Soap Storylines/Moments You Would Have Written Differently

[Mitch64]

I like all your ideas except for Mike being killed by the Santos. Mike and Alex would need to get together and leave town together but visit sporadically to help, or in Alex's case, sometimes hinder the rest of the cast.  I do like the ideal of Hope coming to town with AM. I would put Hope with Ross, and AM after Blake to form a weird triangle, with the end goal being that Ross and Hope would be the new matriarch and patriarch of SF. Could never happen, the Blossies would go nuts and the problem was that the fangroups had TPTB so in their hands that they eventually would rather write characters off (Ross) then move in a new direction.

[Khan]

It really broke my heart to see how certain fan bases held GL hostage in the late '90's and throughout the 2000's.  In times past, you could have counted on GL being one show (with Y&R being another) that wouldn't cave to pressure like that.

[Fevuh]

Manny.  Never got it.

[Paul Raven]

I'm not completely up to speed on the Alex North story on Days, but would it have worked better if Alex had have been involved with Samantha, who was pretending to be Marlena?

Or was it just so ridiculous that no tweaking would have helped?

[Spoon]

Agree.  And Rassie too.

[John]

On GH there would have been no FLUKE. It would be Bill Eckert who survived but wanted revenge and kidnapped Luke & took over his life. Sly & Jenny could also have been part of that arc. 

 

After Luke is freed I still would have had Patricia there for the reveal that Luke killed his parents

 

I also would have Kept Patricia Alive on recurring status and Dee Wallace was open to that.

Edited March 16, 2022 by John

[carolineg]

Probably too ridiculous, but maybe?  I think for me personally as a viewer if the show just wiped it away as Marlena having no memories of it because it wasn't her it could work because all the pieces would line up if Sam was pretending to be Marlena pretty much.  Plus it wouldn't negate all Marlena's marriages, made her a battered wife, made her so traumatized she forgot him for 30 years, etc and Alex could have not even known it wasn't Marlena and not believed he was deceived.  No matter how you spin it-it was a terrible, embarrassing waste of Wayne, but thinking about it I could buy that. 

It also would have helped if John acted less like an obsessed weirdo (he was right, but he was acting way too intense) and worked with Roman, Bo, and/or Abe to figure it out instead of basically stalking Marlena and telling her she was wrong

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.  It also would have helped if Marlena didn't act like she had to stay married to Alex and disregarded everything John and her entire family were saying as well.  There were multiple problems with the story.

[will81]

Who Shot Jill? on Y&R

I would have made the shooter Katherine. She basically says if she did it she wouldn't care and it would have made the ending that much better and maybe made Kay seem more unhinged towards Jill, but also maybe she could have had some guilt that would explain her tolerating Jill more.

I mostly would have played the story the same way, except Sven didn't do it. He only thinks he did it, as he keeps having flashbacks to being in the bathroom with the gun. In reality he found Jill, picked up the gun and ran off and blacked out. He later plants the gun at Jack's. 

Jack still takes the fall as Katherine went to visit Jack first before seeing Jill and she accidentally takes Jack's gun in her drunken state.

Through the summer it would have been great to see Kay slowly remember through hazy flashbacks, but Sven also thinking he remembers shooting Jill as well. As she gets closer to pointing the finger at him, Sven still kidnaps her. 

After Jill is rescued, it would have been amazing to see the real culprit (Katherine) flashback to everything that really happened, or did it? Is Kay's mind playing tricks on her? I think leaving it up in the air, but making Katherine the official shooter on paper would have been great. 

[DramatistDreamer]

Over the years, I have proposed or "spitballed' things I would have written for As The World Turns, things I would have done differently, particularly in the final 12 years of the series' run in the ATWT thread. 

I'll just highlight one story that I wished the show would have revisited-there was a character that was married to one of the show's longstanding characters, Barbara Ryan, who, after being diagnosed with a degenerative and ultimately fatal disease, left in a hot air balloon and was assumed to have later died. Well, you could probably guess part of what I would have done. 

There is a syndrome called "locked in syndrome" which basically keeps  sufferers of the illness "trapped" in their own bodies, unable to move (beyond the twitch of an eye perhaps). Unlike Angela Forrester on B&B, who could grunt (and who was an imposter who was faking anyway), I would have Gunnar, Barbara's assumed dead husband slowly regain his ability to speak after decades of care by doctors and with the  recent efforts of a nurse who has come in over the last two years and become devoted to his care (and also has fallen in love with Gunnar). The man who had been a John Doe gradually is able to communicate and the doctors seek to help him uncover his identity and reconnect to his past and his family, including his biological son Dusty Donovan and his ex-wife (were they officially divorced?) Barbara Ryan at the precise time when Barbara is set to marry Henry Coleman. 

(I also did a treatment years ago about how to bring back a legacy character on a different soap Y&R, which I also proposed a medical mixup and "locked in syndrome" as a possible story mechanism).

I always thought the writing in the final decade of ATWT was far too convoluted, yet lacking complexity, especially in a way that made sense.

Anyway, I saw this news item in the NYT and it reminded me all over again of my storyline concepts that I had years ago.

This story, with the inclusion of somewhat shady research doctors would be a great addition to any such story. They could mix in with the devoted nurse who might develop ulterior motives for maybe keeping Gunnar from reconnecting with his past. It would also complicate things for Henry, as well as Barbara, Dusty, and anyone in Oakdale who remembers Gunnar. Throw in Vienna Hyatt who is still in love with Henry and has an interest in seeing him happy (but with her) and it could have been fun.

[Paul Raven]

Yes, Gunnar's return was a story waiting to be told on ATWT, especially as Barbara was a long term character who had been through a lot and this fitted into her history.

Your outline sounds interesting and very 'old school' soap.

However ATWT at that time would have probably cast a totally unsuitable ABC actor on a short term contract to be a vengeful ex who caused havoc and was quickly forgotten!

[ClassicSoapsFan]

Without a doubt, writing in ALS to Roger Thrope's story when Michael Zaslow became ill and making it an end story for Roger and Holly on GL. Instead of recasting Roger and having MADD make that disrespectful statement about him.

Edited March 29, 2022 by ClassicSoapsFan

[ClassicsSoapFan]

I would have liked to see Mike and Ed Bauer, Hope and Alan-Michael return and have a Bauer story to wrap up Guiding Light.

 

The treatment of Lisa and her portrayer Eileen Fulton on ATWT was awful. She put the show on the map in the 1960's. Also, Penny should have comeback for Nancy's memorial, and it should have been a multiple episode thing. We didn't need Katie and Juicy Janet and Liberty.

[ClassicSoapsFan]

Making Nancy's passing mostly about Katie was a sin and a shame. I forgot if Julianne Moore was unavailable at that point but it would have been nice to have Frannie back for it instead of...whatever that was with Bob and Kim's anniversary.
I agree about Lisa, having her only react to Lucinda and John in the finale is a culmination of what went wrong with the show in the last roughly 15 years.

[DramatistDreamer]

I know, ATWT was in such a sad state in its final decade. I had to take breaks because it would make me feel highly agitated at times, by the end it felt depressing, tbh. It was almost a full year after the show went off the air that I actually watched the final episodes that someone posted on YouTube. Maybe had I stuck with the show, the show wouldn't have looked so stark to me but going back to look, everything looked dystopian compared with many of the vintage episodes.

All they would have had to do was have Lisa decide to start dating again. Ask Casey or someone to helo her create an online dating profile, which Casey, in order to protect. his grandmother, changes some details on her profile. Have her go on a few dates, nearly lose hope until she starts corresponding with someone she clicks with. The person writes to admit that his online profile isn't completely truthful but he wants to meet her. Lisa is skeptical and discusses this with Kim, Casey overheard this and decides to come clean and admit that he wasn't completely honest in her profile. Lisa is upset by this but decides to meet with the stranger from the online dating platform. Only he isn't a stranger, as Lisa soon discovers...

But sadly, the producers of ATWT at that time had little regard for Eileen/Lisa. A damn shame since Lisa was the original "bad gal" of daytime television. Her character did things that were unheard of for a woman character in the daytime.

[ClassicsSoapFan]

@ClassicSoapsFan and @DramatistDreamer

I agree with all that you have said! It is so sad ATWT ended the way it did! 

Irna Philips and Douglas Marland  would be turning in their graves.

Call me a bitter Oakdale fan!