As The World Turns Discussion Group -- Losing faith in the show

As The World Turns Discussion Group

Topic: Losing faith in the show

Topic Posted by: Newbie29
Date Posted: Wed Dec 24 8:43:31 2008
Additional Comments: Now I’ve always tried to be positive when it comes to ATWT. But after the last couple of episodes I’m finding it really hard to find the silver lining. To be blunt, the show is getting ridiculous. I wouldn’t even mind if it was done better. I mean I use to watch Days of our Lives for crying out loud. So what’s wrong with ATWT?
The pacing is beyond bad. Storylines are blasted through faster than the speed of light. It hard to care about the story when nothing last long enough for you to get emotionally invested in it. Jade’s new arch was insane. There are a ton of reasons they could have use to bring her back to Oakdale. This police charge that’s over in three episodes just makes no sense. In addition her possible connection to Derek feels so forced. He’s been in Oakdale how long? It would have made more sense to have him see Lily a couple weeks ago, mistake her for Rose and have people slowly come to the conclusion that he might be Jade’s father. Then have Jade return. Instead they crammed it all into one episode and the whole thing seems so contrived. Lily looked completely irrational the way she’s trying to get Derek and Jade together without any real evidence. You’re her father! You got to tell her! I just wanted to shack the TV and scream MY God Woman Calm down!!!
Occasionally we get a storyline that is allowed to run longer than six weeks. Unfortunately the writers seem to be such poor planners that longer stories often start strong, wander aimlessly, and then end abruptly. James’ return had a good start but ended without making any sense at all. Did we ever get a reason for why he did any of that stuff? How about Emma selling the farm? What could have been a strong umbrella arch switch direction so many times that it became pointless.
There’s a serious lack of character development. Question? Why bring so many new/recast characters to Oakdale when they can’t figure out what to do the people already in town? Where’s Aaron? What Dallas doing? How about Lisa? Don’t get me started about the stupidity of Dani. Nothing about her evolution in villain and resulting exit makes sense. I read that they think bringing Damien back will boost ratings. Well not if they don’t come up with a decent story for him. This isn’t the 80s golden era of soaps. Stars no longer make the show…strong stories do.
All right I just needed to get that out. I trying to keep hanging in there but man it’s getting hard. I just wish the stories would slow down and they would concentrate on establishing stronger characters. In short the show needs to be clean up FAST.
ps sorry for the typos. I typed this really quickly.

Posted by: Midwest Meredith
Date posted: Thu Dec 25 0:59:20 2008
Message:
I agree with pretty much everything you have written.

Posted by: fee
Date posted: Wed Dec 24 13:15:36 2008
Message:
I remember when it seemed like some SLs lasted three years, and we wished it was shorter. Now they last 3 days, and you don't even know what's going on anymore! Isn't there a happy medium??? I loved the baby switch SL. Some parts of it dragged, but for the most part it was a great story, and a great umbrella SL. I really liked the poisoner SL, but it could have been longer as far as I'm concerned. I guess there wasn't much else good going on, so they had to do more stuff on that one, which got it over with more quickly. You are so right. There's no time to get invested in the SLs, and you can't get invested with the actors anymore, because the characters are no longer real. They make them do a 180 every different story. Remember the days when you KNEW what someone would do, because you knew the character? Well, no more! Of course, Tom Hughes is going to send his son off on an indefinite trip with a mother who had just turned back from hooker, and who had tried to murder people! SURE!!! That's gonna happen! Like I said! 180. STUPID!!! This writer is awful! I'll have to start watching again when Damian comes back on, but I can't see myself starting up again before that. And I dont' know how long it will last.

Replies: (list all replies)

We used to see characters involved in more than one story at a time! Aspects of a story could go on for yrs & because the characters weren't just doing one thing at a time, it was watchable. Now we're lucky if a storyline is rich enough to last 13 weeks or less. Most of the time either it is SO weak that we can tell the end before the story has really started or they've given so much away as 'spoilers' that the anticipation is gone from the start. eom

Posted by: Rosebud1
Date posted: Wed Dec 24 10:34:14 2008
Message:

The bottom line is that TPTB (Corp) have no faith in the audience or the genre & it shows. I disagree that the 80's were the 'golden age' of soaps. Exactly the opposite! I'm not saying that there weren't some good moments & even some great memories, but it was really the beginning of the end. This downhill slide has been going on since the mid-80's & has only gotten worse since the 90's. It is hardly a new occurance.

TPTB (Corp) really believe that their target audience thinks that what they are doing now is not only acceptable, but great! They don't really think that they have to raise the barre, just lower it more every episode & that their target audience won't know the difference. They don't really value ANY demographic, but they especially disregard the audience that would remember what the show is capable of being. The sad reality, for all soaps, is that anyone over 25 (& particularly those over 35 or 40) are considered less valuable to them, so we are ignored. They have little to no interest in lapsed fans either.

Add to all of that, their complete ignorance when it comes to storytelling & particularly the specifics of soap opera storytelling & there is a mix that has made soaps, in general, less & less watchable over the yrs.

To hear Corp tell it (even through EPs), soaps are 'dying a natural death', when there is nothing natural about it! They still have great stories to tell & would be doing a great job, if the real storytellers (not the marketing lackies) were able to do more than simply connect the dots that are put in front of them. But to the primetime minded Suits, anything that has lasted more than 100 episodes has nothing left to tell. Soaps produce more than twice that in a year, where it takes a primetime show five yrs to come close to one hundred episodes!