2025: The Directors and Writers Thread

[Mitch64]

I think that..nails it!!!!

[Taoboi]

Thank you, Vee, for the scream I let out in public at the INSIDIOUS shoutout.

[TEdgeofNight]

Unfortunately, @Vee will never achieve the success of JFP. She’s got 11 Emmys. Remind me how many Emmys you have? 

[titan1978]

And every show she leaves is so unstable it takes years to recover, if it recovers at all.

Objectively I can say she has a good eye for the look of the shows she is producing, and she knows how to film drama and strive for good acting. I don’t really fault her casting when it comes to new talent, her FOJ’s sometimes fit and sometimes don't though. She also interferes with writers to the detriment of her shows, favors problematic men’s egos on set and gives way less respect to women performers. Her work is often thematically very dark, and misogynistic.

Something happened to her a year or so into Guiding Light. The show starts to come unraveled, she basically forced out the writing team that had been bringing the show success. She starts manipulating things like focus groups to get what she wants, and starts building the shows around the men (Buzz as example) and weak women (Lucy). She took over OLTL and tried to fully direct the writing while producing the show. On GH her instincts were so disastrous that they forced Guza/Pratt on her and gave them Associate Producer titles for more money and some agency in the story. And even then, it took until the Brenda return to fully save her ass. And on top of that she is majorly responsible for the show losing Sarah Brown, Amber Tamblyn, Genie Francis, and not securing Vanessa for a longer stay. And now that we know Guza didn’t want to kill Alan off, her fingerprints are all over that one IMO.

The only thing I respect about her outside some casting that Mark Teschner brought to her is that she recognized Erika Slezak was too important at OLTL and still too vital to put out to pasture as only the mother of Joey, Jessica, and Kevin, and hand wringing sister of Todd.

Emmy’s aren’t everything. Y&R had been number one for decades and truthfully should have been dethroned multiple times but habit and name recogniztion count for something.

[TEdgeofNight]

@titan1978 About 80% of what you said is untrue. But believe what you want. 

[Vee]

It's cute he thinks I haven't had him on Ignore for what, a decade? Oh, no, almost half that I guess. Maybe if we start reporting him for his multiple rule violations our mod team will finally dispose of him and he can go tell Bluesky or Soapcentral all about how he met Ed Trach 200 years ago.

Edited 4 hours ago by Vee

[titan1978]

I believe she is talented and maligned for a reason. I fundamentally disagree with what she thinks soaps should be. And I am far from a traditionalist when it comes to the genre. There are many direct sources of her behavior and bad decisions, and my own eyes watching ratings decline after sweeps bumps on her her shows, it’s pretty clear she survived in power, especially at GH, specifically because the genre was declining.

I will not further derail this thread with JFP unless it is pertinent. But I finish with this. She was asked directly over the years if she regretted killing Maureen off from Guiding Light. And for years she said she did. But someone pinned her down when she was at Y&R the first time, Michael Logan perhaps, and she admitted what she regretted and would never do again is making the audience care so much about a character right before killing then off. The tragic nature of the story leading into killing Maureen is what she regrets, not that she misjudged the audience, or that she didn’t have the foresight to see how destabilizing that was going to be for that particular show.  

 

[Vee]

Engaging for a moment with the topic with titan, Jill is a skilled line producer who maneuvered herself well and leveraged key veterans at various shows for maximized award potential even with lousy stories or taste. But she's never been the creative she fancied herself to be without talented writers behind her, and as an OLTL fan it was fitting to see her knocked down in power and influence after she nearly destroyed GH, the ABC flagship, in under a year when left to her own devices. (Megan McTavish may be insane but her comments about Jill and having to grudgingly write in Kale Browne three days a week at her behest were funny.)

Like a lot of the industry she's got certain skills, but she also has a faded bag of tricks that has been mouldering since 1992. Which is a part of why it was such a hoot to see Jill appear out of the shadows like a leviathan in that video. Of course she's at it again. Who will be the next blonde white chick named Courtney in 2026? Riveting stuff for Gen Z.

Edited 2 hours ago by Vee

[ranger1rg]

You know what's crazy? Even though JFP ultimately has been a disaster at many soaps, and even though all the negatives about her are true, I'd still prefer her over Josh Griffith at Y&R.

She can take over for him anytime, and I will applaud.