NEW YORK: As ONE LIFE TO LIVE goes off the air, an era ends for Gotham’s most over-the-top storytellersThe backstage soap-opera speakeasy is just one of the mass casualties in the death of New York’s daytime drama empire. When ABC’s “One Life To Live” airs its final, inevitably tearful episode on Friday, an era will end for NYC-based TV soaps, which date all the way back to 1950’s “The First Hundred Years,” CBS’s first ongoing serial daytime drama about two couples who were next door neighbors.
“I never thought it would happen,” says Robert S. Woods. “To think that there wouldn’t be soap operas produced in New York! I always thought there would be the serial format on ABC, as long as there was an ABC.”
“It leaves a huge hole in daytime TV and in the days of our fans,” says Erika Slezak. “ABC tells us the audience doesn’t want entertainment anymore; that they only want information. I don’t buy that. I want something that will make me laugh, make me cry.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: A number of primetime soaps, such as PAN AM, GOSSIP GIRL and BOARDWALK EMPIRE, are shot in New York City along with dozens of indie soaps that air on the web such as EMPIRE, IN BETWEEN MAN and ANYONE BUT ME.
MAD MEN Season 5 Premiere Date Set
The long wait will finally be over when MAD MEN returns on March 25.
DOWNTON ABBEY: Making PBS 'cool again'?
A British period soap opera about the masters and servants at an English country estate circa World War I: It may not sound like the buzziest, most addictive TV show to premiere since MAD MEN, but that's exactly what DOWNTON ABBEY is.
The Year of the Soap: Telenovelas on the rise
Beginning this year, all of Univision's prime-time novela premieres will be offered with English closed captions -- a move intended to expand the audience beyond the Hispanic community.
Billy Baldwin returning to GOSSIP GIRL
Baldwin is reprising his role as Serena's (Blake Lively) father, William Van Der Woodson.
Kelly Rutherford leases West Hollywood home
Rutherford listing her West Hollywood bungalow for sale at $1.3 million or for lease at nearly $5,000 a month.
Dennis Kucinich facing tough re-election with redistricting lines changed, Deidre Hall supports
“When I heard Dennis Kucinich speak for the first time, I said I would follow him anywhere. I’ve said that about men in the past, but it’s never turned out so well,” Deidre Hall gushed in her introduction, according to her Web site.
NEIGHBOURS faces up to an Indian summer
The show is introducing a new family, the Kapoors, from India. Some viewers are not happy about this, apparently. The channel's website had to removes racist comments from viewers who said having the Kapoors on the show was "un-Australian".
INFLUENCE OF SOAPS: Impact felt in variety of formats
Even Philip Pullman, the master storyteller of "His Dark Materials," has admitted to his love of the Australian soap NEIGHBOURS, saying in interviews over the years: "I'm very interested in the form of the soap opera, which is unlike any other literary form in that it doesn't end. Stories overlap with one another. There's no winding up, things fade away as they do in life, and probably in any soap opera you can see echoes of the great traditional fairytales -- "Cinderella," "Red Riding Hood," "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Princess and the Frog stories."
Ross Mirkirimi faces questions of domestic abuse on eve of being sworn in as Sheriff of San Francisco
The allegations stem from a New Year's Eve incident with his wife, former Venezuelan soap opera star Eliana Lopez.
Scott Waites: I want to be on EMMERDALE
Waites, No 2 seed at the BDO world championship, loves the soap opera almost as much as his darts.
Dark Shadows Trailer: Three things MTV wants to see
From Eva Green's witch, Angelique, to what's really up with Dr. Hoffman, MTV is anticipating the new Tim Burton film.
No more TV network daytime soaps originate from NYC--this is very upsetting!
ReplyDeleteBrian :-(
As a non-Hispanic viewer who has watched several telenovelas (on both Univison and Telemundo), I'll say that one of the things that bothers me most when watching is not reading the captions, but the MUSIC. They really go for loud, rather bombastic orchestral flourishes to punctuate scenes. I imagine it would be as if we had melodramatic organ music accompanying today's daytime soaps .. lol! Perhaps this sound plays well in South America where many of them are originally produced, but it's very grating to a U.S. viewer like myself. So if they want to attract more North American viewers, they should think about supplying a second soundtrack to make them more like what we'd hear on dramas produced here.
ReplyDeleteAlso, does anyone know what happened to that hybrid soap "Hacienda Heights"? It was going to be done for both English and Spanish language channels. It looked very promising (imho), and seemed like a production model ready to seize the day.