Monday, August 19, 2013

NEWS: Josh Griffith on Losing Y&R's Katherine Chancellor; Jeff Kwatinetz on First Seasons Of AMC/OLTL; Eileen Davidson On Why She Left DAYS

Y&R's exiting head writer Josh Griffith, previews the emotional on-air death of the late Jeanne Cooper's alter ego, Katherine Chancellor, in Soap Opera Digest
“It’s very overwhelming,” says Griffith. “Katherine is, in so many ways, the heart and soul of Genoa City. To learn that she’s gone is as devastating to them as it was to us when we lost Jeanne.”

Maiden season of Internet soap operas ALL MY CHILDREN and ONE LIFE TO LIVE yields vital lessons, says company co-founder Jeffrey Kwatinetz
“We have tackled more business, creative and logistical challenges than most shows experience in a lifetime of production,” said Prospect Park co-founder Jeffrey Kwatinetz.

Lindsay Lohan to Oprah Winfrey: ‘I Wanted to Go to Jail’
“Part of my decision was, at that point I strangely, being in my addiction and everything and having all the chaos around me that I was so comfortable with, I somewhere inside knew and kind of wanted to go to jail … and I think that that was subconsciously being put out there by me just by my actions,” she said. “I think it was just to find some peace and just have no choice but to just sit and be.”

BitTorrent launches TV show pilot
BitTorrent – the online service allowing users to share copies of TV shows, films and musicals for free, both legally and illegally – has launched a new venture with Converge Studios, offering its 170 million users the chance to decide whether its first TV pilot gets made or not.

Eileen Davidson on why she chose to leave DAYS OF OUR LIVES
"I was just going back and forth because it was such a great experience. I love the people there dearly. [Eric] Martsolf [Brady] and I had great chemistry, and I told him that it’s like catching lightning in a bottle; you just don’t know. So I had a lot of mixed feelings about it, but I was just feeling that for a lot of reasons, it was the right thing for me to do," she says of making the tough decision.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: ONE LIFE TO LIVE's Danielle Harris (Samantha Garretson)
After nearly 30 years in front of the camera, Danielle now gets behind the camera with her debut directorial effort Among Friends which will be released on DVD on August 27th.

2 comments:

  1. I watched the entire season of OLTL online. Overall, I enjoyed the performances of the veteran actors, I thought the characters of Vicki and Clint were more nuanced, I enjoyed the exploration of the mother/son relationship with Blair and Jack, and by the end of the series the Matthew/Destiny set had established a lifestyle as characters that befit the fact that they are the third generation of a set of rich families. I liked the more sophisticated use of sexuality in the storylines, women were not punished for having sexual desires and couples did not experience random pregnancies. I enjoyed that the interwoven story made Landview feel like a small community - soaps are built on the idea that one of the consequences for bad behavior is that your neighbors will gossip about you. I also liked the new characters like Carl Peterson, Ron Raines was excitingly intense in his speech in the finale. Finally, there was an old school soap appeal to watching powerful women go on diatribes set against a flimsy background so that you have to focus on the dialog. However, upon reflection, nothing happened in the storyline to propel the characters forward from when we last saw them in the finale. The nutcase is still holding someone hostage. The Todd/Victor crew remain single. Vicki never lost her money. There were no ongoing consequences for Dorian's scandal. I could go on but I think my point is made. There are promises of stories about people with tattoos and financial crises and threats to the safety of the people of Landview. However, none of it happened. I wish it was formatted like Edge of Night wherein we would watch a full storyline play out and then an emerging B plot becomes the cliffhanger. This just felt like an exercise in getting our old pals together and seeing how they've aged.

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    1. Oliver, that's a good assessment. I really hope the show comes back for a second season with a really clear understanding of what it is trying to accomplish with the story. Let's say they do a season of 20 or 40 episodes, they can write it like a primetime season with more of an arc that actually wraps up but still leads us into the next season. If the show continues to air an hour a week a lot more than happen in the episodes as well.

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