Members robbwolff Posted December 6, 2014 Members Share Posted December 6, 2014 "She and Shelley are the first head writers to really pen us a smart soap." Seriously? In over 60 years of daytime soaps, these two are the first to write a smart soap? Yeah, right. What about Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer's Ryan's Hope? Or Harding Lemay's Another World? Or Claire Labine's General Hospital? Or Rita Lakin's stint on The Doctors, which can now be seen on Retro and which, aside from being riveting storytelling, is intelligently written. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members slick jones Posted December 6, 2014 Members Share Posted December 6, 2014 Another great love scene, Steve Burton! I guess he thinks he's on that Mother Angelica channel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vee Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 Much like her career. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 I don't like Jean Passanante but blaming her for ATWT's demise is like blaming an ice tray for sinking The Titanic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vee Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 She definitely heavily contributed, AFAIC. There's a reason Goutman rode with her to the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 CBS and P&G were done with the show. That misogynist overgrown Porky's reject Sheffer destroyed the last few shreds of potential ATWT could have had, and Goutman just finished the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NothinButAttitude Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 But I never got the feeling that CBS wasn't done with the show until around about 2007. During Sheffer's era, CBS (IMO) still showed some interest in the show as the ratings were up. He was dreadful but I preferred his ATWT to Jean's. She was hot garbage from start to finish. After her stale ass, anticlimactic stint on the show, I don't know how she managed to land another gig unless [and probably so] CBS is trying to kill Y&R off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DramatistDreamer Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 Oh, I got the feeling that by the early '00s P&G was just letting their shows die on the vine. Regardless of ATWT winning Daytime Emmys, I think P&G couldn't care less because Awards don't equal ad $$ and no amount of accolades was making these shows the cash cows they once were and so P&G was content to simply let their shows wither away. Nobody noticed Another World being part of the divestiture process, but it was. In the mid '00s, was only when viewers would notice that these P&G shows were being picked clean and stripped away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 Moonves wanted a talk show for his wife. As he boasted about at the time, soaps were done. I believe ratings had actually gone up the first year or two Jean was headwriter, and only went down as daytime slumped in general and her writing somehow managed to get even worse, so I don't really put the ratings woes entirely on her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vee Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 I do. Her (and Goutman's) show was unwatchable, just like her AMC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NothinButAttitude Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 I think ratings went up her first two years. 2005 was an OK year for her but 2006 was quickly the downfall even though ATWT was in I think the top 5. And speaking for myself, I only heard talks about Les wanting a talk show for Julie around the time GL was cancelled and ATWT was on the bubble. I had no idea that talks were going on earlier than that. I agree too that Jean is not the only one to be blamed about ratings woes in the show's final years. I blame Goutman [and always will] for ATWT demise. Ever since I remember him saying that he didn't want to bring back 'a bunch of old heads' in the show's ending, I've always had utter disdain for him. He should've never held a position higher than director at most. And I've heard through grapevine that like Wheeler [on GL], Goutman was in the writer's room at lot too when he shouldn't've been. I do, however, blame Jean that if she did have a different vision that she didn't fight more. I know soaps are a dying breed but I want a fighter to be writing these shows. That's why all the greats in this genre are 'greats.' Harding, Bill, Agnes, Doug, Claire [and possibly others] all fought off network heads and producers to make sure that THEIR vision was showcased on TV each day. Jean has always given me the impression that she was a company girl [like many] and chose to toe the line instead of rocking the boat for the greater good. She'd rather be mediocre and employed, which I guess is a plus, rather than fighting for a vision--HER legacy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vee Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 By many accounts, Passanante is a talented breakdown or day to day writer. She should never have been promoted up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NothinButAttitude Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 Well maybe she'll make Pratt's mess look better because knowing him.... I'm ready for the worst. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 The sad truth is these are the only people who will be hired. Hacks and easy hires. For all the breathless hype about how much Ron Carlivati cares about soaps (if you count soaps as bad drag queen parodies with a cutoff date of 1985), he was also only ever promoted at OLTL and then shipped over to GH because he was cheap and easy. The only time we get "visionaries" on soaps are out of control egomaniac wrecking balls who hate soaps, are ashamed of soaps, and never have any checks or balances, like MAB or Guza or Chuck Pratt. I'm never going to praise Jean Passanante, as she was just wildly offensive on AMC, to the point where if that were airing today, her ass would have been dragged here there and everywhere. I just don't put much of ATWT on her. And in the last year she gave me back Barbara and Lucinda after Goutman and Sheffer had made them irrelevant or unwatchable, so, that's her one good deed I will always give her credit for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Soapsuds Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 Nice to see you posting James! Pissanante as I call her and Goutman killed the show. They are both equally responsible for the cancellation. It didn't help that Moonves wanted a talk show with his dreadful wife as host…ATWT had 3 strikes going against it. If Goutman really wanted to save the show he would have hired a writer that knew the show and brought in characters the long term fans cared about. Instead we had Juicy Janet and her boring ass daughter Liberty on 24/7. Jean didn't have one good story in her whole run of ATWT. They all sucked! The only reason the ratings went up were because of a copied storyline AMC I believe was doing at the same time. And she also featured the slasher storyline but at the time I think people were watching because Luke was involved and he still wasn't annoying …..lol…and just coming out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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