Let's face it, the show has been swimming up stream for at least five years if not longer. After the first Malone era, we got the horrid puppy dog story, but by the time Jill Farren Phelps tried to revive the soap, she ended up dividing fans. The storylines, the acting, and the actual execution of stories were not bad; in fact, many in my opinion were fantastic. But the key mistakes was adding such a large, convoluted family, shoving them down viewers throats, and using them to destroy the show's key supercouples. That endeared them to no one and if you didn't like Ben and Viki, then you had nothing to enjoy about this family. By the time Tomlin came in, the goal was clear, keep the ratings up, get the show that elusive Emmy. Tomlin, however, in effect did stunt after stunt after stunt. Most of them beautifully executed, but after the first few "special episodes", each stunt began to feel more hollow. IMO the last really successful one was the live week. Right after live week, OLTL was the first soap I tackled when I got this column. Although the show had been wallowing and dragging along rather slowly, the buildup and then the execution of the major storylines that week were fantastic. And then the soap went back off the rails; the Niki storyline went on way too long and stupidly, Tea's return not only became useless but also trigged another where has Todd gone story. And believe or not, that was blissful in comparison to what they did for the next year and a half! Even possibly intriguing stories like Rae not really being a licensed doctor turned quickly into drivel. Lindsay seemingly going off the deep end resulting in killing Sam only displayed good acting in a poorly planned story. And then there was Mitch and I just don't have the room or the time to go over all that again, you guys all know the problems there.
