"How Not To Wreck a Show"

Douglas Marland was a well respected writer on a number of soaps.  He wrote for GH during the Glory Monty era and helped bring GH from near cancellation to a number one soap.  He revitalized ATWT and had a keen eye for bringing characters and a story to life that would turn mere viewers into soap fans.  His rules for "How Not To Wreck a Show" served him well and it would behoove CBS to require  the writers for Y&R to employ these techniques.


Douglas Marland's "How Not To Wreck a Show"

1. Watch the show.

2. Learn the history of the show. You would be surprised at the ideas that you can get from the back story of your characters.

3. Read the fan mail. The very characters that are not thrilling to you may be the audience's favorites.

4. Be objective. When I came in to ATWT, the first thing I said was, what is pleasing the audience? You have to put your own personal likes and dislikes aside and develop the characters that the audience wants to see.

5. Talk to everyone; writers and actors especially. There may be something in a character's history that will work beautifully for you, and who would know better than the actor who has been playing the role?

6. Don't change a core character. You can certainly give them edges they didn't have before, or give them a logical reason to change their behavior. But when the audience says, "He would never do that," then you have failed.

7. Build new characters slowly. Everyone knows that it takes six months to a year for an audience to care about a new character. Tie them in to existing characters. Don't shove them down the viewers' throats.

8. If you feel staff changes are in order, look within the organization first. P&G (Procter & Gamble) does a lot of promoting from within. Almost all of our producers worked their way up from staff positions, and that means they know the show.

9. Don't fire anyone for six months. I feel very deeply that you should look at the show's canvas before you do anything.

10. Good soap opera is good storytelling. It's very simple.

Y&R Open Letter

I want to share a link to an open letter written by a Y&R fan that makes a number of good points.

I do want to say that I agree with most of what is said. Two notable exceptions are found in #14 of the letter: "The talent of Tristan Rodgers and Genie Francis is being wasted. Genevieve is really too campy."

First, it is "Rogers" and second, I believe the campiness to be the fault of the writers and the director.  Genie was looking for a role that exuded power, not helplessness or craziness.  If that were the case, she would have returned to General Hospital during the Guza reign of terror.  I DO agree that Tristan and Genie's talent is being wasted, just like the talent of a number of other Y&R actors who sit on the sidelines during the "Newman Hour".

I also want to say there is one glaring error- Jess Walton is not mentioned.  I wonder if the writer was so overcome with frustration that that she/he just overloaded and missed intended comments about Jess?  But other than those two issues, I stand and applaud the article.  Now everyone go out and email it to CBS/Sony.

Sitting beside the deathbed

Sounds morbid, I know, but I'm so afraid that that is the picture of the future of daytime.  Currently there are two more soaps that have been sent to hospice by the networks where they are to be given care until their demise.  One Life to Life and All My Children know that their time is short (I'll deal with those topics in detail later) and the disease of "easy money" has infected the networks to the degree that is mind blowing.  Profit is obviously the goal, yet the question that remains is "Are cheap warmed over talk/reality shows the only way to go?"

The Young and the Restless has consistently been a top rated show and long time fans can tell you why.  The characters and the writing have brought us back day after day, for years and years.  Mothers and daughters, friends and neighbors alike have shared the 411 on who's doing what when.  The residents of Genoa City have become welcomed friends who enter our homes on a daily basis.

But now there is a dark cloud that is threatening Y&R, and makes fans acknowledge a growing fear that Y&R may find itself on its own deathbed one day, if things don't turn around.  The key, of course, is the ratings system that provides the numbers, which turn viewer numbers into big bucks for the networks.  Cash is king.

All of this is to say that fans recognize that:

1.  Y&R is a time honored soap that has been superior in creating/maintaining characters and stories

2.  Things have changed drastically, enough to warrant a deeper look