TV Guide Interview with GH Head Writer Ron Carlivati

[Vee]

Did she cut them off? I can't remember but I know they turned on the show eventually after it became so intolerable.

[OldGHFan]

But it COSTS MONEY to have these characters hanging out in the park or at Kellys. That's why we don't see the characters that often.

I personally don't like when I don't see a character for weeks at a time. It definitely ruins the momentum of the story. I would like for Frank and Ron to fire a bunch of the useless newbies and give more time to the GH vets. But that's not their plan. I think they're plan is to eventually weed out the vets that cost a bit more money. I'm not interested in that. But by that time, I think they will have built a new audience that wasn't around to see the glory days of the 80s and 90s and who are fans of the newbies, Sonny & the OLTL3. Then the vets will be paraded around once a year so Frank and Ron can say, "see we still care about the vets!".

[marceline]

I think that part of the fawning over MAB was because she came after Latham. Just like a lot of the love for Carlivati came from the fact he was better than Higley. I can't help but wonder if the RC fapfest would've expired on its own if ABC hadn't canceled the shows. The cancellations somehow made supporting RC the same as supporting the genre even though in reality it's turned into exactly the opposite.

[Vee]

That's not who they are. Their plan is cost-effective to an extreme, but they won't do that. That doesn't mean you'll like what they will do, however.

[Vee]

I thought Carlivati was miles better than Higley for a good long stretch. The thing about that though is that as far as I could ever tell, most of the biggest fans of Ron in the press now were either not really paying attention to or outright not watching OLTL before he became big. Higley was a non-factor for many of them because OLTL was a non-factor, especially at Daytime Confidential. Most of that crew appears to have very little history with that show prior to Ron.

I don't know if they would be in a different place with Ron now if not for the loss of OLTL. I doubt it. They excused the rapemance and a number of other stories because he deigned to give them interviews about the material. I expect they'd still be doing it with other stories. I think the only way that situation would change is if another writer came along at another show who was equally accessible to them on a personal level. But again, I am not clear on whether MAB cut them off before she really went south. I wasn't under the impression that she did, so it's entirely possible I am somehow not giving these people enough credit.

[John]

Then change the contracts to pay each day they work instead of how many episodes they appear in

[Taoboi]

THIS.