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For your sake, @Errol, I'm glad Dan O'Connor knows about you and about this board.  I don't always say or show how much I appreciate being a part of SON, but I do.  Especially now that I have learned to make the Ignore User feature my friend, lol.

Furthermore, I can tell from that interview that O'Connor seems to be a very friendly, down-to-earth guy...but that won't change my assessment of him as a (head) writer. 

I wish I could be more like Douglas Marland and cheer on everyone who works in the industry, regardless of talent, but I can't.  I've gotta call crap when I see it.  And it doesn't matter whether it's crap, because of the usual network/studio interference; or it's crap, because the writer(s) simply can't tell good writing from bad.  Crap is crap, and a lot of what I watched of Chris and Dan's work on GH was crap.

And if the industry ever slipped up and gave THIS crank a job as a writer for one of these shows, rest assured, I wouldn't delete one single, solitary word of what I've said over the many, many, MANY years that I've been ranting about these shows online.  Not even if I turned out to be a bigger hack than Chuck Pratt, Megan McTavish, Dena Higley and Hogan Sheffer COMBINED.  And you have my word on that. 

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And if it wasn't, then the husband must be really confused, lol.

Edited by Khan
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@ErrolThat was a good interview that touched on what could be sensitive topics, you handled it deftly by keeping a fun tone!

I have said many times over the years that I think Chris and Dan had decent ideas, and if FV and Ron hadn’t jettisoned 95% of the prior writing team, those would have made good stories for these times. At least twice I thought their show was actually good, and both times nearly all the stories that were working were either dropped or pivoted. And in both instances all of a sudden Michael Easton and Roger Howarth took center stage again, which was one of the signs that Frank had intervened in my eyes. Were they great? No. But again, what could have been with stronger supporting writing we just won’t know.

 

That was the best Sam!

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This is generally how I feel. But I still don't want either of them to be HWs again lol. I'm not over how Mulcahey was treated, and the show actually having intelligent dialogue again.

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Who are you speaking of, writers that were jettisoned? 

And, the thing is there were so many times when D&C didn't have any ideas, none at all! And, so many other times their ideas were just drek. 

Like, after the strike, they had zero ideas. They went around the studio, from dept. head to dept. head, trying to pick their brains, looking for something to write about. I mean, those people all had jobs to do & were doing them & D&C are, like blah blah blah, yack yack yack & FINALLY, they have a thought, it's a default position but at least it is a thought & that is, "I KNOW Let's have Chase propose to Brook Lynn! And, that is how this new married couple came to be. 

I don't mean to be a downer. But, I guess I am still smarting from the treatment Patrick received when he is one who is just filled with ideas, because his ideas, stem from character, families, backstories, IOW, inherency!!! 

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I am of the mind that most soap head writers have decent and/or good ideas but aren't able to execute them properly.  Whether it's network interference, guarantees of actors, cast changes, budget concerns, or just not being to follow through and pace properly.  I know that's not true for every writer, but most HW's have shown at least enough competence to get where they are at some point.

Anyhow, I could imagine it would be hard for DOC and CVE to come up with stories for so many cast members specifically those that don't inspire them.  With FV's insistence on using the same set of actors and the inability to be able to get rid of characters, I have to assume is was a difficult task.

I didn't really enjoy much of their work, but considering how PM was treated, I do cut DOC and CVE a bit more slack.  I get the feeling we never got to see all their work because it didn't fall in line with Frank's vision.

 

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Someone with good story ideas and more than likely great execution YES.

 

Though I know good and well if you were writing Y&R JM would be written out under your watch. JOKING!!! lol. 

I also agree. Cuz I know we had an excellent flow the February Sweeps that had Portia's wedding and things were popping. And I want to say the same for the February Sweeps before that. And it was clear come March that someone had derailed it and I am sure I went off about it because GH was Must See TV at that point. All that momentum only to be stalled and characters no one cared about being center stage. Clearly sabotage.

 

Most def the best Sam. KM leaning into her Livvie Locke roots and being the villainess/schemer you love to hate. I miss her in that role. 

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Agreed.

February 2023 was the best sweeps GH had in years. And I thought Chris and Dan had a lot of good ideas over the years.

IMO, their biggest problem, along with Frank’s obvious interference, was with plotting and pacing.

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What was left of the Guza team that was supporting Garin Wolf/Shelly Altman was replaced by supporting writers from OLTL or people that worked on OLTL (with the exception of a couple of newbies) when Frank and Ron arrived/within the first year. Some of them had been in positions for a decade or longer. The day to day writing on GH was much stronger than OLTL. Korte was the only member of note to remain. Dan and Chris also came from OLTL, as did Passanante. If you look at Ron’s first six months, it was a hybrid of his ideas with better written scripts and the camp toned way down.

My statement stands- the show hasn’t been winning any writing awards (until now) since that team left because the scripts are bland as hell and lacked any character that the actors didn’t bring to the set themselves.

Well one period of time was when they fired Genie during the first run for mayor storyline. I can’t remember everything that was going on, but I remember the show was pretty good all around, she was front and center against Ned, and then it just all blew up (her being asked to take recurring in the middle of a lead storyline made zero sense from a writing perspective, that had quick budget cut written all over it).

I really did like Livvie, shame they didn’t just ignore the vampire stuff and bring her to GH. The show could have used Nolan North’s character too at that point. He would have made a great antagonist for Robin and Patrick down the road.

 

The multiple derailments of any story for Trina.

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