When he wasn't doing that he could be captivating, and probably still can be. His work late in OLTL and then at GH varied wildly in those swings from good to awful. But he got very enamored of his own hype a long time ago. Hopefully time away might change that.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Vee

1 minute ago, Vee said:

When he wasn't doing that he could be captivating, and probably still can be. His work late in OLTL and then at GH varied wildly in those swings from good to awful. But he got very enamored of his own hype a long time ago. Hopefully time away might change that.

I hope so!

From what I've read, Douglas Marland was never the type to criticize other writers in the business. He always encouraged creativity. I want to be like that. I WANT to encourage Ron Carlivati - and Michele Val Jean, and Josh Griffith, and Bradley Bell, and Chris Van Etten and Elizabeth Korte, and every other individual who works BTS on these shows - because I know how grueling the business can be, especially when you're being asked to do your best with no time, no money, and no real support from above; so it's always a miracle they're able to get anything on the air, let alone anything remotely watchable. (Besides, picking these people apart everyday doesn't accomplish anything for me except feed into my delusions of grandeur; and the closer I get to middle age, the less inclined I am to with my delusions and fantasies).

But, dammit, even with knowing what I DO know about the levels of creative and other interference that occur on an everyday basis, there's still no [!@#$%^&*] excuse for these shows (or for the folks who write, direct and produce them) to be so godawful. Life as a soap creative wasn't any easier for Marland (or Agnes Nixon, or Bill Bell, or even St. Irna). They had to crank out product under similar constraints. Yet, even their worst days remain more enjoyable than what I'm slogging through today; and that's because they didn't give into complacency, laziness or defeatism. They didn't waste their time and ours on petty bullshit, because they were too thin-skinned to take criticism from viewers who are intelligent enough to know good from bad; and they didn't use their stories and scripts as excuses to pat themselves on their backs for being soooo creative either. They just kept their heads down and did the work.

Edited 39 minutes ago39 min by Khan

I know it would never happen but I wish they would have asked him about his clearly personal grudge with Sean Kanan on GH, after he spoke out about the writing for AJ, the personal fat jokes etc