AMC and OLTL Canceled!

[Khan]

Trust me, Carl. The "telecoms" will allow it to happen when they realize how much profit is to be made from outlets we might consider non-traditional and outside their scope at the moment. After all, that's the thing about technology: everything, including entertainment, has to catch up to it eventually, or else cease to be profitable and relevant.

Remember when network affiliates signed off on their analog signals for the last time when the gov't. instituted a change-over to digital? I predict the same will happen to digital, too. Except, in place of the networks, it'll be entertainment conglomerates such as Sony, Universal, etc. producing the content and then releasing it directly to us at home via DVR's, computers, smart-phones, etc., bypassing what used to be the networks altogether.

It won't be cheap, of course, and there may come a day when "free" is out of the question. But, because the revenue will be more dependent on viewer subscriptions, individual purchases, and the like, there's also a good chance the quality of scripted shows will improve, too.

[marceline]

You don't have to give them up but it's a little ridiculous to demand that the very people marginalized to go out of their way to save them, isn't it? The people who are happy with scraps and being taken for granted are welcome to belly up to the bar for more but apparently there's not enough of them to keep this stuff going. It's easy to say things should change but what good does it do when those same people support the status quo. "Oh I really want better writing for minorities (women, gays, people from different economic backgrounds) but if you don't want to do that, that's okay, I'll just keep watching." Yup, we'll get right on that.

IMO, the whole setup needs to burn to the ground: the shows, the mags, the boards, the blogs, and hopefully something decent will come next. Like I said, I love AMC but if I have to choose between letting it die or keeping more of what we've had over the last few years from the genre as a whole, (like for instance the baby rabies) well then pardon me if I don't shed too many tears.

And when it does happen, I don't want McTavish or Carlivati or Frons to get first crack at it just because of nostalgia. That will kill it before it can grow. That's why we need to call these people out on their incompetence. Otherwise they'll infect the next generation of soaps...whatever they are.

[Vee]

Well, my point is I think we may yet end up looking at some form of AMC/GH/OLTL or other soaps (and certainly new ones) on these new platforms in future years. There's a reason soaps started with radio (and before that, literature, matinee serials, cave paintings) and are now taking albeit very clumsy steps onto the web, largely by people who don't know what they're doing.

[DRW50]

I agree with that. I hope it happens. I think soaps will be around in one form or another (I don't mean crap like Desperate Housewives that is more bad camp, I mean real attempts at soaps). I just don't know where it will be. I won't be surprised if it ends up being in the form of a role playing game or some version of people texting their way through scenarios, like some soap opera version of the old Sierra games.

[Khan]

For the record, marceline, I don't disagree with you here or anywhere else in your argument. Like you said, if you're okay with how minorities are represented, both in number and in quality of story, then fine. And I, for one, wouldn't want to see any minority represented negatively, or in ways that everyone would agree are patently false, narrow-minded and condescending. Having said that, I guess I place more of a premium on simple, good, character-driven storytelling, and hardly ever give as much thought to the fair and equal representation of minorities (or lack thereof) as I probably should.

It's like...yeah, I agree, there should have been more AA's on AMC and GUIDING LIGHT...but I'm actually concerned with how many of their white characters were treated toward the end, too. If that makes any sense, lol.

[DeeeDee]

Pretty much.

The existing disparity has to be addressed before acting as a collective.

[Khan]

First of all, let's not forget that soaps were not immediately successful on radio. Soaps had to experience some awful, awful growing pains in that format before peeps like Irna and the Hummerts deduced how to create product that was sustainable under those circumstances.

Second, as clumsy as most efforts to create soaps for the web have been, these D.I.Y. attempts also serve an important purpose. Just as the locally-produced and long-forgotten radio soaps of the late '20's and early '30's laid the groundwork for eventual milestones like "Painted Dreams", the first of several shows that proved airing original, scripted shows in the daytime w/ continuing elements could be profitable for advertisers, [!@#$%^&*] like "The Bay" and "Gotham," I argue, are laying the groundwork for what I believe will be the first, big hits for the genre in the new platform.

[Khan]

Chances are, the next generation of soaps will have little in common with what's on the web right now. Once we have a websoap that really takes off, some corporation, such as P&G, will "magically" figure out how these new shows can make them money. Then, they'll invest time and financial resources into developing and producing soap operas exclusively for the Internet. And the quality of their efforts will make what's out there pale in comparison, to the point of rendering them as nothing more than footnotes in the history of the evolution of the soap operas.

Even under these conditions, however, the risk of someone like MMT, RC or Fronsie (okay, maybe just Fronsie) getting ahold of this will be minimal. Why? Because, those responsible for the dramatic content will answer exclusively to the advertisers and not to any networks or studios. Most of the "old guard" would agree, too, that they preferred the control of the advertisers, who largely stayed out of the writers' way, over that of anyone else.

[Vee]

Oh, I agree with you, Khan. I'm just saying.

I haven't watched it in maybe a year but I thought Gotham improved slightly after the first couple awful bits. I thought Byrne and Park had good chemistry in just quiet two-hander scenes - none of these websoaps seem to get that that's what's needed to establish a foundation.

[Khan]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: soaps are nothing without families. Brothers and sisters, parents and children, grandparents and parents. Soaps on the web don't have to have casts of thousands to make it. (Hell, I think "Ma Perkins"'s cast number never went above eight!) A simple story about a not-so-simple family will suffice.

But it has to be more substantial story-wise than Dylan Bruce parading around with his pecs. Otherwise, it's not a soap, it's Internet porn, and it's one reason why the soaps are dying off on TV!

[marceline]

But that's just it. It's not mutually exclusive. Sucky writing is sucky writing and IMO it's sucky writing to make everybody the same.

Honestly, for all my concerns about diversity the issue that has really made me not longer give a damn about whether these soaps die tomorrow is the way women are portrayed. That's been the final straw for me for years. That's really what I think has Darwined these shows out of existence. Women focused on nothing but getting and keeping a man, women characters valued only for who they have a baby with. In fact all women's storylines are procreation based. No one practices birth control. Young "heroines" in their 20s with two or three kids all by different fathers. The different fathers thing doesn't bother me based on some puritanical morality either, it offends me based on common sense. In a city full of educated, rich, white women most of whom have relatives in the medical field it can't be that hard to take a [!@#$%^&*] pill every day. On AMC it's the focus on Fusion (because lipstick is everything!), on OLTL it's rape in every. possible. form. I'm so sick of the misogyny I can barely get to the issue of diversity because all diversity does is bring you different colors of women to knock up and abuse.

It's easy to say that those of us who gave up are fangirls or haters. Fine. But I've watched soaps for more than 30 years. My first soap was SFT. At some point people are going to have to admit that soaps are a faulty, flawed, damaged product that drove away a huge part of its customer base over the last few years for a variety of causes and that there's no reason for those people to fight for these shows. Those who want to: mazel tov.

[dragonflies]

THIS!

[Ann_SS]

I hate how soaps portray women also. The failure to accept social change in the role of women irks me. The birth control issue really ticks me off. I can buy one accidental pregnancy, but the litters really work my last nerve. Also, has no one ever heard of the morning after pill? Just once I would like one of these young women would go to a pharmacy or their doctor and take the damn pill.

[marceline]

The morning after pill would usually mean acknowledging that their primary form of birth control failed and since NONE of these beautiful, well-off, educated women use contraception to begin with, that's asking kindergartners to go to graduate school. Oh yeah, save our soaps.

[DRW50]

The last time I remember anything about a morning after pill was when Marty was raped again, she took it at the hospital. Considering what has come since then, I'm surprised they let that happen.