What did Hogan Sheffer do to ATWT?

[soapfan770]

Jump a little ahead to 2004 and we get this piece from Smith:

In Smith's Best and Worst of 2004:

[JaneAusten]

Just curious do people consider Smith an unbiased journalist? THanks for posting these columns they have been interesting and it seems the fascination with Sheffer started to plummet around 2002.

[P.J.]

I'm convinced all the "little nuiances" Sheffer got praised for in his first year (tarnishing heroes' halos and the like) were details Culliton took care of. Once she left, Goutman/Sheffer enacted their "primetime jump-cut" storytelling, and the infrastructure started crumbling.

Ugh...I can't believe someone praised the "Will killed Rose" reveal.

[DRW50]

I have a tough time believing no one complained about Craig. If I was writing letters, I would have complained, because even as someone who had only seen Craig in Bryce's later years (90-95, off and on) I was appalled immediately about what Block was doing with the role.

Scott Holroyd was so great that they backburnered him for months and months, fired him, and replaced him with an ABC name who then alternately fell asleep and woke up screaming over the next 7 years.

I don't think Sheffer had any use for Holroyd, who deserved better material. As they all did.

[P.J.]

By the way...who is Tom Smith? What site did he commentate for?

[juppiter]

I believe MADD is the one who gave the directive to kill Bryant. It was a huge mistake though.

[Saving ATWT]

Hogan was a missed bag at ATWT. I remember quite a few fans enjoying his first year or two. He was new to the job and did have some fresh ideas; unfortunatly, he quickly ran out of ideas and just recycled from that point on. There was ATWT cancellation talk back as far as 1999, and Hogan did buy the show more time as well as bring the soap into the 21 century. Kim's heart attack (Jennifer's ghost) and John dumps Lisa were painful and basically sum up the tone of the work between Marland's final year and Hogan. WORLD made a huge mistake using 1970s stars far too long, and even Marland was guilty of this--it was clear that these characters would never lift the show up into the number one slotand that fresh blood was painfully needed. It is like like Y&R still using circa 1990 characters today after a major ratings implosion.

Like it or not, our culture as well as soaps have changed; however, ATWT kept that 'The Walton's' feel for far too long. I respect GL for shaking the show up over the years and think these changed helped demos at certain points. Even Bill Bell let the 1970s go, and allowed his show to evolve. Marland did beautiful work but even some of his characters and stories were corny. Hogan should be remembered as the writer who got ATWT out of a 10 year slump, and then dropped the ball. Goutman did far more harm than Hogan. I'm not even sure if we can blame him for the entire Y&R mess considering we have MAB and SH in the mix. It is pretty hard to direct blame with so many players.

Why did everyone hate Hunt Block as Craig? I realize the character radically changed but this is common for soap. Block is a solid actor not to mention handsome. I think Hogan's 'anti-hero' talk did a lot of harm when it came to fan reaction.

[P.J.]

Hogan credited Passanante with the idea. I agree Rotondi was a trainwreck, but I really wish they'd have tried at least one recast. I thought there was a lot of story potential in Craig vs. Bryant.

[DRW50]

I meant to say this earlier, but Tom Smith was so very, very right that Lucinda was too big of a character to have scenes about advising people on their problems. It never worked. I don't know who in that last year of ATWT decided to suddenly revert Lucinda back to her control freak, obsessive, destructive-yet-loving mode, but it really showed - better late than never! - just how damn important and unique Lucinda was to ATWT when given the opportunity.

[Saving ATWT]

Lucinda was as important to ATWT as Kay is to Y&R. Hubbard was not with the show nearly as long as Fulton; however, she became a more focal character during the 80s and 90s. I think TPTB first saw Alac Wallace and then Craig as powerful enough characters to fill the void. They were wrong. I wish they had kept building up the Walsh family in the 1990s--loved Sam and Evan.

[P.J.]

A lot of people hated Hunt Block's Craig because he embodied an abrupt character rewrite with little to no explanation. Yes, Craig had been an !@#$%^&*], but he'd found his humanity. Craig cheating on Sierra after years and years is one thing---leaving his kids and becoming some sort of grandiose mobster-lite is another. Under Sheffer, "giving him back his edge" consisted of snarky one-liners, making him a control freak, and giving him a general contempt for every other human being. You can't rewrite an established legacy character to suit your whims. Bryce had made Craig beloved, in spite of victimizing the town sweetheart.

Block was not only an iceberg, but a soulless ogre. Frankly, I don't think he was a good actor. I had watched him on GL, and it was the exact same character in better suits and a butch haircut. I have no doubt the favorable reactions to the Bryant death scenes had more to do with the aftermath of 9/11 than what was actually on-screen. Thank God it wore off before the Emmy idiots handed him a statue. We'd never have been rid of him.

[DRW50]

I remember this awful scene - which was clearly written for shock value - where Craig gave a cyanide pill to some super secret Asian spy woman. He showed zero reaction to having helped end this woman's life. He only ever showed a reaction when it was time for a pity party, and Block was terrible at those emotions.

I liked him on GL, and I was horrified from very early on by his work on ATWT (the bad blonde crew cut didn't help - Susan Powter lives!). He was just so miscast. I think a lot of the hype over him was because he was so different from anything ATWT had had, but is different always good? In this case, I would say, no.

[dragonflies]

I liked Hogan's tenure on ATWT at first, it started out great, but then went to hell. Kind of like McTavish on AMC

[P.J.]

And yet, when Bryce's Craig nearly fed Meg that miscarriage tonic, he was the sympathetic one. Go figure.

[Saving ATWT]

I just figured the final break with Sierra had ruined Craig. This logic made nuCraig Block enjoyable for me. Plus, I am used to soaps doing total character re-writes. Block did bring something different to the show and it worked...for a while. No character can be saved after a murder or rape.

I was never a Bryce fan so this made things easier for me, too. Block did repeat his GL performance; but this seems so common for a lot of actors. On OLTL, Terri Conn, Howarth and the actress who plays Nora (forgot name) never shift into/out of character. At first, I thought it was JPs writing but now realize that these actors are all limited in range.