Passions may not have been my cup of tea (and it wasn't) or your cup of tea, but the new generation was eating it up. This genre is dying because it failed to adapt. Maybe Passions was what they wanted.

And I gotta disagree that the repetitive dialogue was a problem. What did Agnes Nixon say? "Make em laugh, make em cry, make em wait." We all revere her, but James E. Reilly applied this adage better than any of his contemporaries. And sets are a production issue; I don't see how that can be blamed on any writer.

His characterizations were usually one-dimensional. Sami is obsessive. Austin is dumb. Lucas is spoiled. But those characterizations were usually consistent, which, again, is more than I can say for any of JER's contemporaries.

And the outlandish plots were original, never before seen on daytime. There are only so many storylines you can do on daytime, so I applaud him for finding new plots after 40 years of this genre.

When I started watching Y&R it was slow as molasses. A story would move an inch a week and the dialogue never suffered for it. You can make them wait and have great dialogue.

And I WAS Passions generation and it was CRAP. It was just bad and cartoonish. This genre is dead because of inflated egos and people living in the past. Passions was not the future in any way, shape or form.

The plots were laughable and treated as such. I can watch camp but he didn't do good camp.

Edited April 8, 201213 yr by Darn

His characterizations were usually one-dimensional. Sami is obsessive. Austin is dumb. Lucas is spoiled. But those characterizations were usually consistent, which, again, is more than I can say for any of JER's contemporaries.

The thing that pissed me off most about JER was exactly that.

You had characters undergoing many difficult obstacles (i.e Sami or Marlena), yet there was never any character growth or progression. Stories would come to a climax, and characters would revert back to the way they always were, as if nothing had happened and as if they had learnt nothing. I just couldn't invest or relate to any character.

But it can be argued that those who watched JER's work, didn't watch for any character study, they watched more for plot.

Edited April 8, 201213 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

I think some characters did change over time, although it was usually to become darker (Sami, Kristen). I think the worst was when he came back and had to regress characters, like Sami. It was very lazy writing.

When I started watching Y&R it was slow as molasses. A story would move an inch a week and the dialogue never suffered for it. You can make them wait and have great dialogue.

And I WAS Passions generation and it was CRAP. It was just bad and cartoonish. This genre is dead because of inflated egos and people living in the past. Passions was not the future in any way, shape or form.

The plots were laughable and treated as such. I can watch camp but he didn't do good camp.

When you say you are Passions generation, I'm gonna assume that means you started really getting into Y&R in the mid-late 1990s or early-2000s. I watched Y&R during those years as well. To me the show was the Queen Bee of daytime at that point. Extremely stable, rock solid, not the most interesting but ALWAYS respectful of the viewer's intelligence and its own sense of history. I definitely loved that period of Y&R, and it seemed like the show would never change. I'm sad at how far it's fallen from there because again, I thought it never would. BUT, to me dialogue was never ever its strong point. And this may just be a matter of taste issue, but where plot and characterization were traditionally strong on Bell shows I didn't think dialogue was their strength at all at all at all.

Edited April 8, 201213 yr by juppiter

The thing that pissed me off most about JER was exactly that.

You had characters undergoing many difficult obstacles (i.e Sami or Marlena), yet there was never any character growth or progression. Stories would come to a climax, and characters would revert back to the way they always were, as if nothing had happened and as if they had learnt nothing. I just couldn't invest or relate to any character.

But it can be argued that those who watched JER's work, didn't watch for any character study, they watched more for plot.

I agree that plot was more of a draw than character under JER but I felt that he defined his characters to be iconic, and that didn't necessitate 3 dimensions. It was easier to follow the show when you had characters who were always true to character, and the plot serviced their one-dimensional characteristics. To me that is preferable to what other shows were doing at the same time where characters shifted on a dime to accommodate whatever plot was going on.

I never cared for Y&R's dialogue during the Bell era, no one in hell would ever speak like that.

But I also couldn't stand Marland-era dialogue on ATWT.

Both great writers of characters and plot, but damn it if the dialogue wasn't infuriating at times.

The dialogue on JER's shows often seemed very juvenile and corny, but then, maybe that was the point...

Edited April 8, 201213 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

I do like how the internet has evolved on Marland. For years, you were not allowed to speak ill of his reign on ATWT. Now it is OK to admit it wasn't perfect. I agree that the Marland-era dialogue on ATWT could get annoying, it's like we needed to hear every single person's opinion on every single thing that ever went on. Lily is constipated, well how do Lisa, Bob, Kim, Nancy, Emma, Iva, Holden, Caleb, etc. feel about that? Maybe this can stir a debate in the audience. BUT looking back I appreciate that because so many soaps started forcing the view on you that TPTB wanted you to feel, and no dissent was allowed. Marland at least accounted for all the views that the audience might have.

But it became excessive. Seriously I don't need to know how Lily's doctor's wife's best friend's husband's former college roommate feels about her constipation. It all became a bit formulaic and sterile.

I think the criticism of Marland's writing here is very fair and definitely helped give me a more balanced view. It does annoy me when I read comments elsewhere which basically say, "We can't apply Marland's writing to today because viewers have short attention spans, so don't criticize [fill in the blank, usually RC] because times are just so tough now!"

I think the criticism of Marland's writing here is very fair and definitely helped give me a more balanced view. It does annoy me when I read comments elsewhere which basically say, "We can't apply Marland's writing to today because viewers have short attention spans, so don't criticize [fill in the blank, usually RC] because times are just so tough now!"

Without a doubt Marland was my favorite ATWT writer whose material I watched, when I think of a "standard ATWT" I will default to him, but yeah it's nice that he is no longer deified on the internet as he was during the WoST phase. But can you expand on what you're saying here? I'm not sure I understand.

Over at Daytime Confidential, if someone criticizes writing on today's soaps by talking about Marland's tips on writing a show, the response ends up being, "Oh well it's not like that now, viewers won't put up with it," and just hand-waving any opinion which suggests you can still have some type of coherent writing on soaps today.

Over at Daytime Confidential, if someone criticizes writing on today's soaps by talking about Marland's tips on writing a show, the response ends up being, "Oh well it's not like that now, viewers won't put up with it," and just hand-waving any opinion which suggests you can still have some type of coherent writing on soaps today.

Yeah, I definitely disagree with that kind of an opinion. Without a doubt, the slow pacing of the past does not fly now. Audiences just would not put up with it. Our attention spans are not what they used to be. But structure is still possible even with a sped-up pace.

A brisk pace and solid structure could be learned if someone watched Henry Slesar. Instead, we get 15 years of Scott Hamner

Re Ron Carlivati

Without a doubt, the slow pacing of the past does not fly now. Audiences just would not put up with it. Our attention spans are not what they used to be.

I don't believe that. I really don't. Audiences will put up with any story, regardless of pace, so long as it's good. If it isn't, then it could last as briefly as one episode and they'll STILL become impatient.

I don't believe that. I really don't. Audiences will put up with any story, regardless of pace, so long as it's good. If it isn't, then it could last as briefly as one episode and they'll STILL become impatient.

I agree with this. From the 10 episodes set to air of Dallas, there looks to be a season long storyline that won't end and I doubt it'll paint a terrible picture on the minds of the expected audience. Yes, it can be said that daytime and primetime soaps are different and pacing is clearly going to be an issue, but at it's heart it is the same thing.