Gary Tomlin

[quartermainefan]

I was just saying I find the last year or so painful in comparison to the years immediately before. The story with Nick Fallon was good...I think DOOL lost its mojo somewhere in 2009.

[aMLCproduction]

I agree with Khan as far as JER being burnt out his last go round at Days. You can def tell his heart was not into it all. Now in defense of Tomlin, I have been watching since 92. I sat through the writing regimes, of JERx2, Langan( I tuned out due to the teen invasion) SSM, Brash and Cwickly( The best days team since JER) Higley and that terrible Sheffer( I tuned out again under his watch) I will say Days hasnt not been this good since B&C. Higley is not the best but she is miles better than Langan and Hogan. She just needs a strong co HW who will make things happen. This board at one time not too long ago was all about Days. Their is no Days hype on this board at all. You should have been here a few years ago as many can tell you. In fact all out wars used to happen over Days. So there is no hype here. I am in the camp of Days hasnt been this good in a long time. THough it's not perfect, I will take what I have now over Hogan or Lagan any day.

[EricMontreal22]

I think it was his era of Sunset Beach that I enjoyed the best, but I always find it hard to remember who did what. But that kind of show seems to be his forte--ie camp. (For the record, at its best I loved Sunset Beach's camp--yet hated Passion's brand of camp. I think it mainly had to do with Beach seeming to have better dialogue and stories that actually moved at a nice clip--Passions for all the desire it had to be a campy soap that non soap fans would like as much as soap fans, it was so slow, and such an endless cycle of virtually identical scenes and conversations that I just couldn't handle it).

His era at OLTL was a weird creature--between him and Whitesall and Broiderick, such an odd team. But it did have some fun moments, and I loved the, ok, gimmicky moments like Live Week, Babes Behind Bars and Trading Spaces (Places?).

[EricMontreal22]

It may not be fair, but I think Tomlin helps direct Higley's stories quite a bit-- And I admit that's ALL conjecture on my aprt because I think her era on One Life was just so awful--it was slow, it was unimaginative, and it was actually often quite offensive (and it takes a lot for me to actually find a soap offensive lol).

Oh and back to Tomlin I think I'm in the sharp minority again but I didn't mind the couple of months he wrote of OLTL during the last writer's strike... It did ruin the momentum of some of RC's work but I also actually prefered some of it.

[EricMontreal22]

I am *not* a JER fan, but even I can admit that some of his stuff was really, even if not to my taste, good and some really bad. I dunno, I do have the feeling he had a short shelf life and illness or not (wasn't hisdeath sudden? Though of course we don't know the issues) it woulda been a big surprise for him to come back with greatness. But I do get why he has such loyal fans (if that doesn't sound like a complete contradiction).

That said, I get the impression he didn't wanna leave Passion as HW--or am I wrong? He might not have accepted Days if NBC had made him step down on Passions.

[Khan]

Oh, NBC would never have made him step down from PASSIONS. That was part of the problem, I think. NBC stupidly believed JER (or any HW, really) could handle HW'ing tasks for two hour-long soaps. What they should have done instead was ask JER who'd he recommend for DAYS, then try and work out a deal with that individual to take over. Otherwise, as successful as JER was @ DAYS the first time around, there was no guarantee at all that he'd be as successful there again.

[aMLCproduction]

I would have loved to see what JER could do under the ABC Soaps working with Frons

[darraholic]

I doubt they would have gotten along. JER didn't like interference and that's all that Frons does.

[Khan]

Word. JER working under Frons would've been a nightmare for everyone concerned, regardless of which soap.