I would agree about Jordan Clarke, but Peter Simon had a decent amount of screentime when he returned the year prior. I don't remember MOL having a big role in the story.

With all due respect, AMCHistory, I must disagree with your point about the Maryanne Caruthers story being "good on paper." IMO, nothing was good, on paper or otherwise, about a story that virtually rewrote decades of on-air, established, legendary history.

With all due respect, AMCHistory, I must disagree with your point about the Maryanne Caruthers story being "good on paper." IMO, nothing was good, on paper or otherwise, about a story that virtually rewrote decades of on-air, established, legendary history.

I get it, but the planning of the storyline sounds sound:

1) Let's find a way to feature our long-term characters in an umbrella storyline to play up the fact that they have long-standing relationships to build on.

2) Let's make this a multi-generational story by including their offspring in prominent roles.

3) Let's take the story slow, and make it seem like these beloved characters may have done something bad. Really bad.

Taking these wholeheartedly good intentioned constructs of soap story-telling, everything went wrong in the execution of the story:

1) Let's find a way to feature our long-term characters in an umbrella storyline to play up the fact that they have long-standing relationships to build on. - The writers forgot to research that not all the characters grew up in Springfield. The story could not be set in a time pre-dating Guiding Light. It would have to have taken place off-screen in the not so distant past when viewers knew these characters had already met.

2) Let's make this a multi-generational story by including their offspring in prominent roles. - These not-ready-for-leading-roles ladies consumed the story. Instead of balancing the canvas by having the characters interact with their parents, the plot made it so that the three younger girls were even more isolate.d

3) Let's take the story slow, and make it seem like these beloved characters may have done something bad. Really bad. - The "something really bad" had no resonance with the viewers because it was not tied to the history of the show. The slow pace then took its toll as the viewers did not buy in and want to see a resolution to the mystery.

Ah. Now I understand your point(s).

Agree.

Ah. Now I understand your point(s).

Agree.

Haha Khan; it's good to know that I still make sense. I am on leave from work, and sometimes I feel like my brain is going to mush watching so much daytime tv again.

Frankly, even I am guilty of over-generalizing audiences' attention spans. One person's "too slow" is another's "not slow enough"; and it does truly vary from person to person. That's something TPTB fail to understand.

Thats true. For me it depends on the type of story. Imo in recent years more romances have been hurt by going too fast than too slow. On the other hand I don't think most mystery stories should last for more than six months.

Edited April 10, 201213 yr by RomeAt50

I think mystery stories can work for longer than six months if they have beats and have mini-endings as they go along. Now you look at tripe like Y&R, which has "mysteries" which go on for years and are never resolved.

I think mystery stories can work for longer than six months if they have beats and have mini-endings as they go along. Now you look at tripe like Y&R, which has "mysteries" which go on for years and are never resolved.

Please thats not just Y&R but every soap. A soap mystery and this day and age cant go on for more than 3 moths as audience loses attention.

I think mystery stories can work for longer than six months if they have beats and have mini-endings as they go along. Now you look at tripe like Y&R, which has "mysteries" which go on for years and are never resolved.

I don't know why Sheffer loves doing mysteries so much. He is awful at them.

I'd like to nominate smug, egomaniac James Lipton--everyone in the industry knows what a joke his persona as host of Inside the Actors Studio is, but I guess he's finally found something he has some success with. Aside from penning one of the most famous Broadway flop musicals ever, he was a "soap killer" years before any of the current names working--I know he had some success in the 60s as an actor on GL, but as a writer he wrote the awful year of AW before Agnes Nixon came on and killed off all his characters to shape up the show, Of course after AW he immediately, oddly, was hired at Guiding Light where Schemering says in his 50th Anniversary of GL book, the show lost all momentum it had under Nixon. Inexplicably he was then immediately hired to do the extremely short lived soap version of Bestof Everything, and when wthat was canceled immediately went to Return to Peyton Place which was then canceled as well. Then he left soaps for a while, only to write the final bit of Capitol--which included mythical kingdoms, etc.

Of course little of his written material is available for viewing--maybe it's brilliant, but somehow I doubt it, and it's kinda shocking--similar to how now writers are shuffled around, which I guess has been an issue with soaps for a while...

(Did I mention Lipton is a braggert egomaniac? His book is quite the read though--largely going on about all the amazing skills and success he's had nevermind that he fails to mention that his stage work was a massive, laughable flop, and all the soaps he helped kill. That said, I still wish I could see some of Best of Everything.)

Thanks for bringing up some fresh blood. I think of all his work the best I have heard about is Capitol, although I guess Mark Denning fans would disagree.

From the sound of it Lipton's Captiol was not so different from Ellen Weston's Guiding Light...of course the one common denominator being John Conboy.

I mentioned this before, but Weston's work -- after Ben was exposed as a serial killer and Matthew Bomer was killed off the show -- infuriated me so much that I e-mailed CBS and vented my frustration at the writing. It's the only time I've done it.

The Weston regime was a disaster. About the only thing that got me through it were four words: Aubrey Dollar as Marina. Enough said.

Others thought Esensten/Brown were hacks... I disagree respectfully. Their plots were pretty thrilling to watch for the most part, and I was hoping they'd replicate their success from Loving. The Loving Murders was perhaps one of the finest mystery plots to air since Edge of Night went off the air.

I can see why some would be frustrated by them, however.

I think B&E are just grindingly mediocre, not so much hacks, although what they did to Julia Santos was awful.

I liked so much of Esensten/Brown's Loving and, once it found its footing, The City (it was a mistake to try to replicate the Loving Murders so early), that I cut B/E a lot of slack for later soap eras, I didn't watch any of their runs elsewhere except on AMC which was largely just dull, but I do get the impression at least they rarey caused irreversible damage to their shows (but I could be wrong...)

I think B&E are just grindingly mediocre, not so much hacks, although what they did to Julia Santos was awful.

It was--I forgot about that, though Julia's second run on AMC was sorta a mess all around--it seemed like everyone involved with the show had no interest inher so I'm not sure I just blame the writers (if that makes sense)