Similairites between Nixon and Bell soaps

[soapfan770]

I know Y&R and B&B through and through after a good at least 20 years of watching now but I don't know much about the Nixon soaps. My sampling of them(AMC and Loving) back in the mid-90s they seemed like a world apart from from the Bell shows which is why I never continued to watch them, not my cup of tea. However I was reading some OLTL history out of curiosity and reading on the Victoria/Dorian feud. It sounded interesting and its longevity was about the same as Katherine and Jill's, not to mention there are about as many Dorians as there were Jill's. I know a lot of here on SON know both OLTL and Y&R so I was wondering how the two feuds compared to each other.

I know we've discussed the big differences in the past, but I was wondering if anyone saw any striking similarities between the the Nixon and Bell soaps and style.

[Chris B]

I think their styles are completely different. I think JER's writing was always very similar to Bill Bell, on both DAYS and PSNS. Nixon's work compares better with Douglas Marland IMO.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Stylistically, I always saw Marland's work as a mix of Nixon, Bell, and Lemay.

[yr9190]

Well.... I will say this. I feel like what Y&R was to Bill Bell is what AMC was to Agnes Nixon. Meaning i feel like those two shows, garnered more favoritism from their creators, than there respected sister soaps. B&B for Bill, and OLTL (or even Loving/The City) for Agnes. Bill and Agnes really spent more time and devotion to Y&R/AMC and were only involved with B&B/OLTL for the first few years (even though OLTL aired first, remember it was created after AMC) Not that they didn't care about them, but i just have to point out the similarities.

[DRW50]

Nixon's AMC had very broad comedy, as did Bill Bell's shows.

They were also both dedicated to social issue writing.

[yr9190]

Yes, even though i didn't really watch AMC or OLTL as much, I watched a few early 90's episodes of AMC out of curiosity, and i feel that it's sometimes a soap sitcom. I know Agnes liked to use humor, so that's very evident. I think Bill used comedy well in Y&R and B&B (more B& when necessarry, But i wouldn't call them sitcom soaps.

I agree with JER using elements from Bell soaps to write for his characters. As i said before. Ethan/Theresa/Gwen on Passions was Ridge/Brooke/Caroline/Taylor. I'm sure he used some of Sally when writing for Tabitha, even though she was a witch.

I even feel like on Days he could have been writing Sami and Kate's feud as a newly version of Jill and Katherine.

[DRW50]

The comedy characters Bell used were very broad (Leanna, Boobsie, etc.).

[yr9190]

What about my favorite topic continuity?.... I know i tend to pick on Bill a lot for this, but i still think he choose to ignore that when he wrote Y&R. I know i'm probably nit-picking, but i can't help but get bothered on how he sometimes formatted an episode. Characters could be stuck in different time zones and different days. People "teleporting" from scene to scene. meaning they are in a scene with a person, than without even showing them leave, between a span of 10 seconds they are in a new scene with a different person, and might be wearing a different outfit than what they wore 15 seconds ago! Again this might be nit-picking but i think Bill should have paid attention to that more when he and his writers were plotting an episode.

Was Agnes the same way, or was she better with this?

[soapfan770]

Days is a bit of an anomaly; it probably is the most P&G non P&G soap(Irna always gets a co-creator credit) and was written by Bell himself for over a decade. Reilly worked on both Y&R and B&B and was obviously heavily influenced by Bell's work of the late 80s in particular when he was on the writing staff. Passions ended up recycling a lot of old Days and Y&R plots after about 2002 or so.

[aMLCproduction]

Rielly was on B&B? Recyled plots form Days and Y&R? Seriously like which ones?

[DaytimeFan]

That's actually something I liked about Bill Bell's writing, he didn't waste time on "travel" and "time"...he spent his time drawing out conflict, anguish, dialogue...his writing always said to me "You, the viewer, are seeing the most interesting parts of these peoples lives, there are parts you don't see"...left some things to the imagination about what was going on in Genoa City...there was good mix of islanded and intersecting storylines. Those were the good old days.

I don't think OLTL compares to Y&R, I think AMC would compare to Y&R far stronger because both shows had the focus of their creators for the majority of their runs, unlike OLTL (and indeed B&.

DAYS was so heavily influenced by Bell in the form of James E Reilly, as was Passions. Reilly really liked the "poor girl confronts rich bitch" storyline Bill did so magnificently on Y&R with Katherine and Jill. He did it with Kate and Sami at DAYS and with Ivy and Teresa at Passions. OLTL and AMC didn't have that struggle with a wealthy "mother figure" and a poor "daughter figure" dynamic. Instead, they had two divas at OLTL (Viki and Dorian) or one diva (Erica at AMC)...

Really, Y&R, for so many years was strong because it was an ensemble show, it didn't have an exalted 'star' like AMC did with Erica or OLTL with Viki. You could say any one of Victor, Jill or Katherine could be the 'star' at Y&R (in the glory days)...except unlike the Nixon soaps, none of these characters were good (like Viki), nor were they even grey (like Erica or Dorian), they were closer to dark: wicked, vengeful, with claws and zest for their own self interest.

Look at Katherine Chancellor. The longest tenured character on Y&R was, for decades, a degenerate, alcoholic, evil, bitch. And we loved watching her. Only in the last decade has she become a kind grandmother figure, a major mistake in my opinion.

[aMLCproduction]

I think Bells stories were more dramatic and edgier than Nixon

[aMLCproduction]

Very good post!! Very good points and I can now se the Rielly arguements

[yr9190]

Yes you did make a lot of great points!

I guess one of the reasons why i let that part of Bill's writing get to me is because i unfortunately read old comments from the google message boards from the 90's were people have pin point some of the negatives of the show during that era, and i guess i couldn't help but agree with some of them. But i can see it as a new perspective that Y&R (until recent years) was never a show that delt with fake, far out stories, and if we only need to suspend our belief to see some of those great scenes like you pointed out come to life, despite ignoring travel and time, so be it.

Actually OLTL's Vicki and Dorian could be similar to what Sally and Stephanie are on B&B. two middle age divas always at each other's throats, and out for control. But i loved the comparisons with the evil rich bitch mother, and the young girl. I think another reason why Kate and Sami are more similar to Katherine and Jill is that for much of her run (even now) to an extend, other characters have shown there distain from Jill, kind of like how people treated Sami for most of her adult life. Ivy and Theresa was definitely Brooke and Stephanie, but the difference is that Stephanie tried to accept Brooke, even after she had done so much damage to the family, but Ivy was always degrading Theresa any chance she got, just because she thought she sent the information to the tabloids.

[soapfan770]

A lot actually. He started reusing his own work as well. Reilly was on the Y&R staff when Brad was caged by Lisa...15 years later he had Shawn caged by Jan on Days. The buried alive plot seemed to stem from when Lauren was buried alive on Y&R. The Carly burial is a class of its own but we saw both Sheridan on Passions get buried alive for several weeks on end in 2000 and later Marlena during SSK/Melaswen. Theresa using Ethan and Gwen's embryo in 2004 was so Vivian in 1994. Sheridan in the pit held by Beth=Marlena in the pit held by Stella. Theresa on death row=Sami on death row. And those are just the tip of the iceberg.