AMC and OLTL Will Move Online!

[JaneAusten]

I am sure TK is a decent guy but I haven't liked one character hes played going back to his days on PC. They are always the same, dark, brooding, and overwhelming. He actually would have fit on GH with their cast of male characters and how the women have been written over there for years as simply male appendages. I never warmed to Zach ever but I will acknowledge the writing for Zach at least the first few years was far better and less offputting.

I am all for not blaming the actors so lets not blame any of them for being shoved on screen endlessly. THat includes older and newer additions to the shows. At the end of the day the actor and character become overexposed and it not only hurts the show it builds resentment for the actor and character and you end up burning through story.

[Jonathan]

I never understood the appeal of Thorsten Kaye as an actor. For me, he's Walt Willey with an accent.

[Angela]

Almost exact same thing here. I was so off put by Patrick, and to a lesser degree by Ian because I was only catching PC on occasion, that I was pleasently surprised when I found myself not anywhere close to off-put by Zach once the role debuted (although that would come later). I didn't like what I saw of Patrick and Ian pretty much at all and that IS partially on the performer. There was also the admittingly unfair assoication I had with characters played by him sucking the life out of these female characters because he was the partner at the time.

I don't think this will ever end at SON. This being blaming the actors for how much they air be it AM, CM or RB or VI, LH, AH in retalliation. They don't control their air-time. This is on TPTB's from executives to writers. They need to learn to control how they dish out material. You have already poor writing and story-telling added to out of control airing and it's bad for everything and everyone.

[R Sinclair]

We're back to the "It's not the characters -- it's the bad writing" defense? You've called every single head writer that's written for Zendall (or any soap for that matter) "hack(s)." You scream it from the rooftops two minutes into their tenures, for God's sake. So, unless you've crossed the line into mentally imbalanced and believe the characters exist independently of the writing, you're not making any sense because you're contradicting yourself. It's not fair for the Zendall haters to hate the characters because it's not the characters -- it's the writing, yet according to your *cough* "logic" *cough*, the character never had good writing because everyone who's written for them are hacks.You've claimed Broderick's a hack. Kreizman & Swajeski were hacks. Pratt (who turned AMC into the fricken Zendall Hour) was a hack. Brown & Esensten were hacks and McTavish, who originally penned Zendall (allegedly at the behest of Frons, who you also hate), was a hack.

It's way too convenient to say Zendall are horrid because they've been written by SEVEN HACKS IN A ROW! It has nothing at all to do with their being largely unlikeable characters.

[All My Shadows]

Every writer who's written Zendall is a hack, yet Zendall is a fantabulous supercouple, one of AMC's best and most-loved of all time (of ALL TIME, yall!).

I don't get it. I never did.

[Mr. Vixen]

[EricMontreal22]

Right, and unfortunately this problem is aggravated by fans who hound the execs promoting their couple--Zendall or else, etc. It rarely, if ever, affects ratings, but in more recent years, execs seem to feel it will, and so seem to mandate showing these characters more and more, making the show out of balance.

[EricMontreal22]

Honey, you are aware that the characters are characters right, and at least 50% of the character is from what the writers write (the rest is largely the actor's contribution). I just can't follow your logic...

[EricMontreal22]

I probably am defending Broderick too much, but I think in the scant months she had for David this Summer, she did do a lot to give David more layers, even if some of it was obvious (bring back his tormented childhood, have Angie see good in him, give him shades of grey and some sort of motivation for what was, granted, a beyond silly plot). And I think she did this with nearly all of the characters--Jake and Amanda were suddenly a rootable couple, Ryan suddenly got a lot more relatable. The big exception was when Zack returned and suddenly everything I hated abotu Zendall was back in full, though of course this was partly done for (again silly) plot reasons with him pretending, but the point still stands. I still feel like motivations made mre sense, characters more relatable, etc (though there are some huge exceptions here).

As for the writing getting more and more simplistic, I do think this is partly something we can blame Frons and all for--when execs are demanding stunts, mandating character and character pairings and even some plot ideas, and ratings are continuing to fall, it's obviously a lot harder to do character based storytelling and not just plot centered storytelling, no matter how nonsensical. Of course this is also self-perpetuating, as we've seen it did nothing to increase ratings but, while they would have fallen anyway, probably added to that a lot--which leads to execs--and probably the writers themselves--desperate to pull out stunts, and the like, to try to gain numbers.

If she is involved with the show online, I hope without havign to worry about ending the show quickly, or any interference, she can do this to a *much* greater extent.

I get why, particularly on an anonymous message board, it's easy to have the "Ugh I'm so sick of zseeing her ugly face on my screen every day" attitude--but I still don't really get why the full on blame and hatred of actors because of their character seems so widespread here. It's so juvenile, and really makes the soap fans look like the "can't grasp reality" idiots many non fans think we all are.

[SFK]

[Angela]

I will give LB credit for writing Jake and Amanda well in the little she focused on that somewhat relatable story. Otherwise, nope. For me, the show felt shallow and plot-driven as usual except for a moment here and there.

I though the writing for Ryan improved before Broderick with the removal of David from his radar. It came close to unraveling with sending his focus back to David.

I felt she wrote David a lot like Babe is written in these old episodes. Sure characters hated him/her but the underlying message was the smug piece of crap was the light just because. With Broderick, more than with any other writer, I felt that David was acting out of arrogance and a dramatic scene with Angie every 3-4 weeks didn't change that. The Leora and daddy mentions felt so shallow and just on the surface when you looked at David in the overall story. It was being used for a scene or two every once in a while but without true essence and feeling to the story or character. I felt for what was driving David more during Pratt era to be honest.

That's what I mean when I go back to simple writing for the characters. Over especially the last half decade they lost their place with who many of these characters are and that led to the characters becoming more and more shallow in terms of story-telling. It often felt like plot for the sake of plot. Whoever is writing this show, has and had a difficult task because this wasn't a hole that was made in days, weeks or months. This is writer after writer making many of the same mistakes and mishandling or continuing to enhance the mistakes and mishandling for some reason.

[Mr. Vixen]

[EricMontreal22]

We will have to agree to disagree, though I do agree with somewhat re Ryan. Not about David, I thought--despite that awful story, they did finally give him shades of graty, make it not just acceptably ok for the town go around all thinking David is the Devil personified, etc. Frankly, I don't remember any motivation under Pratt (I guess revenge towards Pine Valley?)

But, of course that's all a matter of opinion. Given the tiny amount of time Broderick had, and the emphasis being placed on the silly Project O story (which of course Broderick deserves blame for), I think she did a lot to strengthen characterization across the board. Though I don't think it was that bad under K/S (when she assisted), just deathly dull--but of course I'm giving them a lot of leeway because of the state the show was in before, and it wouldn't compare to even, say, 2004.

And this may be giving them too much credit, but I do think the current climate of network interference makes that kind of character based writing much harder to do--the execs when presented with a story plotline based on rich characterization would, in the past few years I have no doubt, just act confused.

[Angela]

Gif wars!

I'm reading at SOC (from SOD) that Jacob Young didn't like the ending they wrote for JR although he sees where it is fitting to JR's character but he does appreciate that it was a memorable ending. He also felt like with Babe the other characters shouldn't have been brought back from the dead to help keep some sense of reality. I agree.

ETA:

Babe died, his antics weren't literally god-like, Jake and Amanda made him think his child was dead. I felt for David, I got that his actions were more from pain than from plain neener-neener arrogance. There was an overall balance for at least half of Pratt's reign with him. Pratt did damage to David like everybody else so my comparison wasn't meant too literally. Arrogance for the sake of arrogance is what really felt about the definition of David under Broderick though.

I agree on DS & DK, not necessarily bad but just rather dull. I think LB showed that she could very write well in brief moments but overall did little to strenghten characterizations across the board mostly because her focus was on a plot driven story that took up most of the show. And, yes, she did have a small window of time with way too much that needed to be fixed. Not that she couldn't have done a lot more good with her time.

I concede network interference probably was a big hinderance to any writer especially as the cancellation sounds grew louder over the years.

[SFK]

* * * * *

All right, you get the last word and then back to the deep discussion.