Cleaning House - Good Idea or Bad Idea?
Soaps used to be so clever when it came to casting. Sure, there were a few infamous clunkers in the prestigious history of the genre, but usually, among other things, they had to be a fan favorite or a heck of an actor. There are some shows right now that are finally back on the money when it comes to their casting choices, most notably OLTL. For the most part though it seems like the people getting fired are fan favorites and/or incredible actors and the people that stay forever are dragging the show down.
It's one thing when there is dead weight on the shoulders of a good headwriter is finally removed. It's a whole other story when a rash of firings seemed to be based on nothing but lazy writing, production company power moves, and "focus groups". It's the difference between As the World's recent rash of disappearing talent and Guiding Light's dumping of the unnecessary and the crippling.
Let's contrast and compare, Guiding Light has been axing characters ever since P&G axed Claire Labine, so out went Noah, out went Dax, and out goes Catalina. Actors not properly written for like Terrell Tilford went out by themselves. For the most part, those heads that end up on the chopping block should have been gone years ago. The writing surrounding these exits is less than perfect (the Catalina murder mystery was beyond stupid and predictable), but at least they're gone.
And there is ATWT which has instead of dropping dead weight, brought a lot of it on and quickly had to discard it. Brought in were Gabe, Ruby, Billy, Bonnie, and Lucy, and out (so far) have been Andy, Bryant, Jennifer, Jake, and Adam. The kicker is they've dropped these actors badly, resulting in more firings. The Gabe/Ruby mess destroyed viable options for the character of Bryant so then a carbon copy of Bryant arrived, his cousin Billy, to steal his girlfriend, and once Bryant was dead, his job. Dropped with much fan fare and a week of solid episodes, it was then poof, Bryant who? The Billy/Jennifer pairing that had been the poorly written catalyst for Bryant's death, had obviously also been written off the cuff. Once Bryant was dead, the writers were stuck with the majority of fans booing and hissing. Result? Bye Jennifer and pretty soon it will also be bye Billy.
But the show's latest two exits have me the most confused and angry, first the axe came on Jake. Hogan gave his excuse, er, reason; Jake was an isolated character, he didn't know what to write for him, blah, blah, blah, blah ... Where I have heard this before? Oh yes, it is the excuse every writer uses when they get rid of a character for no good reason.
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