Discussion for the week of November 21

they better show Cord/Tina post wedding

I wonder what Brody's fate will be. Jail, St. Anne's, death?

Edited November 21, 201114 yr by Cheap21

Ford's gonna kill him for calling Jessica crazy.

WSJ article on OLTL end

http://online.wsj.co...3745551858.html

It's subscriber only but I got the text from another board. I'll put it in a spoiler tag cause it's long and there's a pic that could be deemed a spoiler.

By TRIPP WHETSELL

Last April, veteran daytime actress Ilene Kristen was finishing a yoga class near her Upper West Side apartment when she received a frantic message on her cell phone. It was her agent informing her that "One Life to Live," the ABC soap opera on which she'd portrayed Roxy Balsom since 2001, had just been canceled along with its iconic suds sibling, "All My Children."

"Shock is the only word to describe it," said Ms. Kristen, who has also played minor parts on "Law & Order," "The Sopranos" and on Broadway, and is probably best remembered as the scheming Delia on "Ryan's Hope," the Emmy-nominated soap of the 1970s and '80s. "We'd been hearing rumors about both shows for months, but until I got the call I didn't think it was going to happen. I was dumbfounded."

Seven months later, she still is. So were many of her "One Life to Live" castmates last Thursday as they gathered to tape the series's final episodes for television, which will be broadcast in January after 11,096 shows and 43 years on the air. Talks are under way to relaunch "One Life to Live" on the Internet through the production company Prospect Park, though similar plans for "All My Children" were recently scrapped. Its weekday 2 p.m. slot will be filled by "The Revolution," a health and lifestyle program from the producers of "The Biggest Loser."

Outside ABC's West 66th Street studios, fans stood with flowers for the fictional citizens of Llanview. Three floors above, in the life-size doll house that is the "One Life to Live" set, Ms. Kristen, longtime regular Erika Slezak (who has played Vicki Lord since 1971), and onscreen spouses Robert Woods (Bo) and Hillary B. Smith (Nora) struggled to remember their lines and not break down.

"The hardest part is saying goodbye and realizing we may never see each other again," said Mr. Woods, who joined the cast in 1979 and, as Bo, endured the deaths of two wives, a fiancée and a son, was shot, and slept with his father's ex-mistress while time-traveling back to 1968. "We work so closely here and it's like a family. I did a lot of other things over the years, like 'The Waltons' and 'Police Story' and movies of the week, but this show was the job that gave me recognition."

For many of the cast members, the show's consistency through the decades has allowed for precisely the sort of security and comfort that their murdering, comatose, back-stabbing, amnesiac, time-travelling characters always found so elusive.

"It provided me weekends and time with my children, and that you don't get in the theater," said Ms. Smith, whose character survived a brain tumor, a stroke, blindness, and a kidnapping, only to have her house burned down by a racist stalker. "It provided an opportunity for a normal life."

The final TV tapings of "One Life to Live," along with the recent departures of "All My Children," "As the World Turns" and "Guiding Light," have marked not just the death-knell of four shows whose genre has been on the decline for more than a decade, but something more significant for New York.

As the last remaining daytime drama based in the city, "One Life to Live" also represents the foreseeable end of New York's once-thriving soap-opera business. A cottage industry since the 1950s, in its heyday it produced more than half the daytime dramas on the air, where full-time contract players could fetch upward of $200,000 a year and struggling actors, writers and musicians could earn enough to avoid waiting tables.

Besides helping to launch the careers of Laurence Fishburne, Tommy Lee Jones, Ryan Phillipe, Hayden Panettiere, Phylicia Rashad and others, "One Life to Live" also offered steady employment for thousands of technical staffers through the decades. But the format has been all but devoured in recent years by the expanded cable universe and the advent of reality television, where the plot lines are only slightly less believable.

"There were so many different factors," Ms. Smith said. "There was the advent of cable. There was also that primetime started imitating daytime and being very successful at it. For some reason, daytime thought they needed to imitate primetime and we became a poor imitation of ourselves, a watered-down imitation of what we were."

Frank Valentini, the show's executive producer, said measures had been taken to reduce overhead in recent years—including voluntary pay cuts for several principal cast members—but acknowledged it may have come too late as ratings plummeted and production costs soared up to $300,000 per episode.

"I think our leaving definitely shallows out every facet of the entertainment business in New York because we keep so many people working at any given time," said Mr. Valentini, who's been with "One Life to Live" for 26 years. "That includes not just our primary cast, but also people who come on in short-term roles. Because we generate so many episodes, we make a lot of money for the city, so this affects everyone, including the local vendors where we buy our props and costumes."

Agnes Nixon, who created both "One Life to Live" and "All My Children" and was on-set for the final taping, agreed. "There was nothing wrong with the story lines or the cast," she said. "It was the cost and nobody could change that. But it's been 42 wonderful years, and how many people have that? I can't complain too much."

As Thursday's shoot wound down, Ms. Kristen and her castmates paused to reflect on the accomplishments of "One Life to Live" and plot their next moves, even as the online reincarnation lingered on the horizon. On the rehearsal hall bulletin board hung an invitation to the following night's wrap party at Capitale and a memo reminding everyone to clear out their dressing rooms by Dec. 9.

"Of course I'm sad, but I'm not a depressive person and as an actor you're always back to square one," Ms. Kristen said, choking back tears. "The one thing I know is that people stop ironing when they see me, and they don't run to the refrigerator or put me on fast forward. That I know. I could die as Roxy, and I hope we have the chance to continue it. I didn't think we'd have to say goodbye so quickly."

Edited November 21, 201114 yr by alexisfan07

Also, not sure if anyone posted this one yet

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/11/18/one-life-to-live-exclusive-final-taping-abc/

I watched today and didn't feel a thing for John McBain but Brody as crazy as he is is breaking my heart.

Awwww, Eddie looks so upset

Did anyone else get the impression that Natalie was implying she and Brody could get back together in her little speech to him? Maybe I just misunderstood her

Yikes! Brody's a certifiable psycho

Blair having another girlfriend talk with Starr. This is exactly why Cassie needed to return

Edited November 21, 201114 yr by Cheap21

they better show Cord/Tina post wedding

I wonder what Brody's fate will be. Jail, St. Anne's, death?

Knowing RC probably all three.

I watched today and didn't feel a thing for John McBain but Brody as crazy as he is is breaking my heart.

Me either....3 soaps left...sad....when is OLTL last air date?? I dont count GH...it is a goner..they just havent announced it yet...

Alex: "My Aubrey's here"

Cutter: "No a different Aubrey. Shut up"

I LOVE Tea and Dani's relationship as mother and daughter. Their scenes were the best today

Wow Lawson rocked it today. I really felt for Brody.

So happy Tea told Dani she is pregnant. Loved those scenes!!!

Starr, SHUT UP!

So happy Tea told Dani she is pregnant. Loved those scenes!!!

Starr, SHUT UP!

I liked the interplay between the two different pairs of mother/daughters. I have to say I find Tea/Dani scenes ALOT more tolerable, entertaining and enjoyable than Blair/Starr.

The show ignored the Blair/Starr relationship in the last few years - at one point if they were talking it was only about their love lives.

Thanks for the article. It's nice to hear what Ilene has to say. She sums it all up so well, along with Hillary and FV.