Friday, April 02, 2010

Take Cover, Llanview!

I've finally found a small silver lining to Oliver & Kyle being written out of One Life to Live: they'll be gone before Jean Passanante can get her hands on them!

Yes, the Head Writer who drove As the World Turns into the ground, quite literally killing it with terrible writing, is headed for One Life to Live as an 'associate-Head Writer' once ATWT has finished production.

One Life to Live already has a very talented head writer in Ron Carlivati, so one can only assume that this decision comes from a network that is familiar with Passanante's resume and may be hoping to kill off OLTL for good. If that's the case, they're certainly on the right track!

I am so glad that Passanante never got a chance to do to Kish what she did to Nuke, but I'm sad about what this means for a show that truly was the best soap on daytime TV over the past few years. Hopefully, Carlivati will remain in charge and Passanante's impact will be minimal.

Luckily, I'd already decided to exit along with Kish, so if the worst does happen, I won't have to see the show descend to the sort of God awful stories that have plagued As the World Turns during Passanante's reign.

This just further confirms my new belief that, thanks to moronic network executives, the future of soaps won't be on daytime TV.

6 comments:

dkellergrl said...

HAHAHAH.

I said almost the very same thing on the Kishmet forum a couple of days ago.

It boggles my mind that this is the only segment in the entertainment industry that will have no gumption in hiring someone that was directly in charge of getting a previous show canceled.

They don't do this sort of thing in prime time, with the exception to Jay Leno on NBC.

Seth said...

It truly is ridiculous.

They try and blame the declining ratings on fewer women being home during the day, but the sad truth is that they've been recycling the same hacks from show to show for so long and the bad writing has driven away more viewers than anything else.

I honestly think the networks have been trying to kill off soaps for awhile now and this is one of their main methods.

dkellergrl said...

Sorry for all of the spelling errors in my last reply. I was a bit tipsy last night from Easter Sunday dinner.

I honestly think the networks have been trying to kill off soaps for awhile now and this is one of their main methods.

Sadly, I think the same, even though you have tons of viewers and some critics who think that 'No, there's no possible way that TPTB really want this genre to end.'

Hell, yes I do. There's no more profit being generated from the genre. You don't have TPTB really interested in finding new people (specifically writers) who can bring fresh and interesting ideas to the forefront. I really think that TPTB are trying to bank in as much money as possible before their jobs are obsolete.

I think TPTB know that this genre is on its last legs and they're not going to try and keep it alive. They're going to wring every last bit of water out of the wet rag as they can.

dkellergrl said...

Have you seen the latest TV Guide article about the firings of Claywell/Evans and the rapid ending of the KISH storyline?

http://www.tvguidemagazine.com/soaps/was-oltl-too-gay-for-america-4548.html

Seth said...

I hadn't seen that, no. Thank you.

I can't believe they're trying to blame Ron Carlivati! Noting that he's openly gay before saying he went overboard seems like they were trying to discredit him further, as if implying that being gay himself means that of course he'd get carried away with all the gayness!

I don't think Carlivati went 'overboard with the other gay-related stories' by tying the Kish story in with Dorian's campaign and the mass gay wedding. I think he was telling a timely, topical story (something that soaps used to do all the time) and I thought it was well done.

This whole thing is like the end of a Presidential campaign, where everyone in politics and the media has to dissect every little thing to figure out why the loser didn't win. There are a million different theories delivered with absolute certainty by those who are advancing them.

In the end, though, it all just comes down to who got the most votes, and in the case of Kish, it all just came down to ABC caving in to homophobes.

The blaming of Carlivati, timed so closely with the announcement of Passanante's impending arrival, is especially telling.

dkellergrl said...

It's just placing blame on the wrong people and topics.

I still don't get what the big damn deal was about with the BGW. More crazy and fantastical OLTL storylines other than a notoriously straight female character pretending to be a lesbian, in order to win an election include the following:

Characters going back to 1968, in order to declare their love for each other.
Characters discovering a hidden city.
Children suddenly aging so rapidly that they can be born in 2003, but by 2009, they're 15 year-old boarding school student.

Oh, I forgot. All those storylines dealt with STRAIGHT characters.

I'm glad that I don't get it, but then I'm not a "mainstream viewer".


I'm DONE with the daytime serial genre. They've basically showed me their collective asses and told me that I'm not wanted as a viewer. I'm not that desperate or needy, that I'm willing to let them say that 'what I would like to see, isn't worthy and profitable enough for them to continue to take the risk.

btw - As much as it pains me to say, I think the majority of the minority viewing audience (Blacks and Hispanics) probably don't see what the 'big deal' is about the Kish storyline ending, that the gay subject matter is being blamed for the show's continuing declining ratings OR that the two main actors associated with it have been fired.

Until one day, a PR rep from any of the still remaining soaps loses what's left of their minds and publicly states that 'Our mainstream audience just wasn't receptive of a particular front-burner storyline featuring black characters', then that minority viewing audience will still be in front of their televisions or computer screens dealing with whatever little scraps that this genre will give us in regards to their so-called 'diversity'.

I truly believe this as a African-American FORMER viewer of soaps. Nothing has changed, except that they're fewer soaps AND fewer minority characters on daytime serial dramas.

I stopped watching soaps way back in the mid-90's, because I just got tired of the storylines, but I knew that it just wasn't the straight WHITE characters/pairings/storylines that bored me. It was all of the characters/pairings/storylines, including the minorities.

Now, I'm supposed to be happy that Cane and Lily, The Hubbards, Lexi and Abe, Christian and Layla are almost featured once or twice a week and now Sonny's World has a new black face in town?!