ATWT--Getting Better, Little by Little

Sorry for not writing much lately. It has been a busy summer, and I've been caught up in other things (this and this for instance).

I have been keeping up with the soaps, if not exactly regularly watching. As the World Turns has been getting better, although I'm still not entirely sold on the show just yet. They are about to at least rectify one of their biggest recent mistakes (killing off Dusty Donovan), but I'm not so sure about other stories and characters.

The Return of Mike Kasnoff: Why was Mike, who should be in his late 30's or early 40's, de-aged to his mid to late 20's? Also, what was his purpose in returning, other than making an unsuccessful attempt to pair up with Meg and provide poor, put-upon Lily with some loving care? Now, Mike is leaving town. He served little purpose, and the powers that be apparently realized that, but why bring him back in the first place?

Rick Decker: I love the character and the actor, but there was no suspense to this story. Oakdale citizens began acting strangely around the time Rick returned. Gee, wonder who was responsible? John James has always been creepily charming in this role, but the story was pretty pointless.

Alison/Chris/Aaron/Dani: This version of Chris seems almost human when he's with Alison (at least when he's not harassing her and trying to ruin her career), but Aaron has become the boring good guy in this story. It might become interesting if Aaron and Dani end up scheming to keep Chris and Alison apart. Otherwise, this story seems muddled and holds little promise. Also, I'm not sure how old Dani should be. Seems she was a teen back in the early 90's, so wouldn't she significantly older than Aaron and Alison by now? I'd think she'd be more appropriate in the Katie/Brad age group than with Alison and Aaron.

James Stenbeck: I saw a few minutes of James and Henry the other day (another late, late lunch break) and was not impressed. It is so sad that all of James' recent returns to ATWT have reduced him to a cartoon villain with little motivation other than to control people. Glad to see Henry getting some screen time, but not like this. What about Henry, Carly, Bonnie, and Vienna in a a great story? Now, that might be fun and dramatic. I also think that Bonnie/Henry/Vienna has the potential to be a great triangle, as long as Bonnie and Vienna grow up a little and just realize that they happen to both love a sweet, rascally guy like Henry. And wouldn't it be nice for Henry to have two hot women after him?

Paul and Meg: They are having another baby, but James is back in town. Does anyone think that this baby will safely make it into the world? I'm not getting ATWT's fascination with this couple. When did they become the loves of each other's lives? Guess I missed that episode.

Holden and Carly's Affair: While I found the Holden and Carly getting hot for each other hard to believe at first, and still have not quite warmed up to Noelle Beck as Lily, this story was pretty good. Holden and Carly should not have had an affair, and there were ramifications when the secret came out. It was realistic, in that sometiimes unlikely people are thrown together in ways that spark something between them. I wish that the set up had been better, and that the affair had lasted longer. Otherwise, this was a surprisingly good story.

Luke and Noah: Who? Oh yeah, the gay couple that never gets any screen time. Are they still together? What a shame that Parker and Liberty are getting more time on screen than they are. (See below).

Parker/Liberty plus Juicy Janet: I like the actors, but this story has had too much screen time. There is a touch of realism here, but that doesn't mean I want to see kids barely in their teens having sex and their parents going nuts. Brad has gone off the deep end and become unappealing. I like Janet, however, because Julie Pinson brings some humanity to the role. She's not the standard-issue bad girl. On the same day that I saw the silly scenes with James and Henry, Janet and Carly had a talk about Jack. It could have been a snarky encounter, but both Maura West and Julie Pinson toned down the animosity and brought out an honest, if slightly testy, exchange between their two characters. They didn't go for the easy, obvious ways to play the scene. Bravo!

Emily/Casey: I like Billy Magnussen as the new Casey, although I do wish he'd wear a shirt more often. This relationship seemed like a short-lived fling at first, but now it appears that Emily and Casey are going to try to make their relationship last. Dusty will return and complicate things for sure, but I hope Emily doesn't take up with him again. Dusty and Emily never quite clicked, IMO. Please ATWT, don't make up some revisionist history about Dusty and Emily having a great love.

For another take on recent ATWT stories, read this from Patrick Erwin at Marlena De Lacroix.

My three wishes for ATWT:

1. Get Henry out of the dungeon and away, away from James Stenbeck.
2. Reunite Dusty with Lily (as played by Martha Byrne).
3. Put Noah and Luke into a decent storyline, or cut your losses and have Noah leave town. Stop teasing the fans with a kiss here and there once a month.

Soap-Related News and Gossip

The June 24, 2008 issue of Soap Opera Weekly has a cover headline that says:
"CADY MCCLAIN: GL'S NEW HARLEY?!" Inside, the "Revolving Door" page claims that "sources" say that McClain (having just completed a ghostly turn as Dixie on All My Children) is on a "short list" to take on the role of Guiding Light's Harley. Beth Ehlers recently left the Light and her role as Harley to take on a new role at AMC.

McClain says she "cannot yet share any such news" and says that she "shall" be "grooving" with her band. McClain offers no news about soap opera work on her blog, either.

It's hard for me to imagine McClain as Harley, but then again, I had my reservations when she took over the role of Rosanna on As the World Turns. McClain's first turn as Carly's half-sister was brilliant, and won her a much-deserved Emmy. Through no fault of her own, two attempts to reprise the character were much less successful. The last return in particular was difficult to watch, as Rosanna-- a once-powerful businesswoman--became needy, clinging, and deceitful. If McClain does become Harley, it will be the third soap role she's played in less than one year.

How Long Before the World Turns Off?

I’m in the strange position of following soaps, yet not watching any for the most part. I pretty much gave up watching As the Worlds Turns a few months ago, just before Grayson McCouch (Dusty), Cady McClain (Rosanna) and Scott Bryce (Craig) left the show. Since then, both Jesse Soffer and Jennifer Landon (Will and Gwen) have also left. Those characters were either killed off, lapsed into comas, or left town. All of those departures, of good characters, often not well-written, were bad enough. The latest cast change at ATWT, and the circumstances of that change , have sent shockwaves through the soap world. Martha Byrne, who has played put-upon heroine Lily for over 20 years, was let go when contract negotiations came to an impasse. Or rather, when she made a standard request, only to have ATWT immediately send out a casting call for her role, apparently without even attempting to negotiate further.



Both Soap Opera Digest and Soap Opera Weekly have run multiple stories on Byrne’s impending departure. Byrne was always a cheerleader for both the show and the industry, yet apparently was treated shabbily . Carolyn Hinsey of Soap Opera Digest summed up the situation in the April 15th issue: "Not to beat a dead Snyder, but I still can't believe AS THE WORLD TURNS let Martha Byrne (Lily) go. The talk at her good-bye party was about what a turning point this is for the entire industry and I fear that's right. If a 23-year vet can be ousted--who played a core character, always supporter her show, and, most importantly, is a terrific actress--then anyone can. That message could really hurt daytime at a time when some shows need givebacks to stay on the air. If P&G can recast Byrne, no actor is safe...Worse, recasting the role of Lily only adds to the downward spiral of the show. Production values are down, many popular actors have left, the stories are spotty at best, and now they let their longest-running heroine go? I worry about where this is going. When soaps show such disrespect for their most popular characters and actors, they are also sending a disturbing message to fans: You don't matter."



Well said, indeed, and almost prescient. One would think that Executive Producer Christopher Goutman would be duly concerned about all of the cast departures and would want to encourage fans of ATWT. Think again. Goutman's interview with Jennifer Lenhart ran in the May 27th issue of Soap Opera Digest reads like the musings of someone who forgot that his comments were going to be printed in a national magazine. Excerpts are below:



Soap Opera Digest (SOD): What effect does a fan campaign or letters have on how you tell story?



Goutman: I think the number of fans who write letters and who are online are a very, very, very, very--may I repeat very--small percentage of the actual fan base. What I go on more than anything else is instinct and what I see on the air. I would hope that my instincts match our constituency. And I think, by and large, it has.



Okaaaaaaay, if the number of fans online is such a small part of the fan base, why does ATWT have same-day videos available on its website? Why have a website at all, for that matter? Why is there an internet-based reality show called InTurn? Even if Goutman is right that only a small percentage of ATWT fans are online, that does not mean that they should be ignored. That online fanbase could be very much representative of the fanbase as a whole. And anyone watching (or even half watching) ATWT now can see that his instincts, by and large, are not working.



SOD: Do you get a mail report about what people are saying?

Goutman: Vaguely, but I don't really look at it.

SOD: So would you recommend that people not bother sending things?

Goutman: Yes, I do.



No comment necessary.



On the killing of Dusty Donovan, a long-term character who made an explosive comeback, only to be saddled with mostly weak stories for several years, Goutman offered these off-base comments: "The character of Dusty had been on for five years and was not really connected, in terms of family, on the show...If you look at our AS THE WORLD TURNS book, you will see lists upon lists of characters who are no longer with us." Um, dude, if you look at your ATWT history you'll see that Dusty has been around for a lot more than five years. He is the real heir to the Stenbeck fortune and the first love of Lily (Walsh) Snyder. Dusty also had a history with Holden, Paul, Craig, Lucinda, and other characters. If Dusty wasn't connected to any families on the show in the last few years, it was due to the inexcusably poor planning on the part of Goutman's writing and production teams.



It is pretty clear that Dusty was brought back with much fanfare, only to have the writers not really know what to do with him. He was re-introduced as a conman and low-level mobster. How the intelligent, good-guy viewers remembered became a criminal was never really explained. The recent incarnation of Dusty was sometimes allowed to be a legitimate businessman. He bounced from woman to woman until finally finding true love with Jennifer Munson, only to have her killed off. After some more bouncing around with other women with Jennifer barely cold in the grave, Dusty and Lily rekindled their old teenage romance. That story actually had promise, although it was very unlikely that Lily and Dusty would end up together. Their fling was a nice nod to their history. Too bad Dusty ended up being "in love" with Emily rather than Lily (which made no sense) and then ended up dead. Mr. Goutman, if you as Executive Producer and your team of writers could take a promising character with a solid history played by a hotter-than-hot actor and find almost nothing worthwhile for him to do, then you need to take responsibility for that.



Goutman then goes on to assume that fans are not aware of the limitations he has to work under.

SOD: One of the complaints that we hear most from fans is that they want storylines to intersect more.

Goutman: I think what they don't understand, nor should they, is that a lot of that is financially driven...We are many times hamstrun, in terms of criss-crossing stories, simply because we don't have the financial resources.



We get it. You don't have as many actors on contract. You can't afford to have them work as often as they might need to to have complex, interwoven stories. But maybe you can have characters acknowledge their connections with a line or two to explain why they aren't seeing each other.


On a related note, I was able to catch a few moments of ATWT over very late lunches a couple of weeks ago. In the moments I saw it was easy to pick up what was going on. Katie is actually tolerable now that she is married to Brad, another miracle for Austin Peck to lay claim to--the first being that he could actually play an interesting character. I must admit to having had some seriously loooooowww expectations when Peck took over the role of Jack’s older (?) brother, only to be pleasantly surprised that he has been able to hold his own on ATWT and actually create a charming, human, and light-hearted presence on a show that seriously needs that, occasional appearances by Henry notwithstanding. In time for summer, Brad and Katie have been saddled with a teen rebel, who is apparently Brad's daughter from a years ago fling. Even from the few scenes I saw it is obvious that rebel Liberty and smart-aleck Parker are headed for teen coupledom. Jack is still sniffing around Katie and being a jerk to Carly. Hey, ATWT writers, would you quit with the Jack and Katie stuff? Never saw any sparks between those two. One of the best things Katie ever did was dump Jack. Please, have him stay dumped!



I also saw a few moments of the Holden/Carly friends-could-become-lovers stuff. Holden, acting nothing like the judgmental, sexist jerk he's been for at least the last few years was actually helpful to Carly when her car wouldn't start. Jon Hensley played Holden as all warmth and smiles. I wondered for moment if I'd turned on some alternate-universe version of ATWT. Last I'd known, Holden was no friend of Carly's and was constantly berating and trying to contol his wife Lily about anything and everything. Faux examples from the last few years: "Your grief for your murdered sister ends when I say so--which is right now!" "You'll see the kids when I say so--which is never!" "You'll have the friends and outside activities that I approve of--which mean absolutely none!" Okay, that last one wasn't as snappy, but you get the point. Since I've been watching ATWT only sporadically for the last six months or so, I have no idea what changed Holden from a sexist pig to a nearly likeable person. Nor is it apparent why the latest object of his affection is his ex-cousin-in-law Carly. Holden and Carly have never been close, so their friendship seems to be coming from some sort of desperation on the part of the powers that be to mix up couples to create "drama." I don't know, maybe Holden and Carly had some deep and extreme bonding incident--he saved her life or she saved his--that I missed. Or maybe this story is the product of behind-the-scenes turmoil. As stated above, several cast members and characters have been let go since late 2007, and there aren't many people left for either Holden or Carly to gravitate toward.

Not long after that, judgmental Holden returned. Seems that Carly and Lily "schemed" to get Holden and Lily alone for a romantic evening. Holden and Jack figured out what the gals were up to and then the berating began. I don't know about you, but what husband who loves his wife would be upset about her finding a reason to get the kids out of the house so that he could have a night of passion with said wife? Is that what passes for drama on ATWT these days?

Although ATWT's ratings have been relatively strong--hovering around 2.0--that is not saying much when ratings for all daytime dramas are positively anemic. Even the once mighty The Young and the Restless is down in the 3's now. Stories with little drama, an executive producer who basically told the fans to f*&k off in a national magazine, and the loss of several popular actors do not bode well for ATWT. I do hope that the World will continue to turn for years to come, but my hope is fading fast.

Welcome!

Hello to anyone and everyone who stops by. Sudz is the rebirth of a former webcrimson blog about soap operas. The previous version of Sudz disappeared into whatever void webcrimson went into. I wanted to collect my soap opera commentary in one place, rather than have it sprinkled among other topics on my other blogs. I've no inside information on soap operas, just a keen interest in them. I hope that you enjoy what you read here.