GO Robin Strasser!

Upset OLTL fan creates a website. http://abcnetworksucks.com/

Daytime market for a five-day-a-week serial is nonexistent. If they were to run these shows in prime time two or three times a week, they'd need to seriously step up the writing, acting, and production values. Otherewise, these shows would be laughed out of the prime time real estate. They couldn't tell the same baby switch and back from the dead stories, and they'd have to make the scripts more complex. That would be the challenge to behind the scenes movers and shakers who have become increasingly lazy and desperate over the past two decades. Could you even imagine the Kendall-Ricky story playing out as it has in prime time? The reason EastEnders works in prime time is because it's a very tightly written, produced, and acted show. Just miles ahead in quality of any of the US soaps. Although I have to say that I've dated a few British guys, and our initial conversations would almost inevitably turn to EastEnders. I'd compliment it on how gritty and real it seems to me. Their responses were almost always negative. They all looked down on the show, labeling it simplistic and directed to the masses, total lowest-common-denominator television, the same criticism many people in the US level at our soaps...so I guess their standards just happen to be higher than ours.

Wow, I guess it may be a cultural thing, but I don't think I could stand a main network that was 85% telenovelas.

I respect them, but the telenovelas often seem like very bad acted farce to me. Then again, I'm not fluent in Spanish or follow or any translation, so I'm definitely not the target audience for them.

Yes, there is bad actors just like their english counterparts but the positive is that the novelas have an ending. If soaps are to make a comeback in the future it will have to be the telenovela format where there is an ending to the soap.So if you dont like the osap you are watching you can wait for the next one which you might like. It would be nice if one network tried that concept.

Oh and learn spanish Alvin. Be bilingual...lol......everytime I think of that word...I think of the GG episode where Blance thinks bilingual means women dating women.....lol

I always wanted to learn french...lol

Edited April 17, 201115 yr by Soapsuds

what network would devote precious primetime airtime to a soap? I think its farily obvious why that hasnt been done

Yes it seems very precious. I see how well they treasure it.

Tuesday 4/19 8 PM

ABC Jaime Oliver Food Revolution

Jaime dresses as a tomato to distribute healthy lunches to school

NBC Biggest Loser: couples

The couples go bungee jumping and win a ride in a helicopter

But friday is especially an interesting night of must see TV

Shark Tank, What Would You Do

and a repeat no less of something called Kitchen Nightmares on FOX

your saying a repeat of Kitchen Nightmares is a more valid for airing than an original hour of any written TV show?

Edited April 17, 201115 yr by quartermainefan

Daytime market for a five-day-a-week serial is nonexistent. If they were to run these shows in prime time two or three times a week, they'd need to seriously step up the writing, acting, and production values. Otherewise, these shows would be laughed out of the prime time real estate.

Based on how horribly written and acted so much of what I see in primetime is now, the only part I would agree with is production values. When I watch an average episode of Castle, or watched the first episode of Happy Endings, I wasn't exactly noticing quality.

Edited April 17, 201115 yr by CarlD2

Yes, there is bad actors just like their english counterparts but the positive is that the novelas have an ending. If soaps are to make a comeback in the future it will have to be the telenovela format where there is an ending to the soap.So if you dont like the osap you are watching you can wait for the next one which you might like. It would be nice if one network tried that concept.

Oh and learn spanish Alvin. Be bilingual...lol......everytime I think of that word...I think of the GG episode where Blance thinks bilingual means women dating women.....lol

I always wanted to learn french...lol

I am fluent in French, and studied Latin. But Spanish was never really a passion for me strangely, even though I know many speakers and have vacationed in Spain.

My thoughts on why the soap genre has died (aside from network over interferene and same old hack writer/producers)

1) The obsession with youth. Once upon a time, 70's/80's soaps would strategically go after the youth demo in the summers only, they would bring out the teen scene front burner, although the vets where still seen, this was designed to attract the kids home for the summer vacation, the show still was a balanced show, it wasnt 24/7 teens, so grandma, mom, and the girls (forgive me for not including the male audience, I know we exist, although for the purpose of this lets focus on the women demos) so the multi-generational viewers all watched the same show and all enjoyed it. Then all hell broke loose with the obsession with the youth, and the strategy to focus only on the younger characters and the older vets get pushed to the back. What happened? Grandma and Mom want to watch stories of adult characters not a bunch of kids, so they watched less and less, since soap opera viewing is one of the most relationship-based programs in broadcasting, by that I mean, we never hear someone say they started watching any of the primetime shows because a family memeber watched it first, although with soaps, we most always have that connection where we started watching because someone in our family/friends did.

Since grandma and mom aren't watching, then obviously the new generation is lost as well, as their children aren't watching either.

When soaps abandoned the practice of being multi-generational focused stories and instead just had stories on the teens/20-somethings, viewers abandoned in mass.

2) The youth-craze infested all of the new soaps that premiered in the 1990's. No one can say CITY, SUBE, PC or Passions was a traditional soap. CITY/SUBE/PC all focused on a group of friends rather than a strong core families based soap, SUBE tried to reverse

things and attemted to be more traditional but it failed as it still was a youth-centered soap, "Passions" came the closest to being traditional as it had a strong core family set-up, although it was teen centered and went off from anything traditional with its sci-fi tricks. I do give credit for PSSNS for attracting a solid teen demo, although "Passions" was a novelty soap, the teens got hooked and fast, although since there was nothing of substance there, they quickly lost interest as they grew-up. This is the difference between

soaps of the past and the failed 90's soaps, teens in the 70s 80s got hooked to AMC OLTL GH DAYS AW SB Y&R B&B ATWT GL.... but those shows still kept them interested as they grew-up into adults as they were traditional soaps that were multi-generational, there was no

"novelty" that wore off like the dreaded 90's soaps. And as a result, network execs made the decision it was impossible to premiere a new soap opera, a fatal mistake as it really wasn't that a new soap couldn't be successful, rather it was the flawed concept of a youth-oriented soap that the four 90's soaps all failed.

3) Since network execs were afraid the cancel a soap and replace it, we got the current soaps all being run into the ground. GL and ATWT should have been cancelled in the 1990's, but CBS was afraid to launch a new soap with ABC and NBC's disasters. If CBS were true to their HISTORY, GL and ATWT would have been cancelled and replaced with traditional soaps. CBS always cancelled a soap when things were clear the show had run its course, think SFT and EON, both those shows were the lowest rated CBS soap when they were cancelled but had higher ratings than some of the soaps on NBC and ABC, thats why those networks picked up those two cancelled soaps. SFT's CBS replacement was Capitol, after a few years CBS wasn't happy with the ratings so CBS cancelled it and premiered B&B. Putting aside any fan loyalty to any of the soaps I mentioned, network execs rightly cancelled soaps and replaced them with new ones, only the strong surives mentality was fair and it worked for the genre. Although since the debacle of the 90's soaps, network execs were afraid to try anything new, so we were left with a no win situation, the existing soaps had to grow ratings or as we have seen, one by one get cancelled. When networks refused to invest money in new soaps that is the defining moment that killed the genre, as without the normal pattern, that existed from radio to the 1980's, of when a soap is low rated it gets cancelled AND replaced and if the replacement is a hit great, if not, even that gets replaced until we find a hit soap, when that got thrown out the window, its all over cause its simply a downward spiral as what we have is no chance for a replacement and just cancellation after cancellation, until none left.

I am trying to figure out if this is real or fake ?

I disagree that GL and ATWT should have been canceled in the 90's. ATWT still had all the pieces in place for success, and had adapted itself in the past even when it was supposed to be oudated.

GL I can see more of deserving cancellation, but even then, up to 1997, they had a big ratings increase. The problem was lack of vision and consistency.

The main problem was in poor decision-making regarding most of the soaps, including new soaps. I liked PC, but there was never any real vision for the show and no real reason it was put on the air, other than wanting to spin off GH at a time when GH was already starting to fall apart. A smarter network would have either waited to launch PC until there was a concrete plan, or they would have gone for another soap entirely.

With a cameo made by Brian Frons.

Sorry, he's already slated to reprise his role as "God."

I didnt realize Nigel was with the show that long. i thought he had joined sometime in the mid 90s

I am trying to figure out if this is real or fake ?

Someone took clips from 1991 episodes, edited them with the early-80's opening credits (and commercial bumpers), and edited those credits with 1990's product sponsorship (like Honey-Dijon from Hidden Valley Ranch). Don't ask me what possessed them....

GH's last scene will be of Guza walking down a dark alley as the spotlight pans to him as he's blowing off gun smoke from a smoking gun.

Similar to Rauch stomping out the cigar on Santa Babara's finale.

Not to mention that with the internet, spoilers come out so often. So now before EVERY story, all of us start judging it before it airs. And that puts us at a disadvantage, because many (not all) decide whether or not they will watch/like something before it even airs.

On the one hand, I agree. Yet, on the other hand, sometimes you don't need to see the story play out to know it's crap. It's a matter of knowing the characters and what they would do or not do under given circumstances.

I didnt realize Nigel was with the show that long. i thought he had joined sometime in the mid 90s

Peter Bartlett was actually a recast, joining in 1991 after someone else briefly played Nigel.