Grade the first season of OLTL 2.0!

[greens_dupres]

I don't think I've given Cutter this much thought in the entirety of his run on both versions of the show. I didn't like Dusky either but she disappeared fast enough after airing like 3-4 eps and didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the show.

Also I'm kind of glad the Viki/Clint engagement is off the table for now- I think that's one of the best things they did- a Viki/Clint wedding didn't need to happen immediately. The breakup led to great story for Jerry & gives both characters more story possibility in the short term at least.

[Soaplovers]

Overall, I'd give the show a B-/C+ for the season.

Pluses: More character scenes, not quite as over the top, and a little darker then the show was during the last several years on ABC. Vicki/Dorian feuding again, Bo/Nora acting like themselves, and Blair/Todd acting like the tortured couple again.. while Tea and Dani were written with grey shadings as opposed to how they were written/presented on the ABC version. I liked David/Dorian breaking up and her promising interaction with Ron Raine's character..

Minuses: Too much focus on the youngsters... or rather.. too much isolation from the rest of the canvas. When the EP viewed the 20 somethings as the A-team, man I tweeted her as fast as you could say jump. She had to tweet that she valued all characters, not just the younger characters.

The Tattoo story was kind of pointless and disappointing since I was hoping the show would revert back to its early roots about class struggles, religious struggles, and showcasing diversity. I was hopeful when they featured Vimal/Rama talking about an open marriage, since they are both from traditional Indian families that believe in arranged marriage.. alas not to be

[EricMontreal22]

Although, at least according to her interview, she was kinda an uncredited co-HW for much of Malone's time in the 90s post Griffith (something she admitted got in the way of her work as EP.)

[Graham]

B-. Good character development but a lot of it was boring. Fantastic first week and the season finished strong. Dani/Matthew/Destiny/Jeffrey were zzzz. Overall though, a good effort.

[soapfave06]

I have enjoyed almost every episode but there is always room for improvement. It's long time to get Dorian out of David's orbit and the David character just doesn't work for me anymore. There were too many scenes of hiss reality show.

I like the younger set, outside of Michelle. The Catfish story had a lot of potential but I'm not longer feeling it since she was introduced.

[MontyB]

LOL! You're simply not a OLTL, fan are you?

[MontyB]

I'm not going to grade it. I enjoyed the show thoroughly. I'm just hoping PP has learned from any errors they have made and the show will simply get better and better.

[Cheap21]

C. It started off with a bang and was great early on but it became clear that the show had no direction and became filled with too much filler. Way too many non-stories. Bo and Nora did a whole lot of nothing. Cutter and Natalie had a lot of scenes about nothing. Todd, Tea and Blair spent over a month talking about some plan to fake Vic's death which I still don't understand and that went nowhere. Matthew was overexposed and they could have cut a good chunk of his episodes and it not have changed much. Oh and David's reality plot is a waste of time. I give the show points in that it wasn't boring as it kept me entertained but man did it get painful once they cut the episodes back as things just progressed too slowly

[dragonflies]

I'm going with a C- minus and that's being generous given I lost complete interest in the show around episode 23

[OneCharmingBastard]

B minus, and that is up from a C thanks to the last few episodes. The writing was kinda disjointed, and initially, it and the show as a whole was kind of a letdown given how great the last nine months of the ABC run were - still, Kelly Missal's developed into a fine young actress and made me like the character, any Dorian/Viki is worth its weight in gold, and the pulse of excitement I felt at seeing Barbara Garrick was enough to keep me invested in season 2 and beyond.

[CBRVA83]

Cutter and Natalie's scenes were not filler and not a bunch of nothing either! They just had a character driven romantic storyline together.

[Cheap21]

They had no storyline. They had a series of scenes together, most of which had no plot. Will they or wont they go out on a date is not a character driven romantic storyline. There was very little romance to be found there. Now the final episodes set them up to go somewhere for season 2, but season 1 for the characters together was mostly filler and added nothing to the bigger picture.

[Steve]

If it makes you feel better to believe that than to accept the fact that the reboot was for the most part terrible, so be it.

I grew up watching OLTL and watched it off and on for close to 30 years. The first story that hooked me on this show was Brad Vernon blackmailing Marco & Karen with the truth about Mary being Katrina's daughter. I haven't stuck with it through a lot of the fantasy plots like Eterna and Clint's trip to the Wild West because that's not my idea of good soap storytelling. I did enjoy several OLTL stories over the years such as Viki learning Tina was her sister, Dorian killing Mitch Laurence to protect Cassie, the Billy Douglas storyline, Marty's rape, David Vicker's pretending to be Viki's brother, Viki's alters leading her to imprison Dorian in the secret room, Lindsay's appearance as Clint's new wife, the Blair/Max/Skye triangle, Nora realizing she killed Colin and Dorian accidentally running down a pregnant Jessica. I've never liked the character of Todd and to me the show started losing its heart when it glorified him as Viki's poor abused half-brother. For the past 10 years or so of the ABC run, the loss of characters I enjoyed like Max, Gabrielle and Lindsay along with the introduction of loathsome characters like Natalie, Rex, NuTodd/Victor made it harder for me to watch.

I think the reboot truly deserves a D+ for ruining the potential to be good again.

ITA that's being generous, which is why I couldn't grade it so high.

[rhinohide]

I thought it was pretty obvious that whatever story they had planned for Natalie revolved around John and when that didn't happen they just stuck her with Cutter to give her screentime. I hope those final episodes set them up to split and go nowhere. I think they originally planned for Cutter to be more involved with Rama and with Nikki and just be a player, not a real romantic interest for Natalie. More just a spoiler. I think Cutter's planned story was gutted too.

I don't want to grade the show either. I got really bored with the same old TnB dance that was seemingly endless and the directionless writing for the Tattoo story. But I am still pleased for all the TnB fans who got some payoff after the crap Carlivati wrote for Todd on GH to force him into that show. The younger crowd was pervasive and not interesting to me and the characters I care about were basically non-entities.

I did love all the Clint stories and every scene with him was golden IMO. Loved his scenes with Matthew, Natalie, Viki and Bo/Nora. Right now, Clint is the only thing I'm really looking forward to in Season 2.

[acbuddy3]

I'm not going to assign a grade, but here's what I think:

I feel that many of the show's problems were a result of the GH mess like others have stated.

The tattoo story was an interesting story, but it started to lose steam when RH and TSJ's airtime started to dwindle. However, they seemed to have set it up to where other characters can take over that story (should've happened earlier though).

The younger set is truly enjoyable in my book. They are not perfect Disney princes and princesses anymore. I kind of wished that Matthew/Michelle had been a catfish story, I am looking forward to seeing where they (and the rest of them) go, but they cannot dominate the show.

Dani/Arturo was a good idea, but I had to FF through that love scene. I also think the Jack/Kate story is a good idea as well.

Cutter/Natalie did feel like a random collection of scenes, however, I agree with others that this story wasn't planned or didn't go the way it was supposed to due to the fact that they couldn't get John back from GH.

I wish we had seen more of the Vimal/Rama story. Also wish that The Pellegrino Fund had more time as well. It was really refreshing to see Viki, Clint, and Dorian as ACTUAL characters again, not just talk to's for other characters.

Enjoying the new characters as well. I do not mind if Jo, Kate, Michelle, Diego, Dean, Bruce, and Nikki slowly start to integrate themselves into the Llanview canvas. That is how you introduce new characters, not shove them down people's throats like Ford was.

The only story that wasn't developed really well in my book was the Who Killed Brianna? story. It would've been nice if we had more than a 5 second scene with Brianna before she died. Hopefully, this can be saved somehow.

There were too many slow days. I do not mind some filler/slow days where characters are talking to each other, building relationships with each other, or characters doing things non-storyline related.

I think that OLTL season 1 wasn't that bad, given how fast they had to put the show together and then all the issues they've had to face (GH, union dispute, episode reduction). I am looking forward to OLTL season 2, and I hope we'll have it by January.