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Characters That Took Over Your Show


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On prime time TV, we've seen characters take over a show and change the whole dynamic of the series. Fonzie took over Happy Days, Urkel took over Family Matters, Jimmie Walker became the main attraction on Good Times. On soaps, the same thing happens all the time. New head writers come in and decide that Character X needs to be the focus of the show, while Character Y moves to the back burner. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's a disaster. Way back in the day, Dark Shadows was on the verge of being cancelled, until a new character (Barnabas Collins) appeared and made the show a phenomenon.

On ATWT (my favorite soap) I've seen it happen with mixed results. The characters of Lily, Jennifer and Gwen were thrust center-stage. (I remember people calling it "As Jennifer's World Turns" at one point.). But the most obvious example was the takeover of the show during the final two years of Janet Ciccone and her Clan.

What characters took over your show during certain periods? And did it help or hurt the show, in your opinion?

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Ugh...*slams head against wall* FREAKIN' Janet Ciccone! Talk about something that will live in infamy...Goutman should hereeverafter be plagued with hemorrhoids for foisting that useless, stereotypical "Italian Earth Mother and Feeder of all Sufferers" on us in ATWT's final days.

Personally, I didn't see Jennifer as an air-hog, but Gwen definitely was. Not that Jen Landon wasn't talented, but after the first year, the only story she really had was an endless "I wanna baby" go-round.

The quintessential Character Who Ate The Show---Hunt Block's Craig. The minute he started, he was thrown into every story on the canvas, and really didn't stop complete domination for THREE friggin' years. The last two years, his story dwindled significantly, but Craig was still inserted into stories he didn't belong in.

It ALWAYS hurts a show. Even if the actor/actress is mega-talented, viewers get burned out.

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I love Kendall but no character should appear as much as she did at one time. Didn't she broke a record one year for number of appearances in a year?

Babe is a good example of an obnoxious character taking over a show. I hated how McTavish kept getting characters like Zarf to go on about her supposed virtues.

Ryan and Greenlee are another negative example. I wouldn't be surprised if they hastened the death of AMC.

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The question in the past was is this person really in all the stories or is it just I hate them so I can't forget about them?

This is how I felt about ATWT with Rosanna in 1993 and 1994, GL with Lucy in 1993 and 1994, and Dinah in 1996.

I would flee the shows for weeks or months because I just could not take any more.

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I would also have to add Todd on OLTL, not only due to his airtime, but also because they used him to help demolish families and relationships they clearly did not care for (anything with the Buchanans/Lords), although to be fair the show did a great job of destroying that even without Todd's involvement (the Jessica...everything, the Sloan/Viki saga).

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