Not Quite Dead Yet

Last year, two long-running soap operas were cancelled by ABC, in favor of lower-cost lifestyle shows. (One of which turned out to be a complete disaster.) All My Children and One Life To Live weren't the first of the genre to be axed - a once-thriving daytime drama schedule has been slowly pruned down to four measly soaps. But they were victims of the prevailing wisdom that the genre is dying, and there's no point in keeping shows around past their sell-by date. Too big, too expensive, too many characters. Time to jettison them for leaner, cheaper, shiny new lifestyle shows. (One of which turned out to be a complete disaster, to the grim satisfaction of bitter soap fans.)

Viewers tried desperately to save their shows with protests and write in campaigns, but it was to no avail. The powers that be wanted them gone, so they were gone.

But come on, we're talking about soaps, here. If Victor Kiriakis can come back from the grave multiple times, perhaps the shows still had life in them, too!

And over the past month, that premonition appears to have come true.

Prospect Park has inked deals with the DGA and AFTRA/SAG to bring both shows back to life, initially via the Internet. Production is scheduled to start on the East Coast as early as next month.

My thoughts?

• I'm thrilled for the fans. Sometimes good things come to those who wait.
• I hope they work things out with the Writer's Guild soon. Story is central to the success of a soap.
• Woo-hoo, filming on the East Coast! I know the industry could use some consistent production work going on there.
• Way to utilize new media to re-invent the shows, PP. It'll be exciting to see how Internet-first distribution works out.
• Once these two are up and running, I hope they consider As The World Turns for their next project.

The "experts" keep pronouncing the soap opera genre dead, but I think that may be a premature judgment. I guess this year we'll see if the Prospect Park model is effective at bringing back some of the shows that are only mostly dead - or even creating new ones down the road.

Strange and Amazing

So, a week and a half ago, I got a phone call.

Not just any phone call. No, when the phone rang, I had four recording devices and a friend to run them sitting on the couch next to me. Taking a deep breath, I answered.

"Hi Kate," he said. "This is Eric."

"Eric" would be Eric Sheffer Stevens, who played Dr. Reid Oliver on As The World Turns, and my current favorite actor. And through a bizarre and can't-wrap-my-head-around-it series of events, I landed an interview with him for my blog.

Now, I'm not a reporter. I don't exactly have the platform for an interview with one of the hottest discoveries in daytime television in 2010. And it certainly isn't a logical choice for an interview venue. But with some nudging from a friend, I wrote up an interview request and sent it in anyway, figuring what did I have to lose? The worst he could do was say no, or just ignore it.

Instead, I got a yes, which pretty much blew my mind. Because now I had to COME UP WITH QUESTIONS. And actually HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH HIM. And, of course, keep it under wraps just in case it fell through.

But it didn't. Several weeks passed as schedules were compared and he finished up a project he'd been working on, but I finally got an email saying, how about tomorrow?

It was a great conversation, the results of which have been going up this week on my personal blog. We chatted about the creative process, why he'd say no to a part, what's next on the horizon for him. He even answered questions my kids had begged me to ask.

All in all, he's a great, down-to-earth, really nice guy. And I got a great series of posts for my blog. And I've learned the benefit of going ahead and asking anyway, even if it's the most ridiculously improbable idea around.

Because you know what? Sometimes, the answer is yes.

OTP vs New Romance - What Do Writers Owe?

There's a storm brewing in my newest fandom, and it's fixing to be a doozy.

See, on As The World Turns, Luke has a new love interest, and it's sending some fans into a rage.

If you're not familiar with the background on Luke and ATWT, here it is in a nutshell. Three years or so ago, Luke fell for a supposedly straight co-worker, Noah. Turns out Noah was in the closet, and fell for Luke as well. They became the American soap opera world's first gay supercouple, spawning nicknames (Nuke), fan clubs, even fan events as far away as Europe. Even through the most ridiculous of storylines, fans stuck with them. They survived the Kissing Ban (the network refused to allow them to kiss onscreen for several months after their first two kisses, leading at least one website to put up a countdown clock), the green card marriage to an Iraqi woman, the homicidal father, the college prof who theoretically had a thing for Noah. (Here, again, the censors kept a tight rein on the storyline, causing it to be far more of a whimper than a bang.)

But Noah was blinded in a fireworks accident (and yes, I know how this sounds, as I type it. It *is* a soap, after all), and decided he needed a break from his relationship with Luke, to try to stand on his own two feet. They haven't been a couple for quite a while.

In the meantime, Luke has started falling for snarky, antisocial neurosurgeon Reid Oliver (I know! Give me a break. It's a soap!), and they've even shared a couple of kisses.

To the hardcore Nuke fans, this is a declaration of war.

Me? I'm not an early adopter by any means. I started watching this storyline just a month or so ago (catching up thanks to the magic of YouTube), and I'm a huge Reid fangirl. He's brusque, bordering on rude, and has a snappy comeback to almost any situation. He's also hiding a tender side that really humanizes him.

And the actor who plays him, Eric Sheffer Stevens, is fantastic.

I'm not the only one who's taken notice. The internet is buzzing with fanlove for Dr. Oliver, and the Luke/Reid pairing is gaining a lot of attention.

Me? I'm rooting for Luke to get together with Reid. He's refreshingly honest, he doesn't play games, and he makes Luke act like an adult.

To Nukies, though, that's sacrilege. Luke and Noah belong together because they're OTP (One True Pairing). One phrase I've seen more than once is that the writers owe it to them.

Part of the urgency and backlash, I think, is due to the fact that the show will be ending in September after 54 years on the air. (I said I wasn't an early adopter, didn't I?) Whatever decision the writers make now can't be taken back in the future. Whoever Luke ends up with - or if he ends up with nobody - will be the end of the road.

Maybe I'd have more invested in the Nuke pairing if I'd watched from the start of their storyline. Even then, though, I have to disagree with those who feel entitled to the ending they want, just because they've been fans for so long.

I don't think the writers owe anyone anything, other than a compelling storyline, well-written, with opportunities for all three actors to shine. At the end of the day, it's the writers' story to tell, and the actors' job to sell it.

So what do you think? Is there an obligation on the part of writers to fulfill fan expectations? What if the audience is divided? And what about in books? Do you feel disappointed if an author goes in a direction you hadn't expected or wanted?