NY Times rips All My Children & One Life to Live reboots

[doolfan]

I read this review and it pissed me off. This is one ignorant and arrogant person.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/arts/television/all-my-children-and-one-life-to-live-on-hulu-and-itunes.html?_r=welovesoaps

[John]

That is already discussed in the AMC & OLTL in production threads

[EricMontreal22]

Ha and now I feel mad again and like I should repost my long tirade

[RavenWhitney]

Wow...what are the chances that this Neil guy would even watch soaps. His critique is arrogant and petty but most of it is true. The acting on AMC is very bad as are the stories. I think that show will need the most overhaul sooner than later to survive. OLTL has been uneven but more polished overall. The Dorian story was easy to watch and easy to figure out. The Tea/Todd/Victor thing is a mess partly because of the GH thing and partly the way Racina/Horgan wrote it. AMC needs a very strong writer and better casting.

[Khan]

I agree.

[RomeAt50]

I think AJ and Miranda are decent actors. The AMC people didn't have as much time to prepare as the OLTL people so its no surprise OLTL is a little more polished. But even considering that it does need better dialogue writers.

[WorldTurningDays]

Both shows are major let downs but AMC has a few good story lines where as OLTL has none.

[EricMontreal22]

My only real complaint with the review--well it's two fold. One, I sorta think the NYTimes could have found someone in their paper who has a history with soaps to review it. But their tv reviews, in particular, have been like this before (in the other thread someone mentioned their now kinda infamous Game of Thrones review where they went on about only boys who liked Dungeons and Dragons would watch--seemingly clueless to what a huge female fanbase the books already had--and just blasted the show.) I also think he gets the appeal of daytime soaps wrong. It's not the same to just watch Season 1 of Revenge instead. Most people who get into daytime soaps don't mind being a little lost at first--and realize that as they watch they'll learn who these characters are, etc.

I would almost be curious to hear what he'd think of tuning into GH randomly and hearing about relish, etc.

[DRW50]

What I've seen of the revivals is sort of mixed, to the point where I haven't even finished the first episodes yet (I will soon as I know they go off Hulu soon), as I don't want to come on here and spew bile about overaged Matthew the cheap whore, or Noble Rapist #1 and Noble Rapist #2, and ruin the shows for people. The review still annoyed me, because it's all about elitism (which is NYT in a nutshell), not about the shows themselves. Downtown Abbey and Revenge are not well-written shows. Revenge is so well-written ABC dumped the showrunner. What they are is shows that make you look chic if you praise them. And that's what NYT is all about, along with much of the chattering class press. These are people who would likely throw their kids out on the street if it meant they got a special screening of Sopranos or Mad Men, AKA the best shows ever that changed television forever in all of space and time.

[JackPeyton]

From the title and reaction i expected a lot more than what it was.

He reviewed them as the perspective of a newbie to soaps, and as if they were a pilot. I dont see anything wrong with the approach or the critical review.

He mentions that if you stick with them some of the questions are answered, but that the first episode didnt make him want to carry on with the series because the pilots were bad and that they are able to compete with cable series, but are not doing so. True. the web soap version of hyped as being edgy and racy and progressive, but they could air right back on ABC Daytime like it was 2011 and fit right in for the most part, minus a swear word here and there.

From the title and reaction i expected a lot more than what it was.

He reviewed them as the perspective of a newbie to soaps, and as if they were a pilot. I dont see anything wrong with the approach or the critical review.

He mentions that if you stick with them some of the questions are answered, but that the first episode didnt make him want to carry on with the series because the pilots were bad and that they are able to compete with cable series, but are not doing so. True. the web soap version of hyped as being edgy and racy and progressive, but they could air right back on ABC Daytime like it was 2011 and fit right in for the most part, minus a swear word here and there.

[DRW50]

My complaint with it was mostly he automatically dismissed them compared to below par shows like Revenge. You can find faults in the shows - and there are many to find - without needing everyone to see how hip and cool you are.

[JackPeyton]

He didnt automatically dismiss them compared o revenge, he noted at the end that their are primetime soaps that are better. revenge season one is far, far better and season two, while awful, is still pulled off better than these.

Ive seen people say they should have gotten a soap fan to review these, but that would defeat the purpose. These shows are on hulu and no longer need to be daytime soaps stuck in that rut and can appeal to anyone, they need new viewers, and to this new viewer this is how it came off.

It was the NYT, so being pretentious is expected, but putting that and even the primetime and other show comparisons aside, he said what a lot of people have said about them. I liked AMC far more than he did, but still.

[DRW50]

He doesn't qualify anything about Revenge. Instead he basically presented deeply flawed shows as the ideal that OLTL and AMC could never compare to. It wasn't about OLTL and AMC at all. That's why some say they wished someone else had reviewed them. This is about trying to show how intelligent he is, as he watches what the elite watch, which is great for him, but it's not much of an actual review.

[JackPeyton]

What? He did put qualifactions of Revenge in, he just lumped it together with Scandal, GoT and others, saying "are in essence soaps — lots of characters, intertwined story lines that evolve over entire seasons — and they’re far better written and acted than the new “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.”

And everything before that was all about amc and oltl, o i fail to see how this wasnt about the shows at all.

And i dont think anyone has claimed Revenge to be an elitist show. Even at its peak it was praised for being well done campy, soapy, fun trash. Itw as never billed at the most amazing show to ever be a show and a game changer for all of television.

As for it nor being much of an actual review, he made a lot of points.

-They are not easy to get into without knowing the history

-They are full of cliched stories that people mock about soaps

-They are open to a whole new world of viewers, but not going after them

-They are frustrating to watch

-They do have some interesting plots like the kidnapping on amc and the political story on oltl, but not enough to keep him

-They are not racy, edgy or competitive with current shows

-Other shows are far easier to get into and pull all of this off better

Thats a list of things ive seen soap fans say for years about soaps. Yourself included.

[DRW50]

Revenge was hyped to the gills as smart, sleek, sexy, and all the usual buzzwords, beyond just campy trash. If people had said, "This is fun trash," then the hype would have annoyed me less. The problem with these types of comparisons is when you name shows, you're making it more about you than about the quality of the show. I could say Walking Dead is a better soap than the new OLTL and AMC, because I think it is. But then you would likely get people - if anyone gave a crap about what I said - focusing more on The Walking Dead's merits and wondering why I needed to name that show, am I going with Walking Dead because it's well known, etc. I would have preferred a review without comparisons to primetime shows that, to me, are not that fantastic (I haven't seen Scandal or GoT so I'm not talking about those). Anyway, I'm sorry, I've derailed this.