WHo says these show have to have the cast sizes they have today? Why do they need 20 actors or 30? Why not 10 or 12 characters?

I agree. It's pointless to have a big cast where certain cast members never get more than scraps ***coughFrankieHubbardcough***. If a show is going to fixate on a small group of characters anyway, then don't waste the money keeping some on contract and I won't waste my time watching, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of the character I really care about. That's another benefit to the seasonal format. I can tune out for a season and maybe check back in if things sound good for the next season.

Edited August 1, 201114 yr by marceline

Well AMC/OLTL aren't primetime soaps and no matter how many people are on it, I still think there should be more than 1 episode a week.

I wouldn't have a problem with them doing a primetime soap, but thats completely different from a daytime soap. Grey's Anatomy, Parenthood, etc. owe a lot to Knots Landing, Dallas, etc. Daytime and primetime are different. Since this has been pitched as daytime soaps on the web I would expect at least 2-3 episodes. The pacing and everything is completely different.

SON is normally a very optimistic place (with myself being the obvious exception), but all of this pessimism is completely justified. There are just so many things that can go wrong here, and one would have to be delusional to pretend otherwise.

While I concede that this Prospect Park deal could be good news for the genre, it is most definately bad news for the ABC soaps. The fact of the matter is that AMC and GH are not even salvageable due to nearly a decade of Frons' constant meddling having turned those shows into s#it. While OLTL is on a creative upswing (due to the fact that Frons neglected it), you have to realize that its quality will likely decline under Prospect Park since that show will be losing RC & FV. Thus, all this deal accomplishes is robbing OLTL of going out on a high note and robbing AMC and GH fans of getting decent television finales.

Although the ABC soaps won't be able to make a successful transition to the internet (in part also due to the fact that this deal seems to be so hastily put together), I believe the Bell soaps do stand a reasonable chance of successfully making the transition (due to higher ratings and the fact that they have a couple of years to carefully work out a similar deal). While DOOL's ratings are just as terrible as the ABC soaps' ratings, you'd have to be an idiot to count that show out since it has such a long history of avoiding near certain death.

Of course, because of the AARP demographics of the P&G soaps, any possibly of them surviving on the internet would have been a guaranteed failure.

In my opinion, what Prospect Park should have done was to create a new spin-off soap that featured certain characters from AMC, OLTL, & GH. However, I believe that this was not done due to business reasons. (Despite all the whining about saving the soaps, most people want "their soaps"--and not "the soaps"--to be saved.) By launching a revamped AMC & OLTL, Prospect Park gets the benefit of having two established brand names on their new internet network (as opposed to a soap title that nobody's heard of). And by allowing AMC and OLTL (and later GH) to continue on the internet, ABC greatly reduces the amount of venom directed towards The Chew, The Revolution, and Katie Couric's talk show. (Obviously, the launch of these three shows is what is really important at ABC.)

Which SON board are you visiting? SON is very negative compared to other sites.

I wanted to quote the post about some one saying GH wasn't even canceled yet. I could not find it but truth be told GH is a dead soap walking. It has NO time slot come next year. SO what that tell you? GH is canceled.

I personally like the idea of

- smaller casts

- seasonal shows

The smaller cast idea sort of meshes with the lip service Corday is giving DOOL also(it could be a lot of hot air too) about focusing on a core set of characters most

embraced by the audience.

I don't have any personal preference of 1 day versus 2 - 3 days a week. But part of ABC's problem in the past 10 years is having LARGE casts and only focusig on a set number of characters anyway. Its why people get so tired of them. If these shows aired 1 day a week perhaps people would not have gotten tired of the endless Zach/Kendall or Ryan/Greenlee crap on AMC or Jason, SOnny, Carly non stop on GH. I always got the feeling they did this to try and embrace more of a primetime model versus soap model. OLTL might be the only show that actually uses most of their cast perhaps not evenly but they all seem to get some airtime.

And once OLTL and AMC move to online, they are no longer daytime soaps they become web soaps. ANd I expect or hope that over time there will be some evolution based on that.

As for GH, the show is gone of course.This idea it could be salvaged if its ratings improve I think is just lip service. What timeslot are they going to air in some Sept 2012?

Edited August 1, 201114 yr by JaneAusten

Bristish soaps air I think 2wice a week in primetime and they are huge hits. Peyton Place ran twice a week if I am not mistken. I do thinks soaps should reduce cast, and episodes producedto help out in quality

I think Peyton Place style 2 to 3 episodes a week could work.

I guess it all depends on the competency of those involved. Even a lot of primetime shows fall apart badly within a few years, especially in recent years.

I think 3 or so episodes a week, or better yet, 13-week arcs with a shifting cast is the best way to go.

I took the day off from work today, planning to enjoy a long summer weekend, and ended up indoors watching AMC and OLTL instead. lol It was my first time watching either show in...a while. I have to say, what I saw really made me concerned about both shows' viability in a format that is even more unpredictable and challenging than the one in which they are essentially going out of business.

I think, watching these two shows back to back, I must have overdosed on stories involving characters coming back from the dead and/or having plastic surgery to alter their identity. Because right now, I am feeling like the only way I will be able to invest in the continuation of these shows in this new platform is if the outlandishness dies with the network broadcasts. And frankly, I am seriously thinking that the focus needs to shift away from the current cores of these shows - I'm not sure if I for one could ever take anything that happens to any character that was on my TV screen this afternoon seriously again. If they die, they're in all likelihood not really dead, and if they do something seemingly irredeemable, then chances are it wasn't really them anyway. So why should I care about anything that happens in these people's universe?

In the course of two hours, I found myself trying to count the number of times Tad and/or Dixie have returned from the dead, and also figure out just how much of a bastard Todd really is, if he hasn't been Todd for the past 8 years. I think these mental exercises may have killed a few of my brain cells, but I persevered. Even as a very sporadic AMC viewer, I was able to determine that this is at least # 3 for Tad and Dixie. And, near as I can figure, the good news is that Todd did not attempt to make his daughter think that her baby was dead. But, the bad news is, he did tell his now true love Blair that HER baby was dead and gave the infant away without a second thought. What a prince...no wonder Blair was making out with him by the time the episode was over!

I really wonder to what extent those who spearheaded the soaps' complete u-turn away from homey, domestic dramas that played up the emotional impact of even the most mundane events will be involved in this new project. I tend to blame the networks and the myopic focus on ratings and demographics and sweeps periods in large part. I certainly think those factors led to a toxic creative environment of total desperation to constantly outdo even the craziest of stories, and no single writer who wanted to keep his/her job could ignore that mandate. And I actually have long respected both of the current head writers of these shows and some of what they have tried to do, which I know hasn't always been popular.

But to the extent that either Broderick and/or Carlivati and/or their staffs will be involved in the new online venture, I really hope that they can unlearn this writing "style." And as for the larger forces at work, obviously there will be a completely different yardstick for success in the new format. After today, I really think the most exciting thing about this move is that the need to shock viewers into tuning in for big events may not be a factor at all. From my perspective, whether or not that is the case may just be even more critical to whether this is a success than the more obvious technical and logistical questions that still seem to be up in the air.

If they die, they're in all likelihood not really dead, and if they do something seemingly irredeemable, then chances are it wasn't really them anyway. So why should I care about anything that happens in these people's universe?

"Why should I care?" That pretty much sums it up.

I wish Prospect Park all the luck in the world but to quote my friend from a few pages back..."I'm not going to watch that [!@#$%^&*] on my computer."

I didn't realize that when you meant you wanted the soaps to survive and became this platform's biggest fan seemingly overnight, it meant they had to adhere to your invisible guidelines about who stays and who goes because this is YOUR time or something. What about those of us who WEREN'T looking for revenge for perceived fannish slights - just a new, better, more intelligent and contemporary way to make these shows?

Edited August 2, 201114 yr by Vee

But to the extent that either Broderick and/or Carlivati and/or their staffs will be involved in the new online venture, I really hope that they can unlearn this writing "style."

Carlivati is going to be with GH, at least for the rest of his contract, or however long GH lasts.

It's tough to measure these back from the dead stories, because they were cut short by cancellation, but most of all they show the stupidity of soaps in recent years. There was no reason to kill Dixie off in the first place. Say what you will about the shockingly bad writing for Rosanna on ATWT during most of Cady's last years in the role, but they always went to great lengths to make sure she didn't actually die. And the main reason Todd returned with RH is probably because the show had turned TSJTodd into such a soulless husk.

The bottom line is Dixie should not have died. I'm not going to fault them for bringing her back. It had to happen. As did, perhaps, Roger Howarth as Todd - the character has become a sociopathic monster under TSJ. The difference between the two Todds onscreen now is profound. It's just a shame TSJ did a two-step and aced himself out of the show, but I hope he come back as Todd's long-term nemesis on OLTL 2.0 should they manage to snag Howarth for appearances.

Edited August 2, 201114 yr by Vee

It's tough to measure these back from the dead stories, because they were cut short by cancellation, but most of all they show the stupidity of soaps in recent years. There was no reason to kill Dixie off in the first place. Say what you will about the shockingly bad writing for Rosanna on ATWT during most of Cady's last years in the role, but they always went to great lengths to make sure she didn't actually die. And the main reason Todd returned with RH is probably because the show had turned TSJTodd into such a soulless husk.

Soaps made a mistake of hopping on the trend of killing off main characters. Primetime shows started breaking that rule a few years ago and it generated lots of buzz when it was done right. (I blame Joss Whedon) The difference is primetime shows have an end date, soaps supposedly didn't.

Killing off a character for short-term plot also kills off YEARS of potential stories. OLTL wiped out an entire generation of characters in the last few years: Drew, Duke, Al, Jen, Keri, Talia if you count her. I'd even throw CJ in there since there's been no indication that he really exists. AMC was a lot more random but just as damaging: Braeden, Erin, (I know we didn't need more Laverys but still), Simone, Dixie, Di, Babe, Noah (offscreen) and the most pointless deaths I can think of, Julia Santos and Stuart Chandler. Those are just off the top of my head. Then the shows bring on new characters to replace the ones they killed. Krystal morphed into Dixie, Marissa replaced Babe and Julia's been replaced by Cara.

I guess it doesn't matter anymore now that the shows are over but future soap writers would probably do well to just let people leave town on their own two feet every now and then.

Edited August 2, 201114 yr by marceline