Carolyn Hinsey: Be Careful What You Wish For, Soap Fans

[Khan]

I agree with that as well. TPTB cater way too much toward fan bases.

[YRBB]

New characters are awesome. No soap can survive without an influx of new people every now and then, whether just for the story at hand or at general. To say that new characters fail because they're new, however, is totally erroneous. For the last decade+ they have been failing because most of them are either cliche, horribly conceived, flat, badly-written AND badly acted.

[cassadine1991]

Also problem is nowadays newbies are shoved down our throats and are the center of stories

[Khan]

Exactly what I was trying to say, YRBB, only said with much more clarity. Thank you.

[amybrickwallace]

YES. Too much network interference is almost always a bad thing. UGGGGH.

[DRW50]

Why is this waste of space still trying to lecture and shame fans? No one cares about her opinion.

I will always remember her for her vile "joke" about Brooke and a fireplace poker.

[amybrickwallace]

I remember that, too, unfortunately. I found it extremely tasteless and insulting as a woman to read something like that written by another woman. Sure, the demise of soaps has been the biggest factor in the soap press growing smaller, but she deserves a good part of the blame for the sickening things she has written over the years.

[slick jones]

That heffa should've lost her job eons ago.

[amybrickwallace]

Having worked in the publishing field myself, it makes me sick that she's still making a living writing when there are so many more REAL journalists with much more talent (and tact) that are having trouble finding work in that area.

[marceline]

Shouldn't this trick be working on her own soap (Tainted Dreams) instead of lecturing the rest of us?

[amybrickwallace]

See, you put a lot more thought into that than she did.

[Vee]

I think everything you say is true, but I don't watch a soap for that. I watch a soap for the whole show, not just one couple or character. I think it's a big problem when other fans do, and personally, while this is unrelated, I never even fast-forward (especially not on a show like Frank Valentini's GH, where the editing is carefully and often very obviously tuned to their story intent).

And more importantly, what you say goes both ways. It's not just about the audience, it's about the product and management. Y&R and GH have both shown a willingness to overturn their whole canvases for a handful of stars and couples.

And I get very, very, very tired when every single valid critique of a show's problems is met with a breezy statement from the management or the writers saying 'well, you should be watching our show for everyone, not just the people you like or the couple you're worried about.' Because these days the fact is they have no room to lecture me. I'm not the one with that problem in this equation - they are.

These soaps have readily adopted and promoted the mindset of the myopic couples and actor fanbases - these EPs and HWs are obsessed with Michael Easton, Michelle Stafford, Billy Miller, Amelia Heinle, Steve Burton, James Scott, Roger Howarth, you name it. These shows and their management are sick to death at the thought of losing what they see as their biggest gets - actors, couples, etc. - and they are willing to not bother with anything else on their show so long as they keep their precious ones. I know very well that Y&R has known they have an issue with Amelia Heinle as Victoria for at least three to five years, but they haven't done [!@#$%^&*] about it. Why? Because they love this couple and that's more important to them than the larger show.

It is a circuit and we can debate who started it, but the fact is these soaps and their crews are the ones finishing it. They're blowing it themselves.

[SFK]

I realize that we fans aren't all on the same intellectual level, but as an adult, I thought that read rather condescendingly. Her argument is b.s. because if stories about various characters were told evenly in terms of quality/depth/time, fans wouldn't be complaining. That's obviously not happening. Many of us have been watching these shows for decades, we've seen plenty of characters come and go. Never, ever in the eighties and nineties do I remember feeling like vets were being neglected. Many actors moved on, other times, shows just had the balls to write characters out usually with a happy ending, or best, they were well utilized as reliable supporting characters. Sadly, age and illness limited the appearances of other vets. Anyone going out of her way to defend the failures of today's soaps is just dancing as fast as she can to keep us poor suckers watching so she can keep her job.

[Vee]

Well, this is literally the same column she's been writing again and again for over ten years.

Talking down to her 'readers' helps keep her mind off the fact that most of the soap stars she desperately counts as friends hold her in (appropriate, by all accounts) revulsion and contempt. You gotta have someone to look down upon.

[SFK]

I'd like to add that there were many years when I wasn't annoyed by a single character on the soaps I watched, I was pleased and interested watching the whole canvas. There were no (obvious) agendas. Of course Erica got tons of story because she was written beautifully, acted with great charisma, and consequently became the super popular lead of her show. Now we have male models plucked from obscurity and shoved down our throats with a predictable blend of bad boy sympathy and within weeks get entire families created around them (Erica had ONE relative, her mother, for nearly a decade). I won't ever accept that route, it's just BAD, no excuses. Simply put, RC is not for me and unluckily he's taken over two of my former shows. I know they're not perfect, but I really don't have any issue with the other soaps still on the air, besides the fact that Y&R is a little boring.