty much right. And to be honest this is a romance novel cliche and, yes, has been a soap problem for a long time to some extent. But it seems like after soaps truly getting (often) away from that in the *coff* golden era, for some reason they're reverting to it.

I see your point, Vee. It's easy for me to say oh well I knew this and that but of course if they'd written differently for characters I was more invested in then I would have enjoyed it more. I do forget sometimes that a lot of the show was decent then.

Edited March 23, 201114 yr by CarlD2

What Twilight and to a lesser degree OLTL do is a facade of empowered young women - women who are trying to make choices and don't care what anyone else says. Of course these choices are about creepy men who are bad for them, but it's still painted as some sort of pseudo-empowerment.

Most soaps don't even do that. Instead you are more likely to get something like the Kristina abuse story on GH, which implied she deserved to be beaten and also painted abuse victims as liars.

I know a lot of women and I'm hard pressed to think of one who hasn't at one point in her life lost herself over a man. I know a lot of men and I'm hard pressed to think of one who hasn't at one point in his life been a selfish !@#$%^&*] whose dicked over a woman by an act of omission or commission. This is all true in the land of soaps yet the guys get the pass and the women keep coming back for more and are punished because they're smarter than men to begin with and should know better but just can't help their soft and pink emotional selves.

The real problem is the idea that abuse means you're a good man or a real man. Like Dani objecting to her father's behavior and then when he has yet another shooting or beating she is wailing about how wonderful he is. If young women on soaps said "I know that this man/my father (because on a lot of soaps they are one and the same anyway) is bad and I just can't help myself" I would take that over, "They aren't bad at all, they're a real sweetie."

I think the most powerful thing they could have done with Dani - who comes alive when she rages at Todd - is keep her at arm's length from Todd forever, or at least a long time, as with Jason and the Quartermaines. Her hatred is the price he pays for what he's done. British soaps sustain those kind of complicated emotions for decades, but Dani got over Todd being a monster in record time.