B&B: How to fix the mess that the show has become?

[Soapsuds]

Discuss

I say scrap all the stories and start from scratch.

Get rid of a lot of useless characters.

[Maxim]

There is only one answer to this question. I don't care about cosmetics and this and that.

CHANGE THE HEAD WRITER. This one is VERY VERY TIRED and out of ideas and out of touch with reality. He writes about mints, toes and staplers and expects us to BELIEVE a man sleeping with a drugged girl without consent is NOT RAPE.

New head writer - someone that can actually think ahead and plot. Not change the direction every 2 days. That is the only chance Bold's got. At this point the characters or the stories... even if they are completely wiped out and re-started - it will end up even worse, since Bradley DOES NOT KNOW how to WRITE new THINGS and GOD FORBID new characters. Every new character on this soap pretty much FLOPS.  He doesn't know how to write for the new generation and he doesn't know how to write ANYTHING other than SHOCKING sex Scandal.

It's time he starts going on vacations and living his best life and leave Bold to someone that can actually write. The past 3 years have been proof of how BAD it has gotten. These 3 seasons are cringe after cringe after cringe. After Cringe.

NEW W R I T E R. Period.

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[vetsoapfan]

All four of the remaining soaps need to replace their head writers, overhaul their stories and structure, and prune away a large number of useless characters from their casts.

I'd say DAYS and GH even more so than B&B (which needs massive help as well, of course).

[NothinButAttitude]

Is it bad that I feel that none of the remaining four soaps can be saved (at this point)? 

Honestly, I am at this point where I feel that they need to put the four shows out to pasture and start fresh with The Gates ushering in a group of new soaps. 

Brad will never leave B&B, but if he does, the show will be so horrible that the person who comes in behind won't have anything to fix b/c it'll be rubble at that point. 

[asafi]

none of the remaining four soaps can be saved at this point

TPTB need to put the four shows out to pasture and start fresh with The Gates ushering in a group of new soaps. 

[Maxim]

I don't agree with the sentiment that these remaining soaps can't be saved and they should be wiped out to start new with the Gates and different shows in their place.

The power of soap operas is that they can go for years and years and a lot of people who have watched back when they loved the show, still do... out of sheer melancholy or just habit. So, wiping all these shows and starting 4 new ones will be a big failure in my book. There won't be that much new viewers willing to start and engage with 4 different new soaps at the same time. At least at this point in the game. 

Of course these old soap operas can be saved... some of the historic ones have gone for more than 6 decades and there were plenty of moments where the scripts were bad and the show was tanking BUT were resurrected by a new HW, producer and etc.

And I still believe a show with Bold's cast can be wonderful if just given the chance. I will say this, not wanting to trigger anyone, but for example... someone like Patrick Mulcahey could head-write it, if Bradley is willing to step out. Patrick understand women and women's psyche... and Bold is women centered show and has always been. And yes, I said - SOMEONE like... not necessary Patrick... but someone who understands the material. And Bradley does not understand women and their souls and inner worlds. 

Now if I have to say the cosmetics and the bits and pieces of what should be done... without change of HW... if that is the question... THEN. 

1. Bold should get back to the roots of fashion - there should be more fashion battles, fashion feuds and etc. The fashion industry is full of intrigue and scandals in real life. They can take their inspiration from real life events. 

2. New script writers for better dialogue and substance. If Bradley is not going to step out... at least we need some fresh new dialogue writers that can make the show pop and sound better. At this point the dialogue is repetitive at best and... absurd and comical at worst. We have weeks of episodes in which the same dialogue is repeated for 5 days straight. I am not exaggerating. If I have to hear one more time Sheila is Finn's birth mother, I will start screaming. 

3. More diverse background characters, diverse body-types and GAY main characters, that can actually... - BRING a lot of new viewers. I strongly believe that. There are franchises that completely rely on the gay community for viewership. It's out of this world STUPID to have a show about the fashion world and no GAY LEAD. It's 2024, not the 1950s.

4. Bradley needs to focus on bringing justice to characters that have been living in this show without karma for years.  For example... I would love to see Brooke in complete ruins and someone make her pay for everything she did - and not just to cry for weeks and then everyone forgives her. She needs to live what she made Stephanie live through - she needs to lose her whole family and existence. I want a powerful storyline like that. And THEN... bring her back slowly. I would even do a storyline in which Brooke actually loses Ridge to someone young, fresh and more sexy than her... and then in... hate and spite... kill Ridge. I would end the Ridge era with Brooke killing him. It would be iconic. She would feel sorry for this for years to come... but it would be better than the drivel we are getting now.  And this leads me to point 5.

5. Characters like Ridge... Liam... even Eric... I will cut and their replacements or even their absence will bring a breath of fresh air.

6. We need a strong matriarch manipulator-bitch. And this is not Brooke! Will never be Brooke. KKL is my favorite, you all know that, but Brooke is not the matriarch of Bold. Bold has never survived past losing it's original HBIC. I can't believe Bradley hasn't created a new one already. It is showing in the way the show is floating... into nothingness.

7. And this is the the point I will regret saying but - Bradley should stick to what he CAN write - and that is sex scandals with a twist. At least they kept some viewers entertained in the past. Bold needs to lighten up again and be the show it was in 1999 to 2005 - fun, sexy, taboo, hilarious, badly written, but addictive. What I am saying is - Bradley stop thinking you can tell a serious deep storyline about dying - you can't. Stop trying to tell a story about drugs and mints and consent - you can't write it. Stop trying to re-deem absurd characters.

8. No more cartoon network villains. I'm sorry but these past years, I have overeaten on Sheila laughing and changing Brooke's bottles, Sheila shooting her son and Steffy, just because..., Deacon googling Sugar, toes, coming back from the dead, smiling, laughing... I know what you did last summer type of knife stalking scenes. I am done with the low budged slasher move storylines. I AM DONE.

9. The storylines should not come and go in a chaotic senseless order. What I mean - sometimes he writes 3-4 episodes with Luna, then Luna disappears for 2 weeks, then she is back again crying... same with all the other storylines... This random direction-change makes me not want to watch the next episode. I want to see the storyline I am watching for more than 3-4 episodes just to then WAIT weeks. This is tired and lazy and stupid. 

10. Bring back TAYLOR F-cking Forrester.  @Jeff

 

 

[kalbir]

B&B has been a lost cause for the last 20-25 years. We all know Bradley did not inherit his father's talent. If we're keeping it real here, it should have ended with Susan Flannery retirement.

[DRW50]

What defines the show even more than the tired incestuous stories and characters is that it was born when LA and soaps had a certain glamour - that glamour mostly faded by the mid '90s, and Brad Bell kept the show juiced by tripling down on increasingly OTT plots. And those just don't click anymore, so you have no real foundation and no real future. 

But aside from that glamour, and a few icons like Susan Flannery and Darlene Conley, and some others further down the ladder that I appreciated when I used to watch [like KKL, Bobbie Eakes, Colleen Dion, etc.) I think B&B has also been one of the most generic of soaps. Due to this generic nature, I don't think it would take as much to improve the show as it would the other three soaps.

[NothinButAttitude]

But Brad has always forgotten that Los Angeles was a character (itself) on the show, and the LA nowadays is not the LA of the 80s and 90s. The fluff days are over.

Hell, most people I know are trying to leave LA because they say it is too expensive and changes in global warming.

That aside, I think the only way to "fix" B&B would be a total reboot. Keep the name and dump all the characters. I truly think all the stories for this show has been told with this batch of characters. 

I love your optimism first and foremost. But I think I am in this funk with the current crop of soaps where I don't see it for any of them. 

After implementing everything you mapped out, the network might as well invest in a new batch of soaps. By the time you remove and change stuff, the audience who still watches will have moved on. We may agree to disagree, but the remaining four soaps are dead in the water. They are antiquated relics of the past.

The remaining four soaps have not tried to adapt nowadays. They've allowed streaming and primetime shows to capitalize on what made soaps hot back then. 

I'm looking to the future with The Gates. I pray this show is progressive in storytelling and that CBS allows this show to go where no U.S. soap has before. 

And what I truly wish is that soaps would go back to being 30 minutes because none of them know how to handle an hour now. Hell, I'd even suggest trimming the days of the week from 5 to 3 days a week. 

Lastly, I do think that the soap genre can have a new, multi-generational audience; however, soaps would have to stray from the current models and revert to the 50s-mid 70s models: small & intimate casts, envelope-pushing topical issues, detailed and logical storytelling, and production teams who want to be there. 

[asafi]

So true! 

[Maxim]

How exactly a reboot erasing all characters will help a show which biggest problem is an untalented head writer? The characters are only a product of this bad head writer... Give Bradley a new slate of people and he will turn them to ashes in a year. We all know that. So I disagree. Respectfully. You can't pain the skin a beautiful color when inside there is sickness growing. It will not work.

On the argument how implementing everything I mapped out will be more expensive or harder than a new show... Hmm... not true again, at least in my perspective. Most of the points I have mentioned are mostly connected to getting back to the previous more successful storyline-types. Going back to basics in the most elementary way of speaking. I think this will be even cheaper and better than having to shoot absurd Scream 5 action scenes, using fake toes and etc. What has been happening lately.

Some other points are just basic casting. And I am not saying that much should change immediately. It should happen slowly, but yeah, at least 1 gay romance between two guys would be great for a start. That's just one new actor or two new ones. I don't think that's too much to invest.

I think what I have mapped out is just an example how without major money-change or even talent change, the show could be better. Yes, the new script writer-or-two is a bigger budget change, but I think Brad can manage that. Writers are not paid millions... Which is SAD actually... Because they should be paid more... But yes, my argument is that it's not that hard to pay them and you don't need to make a huge budget cut. Brad can even bring back someone from the past. Because the current Script writer situation is BAD.

Even if God himself came to help Bradley, Bold's maximum quality level will always be 5/10. Because it's the world of Bradley Bell. Right now it's 1/10. My ideas are just that... my ideas... nothing serious... but as the topic was asking "how to fix the show" and not "Should all soaps be erased in place of new ones"... I was answering the title of the topic. If someone asked the second question I could go into a different discussion.

And resume of what I said - I don't think the things I mapped out are harder to implement than a new show. I have been in the acting business and even behind the camera - I have directed 2 documentaries years ago... and I have maaany friends that are making tv shows and etc. Deleting the existing soap operas for new ones would be a maniacal effort and it's not possible in this day and age where this genre is barely breathing... In 10 years, if shows like The Gates and etc. work... maybe... But... in 2024, erasing all the remaining 4... to open new shows will lead to the sinking of the genre. That's what I think.

 

[dragonflies]

The ONLY way to save BOLD is to get rid of Brad, Casey, MM and anyone who is part of the drivel they keep shoveling to us 

[NothinButAttitude]

Again, we'll agree to disagree. At this point, there is nothing wrong with cutting losses with the remaining for soaps and everything tied to them--actors, production teams, etc. All these shows died back in the early 00s.

Brad isn't going anywhere. His mediocre writing compels something with international audiences, so he'll continue to do the bare minimum. 

SONY will keep shuffling the same floppy production teams between DAYS & Y&R.

ABC will keep Frank and whoever he wants as head writer as they keep the show cheaply done.

None of these shows will recapture their true essence again. So I stand firm in letting them go and starting anew. Folks swore scripted dramas and comedies wouldn't bounce back years ago, but look at them now. They've been in a renaissance for the past 5+ years. Soaps can easily do the same but not with the current crop. 

But if I am proven wrong, I'll gladly eat crow. 

[Soapsuds]

This is a big understatement.

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I say what writing?

[NothinButAttitude]

Exactly. 

But for some reason, they stay swimming in that international money. So Brad will continue the same stories: 

Steffy v. Hope over men 

Brooke & Ridge marital issues and reunion

Sheila plotting to win over Finn and getting foiled each time

Everyone else getting 1-2 scenes a month

Forrester being in some peril that goes nowhere & is wrapped up in 2 days