Who is/was the biggest hack writer on soaps??

[JaneAusten]

Ok this is kind of off topic but since soaps have been thriving to get a younger audience why did NBC cancel the one show that did well with that age group. I never paid much attention to the show aside from its first couple of years but it always seemed odd they'd cancel a show that skewed so young.

[Cheap21]

really? Passions had teen audience written all over it.. No offense to people that watched it (and I did too) but the writing was very juvenile almost like they expected the audience to be idiots. It defiently wasnt geared for an older more mature audience at all. Its like they took the classic soap motifs and dumbed them all the way down

[frequentsoapfan]

I have no clue but 2007- the end were the worst years and someone should've put a halt on that peeping tom/blackmailing rapist/it's Eve and Julian's shemale child storyline. Though I can't lie when he was walknig around with the mask blackmailing Theresa he did kind of scare me.

But the show did feature alot of young people which my friends and I liked. Not necessarily teens, cuz we weren't checking for the teen storyliens of other soaps, but the teens on Passions were involved with the magical element that set them apart from other soaps. I liked how it wasn't afterschool special or trying hard to mimic what was happening at my highschool. They did that highscool stuff but I don't remember heavy focus on it.

[frequentsoapfan]

It originally started out as a show that parodied soaps. And I remember Shuis' past lives parodied movies. It was outlandish and crazy but after 2006 it went way too far with the craziness.

[MichaelGL]

Late to the party, but I believe this can't be stated enough, knowing that it has already.

Ellen Weston.

You'd have to have balls, or be the biggest hack of them all to turn the son of two fan faves, a child that much of the shows viewers watched grow from an infant up until the age of 6 or 7, be turned into a serial killer masquerading as a male escort who had been molested off screen at boarding school.

Even more so, to have the patriarch of the show Ed Bauer slap his daughter Michelle.

Guiding Light was never quite the same after this woman, she took Taggart and Culliton's work and turned it into the death of the show, even though months before the regime had worked hard to revive it.

[juppiter]

Right, Taggart had worked so hard to revive GL and Conboy/Weston unraveled it all so quickly. It was incredible the ease with which they destroyed the "little show that could." Ben was played so well and was so well-received by fans, and his pairing with Marina was great. And then they gutted him to prop up Marina/Shayne when the Shayne recast wasn't all that. It was one of many times as a soap fan where I felt absolutely helpless and sad about what I was watching.

I actually liked Brown/Esenstein despite their flaws, and I stuck around for the mediocrity of Labine and then Gold. Taggart absolutely revived my interest in the show, and then Weston killed it. If I had to sum up her reign in one word, it'd be "unnecessary." And GL never recovered from it, at least for me.

[Khan]

Here's what I think:

Once upon a time, when JER first had in mind the ideas that led to PASSIONS' ultimate creation, he envisioned a show that was far more traditional than what made it to air. However, although NBC was willing to give him airtime, they wanted from him the kind of drama that had come to define DAYS (never mind the fact that JER only intended to use those wacky stories in order to get people talking about the show, and that even a cursory glance at DAYS around that time would prove it wasn't all about the wackiness...at least, not at that point). Thus, PASSIONS essentially became a compromise of the two visions: JER got his "Peyton Place," and NBC got their "Dark Shadows." Unfortunately, neither vision clicked with audiences the way they had hoped. The more traditional elements came across as simplistic (and IMO, showed up JER's basic shortcomings as a HW), while the supernatural stuff was dismissed by sci-fi and soap fans alike. Combine that with horrendous casting decisions and an EP with no sense of story, and it's easy to understand why, after the first six months or so, the official party line became "No, see, it's really making fun of soap operas!"

I think it says something, too, how every single one of the show's failings became even more glaring once Josh Ryan Evans passed away. If you ask me, I think JER was willing (and even relieved) to phase out the supernatural elements with Timmy's death. However, NBC had other ideas in mind; and as a result, the crazy stuff became simultaneously crazier and more half-hearted.

[DRW50]

Aside from the Ben story, which did deeply offend me and caused me to stop watching, I didn't think any of the stories necessarily destroyed GL's foundation (mostly because I thought it was long destroyed and various writing teams just papered over the decay). But the stories sucked. All smoke and mirrors, trash hiding behind hackneyed social relevance (mental illness, crazy vets, child molestation). That's not even getting into the desperate stunts like Alex drugging Alan and Sandy-the-sock-puppet. The whole thing was like some type of self-important "camp" troupe who suddenly got a big cash influx.

I will say that NSA Michelle should have been slapped every day.

[MichaelGL]

Right. Brown/Esenstein might have had their own share of problems, but to be honest, I'd take their distorted way of storytelling over Weston's. At least when Holly was the Nursery Rhyme stalker, it wasn't the end for the character in some ridiculous cabin standoff. I still was emotionally invested even in the lowest points of some of E&B's storytelling. With Weston, I was simply disgusted. Edmund and Cassie pairing, the misogyny when it came to Jeffrey O'Neil and Tony Santos, etc, etc. The amount of the disgust I felt as a long time viewer seemed to never end.

[Khan]

Yes, as shocking as it was for Ed to slap Michelle, it wasn't as if anyone watching (NSA/Manny fans notwithstanding) felt all that sorry for her. I'd even wager some cheered, "Right ON, Ed!," like they were watching "Good Times."

[Khan]

A BIG problem for me where Ellen Weston was concerned was how it seemed as if new and unknown characters -- Mitch and Ramona Hendon, Brad and Marie Green, the lead hooker in that "Garden of Eden" storyline, even Jeffrey O'Neill to some extent -- were the ones driving her stories; and when it WAS a vet at the center of things, it was always something mind-numblingly dumb, with MAC and Psychic Reva being two good examples.

[DRW50]

I get the idea that she and Conboy had no real interest in the show itself. The Maryanne Carruthers story may have been their attempt to say, "Look, we do care about history!"

[Khan]

True that. And if anyone had any doubts about that, all they needed to do was look at the Maureen Garrett Memorial Baseball Field and know how little WesCon actually cared about GUIDING LIGHT and its history.

[Soapsuds]

lololol

[AMCHistory]

It was clear that they at least tried using the veterans. This story was something good on paper, terrible in execution. But, you cannot take away the fact that it was the most screen time people like Peter Simon, Michael O'Leary, and Jordan Clarke had in years.