ALL: BAD WRITING Moments

[Khan]

That's kind of what I'm saying, @dragonflies.  B&B is littered with characters who have been used so much in the stories that they're used up, preventing the show from really evolving.

[Contessa Donatella]

Ellen Weston, Ellen Weston, Ellen Weston, 

AND not only was Maryanne Carruthers bad & insulting she also created the ... wait for it ... SOCK PUPPET!!! A character actually had to use a sock puppet & pretend he was speaking alternately through it. OY. John Conboy was out of his mind hiring her. 

She wrote that the young adults began tunneling, adventuring & discovering the old tunnels running under the city. So, under is below, right? Well, somehow, they crashed through the ceiling of Michelle & Danny's apartment. But, that would be UP, wouldn't it? This was writing? 

To say that her ideas were not well thought out is the grossest of understatements! 

Maryanne Carruthers was created to hire her good friend Carrie Nye. No derivation is known for sock puppet or tunneling under/over or Eden being a madam or Ben Reade becoming first a sex worker & then a serial killer & finally a suicide of a legacy character. (At least when Matt Bomer speaks of it, it is a hilarious story.) 

Edited May 18 by Contessa Donatella

[dragonflies]

Rena said she was told they couldn't write for Quinn(or didn't know what to write) but yet they have Sheila doing the same stupid things for 3 years now.

 

But they can't write for QUINN??? 

[soapfan770]

What is even worse is the same thing happened to Rick, Macy and Taylor….so I’m glad that Sofer, Eakes, Tylo, Allen, and Young all walked away for good and make Thudley look like the foolish idiot he is. 

[SteelCity]

I was 14 when it came out and I was already writing my own soap with way better storylines and smarter characters! I'm not sure what idiotic kids he was writing for but PASSIONS to me was like an insult to soap and and everything that people make fun of soaps for. It brought to death the modern soap opera.

Edited May 20 by SteelCity
spelling error

[j swift]

I'll say in general, my biggest writing grievance on soaps is when characters telegraph their inner thoughts so obviously toward the audience, but their scene partners completely miss the cue.  For example, when two characters hug, but one is mugging menacingly toward the camera.  IRL, you'd know if you were hugging someone, and they were making faces behind your back.  Or they write for a character to arch their brow whenever their beloved mentions their fraudulence, yet it flies totally under the radar in the room.

Or I was recently re-watching the classic DAYS scene when Bo saves Hope from marrying Larry.  It was fun, but are you going to tell me that not only could Howie Hofstetter fit into Hope's dress, but her entire family couldn't tell it wasn't her under the veil?

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It just makes everyone seem like an idiot that they can't read nonverbal cues that would be clear to a total stranger.  And it is a device that is used far too often by hack writers who don't believe that the fans can infer a character's motivation if it is not made crystal clear.  I sometimes swear cartoons are written with more subtlety.  

But, perhaps even worse, is when a soap that is written as totally silly fluff, suddenly tries to be socially conscious.  For example, you can't have characters return from the dead, and then suddenly try to tell a serious disease story with the same person.  Like when Reva was valiantly struggling with cancer, despite knowing doctors who could clone her and help her return from the dead.  Or why should I care if Mayor Paulina on DAYS has thyroid cancer, if her DA lives with a mad scientist that can perform heart transplants three years after a person dies.  I hate when they try to have it both ways.

Edited May 19 by j swift

[Maxim]

Ok, so this here is the rhetoric and attitude of some soap fans (thank God a minority) all around the internet that I find the most toxic and disturbing. The sheer audacity to blame people like KKL...  for another actress, and actor  characters still being on the show... On the basis you think they are "besties" is just out of this world wrong. This is level 1 of social manipulation and trying to pit people against other people who have done nothing wrong. 

How is KKL being friendly with someone a reason for Sheila to be on the show exactly? Or Liam? Do you even hear what you are writing? This exact same type of thinking and gossiping about a person's Personal choices and then connecting it to their professional life just to fit your narrative... is that same way of operating that got people sent in camps and prisons in communist regimes. People used to die because of people writing reports like that about them. Know that.

KKL being friendly with Anybody has nothing to do with Sheila being on. Or Liam being on.

For example... Liberty Biberty aka the world's most wooden actoooor (and notice me commenting only on acting ability and talent and never on his personal life choices)is not friendly with KKL but he has 100 percent more episodes than Sheila or even Liam and he is on all the time. All the time. How do you explain this? Is he besties with Santa Claus?

So yes, you pushing these deragotary statements about KKL after calling her a Pet on other instances and trying to do this multiple times... Is really mind-blowing.

I bet if it rains today... KKL may be to be blame too. Cuz why not. It's the internet, you can say whatever you want, right? 

I have to say this since some innocent naive person may read what you wrote and think it's the truth.Otherwise at this point I am used to you and don't care about what you think. I also don't argue with people who never accept anything than their own agenda.

I am just stating this for the record and for anyone else.

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Also this is said and done for me. I am not going to be commenting more on this subject. I just can't stand by lies and insinuations.

 

Edited May 19 by Maxim

[NothinButAttitude]

The Brad Carlton/George Kaplan story was utter sh*t. And then the addition of some Jewish art that he had possession of... I don't know what the writers were smoking or snorting but it was a bad batch. I feel like the show was struggling what to do with Brad when it was obvious all they needed to do was put him with Sharon in the quad and remove Jack. Jack and Sharon should've never been an item. This is just one of the many stupid stories after 2005 (the last great year of Y&R) that I could go on and on about. 

It happened on ATWT and GL about the same time--Craig sleeping with Dani and Alan Michael messing with Marina. Piss poor writing choices for two men, who once believed these young women were their daughters at one point. Add Mallet/Marina to the mix (too), as Mallet was Marina's godfather. Craig loved Dani as his own, and then the story didn't even stick. Dani was brought in and ushered out just as quickly. No interaction with Kim. No nothing. It solidified what we thought about the writers--they were writing stuff and hoping it'd stick.  I feel like P&G shows were in an incest slump at that point. 

The Logans losing their sh*t and taking turns at trying to kill or harm Stephanie became a theme in the mid to late 00s. Storm shot Stephanie, which was out of character for him. He always seemed to be the voice of reason in the family. Stephen was obsessed with bringing down Stephanie, and Beth fought with Stephanie, which resulted in her drowning in a pool. I feel like these were all stupid writing choices that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of Storm and Beth; meanwhile, Stephen was written into a corner due to his obsession. It would've been better for them to have remained offscreen. 

[j swift]

The thing that always annoyed me about that story is that they kept referencing the macguffin as a “reliquary”.  However, reliquaries are a Catholic thing that holds the remnants of saints.  I think they meant things like an ark where a Torah is held, or a Tevah which is a symbolic chest.  But, Jewish temples don't commonly have reliquaries.

[Maxim]

I agree with 99.9 percent of this. This, what you described... are some of the most off-putting techniques writers... sadly still use. 

[Planet Soap]

Everything Sheila Carter since 2003 (except 2005) has sucked.

The Sugar plastic surgery storyline was STOOPID and to duplicate it with Phyllis was even stupider.

On the current B&B, if they want Sheila long term she should be written as a trouble maker woman with unstable tendencies, sort of like early Michelle Stafford/Sandra Nelson's Phyllis. They managed to make Sheila long-term during her first B&B run. Turning her into a full-blown murderous psyco writes her into a corner. 

What was the necessity of inventing another child for Sheila, when Erica, Diana, Rider, Daisy, and even (not her son) Scott Jr. all exist. It's clear that Finn was his own character at first  then they decided to connect him with Sheila. Otherwise, it would have made more sense to just have Finn be Scott Jr and to have Sheila still obsessed with him. That would open the door for Lauren to come back.

Edited May 20 by Planet Soap

[Dr Neil Curtis]

The Death of Nick Fallon

[SteelCity]

That also shows us a problem with giving characters too many unnecessary kids. It's done for shock and goes nowhere. Where the hell is the Taylor/Brooke baby? The other issue it presents is the issue with making everyone related. I hate that we have no "Around Towners" anymore. That's what makes characters like Nicole (DAYS) work. She can be a romantic wildcard. That's why a family of friends style kinda works too.