Gary Tomlin

[aMLCproduction]

Gary has been involded in soaps for a number of years. From actor, to writing to producing on such shows as All my Children, Another World, Days of our Lives, Passions, Santa Barabara, Search for Tomoorw, Sunset Beach and Texas. What do you guys think are some of Tomlins strong and weak suites? Has any other soap person been on as many shows as Tomlin? Tomlin must have something to keep bouncing around on all theses shows. I did like what he did with Sunset Beach. Any one else want to share their Tomlin thoughts?

[Llantano Incorporated]

Average writer, average producer. Did not like most of his OLTL.. He is two steps above a hack in my opinion. Serviceable, producers and writes nothing but very average soap. Not a fan of his lack of production values, either.

[darraholic]

I think he's a genius in the sense that he's made DAYS come under budget but his production part sucks donkey balls. I can't say much about his writing but some of his storylines from way back in the days seemed pretty good.

[melador]

Under Tomliin's regime, "One Life" won it's only Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 2002. He was replaced by Valentini shortly thereafter...

[LoyaltoAMC]

They only won that because they submitted some special musical episodes if I recall. OLTL under him was like a Chippendales Revue every day of the week. I love beefcake as much as the next person, but I like a little substance to back that up. His OLTL was just pure camp with absolutely no depth. I think Frank and Ron understand that high camp is fine as long as it's balanced with some depth.

[quartermainefan]

hmm

wasn't that around the time Victor and Mitch came back? Some of that was really fun I thought. I love the idea of ripping Natalie's heart out so Victor could live. Gotta love grandpa! I forget what was going on back then. When did they start killing Rappaports?

[Khan]

Well, they certainly have a funny way of showing it! :-)

As a writer, he did some decent work on SANTA BARBARA and SEARCH FOR TOMORROW. Nothing earth-shattering, but certainly highly serviceable. As an EP, he also seems to be one who is unafraid to utilize vets in front-burner storylines. Perhaps with a better HW, though, we might see what he's really capable of.

[DRW50]

The heart stuff and killing Sam Rappaport was Malone.

As for Tomlin, I thought his tenure started out as being very campy and a bit hollow, and then got very ugly and dark. The stuff with Viki being raped on her living room couch still disturbs me to this day. It was a very jarring transition and the stories were a mile wide and an inch deep.

The part of his run I enjoyed most was Roxy/Max.

[Llantano Incorporated]

Well, in his defense, the Trading places episode WAS brilliant and holds up to this day. OLTL's emmy win was a long time coming.

[Sindacco]

On DAYS, Tomlin seems to be all about quantity over quality. He just wants to shoot as many episodes as possible in the shortest time, all to save money. The production is awful. Alot of people on this board praise him for saving DAYS and working with such a low budget but the show has no quality anymore. Tomlin represents the nuDAYS (October 2008 - present) that I despise.

[aMLCproduction]

I know GT likes his camp. I loved what he did with Sunset Beach. I just don't know anything about his writing. Thanks for all the responses. I give him props for getting Days together. though like others said it doe look very cheap. I expect Days to get campier as time goes on. They really went for it with this Rafe 2 storyline. With Chris Whitesell who was on the writing team I am surprsied they waited so long in their tenure to turn to camp as I knew it would happen

[Cheap21]

funny you say that bc Ive been watching since Aug of last year and this is the Days that I love. Days has been more watchable now than it has been in the past decade

[Khan]

When Tomlin first succeeded Ed Scott as Co-EP at DAYS, several went on-record saying how he wanted to get "back to basics" - and I still believe that that was his intention at the outset. DAYS had become so ridiculous and over-the-top that nothing was being taken seriously anymore by its fans, or garnering attention for the show that was in any way positive. Unfortunately, I feel Tomlin hit two stumbling blocks in his quest to make DAYS more grounded: Dena Higley and the show's own cast. Neither his HW nor his actors (save, of course, for veterans such as Suzanne Rogers and John Aniston) are capable of delivering the kind of first-rate, character-driven, non-campy drama that this show needed, and still needs, in order to become "legitimate" again in the eyes of fans and critics.

I might have said this before, but I feel very strongly that Tomlin could be a good, if not great, EP if he had the right HW to work with. Forget about production values; that's secondary, IMO, to solid writing; and with scripters such as David Cherrill, Richard and Carolyn Culliton, he has that. What he needs desperately, though, is a strong HW who can at least meet him halfway on his overall vision for a show, yet has the capabilities of telling solid stories about fully realized characters. The more grounded you can make the characters, IMO, the more willingly an audience will go along with the occasional flights of fancy. (Ex: The Paul Rauch/Peggy O'Shea era at OLTL.)

[Sindacco]

Have you ever watched DAYS before August of last year? If not, how can you compare it?

Past decade you say. 2000-2003 and 2006-2007 were much better than the current episodes. 2004-2005 were awful but I would take those anyday over October 2008-present.

[Michael]

I do think he managed to take the show "back to basics" in some important ways. We went from a canvas where certain things were presumed -- John/Marlena would always be the leads; the DiMeras had to be behind everything; Kate was only good for interfering in her kids' lives; Maggie and Victor were not deserving of story -- to a situation where the show stepped back, looked at everything critically, and rebuilt from the ground up. I won't try to argue that every single decision has been brilliant, or that the execution has been stellar in every case, but this has to be one of the most successful instances of tearing a soap down to build it back up again. I truly don't think we would have Days on the air right now if not for Tomlin's work, so for that alone, I'm pretty grateful.

Totally a matter of opinion. I'm with Cheap -- I've found the show imminently more watchable the past two years or so than I did for probably 5-6 years before that. Something about it makes me want to watch 3-5 times a week. I don't think I'd felt that way all decade, besides for the start or climax of new stories or when a particularly interesting (usually hilarious) spoiler caught my attention.