As much as it pains me to say it, I may be done with Otalia. I don’t know if that’s what the writers want and I’m just being a great big sucker for giving it to them. Maybe I’m just tired of most of daytime and this current Otalia storyline is hitting my hot buttons. Once Jessica Leccia returns from maternity leave and I see Otalia back onscreen together, it’s possible that all will be forgiven, and that I will be back to rooting for them. For now? Not so much.
GL writers seem to be completely unable to tell a compelling storyline. Is it the writers? The executive producer blocking the way to good storyline telling? The CBS Execs? The way JessicaL’s Natalia was temporarily written out for maternity leave sucks – deeply sucks – sucks so bad that it makes ATWT’s writing out Carly Tenney to cover Maura West’s maternity leave look brilliant. What does THAT tell you? Clearly, the problems with Natalia’s decision to abandon Olivia once she realizes she’s pregnant with Frank’s baby is indicative of the problems GL has been experiencing under Wheeler’s guidance. First, who DIDN’T know that this would turn into another Susan/Ross/Carol (Friends) storyline? Who DIDN’T know the writers would force an ‘eternal’ triangle and ‘forced family’ with Frank/Natalia/Olivia, rather than let Otalia just be happy together? Second, this storyline takes me back to what I didn’t like about Natalia when she was first introduced. She was introduced as a weak, whiny, mealy-mouthed character, desperate for love. She stood in the shadows, afraid, insecure, making one bad decision after another that everyone around her had to pay for as she whined ‘poor me’. Our Lady of Perpetual Pain. Sheeeeee’s back!
I enjoyed the strength Natalia developed over time. I loved that she’d started growing up and making decisions that improved her life and brought her happiness. While I think all individuals should become the people they need to be BEFORE entering relationships, sometimes relationships can help change you for the better and that was the gift that Otalia gave one another.
Now? Watching Olivia hit the road to track down the woman who dashed her hope for happiness and abandoned her just as Liv gained the strength to face the world made me despise Natalia, and the crap offered as entertainment to GL fans. Listening to Liv cry, watching her scream out in vain for Natalia to come back made me realize that the writers used the Otalia relationship to weaken both characters. Not only did the old Natalia return, she dragged Liv down to her level.
How lovely would it have been for Liv and Natalia to have been filmed BEFORE JL’s pregnancy to air while she was away? How lovely it would have been for Liv and Nat to decide to leave town together, for a while. Frank could be conflicted on what it means to now be a part of this family and want Natalia to take all the time she needed to clear her head. He, Rafe, and Liv could h
ave occasionally made the trip to visit Natalia – maybe with Rafe staying with Natalia to get use to the idea of his mother having another child and to help her and become reacquainted with her again. Slowly, they would have accepted their lives as they are and become a modern American family. Taping the scenes ahead of time would have meant no lost scenes for Otalia, or ending this madness with Frank on the outside/no on the inside/no on the outside/whatever. We could have finally had an end to the angry Rafe-monster… but the concept of lost time is one the GL writers and EP are all too familiar with.
More is the pity because now I say… BRING ON DORIS AND OLIVIA! Who’s afraid of the big bad Wolfe? Natalia should be!
Ratings and why CBS should reconsider
Despite the suckage that is GL these days, I STILL think the wrong thing to do is cancel this show!
Courtesy of Soap Opera Network:
Ratings for the week June 22-26, 2009
HH
1. Y&R 3.5/11 (+.1/-.1)
2. B&B 2.3/7 (same/-.2)
3. DAYS 2.1/6 (+.1/+.2)
4. OLTL 1.8/6 (same/-.2) <—— ties low (Last time: 1.8/6 for June 15-19, 2009)
5. AMC 1.7/5 (-.1/-.2) <——– new low (Previous low: 1.8/6 for June 15-19, 2009)
5. GH 1.7/5 (-.1/-.4) <——— new low (Previous low: 1.8/5 for June 15-19, 2009)
7. ATWT 1.6/5 (same/-.3) <—— ties low (Last time: 1.6/5 for June 15-19, 2009)
8. GL 1.4/4 (+.1/-.1)
ABC soaps are falling like a ROCK! It’s not as if GL is doing so poorly in the ratings, in comparison.
FIRE WHEELER.
HIRE better writers. Several of the current writers would do just fine but new leadership is definitely needed and Ms. Wheeler just doesn’t do it for me.
Maybe there’s a way to get ATWT and GL on soapnet (long shot I know). Lifetime might not be interested in producing GL, but would the network be open to airing syndicated eps if CBS continued to produce and air the show? Could there be a partnership that eased the financial burden for CBS?
Ride this thing out and let GL stick around with the rest of daytime. I only say that because I’m still sure that ATWT and GL still have room for improvement, in the right hands.
James/Daisy/Phillip
Montel’s Clayton wouldn’t be going through all this hand-wringing over the ponzi-scheme, he’d track down the truly responsible party, PunkLoserJames, and teach him a lesson no matter how determined Phillip might be to get that snot-nosed punk out of trouble. RoseVioletDaisy
This obviously isn’t another blog about HOW GL should end. This is a blog about WHY GL should be allowed to continue on and why CBS Daytime Execs should be fighting for this show. The writers have finally reached a winning formula:
Frank: What kind of question is that? I love her with all of my heart.
Frank: And Marina, Marina, my God, my own daughter, she dated her way right through the most-wanted list until she met Mallet. And you. You found Lillian, and then you screwed that up. But I guess– no, no, no I guess you guys can have all of that, right?
3. A greater appreciation for the importance of good casting! This is no small task folks. The casting director who landed Zack Conroy for the role of James Spaulding deserves an extra paycheck! He’s so perfect for this role that I’d forgotten that he was cast as the drug-dropping Leo on As The World Turns. For such a young actor, Conroy does a great job of doing what it takes to fill the screen and make his character an already larger-than-life soul. Conroy gives James a gritty realness. I easily buy him as the pampered scion of a billionaire family.
1. Get rid of the ‘live from Peapack’ shots. Daytime is about fantasy, escapism, and about the impossible becoming plausible. I have no doubt that Peapack has many homes with lush interiors filled with fine furniture, open floor plans, hardwoods, crown moulding, stainless steel appliances, and custom cabinetry. It makes sense that the show’s budget doesn’t allow for location shoots in those environments. Instead, the current interiors are shoddy, and frankly – they’re depressing. I’ve jokingly referred to Springfield as the land of cheap knotty wood paneling and faux stone. It’s no longer a joke to me. I’m distracted by the bad decor and dark interiors when trying to focus on the characters and dialogue. 
If watching someone like Remy (solidly upper middle/upper class) live in such squalid conditions, think about what it means to see the fabulously wealthy Spauldings live in roughly two cramped rooms, or Olivia live in a tiny farmhouse, or the Lewises wandering from place to place because they have no where to live at all – that we’ve seen. The exception is Bill Lewis, who lives in a tiny hotel room. From Remy to the Spauldings to the Lewises – all are living in spaces that are the sizes of what should be their clothes closets.
3. Allow characters to behave as if they live in the same town. Either that, or stop having them talk about how much they value family. Why, dear writers, has Beth put more effort into planning a romantic getaway with her boyfriend than into helping her daughter heal after her kidnapping ordeal?
4. Recognize that imitation is not always the sincerest form of flattery. Guiding Light is working on solving one of it’s biggest problem – the shedding of old school characters and replacing them with newer characters who were meant to serve the same function, but somehow fall flat. In the mad dash to win over the 18 – 24s who were never planning a mass defection to daytime, great characters like Edmund were cut loose to make room for pale imitations like Kane Manera’s Grady Foley. Manera is a brilliant actor. His choices are instinctual and highly consistent. I like the actor, I just hate the writing for him. Between the writing and the direction, there was never any hope for Manera’s Grady to become a likable character. Where David Andrew McDonald’s Edmund was far more nuanced, and more choices about the character appeared to be placed in the actor’s hands, Manera’s Grady was more of a caricature of Edmund and every other GL bad boy.
5. Don’t turn strong storylines and characters into ‘gimmicks’.
Frank is just jonesing to bust Bill Lewis for the kidnapping of Lizzie Spaulding. What do they do there in the land of knotting pine wood paneling and faux stone Springfield? Inhale glue? Frank’s FIRST clue that Alan was somehow involved, even if not initially, should have been the point at which he expressed support for Lizzie AND for Bill Lewis. The last time Alan truly supported Lizzie was when she was a babe in arms, and even then she was more of a tool to manipulate both his son, Phillip, and his then daughter-in-law/now wife-lover, Beth. When has he ever supported or believed in Bill? Why would he start now?
The man is MAC-FRICKIN-SCORPIO, folks! Do the writers not know who this man is (or was)? Mac was a bad boy, a criminal, from way back. He’s was a mercenary’s mercenary. He is the man the writers had HOPED to recreate in Jerry Jacks. The Jacks brothers, I have always assumed, were the modern day Scorpio brothers, only less successfully so. Jax Jacks and Robert Scorpio: successful, heroic, worldly, extensive travelers, both men favoring situational morals and ethics, but by-and-large honest men. Their brothers? The complete opposite.
or not, and that included any woman married to or interested in his own brother). Mac evolved into the great big teddy bear we see before us today. Jerry started evolving during Julian Stone’s tenure, but the writers decided to have him revert back to type and then upped the “ick factor” with nuJerry, and Sebastian Roche did a marvelous job with the script he was give. Watching SR in action, there were times when I almost wished the writers would let Mac revert back to type as well, within reason.
memories of storylines that were once coherent and exciting? What made bad guys fun to watch, once upon a time, is that they were SMART, their storylines were smart, their schemes weren’t telegraphed and acted out with the equivalent of subtitles. Now, in order to make the bad guys seem brilliant, daytime writers have made everyone else dumber.
Coffee At Cafe Russe 