On Life Support
So Tomlin was out and Malone was back and ABC promoted a change, things were going to be different, the show was going to be back in the hands of genius. Shame that the genius' hands are virtually tied by daytime head Brian Frons. To be fair, it is only speculation and backstage gossip I can't actually prove, but it is apparent to me, Malone, Griffith, and producer Valenti are basically powerless to Frons' whims. Frons seems to like stunts even more than Tomlin, which is a problem, since he controls all the ABC soaps and with the exception of GH's inexplicable recent ratings rise, they've all failed. Clearly Frons studied at Reilly's feet. At least Tomlin tried to infuse quality into his stunts while Frons clearly doesn't care. He had AMC's Bianca raped, impregnated, and then had Kendall on trial for murder, ratings continue to slide. He had Port Charles take over OLTL's spot to have an hour-long launch of a book; they've since been cancelled. And for OLTL he did this music box killer story. For a show where people were barely watching and simply does not have the core popularity that a soap like Days or GH does, killing off characters, even beloved ones will not lure people back, it will only siphon them off. People fled with Al's death who have since not returned, people left with Gabrielle, heck, people left with Cristian! By the time Jessica's big mouth was nearly responsible for Haver killing Rae, people wanted her sacrificed! No one really cared!
I understand that the goal is to first get OLTL's ratings up. But there is clearly way too much micromanaging preventing that from happening. Too many stories seemed to not rely on people and the characters are interchangeable. Even with Days' serial killer story who is killed and who is the killer clearly had thought go into it. You just can't say the same with most of OLTL stories. Things don't get people involved in soaps, humanity does, any type, with any character. Keeping the lack of human element in mind, the same mistake Phelps made was repeated; new families were brought in. Frons tried to save his precious PC cast by bringing in Easton as a guy who may be a cop but only seems to be missing Michael's fangs in this "portrayal". He tried to save face with Marston's firing by re-hiring him
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