DAYS: Josh Griffith OUT! Quan Promoted to Co-HW with Higley!

[Toups]

"Josh chose to move on and write his next novel...."   Yeah right.  When was the last time a HW voluntarily left?  Don't know why Corday is being so nice about Josh's firing.  Maybe he liked him a lot and didn't really want him to leave. 

 

Anyone have synopsis of the Ryan Quan interview? 

[JONNYSBRO]

Well maybe Josh really did choose to leave. Maybe he didn't get along with Dena that well. I heard he only signed one year. I would have promoted Lorraine Broderick instead she's been on the days writing for four years.

[kylefish76]

Even if Josh's idea was the rape they should have kept Beth Milstein as a HW. I already enjoy her epuisodes and U can tell a difference. With Dena there itll be bad especially since Ryan is a newbie to being a HW, itll be all Dena and itll suck 

[Toups]

Again, tell me the last time a HW chose to leave? It doesn't happen (maybe a couple of times in the history of daytime).   Corday is just being nice publicly because he liked Josh a lot and lost out to NBC.  As for Lorraine, maybe she didn't want to be in that position again, some writers just don't want that headache.  I'm willing to give Quan a chance.  He's a first time HW, so maybe he can inject some new life into DAYS. 

[JONNYSBRO]

It's happened before Toups. Claire Labine quit GH, Jim Reilly quit DAYS, Guza quit GH in early 2000 so it's happened before. Jean quit YR. 

[RavenWhitney]

Josh was fired.  And I happen to think that Corday negotiated complete creative control for the one year extension, probably because Days won't be renewed after that.  Quan comes cheap and will have no real, independent power to dictate story. Josh was a producer, writer etc.  He didn't come cheap and he probably had more creative power.  Josh was clearly the headwriter for the year. Dena was getting equal billing but not only did she take at least a month off after six months, but it was Josh who was in the studio, Josh was meeting with the actors about story, not Dena.  Corday has complete control now with stories starting in August.  Quan is openly gay so I hope he can undo some of the homophobia Griffith introduced with the lame Will murder and the Paul/Gabi flirtation.

[cassadine1991]

Still on the whole Griffith is homophobic? Paul and Gabi weren't flirting. How does Quan being gay mean we'll get some great LGBTQ storyline, Ron's story on GH was such a nonstort

[KMan101]

LOL. The show wasn't homophobic. It wasn't a "get the gays" thing on DAYS. And for those speaking with certainity that Griffith was fired, unless you work for the show or know someone who does, you DON'T know that he was fired.

[DRW50]

Brutally murdering one gay character and completely backburnering another - if you don't want to call it homophobic, you don't have to, but it certainly showed how contemptuously they viewed gay characters and gay viewers. 

 

I don't especially care if he was fired or quit. He was a hack either way.

[DynamiteKiddo]

In all fairness, Dena & Josh basically eliminated everything of TomSell's, except for Chad/Abby/Ben and Aiden/Hope (which got seriously retooled and front-burned).  It's just that the gay storyline was the one cut plot that should've really remained . . . Freddie should've been coaxed to stay (like Kate Mansi was), or the role should've been recast and, obviously, Guy Wilson should've been replaced . . . this triangle driving story wasn't a mistake, the execution was with Will being a silly villain and never committing to Sonny really considering leaving Will for Paul.  The fallout from Sonny's stabbing and finding out about Will/Paul was ALL the right kind of soapy stuff.  Even with Will dead, there's still a lot of story left for Sonny and Paul.  I don't think Paul's back-burning necessarily speaks to Josh's "homophobia," but I do think it speaks to his unwillingness to write a gay love story with everything else he's doing . . . and if you don't have a love interest right now, you probably don't have a story . . . ask Missy Reeves, lol.  There's just WAY too much going on right now.  The gays were easy scapegoats for why the show was "boiling over" (or whatever Corday said) along with Dan/Nicole/Eric/Serena/Xander, it's just that one story was legitimately why the show was floundering and the other wasn't.

 

I unfortunately have no faith in this show with Dena Higley at the forefront, even if it was proven successes like Milstein or Broderick co-hw-ing with her . . . this new boy might've been a shot in the arm for the show with his age and familiarity with "Days," but any goodwill he creates, Dena will squash.

[DRW50]

I don't think Josh Griffith is homophobic. I do think Dena Higley wrote a horrible anti-gay story on OLTL, but that doesn't mean she has to be homophobic at DAYS. I do think that they brutally murdered a gay man (in a pointless story that mostly revolved around a Price is Right model trying to emote) for shock value and to send a message to people who, in their mind had likely quit the show in part because of gay characters having airtime. And I do think that element of it is homophobic. I think tossing Will out like trash just because Chandler Massey was replaced with an unpopular actor had some homophobia involved, given that they rarely did that with other integral characters recast and miscast, often over and over (like Belle - they even brought back a failed recast after nearly a decade!).  People get upset when that is thrown out there, but I've seen this on soaps before, over and over, and I'm going to just say it.

 

I'm sure that Griffith will be just fine as long as there's some other soap to trot out his "edgy" (if you're in a C-plot on Santa Barbara in 1987) stories on, and Higley will always end up somewhere if/when she or the show are canned soon, because grindingly mediocre writers always do in television.

[DynamiteKiddo]

I totally agree with this assessment.  I am surprised, though, that the Necktie Killer story was so lackluster and transparent because I do think Griffith did an effective job with the Music Box Killer on OLTL . . . which was actually edgy and gritty, and this was over ten years ago.  We lost a very important character in Gabrielle, but her death was truly sickeningly disturbing, Paige and Will's were very tame in comparison.  Everything about that story was so. not. worth. it.  And to think Corday thought it would be representative of the show's history for the 50th, lol.  Thomas' Nov. Sweeps birth was much more chilling, but it felt like they were in that cabin forever!

[dannigold]

Ryan, you were just named co-headwriter.  Congratulations! How did you break into soaps?

I decided way back in junior High that I wanted to write for soaps.  So when I was in college, I interned at Sunset Beach, NBC Daytime and Passions, when it first started up.  I eventually got hired at Passion's as a writer's assistant, then went on to write webisodes and internet content(fun stuff like answering fan questions as Tabitha the witch) When Passions was cancelled, I moved over to Days as an assistant.  A couple of years later, i wrote a sample script and was hired as a script writer, and then later a breakkdown writer.  The entire time I kept my assistant position as a bit of a safety net.

When you first started, how did you get to know the characters? Were you a fan before you started on soaps?

I actually used to read soap digest religiously growing up - cover to cover.  So I knew the history of most chacters on most soaps.  I guess I was a bit of a soap nerd.  But having grown up watching days, I came in already knowing every character like they were old friends.

What are you most looking forward to about your new gig?

I'm looking forward to playing with thesse characters I've loved for years.  As a breakdown writer, you have some input as to how things play out in a particular show, but now I get to have greater control over the overall picture and story direction.

Who is your favorite character to write dialogue for? Most challenging to write dialogue for?

The characters who speak their minds are always fun - Victor, Kate, Nicole etc.  Right now maybe Theo is the biggest challenge because there is a great responsibility to portray autisim as honestly and accurately as possible.

Do you have a favorite episode or scene you've written? What episode are you most proud of from your time at Days?

My head writers over the years have given me plenty of great scenes and storylines to write.  I guess what most sticks out in my mind are Will's coming out scenes, anything Kristen, EJ's death and the tribute episode to Stefano.  Of course, much credit is due not only to the headwriters but also the dialogue writers, who really brought so much more to the shows that I had imagined.

Did you get to pitch story ideas in your othe position?

Depending on the head writer, you can definetly pitch story ideas and suggest things like well maybe you can add a twist here or instead of a stranger, why don't you use this character from the past.  As a breakdown writer i did get to suggest things like having Ciara talk about stealing a jacket around the 50th anniversary to sort of mirror Julie's shoplifting in the first episode.

 

 

 

[Soapsuds]

Well all this is positive. 

[RavenWhitney]

Josh has never held a headwriting position for, what, more than two years?  He was Malone's co-head.  He was hired a second time to head write OLTL and couldn't hack it and they asked Malone to co-head even though he wanted only to consult.  Josh then left before Malone during this second stint.  Josh's post Maria Bell YR was awful, boring, uninspired. On Days he went ballistic with the violence and the daily cliffhangers and now he's gone after a year. Also, Corday has a history of not supporting, long term, outside headwriters: Sheffer lasted 18 months, replaced by Dena, for instance.  Broderick lasted four weeks.  Sussman lasted two years. Brash/Cwikly (who were on fire during their one year) were removed as headwriters for Dena.  It goes on.  

Killing Will and the aftermath was incredibly homophobic and completely unnecessary and now it looks as though they are bringing Chandler back in some way. The show's ratings this week or horrible.  Goodbye Griffith after the next six months.