Worst Executive Producer...

[robbwolff]

 

I vaguely recall Potter slinging homophobic slurs at Marland.

[Franko]

I wonder if Rauch himself refused. Maybe he didn't want to be in a situation like Gloria Monty and the Dobsons had. The one-two punch of "Yay, the genius is back!," followed by "How come the glory days haven't returned?"

[Paul Raven]

By the time Rauch left the first time AW had slumped in the ratings, proving that it was the Rauch/Lemay combo that worked rather than Rauch specifically.

A terrific producer needs a strong headwriter and vice versa.

[danfling]

I saw Gary Tomlin's name in an above post.   I think that Gary Tomlin was one of the very best executive producers.   I did not care for everything that he did (such as adding animation to One Life to Live), but, overall, he understood the show and was a wonderful match for it.

[Emma1420]

 

I agree with a lot of this.  I think a lot of EP's are just not a great fit for the show that they are producing.   Or at least their vision of the show simply doesn't mesh with mine as a viewer.   

 

But, I do think that there are some EP's who are simply incompetent.  I think Ellen Wheeler fits in that category.   

 

 

 

 

[pdm1974]

The last couple of years of GL...oh, man. Those who also watched...what did you think was the final nail in the coffin: the writing or the production values? Because at this point I think the production values were actually better than was DAYS has now!

[amybrickwallace]

 

It's a close call, but I'm still going to say the production values.

[Fevuh]

I don't watch DAYS but Guiding Light had been so cut to the bone by budget that they had to cut production values.  The show looked horrible, and natural light on TV doesn't look good on anyone, and filming with hand-held cameras and editing on them as well - it was horrible.  No writing in the world can fix that.  I watch B&B and Y&R today and GL was never as bad as what I hear on *some* of Y&R but ALL of B&B - the writing on B&B has been worse than the end-days of many shows for 20 years.  Great for B&B that it looks good.  If it looked like GL did at the end it would be laughed off the air.  Ain' nobody watching that.  Let's see them in natural light, without all of the scenic drone shots and in a drug store in Peapack.  GL had the actors and actresses to at least make you want to watch and try and sell it.  B&B doesn't have the company to even attempt and the writing is much much worse.  Same repetitive dialogue, flashbacks from 2 minutes ago, same triangles, etc. etc.  Y&R to me over the years, just my opinion - but the dialogue writing has been some of the worst of any Soap.  Even when they won emmys - I remember us laughing and this was in the 80's...characters like Victor asking, "Have you seen my formuh wife Nikkkehhhh, mother of my son Nick and daughtuhhhh Victoria, who I remarried and divohhced last yearrr? Have you seeeen huhhhh today????"  The cues and reminders were so bad and ridiculous.  Yes, new viewers need to know who people are.  But don't be crazy every other scene.    

[Khan]

 

Same here.  GL could (and did) survive bad HW'ing regimes, but once actors had to settle for changing their wardrobe and makeup in the back of somebody's car on the way to New Jersey, it was over.

[Soaplovers]

What's ironic was that the writing for GL improved quite a bit in the last year or so of the show.. but whatever viewers they hoped to regain/attract were for naught with the lackluster production values.  I understand the point was to be more realistic like a UK soap.. but I wondered if Wheeler and those at P & G actually watched a UK soap.. because while the soaps were more realistic, they still had decent production values... as in decent lighting and sets.

[Emma1420]

 

It was a combination of both of them.   The production values were terrible.  But, that alone wasn't enough to kill the show.  If the writing had been good and the acting had been solid then I think that the show could have overcome the horrible production.  

 

But, the writing wasn't good.  And the last 5 years were particularly terrible.  The show seemed to be grasping at straws desperately trying to make things work.  And I don't think many of the younger more inexperienced actors on the show could cope with the lack of rehearsal and the bad writing.  So their performances were pretty terrible. 

 

I tried to watch in 2005 and I simply couldn't.  Too many of the characters that I knew had been twisted into pretzels that they didn't make any sense.  And that was before the disaster that was the Peapack era.  When it didn't look like the actors had done their own make-up.

 

[John]

The last good EP GL had was Rauch. He could be an ass but he was good at his job. Ellen tried but had zero skill set

[Emma1420]

 

I didn't care for Paul Rauch.  But, that is mostly because I didn't care for his vision of GL.   He was responsible for the clone storyline, the mob, the San Cristobel stuff.  But, I'll give him credit for at least having a vision and for creating storyline that at least some viewers liked.  And, for me the show was salvageable after his tenure.  Which is always a sign to me that the EP has a different vision than I do versus being a horrible EP.

 

I think the biggest problem with GL is that it probably needed to go off the air about 2-3 years before it actually did.  At least shows like AW, AMC, etc., went off the air with some dignity.  What makes me sad about GL, in particular, is that when it went off the air it was a shadow of its former self.   And I have to say, I'm relieved that the Peapack era was a total disaster in the ratings, because at least there was little to no danger of any soap following in GL's footsteps.

 

 

[Mitch]

Actually Rauch didn't want to do the Clone..it was a network exec's idea, I think that woman who became a writer and then wrote the dumb vampires on PC....Fishbaum or something.  The fairy tale prince stuff was MADD's idea, etc.  I think he had bad taste in lighting, clothes (pastel biz suits on EVERY woman) a love for the two women fighting over a man triangle..making Reva the Vicki of GL...but I think he knew what made GL tick and how to do a soap...he just wanted to get his money, get his ego stroked, and didn't care that much in fighting other people.

 

As for the last days of GL..the writing improved slightly but come on, it wasnt that great. Again, GL could have worked with decent smaller sets with good lighting in addition to the Peakpack stuff. It was its chance to get back to the basics of having people having exaggerated family issues and talking about them, but yet, we still had that ugly assasin guy in love with Bonnie, secret agents and jewel thieves running around SF...Alex as unrepentant Evil Queen being jealous of stupid Marina???

[Emma1420]

 

I agree with this.   

 

Marina....ugh.   I will never get past the fact that the writers thought it was a good idea to have two of her former Uncles (one of which could have been her daddy and at the time wanted to be her father) romantically involved with her.   Which I'll also blame Ellen Wheeler for.