ALL: Imagine how HWs would have written other soaps…

[Faulkner]

In the GL thread, several posters speculated about how Nancy Curlee would have written GH had she succeeded Claire Labine in the mid-‘90s as planned. Lots of comments about how well she would have carried the baton with the female characters, the Bobbie/Carly relationship (parallels to Holly/Blake on GL), and navigating Luke’s nefarious history (similar to Roger).

That inspired me to start this thread, which is a game we’ve all played over the years in various discussions: imagine how certain HWs would have tackled stories on a soap at any particular point in time. Which characters would they spark with or have trouble with? Which problems would they have solved or potentially made worse? You could, say, envision what Kay Alden would have done with AMC (had she taken over as HW in the mid-2000s).

Or, more fantastically, how would a still-living Doug Marland write GH if he were to return to the show today, with the characters currently on the canvas? Which characters would he do well with (certainly Brando might leap out as a classic Hutch-like himbo)? Who would be his Lily or Nola? Joss? Sasha? (God help him if those were his choices.) Trina? Maxie/Brook Lynn? How would he rehabilitate his (now totally gutted) Quartermaine family, especially with the dubious introduction of Austin/RH into the fold?

What would a Megan McTavish (shudder) Y&R look like if she were Josh Griffith’s clean-up woman and still had to keep a slim budget? An Agnes Nixon B&B (which I can’t wrap my head around—Jim Reilly, sure)? 

[AbcNbc247]

If Ron Carlivati wrote for B&B, we'd finally get some gay characters, but one of them would be a villain that would blackmail a straight guy (probably Thomas or Wyatt) into bed, but eventually he would be reformed. And Hope would somehow get DID. 

As for characters that he would write well for, I can't really decide since B&B hasn't really been that campy these last few years. But I do think that he had been writing in the late 80s and 90s, he would have had a great handle on the Spectra crew, particularly Sally and Darla. 

Edited July 17, 2021 by AbcNbc247

[Faulkner]

He would definitely have gay characters and I fully believe he’d have Quinn fully off her rocker again. Paris would either be killed or in a coma right now and she’d wear a Brooke mask to seduce and screw $Bill.

[AbcNbc247]

You're right.

He would have a ball with Quinn. She'd be kidnapping people left and right 

Please register in order to view this content

[Faulkner]

He’d love those comic sidekick characters like Pam and Charlie, too, and he’d make Donna wacky again. 

He also loves rape, so Thomas would totally have had sex with one of Hope’s alters.

[Chris B]

Having seen Carlivati's work on OLTL, DAYS and GH, I think B&B would be his best work. I often fantasize about people writing for B&B. Brad Bell is creatively dead and that show will only be truly good when someone takes over. With Carlivati in particular, he'd shine by opening up the canvas. He loves delving into the history of a show and bringing people back, even if it's short term so I feel with him we'd get to see our favorite characters popping in. We'd have gay characters like you mentioned, but also the show would get it's sex appeal back and we'd have villain's and femme fatales, mysteries, comedy and the other stuff you expect on a show like this set in the fashion world.

Brad Bell's writing is so bad I'd accept almost anyone taking over if I'm being real.

[Faulkner]

It’s hard to imagine anyone being worse or lazier than Brad. RC can be plenty lazy himself (more in repeating plots like the masks and DID), but perhaps the half-hour format might tamp down on some of his excesses? I wonder if CBS would let him get away the gay content, but who knows? (Has anyone ever asked Brad Bell about his show’s lack of LGBT representation in portraying the fashion industry? Maybe around the time of the Maya reveal, or was he just patted on the back for his “bravery”?)

If RC had his druthers, he would definitely made Vinny gay, but that would have been just as offensive as what Brad did (making a sidekick gay and obsessed with his straight/bi buddy, then potentially killing him off).

[Forever8]

Ron would totally get a kick out of reading about Angela/Deveney 

I can see him bringing back Felicia and her son to the canvas. Or possibly bring back a divorced Kristen with a new actress in the role. 

He would totally have a gay character being Steffy or Thomas' sidekick who blackmails one of them in exchange for their designs to be featured in a fashion show for Forrester. 

I can see Ron bringing in a old school soap vet to be Bill's mother who is a campy diva to possibly set her up with Eric too. 

 

[titan1978]

I would have loved to see what Curlee would have done with GH- even though GH was not traditionally a family based show like GL, it always had a community feeling until Guza got there for his second round and started breaking the characters up.  During Labine, Luke & Laura had connections to the entire canvas, and you had Luke’s as a kind of hub everyone went to.  Monty’s GH had those friendships and umbrella storylines that often touched all parts of the show at one point or another.

Kay Alden on AMC would have been fun to see too.

I think a pre-possession James Reilly would have been interesting as HW on GH- I know he spent some time there on various writing teams in the past.  I think his plot oriented writing would work well on that show.  Or at the height of the action era of GH, what would someone like Henry Slesar have done to make those stories more thrilling, more dangerous.  He would have loved writing a character like Anna Devane.

Edited July 18, 2021 by titan1978

[MichaelGL]

I've always wondered how Pat Falken Smith would have done on The Doctors; because out of the three that helped to revive General Hospital in the late 70s into early 80s(Marland and DePriest), Smith was the only one who had not written for TD. I assume she would've kept some of the focus on the Dancy family (probably giving them a pub or boarding house to run) while also focusing on the Powers and probably would have put Mike in a more engaging love triangle than Sarah/Colin.  Not sure how she would have written the Aldrich family; such as Steve, Mona, and Carolee. 

Looking back at GL and ATWT in 1999, I'm going to be honest, I think GL would've benefited more from Hogan at the helm. ATWT still had some of it's soul/foundation intact. GL was continuing to descend in quality and getting further away from the show fans had come to know and love. Hogan may have been received better at GL considering he'd have more room there to create his own characters and focus on some of the new ones brought on by B&E. 

[Liberty City]

Speaking in terms of modern times, I've always wondered what Lorraine Broderick could have done to General Hospital had she been hired, instead of Ron Carlivati, in 2012. We might have finally gotten David Hayward to reunite with a returned Anna Devane... and I feel like [some] of the outlandish storylines Carlivati penned would not have happened, and things might've been grounded back into the hospital. I also would have loved to have seen her return to As the World Turns in 2001, instead of Jean Passanante being named co-head writer with Hogan Sheffer.

I would have also liked to have seen what Michele Val Jean could have done for a CBS soap that was not The Bold and the Beautiful.

I also would have enjoyed seeing what these teams could have done on any another soap:

• Marlene McPherson & Darrell Ray Thomas, Jr. (DAYS: August 2011 – August 2012)
• Marlene McPherson & Elizabeth Snyder (AMC: 2013)

It would have been fun, but, on the flip, it could have also backfired slightly. But Alden is such an under-rated writer.

[Forever8]

I'm trying to imagine if Nancy Curlee or Pam Long were brought in 1994/1995 to fix Loving. I wonder what they would've brought to the show?

[soapfan770]

 

 

LOL I spit out my cranberry juice laughing once I got the mere thought of having Quinn or a recast Sheila running around LA in Brooke mask pretending to be Brooke and the story actually working. 
 

The definite pitfall I can see though with Carlivati is that we’d get the same old terrible Thomas/Hope obsession plot like Ben & Ciara at the moment. No thanks. 
 

On the flip side I have always wondered how Marland would’ve done if he ever had to take over Y&R. Or how Reilly would’ve been if he had not gone full on supernatural/full on trashy Jerry Springer tales

[soapfave06]

I would love to see what Reilly would have done with OLTL in the late-90s had he gone there from DAYS. I love everything DAYS I have seen from 1993-96 (I think it got less balanced by 1997 plus the multiple recasts) 

I especially would love to see what he would have done with Viki and Dorian and I think he would have kept the diverse roots intact. 

[Forever8]

I can see Reilly giving RJ a long-lost offspring much faster than he did in the early 2000's with Keri.