Red Room Where the Writers Are

In the wake of Guiding Light's cancellation and the current state of affairs on As the World Turns (while we haven’t seen them for a month, we can only hope that Kim's recovered from her heart attack and Bob from his brain surgery), One Life to Live has become what fear may be my final port in soap's choppy waters.

And so I took great solace in last Wednesday's episode, "Fathers and Sons." It was one of those episodes to show people when they start spouting off about how stupid soap operas are. Here’s a link to the recap. My favorite moment was Ernesto overhearing the conversation between Bo and David and realizing that he needed to reconcile with his son Markko. It’s the kind of episode I discussed in “connecting the dots – the emmy episode…”

It was really nothing more than a series of conversations exploring the relationships among the characters, steeped in the show's history so even casual viewers had some idea of how the characters, on and off the screen, were connected.

After an episode like this, not to mention so soon after GL’s final episode, it’s disheartening to hear the rumors now swirling about OLTL.  I generally don’t put a lot of stock in the comments of unnamed “industry insiders,” but those unnamed sources have proved to be correct often enough that I can’t just dismiss them out of hand. Jamie Giddens at Daytime Confidential was reporting that All My Children would be moving to Los Angeles a full week before the official announcement. And let’s just say that ABC Daytime’s response to the rumor was less than reassuring. 

The only upcoming move ‘One Life To Live’ is making is to the ‘All My Children’ stage after that series relocates to Los Angeles. This will give ‘One Life To Live’ more room and increase their production value.

Note this masterpiece of obfuscation doesn’t deny the rumors. I’ll leave you to peruse the daytime Nielsens and try to make any sense of why, since the differences among the three ABC soaps are negligible, at best, it’s OLTL that’s at risk. If I was having this conversation with my late mother, this is when she’d be telling me “ours it not to reason why…” Except that it is. So when I see an “explanation” like this one from one of Daytime Confidential insiders, “GH may be the lowest rated ABC soap right now, but historically it's the lineup's most popular soap, it will be the last one to be cancelled,” I’m confused; the lowest rated soap is the most historically popular? Well, okay. But things change; that was then, and this is now. It's just so very disheartening that the one ABC soap that has truly embraced the very best of soap opera storytelling is the one reportedly on the chopping block.  Not surprisingly, I find myself pondering how I’ll fill the time when my shows are no more. Lots of books to read – and a couple of plays waiting to be written… 

© 2009 Lynn Liccardo

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