|
|
|
ATWT has been without a focus and wandering, without a clear direction ever since Doug Marland passed away. Once his story line ideas were gone the show was all over the place and got worse as time went on. It would be difficult to decide whether 1996 or 1997 was the worst year. To explain what I mean by focus, the easiest thing to do is look at a soap with focus: Y & R. It has its own problems but focus is not one of them and that, in my opinion, is why it is the Number One soap. The focus of Y & R is and always has been Victor Newman and his family and secondly John Abbott and his family. Very few things happen that do not touch, affect or concern one of these men's lives. ATWT had such a focus years ago with the Hughes family and the Stewart family. The Stewart family became defunct and then we had Lucinda Walsh and the Snyder family. Much of Marland's story was focused on these two. One of the first big mistakes made in ATWT was to get rid of the Snyders. Emma Snyder, as portrayed by Kathleen Widdoes, was the soul of the show. The audience cared for her and her family. After the departure of Craig and Sierra it looked as if a new family was building for Lucinda. The long lost sister and brother, Royce and Neil appeared and then just as quickly disappeared. Then Samantha appeared and disappeared and has now been recast. It seemed to me that the enormous mistakes made in 1996 and 1997 were partly the result of someone at the top trying to replace the veteran actors with neophytes. The younger actors obviously didn't earn as much money. But I think even more than that someone had the mistaken idea that they would somehow appeal to a younger audience. The actors who had made this show great were doing bit parts and back-burner stories while the audience suffered through: the Kasnoffs (Mike, Mark, Sara), Zoë, the new Paul, Ryder, and Ben and a girlfriend for him, ad nauseum. That year (96) we lost Andy, Evan, Ellen, Duncan, Shannon, Mac, Iva, Julie, Caleb, Roseanna (not a loss IMO), and the original Samantha. These changes alienated long-time fans. No one cared about the new characters or the actors who tried and failed to create new roles. The next year (97) the only good thing that happened was that Jon Hensley returned to the role of Holden Snyder and Michael Park created the role of Jack Snyder. We lost the original Connor, which was probably the single stupidest move anyone made, and replaced her with Susan Batten, whose portrayal of the role bore no resemblance to the character, Connor, the audience remembered. Again, not learning from the mistakes of 1996, more new characters were created and dominated the story lines: Camille, Lew, Sara Ruth, David, et al. Anthony Herrera is a wonderful actor and I like him. But bringing him back from the dead again to recreate the role of James has not been a success. He is a good villain, but the writing stinks. This "James" seems a caricature of the former one. Also bringing Damien back from the dead was just another contrivance to keep Holden and Lily apart for yet one more time. Not a clever move and the repeat of a story line that at this point was nothing but irritating. I have to mention the character of Molly separately. This character's development has been bizarre. She so totally dominated the story line that Holden and Lily's wedding was focused on Molly. Allowing the seriously disturbed Molly to be the "star" of their wedding was the single worst scene I have ever watched on ATWT in 30 years. The audience, who had been waiting for over 10 years for Lily (as portrayed by Martha Byrne) and Holden to be married, was outraged and rightly so. If ATWT has reached its lowest point, in my opinion, that was it. The audience is fed up with Molly (and that is an understatement to say the least.) As for writing, words almost fail me. In my opinion good writing whether it is a soap or a best selling novel should be character driven. The character is developed by his/her life experiences and the story follows the character and is true to that character. It seems to me that recent writers have gotten it just backwards. I have this vision of the ATWT writers sitting around with a Rolodex in which are a finite number of possible story lines (and all, by the way, hackneyed) and they spin it around and choose one at random. Then they have a deck of cards with possible characters and a few wild cards thrown in and these they lay face down on the table and again choose the number of characters needed. From there they proceed to "write." And what the audience gets is what we have, a story with no focus and no direction. Many times it has seemed like an experiment: let's try this and see if it flies. Thud! If this soap is going to survive someone (the head writer?) must give it a clear focus: The Hughes family, the Walsh family, or (I hope) bring back the Snyder family. Create stories for the characters the audience cares about. ATWT has as fine a "regular" cast as there is in daytime. Don't spring new characters on us and then let them run away with the story. New characters should be introduced very slowly and have a connection with the focus of the show. (Again I refer you to Y & R). Equally important, the writers are going to have to be more creative. Your audience knows all the "stock" stories that have been told and retold, cycled and reclycled. So Ms. Broderick I have a challenge for you. Let's let Lily have a normal pregnancy and a normal delivery and a healthy baby with no hysterical life-threatening contrived "drama." If that happens I will begin to believe that ATWT is looking toward the future and I'll willingly give it another chance. |
|
|