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Changes Gives Hope To 'Ryan' Ratings by Connie Passalacqua
The name of the game in soap operas. as in the rest of TV, is ratings. As evidenced by the high rate of turnover, the networks and producers are convinced the quickest way to achieve higher soap numbers is to change a shows headwriter.
No show in recent years has shown such a quick improvement in both ratings and quality as "Ryan’s Hope" since Pat Falken Smith took over the headwriting chores last December. Taking over ailing shows is Miss Smith's specialty and she is known unofficially in the field as the "soap doc." She originally wrote "Days of Our Lives" in its most successful days of the late ’60s and early ’70s and briefly returned to that show in 1981 to create what remains today to be the show's most successful characters. She also took "Guiding Light" over briefly after the regime of its successful headwriter. Doug Marland.
Her most impressive credit, however, remains her threeyear term of headwritmg at "General Hospital" during the era in which the Luke and Laura story took the show and all of daytime TV to new ratings, heights and popularity. Miss Smith has story savvy, as evidenced by the quick turnaround o f " R H . " once daytime's most popular show, which had sunken to a terrible ratings low She has taken the show's best actors and given their character's story lines new importance.
When Miss Smith came to the show. Maggie Shelby was just another teen temptress. Cali Timmins, the young actress with Lolitalike sex appeal who plays her, was being wasted. Miss Smith quickly made several older male characters, such as Roger Coleridge (Ron Hale) and Seneca Beaulac (John Gabriel), become attracted to her. But the most successful change occurred when Miss Smith sensed the chemistry between Miss Timmins and Geoffrey Pierson, who plays Frank Ryan. Maggie’s compassionate yet lustful brotherin-law. Their romance, played out while Frank's wife Jillian (Nancy Addison Altman) was abroad, has been the sexiest of this soap year. Here is a magnetic couple worth tuning in every day to watch.
Miss Smith has also added appealing new characters around the show's Ryan family mainstays. Most of the show's action occurs in Dave Greenberg’s deli, which is next door to the site of Ryan’s Bar. Greenberg is most appealingly played by Scott Holmes The headwriter has also added teenage girls, who have attracted larger audiences in her past shows. Traci Lin plays Pru. a runaway, and Lauren O'Brien plays Kathleen. a Ryan granddaughter, who has ambitions to be a dancer.
By
Paul Raven ·
