22 hours ago, te. said:

TBH, it seemed like they early on would struggle to bring in people outside the "core" group, so all these characters would ultimately be jettisoned off sooner or later. The Schusters were just the first ones after the first storyline resolution, but then you had all the Chernaks, Fowlers, Webbers, Winters, Jills and Rachels that only seemed to pass through the show. Maybe more episodes per week could've eased more characters into staying (though I do like how broken so many characters that pass through end up getting). 

Barbara Parkins said as much in an interview once, that the show kept sidelining the core characters in favor of (ultimately) irrelevant newbies who would take attention away from the core...and then get written out and replaced, themselves, by even more irrelevant and temporary side characters. She theorized that the show might not have begun to falter if TPTB had made an effort to concentrate more ofnthe vets, in whom the audience had an emotional investment.

22 hours ago, te. said:

Unfortunately, losing Allison that early really did a trick on the show - Rachel was sort of working, but then Leigh Taylor-Young got pregnant and they wrote her out, leaving the Carsons without much to do again. I do wonder if the show should've just recast Allison and been done with it, then again, once Jill enters the scene the show is so obviously old hat with the changing 60s. The endless droning about the scandal of her being a single mom while they're also doing more "modern" teen storylines / "race" politics was an interesting contrast at least.

Yes, the sudden push towards social relevance ended up being jarring, and clashed with the show's original romanticized, almost lyrical tone.

Edited September 12Sep 12 by vetsoapfan

3 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

She theorized that the show might not have begun to falter if TPTB had made an effort to concentrate more ofnthe vets, in whom the audience had an emotional investment.

Weirdly, I think both - if there were more hours in the week, then maybe they could've developed both the new characters and the old ones. But as it was, they were fighting for airtime and the old characters won.

 

 

31 minutes ago, te. said:

Weirdly, I think both - if there were more hours in the week, then maybe they could've developed both the new characters and the old ones. But as it was, they were fighting for airtime and the old characters won.

Yes, eventually, TPTB at PP would discard various newbies while keeping a lot of the original players around. Parkins' point was that during the periods when extraneous characters were hogging up air time, fans were unhappy. I agree that if the show wanted to enlarge the cast so much, going to five nights a week would probably have made the expansion more palpable to the audience who disliked seeing their original favorites on the sidelines.

Never resolving the missing-Allison situation was troublesome enough, but firing Dorothy Malone was a major blunder, IMHO. Barbara Rush and Elizabeth Walker just did not exude the "je ne sais quoi" that Malone and Farrow had, and Marsha and Carolyn Russell were just not that interesting.

So... DAYS OF OUR LIVES, how do you feel about it.

6 hours ago, te. said:

So... DAYS OF OUR LIVES, how do you feel about it.

Do you reeeeeeeeeeally want me to tell you, LOL?😬🫢🙃

In my honest and brutal opinion, it died in 1982 after Pat Falken Smith was fired, and its remains began being cannibalized with the advent of JER.

Some of what has been presented to the audience since then has been inexplicably sick and sadistic, and huge portions of the once-mature and erudite, sophisticated soap have just been embarrassingly, painfully STOOPID.

(This is me being restrained in my commentary, ROTL.)🤣

5 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

Do you reeeeeeeeeeally want me to tell you, LOL?😬🫢🙃

In my honest and brutal opinion, it died in 1982 after Pat Falken Smith was fired, and its remains began being cannibalized with the advent of JER.

Some of what has been presented to the audience since then has been inexplicably sick and sadistic, and huge portions of the once-mature and erudite, sophisticated soap have just been embarrassingly, painfully STOOPID.

(This is me being restrained in my commentary, ROTL.)🤣

I want to hear the unrestrained version. ❤️

😂

22 minutes ago, Maxim said:

I want to hear the unrestrained version. ❤️

😂

Bwahahahahaha! The explosion would burn down the house, no lie.😂

1 minute ago, vetsoapfan said:

Bwahahahahaha! The explosion would burn down the house, no lie.😂

 

11 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

Bwahahahahaha! The explosion would burn down the house, no lie.😂

Do share it with us. I could probably use it to describe how I feel about the current state of Emmerdale.    

@Maxim, that GIF is hilarious...and illustrates exactly why I came to loathe the pod version of DAYS that was borne (or should I say spawned?) under JER.

6 minutes ago, I Am A Swede said:

Do share it with us. I could probably use it to describe how I feel about the current state of Emmerdale.    

Let's just say that your contempt for Emmerdale probably corresponds to my animosity towards DAYS, and for several, similar reasons.

The slight difference being, at least Emmerdale did not go full-out, sci-fi/supernatural camp.

When I actually have the time and the energy to write my encyclopedia-length tirade about how TPTB destroyed a once-great show, you'll be the first to know.😉

Do you find any redeemable qualities in the current version of Emmerdale? Are there any elements, plots or characters you would want to keep? Or do you think the show is simply beyond repair and redemption at this point?

8 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

Do you find any redeemable qualities in the current version of Emmerdale? Are there any elements, plots or characters you would want to keep? Or do you think the show is simply beyond repair and redemption at this point?

I think that Emmerdale could possibly be saved if they got rid of every single character that has any connection at all to a Dingle. I want that family obliterated, annihilated and exterminated, by any means necessary. But considering how they have infested practically every aspect of the village (I still think Amos and Henry are spinning like mad in their graves that the Woolpack is run by Dingles) I fear it is Mission: Impossible. The rot has probably gone too deep and to yank it out the way I want it to would probably leave the village uninhabited.

21 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

Let's just say that your contempt for Emmerdale probably corresponds to my animosity towards DAYS, and for several, similar reasons.

The slight difference being, at least Emmerdale did not go full-out, sci-fi/supernatural camp.

That's true. They just filled the village with the most revolting, hypocritical, unappealing, despicable family anyone (in this case: producer Keith Richardson) has ever come up with and elevated them to leading status. It just makes me furious how this lowlife scum run around the village doing whatever they will to anyone but act all incensed and morally superior when someone else does something.  🤢

 

 

8 hours ago, te. said:

So... DAYS OF OUR LIVES, how do you feel about it.

Three distinct eras: Bill Bell, supercouple, Reilly.

Unfortunately I wasn't alive for the Bill Bell years but those who were fortunate enough to have seen them describe them as a well-written masterpiece.

My school years overlapped with the supercouple years and Reilly years but I couldn't get into them at all.

I don't know how much of the Bill Bell years has surfaced but I would watch them to see actors and actresses that Bill Bell later worked with on Y&R/B&B and elements of storylines that Bill Bell later used on Y&R/B&B.

35 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Three distinct eras: Bill Bell, supercouple, Reilly.

Unfortunately I wasn't alive for the Bill Bell years but those who were fortunate enough to have seen them describe them as a well-written masterpiece.

My school years overlapped with the supercouple years and Reilly years but I couldn't get into them at all.

I don't know how much of the Bill Bell years has surfaced but I would watch them to see actors and actresses that Bill Bell later worked with on Y&R/B&B and elements of storylines that Bill Bell later used on Y&R/B&B.

Bill Bell wrote super couples on DOOL.  He wrote Bill/Laura and Julie/Doug.  They were the first two super couples on DOOL.  Just because they didn't go on silly capers and cloak and dagger espionage, doesn't mean they were not super couples.  

58 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Unfortunately I wasn't alive for the Bill Bell years but those who were fortunate enough to have seen them describe them as a well-written masterpiece.

I am old enough to remember. I stopped watching DOOL after Bill Bell stopped having anything to do with it, which I guess tells you something.

I think if you could watch those episodes today, they would seem VERY slow moving. And he had a some attitudes that would come across today as very old-fashioned. (He obviously evolved when he wrote Y&R, which from the beginning was meant to appeal to a young, hip audience). 

I was young at the time, and I did wish the show would move a little faster.

But I could not stop watching.

And while his lens would seem old-fashioned today, he did do some pretty daring stuff for the time. He an abortion storyline where the girl was not at all sorry for having one, he tried to create an interracial romance (which unfortunately got so much heat from some viewers he had to drop it), and I think he was the first to do a multiple-personality brought on by SA story on a soap. 

Yes, you would definitely see the genesis of certain things that ended up on Y&R and B&B.