By
Suzanne 6/30/07
A lot of people have hated the show for a while now and blamed it on
Headwriter Megan McTavish. They fired her because of it. I don't completely
agree.
For one thing, I remember how boring the show was before McTavish
arrived. There were way too many new and boring characters (remember Trey,
Juan Pablo, and Boyd?). Being boring is the worst thing any TV show
can do. So even if I may not agree with everything the writers do, I
think annoying or horrible is worse than boring.
She brought in a few good stories, like the baby-switch, and bringing
back Janet, and bringing in Amanda, and Lily and Ava. Pairing Kendall
and Zach was great. I am not sure that we can blame her for the boring
teens because I do believe that it is the people above her that told her to
write those. That's partly why the stories were so bad. Writers are
best when they write their own stories, not ones they are forced to write.
The problem with most of the bad stories the past few years is that they
went too far. Taking back Erica'sabortion -- too far. Having Tad
become the killer -- too far. Ruining Dixie's return and then firing
Cady -- too far. Zarf - too far. Fans will only put up with so
much before they start tuning out and complaining loudly.
And it would have been so easy to fix or prevent these problems.
That's what's frustrating. Greg Madden was a great character, mostly
because of his portrayal by the great Ian Buchanan. Until they made
him so evil that everyone hated him. Then any soap fan knows that they were
going to kill him. So they ruined his character. Worse was that
Josh was Erica's son because Madden somehow invented some completely
unrealistic medical procedure to un-abort her baby. Why couldn't he have
just stolen some of her eggs, fertilized them and had them implanted in his
own wife? We might have believed it more then. It sure didn't help that Josh
was recast and neither actor was all that great, IMHO. And what also
didn't help was the scenes between Madden and Erica. Is there any woman who
wants to have ANY kind of relationship with their OB/GYN, let alone one
where he has a thing for her? Mega-creepy. It was a great thing to give
Kendall and Bianca a brother, but they went about it very poorly.
Then he was kidnapped and tortured for weeks. Who watches soap operas to
see torture? And especially torture of someone they don't care much about?
Maybe if it had been Adam tortured, it would be have more interesting, at
least. But still, torture, bad, and torture for weeks, VERY BAD!
Then we find out that Tad is the one who did this to him. Anyone who has
watched the show for more than a minute knows that Tad is not capable of
something like that. It goes completely against his character. Sure, he
might have kidnapped Madden, but he wouldn't have tortured him. He may have
even paid someone else to get the truth from him, but he wouldn't have done
it himself. That is not his style and he wouldn't have the taste for it.
Zach, sure, Zach could have done it. Adam, too. But certainly
not Tad.
Dixie's return should have been awesome. The problem was, she
skulked around town for a while, which is out of character. Then her
excuse for not coming home sooner was really lame. She wanted to find
her daughter, was afraid her friends and family would blame her or not
understand. But somehow she still managed to shack up with a mobster?
Our little Dixie? No way. I know why they wanted to give her an "edge", but
this was not the way to do it. And then, once they had gotten her and
Tad back to "normal", they killed her off. SO stupid!! How much
more effective would it have been if Dixie had, say, gone into a coma? Then
she would wake up and have to deal with Krystal having Tad's baby. And
how would she have suffered when Janet kidnapped Jenny (reminding her of her
own missing girl)? So much stuff that was just lost with their firing of
Cady.
I think creating Zarf/Zoe was a great idea and the actor was awesome. But
again it was handled poorly and went on way too long. Pairing him/her with
Bianca was the stupidest idea and of course would upset her fans.
I hope the new writers do a better job. They just need to remember
two things. A) Don't writing boring stories, and b) know the history
and the characters well and be consistent to those. Those are the two
most important things in writing soaps!
The opinions in these articles are those of the writer and do not
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