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This may come as a surprise to you, but there are some weeks I have no idea what I’m going to write about in this column. Often, I hit upon the idea early in the week. Other times, I sit all week, slack-jawed, waiting for that flash of inspiration to strike like a lightning bolt.
This week was somewhere in the middle.
On Thursday afternoon, the soap opera ratings for theweek of 8/28-9/1 were released to the public, and posted on the soap opera message boards. Mass panic ensued. Why? OLTL scored a 4.0, and tied (with DAYS & GH) for 3’rd place among households. Meanwhile, AMC which has been on a creative upswing for all of two weeks, is still registering a 3.7. And ATWT and GL,which have been smoking for a whole month now, still haven’t seen much of a bump in the ratings. In fact, GL has dropped slightly. To borrow from an old Al Gore speech, ‘’Everything that should be down is up, and everything that should be up is down!’’
Much like politics (what a segue), the ten soap operas engage in a weekly race to determine who’s on top. Only instead of two candidates, we have ten soaps vying to be number one. Candidates have polls; Soaps have ratings. Both are a snapshot of who’s up and who’s down at a particular point in time. Neither mean anything a week after the results are released. After the Republican National Convention, George W. Bush was up by 14 points over Al Gore. Yet, just a few short weeks later, Gore, the candidate the media had declared all but dead, was up by 10. Now, it was Bush’s turn to play dead. The real test, according to industry analysts, was to wait until Labor Day. Traditionally, whichever candidate is ahead by Labor Day wins the race. Well, the latest polls show Bush and Gore...in a dead heat. The poll that showed Bush ahead last month means nothing. The poll that showed Gore on top a mere two weeks ago means nothing. And this week’s soap ratings will ultimately mean nothing.
Why the uproar from so many fans? Let’s look at it soap by soap.
OLTL: The show is considered by many to be as bad as it’s ever been. Yet, numbers are up. This is not the first time OLTL’s numbers have been up under Jill Farren Phelps. It was just last Summer that OLTL achieved Number 1 in the demos, and a 3.9 HH rating with the death of baby Megan. Remember that? It was a plot twist that virtually everyone said was distasteful, a cheat, a cop-out, character assassination, etc, etc. But OLTL got a spike. Of course, that spike disintegrated, and by Fall OLTL was back to achieving some of the lowest numbers in it’s history, leading TPTB to go for broke in the widely panned Death of Grace fiasco. OLTL has it’s ups and downs. But, with JFP in charge, the ups are never very up (do you know that most weeks, ratings under JFP’s tenure haven’t matched Maxine Levinson’s (thewoman Phelps replaced) tenure?), and the downs have been the lowest in OLTL history. OLTL has become all about flashy events, and at their flashiest, OLTL can attract a small influx of viewers for a week or two. But they can’t keep them.
Of course, if you’re really unhappy with the current goings-on in Llanview, and don’t want OLTL to coast on medium ratings and occasional spikes---stop watching. It’s the only real way to send a message. It’s easier than you think. You’re not missing anything, except reaching for the Alka-Seltzer.
DAYS: Wow, they’re tied for number three this week. Remember the Summer of 1997, when DAYS was in the high 6’s, and four-tenths of a point from overtaking Y&R in the ratings? Remember when they were a solid number 1 in the demo? Yeah, I’m scared of them. DAYS is an object lesson of what happens when bad acting, worse writing, and constant fan frustration takes it’s toll. They may seem up now, but they’re paying.
GH: Just a couple of years ago, it was the highest-rated soap on ABC. Now, it goes up and down with everyone else. In fact, GH is such a well-oiled, put together soap that every soap critic has slammed it, the internet boards are slowing down cause they’re tired of slamming it, ratings are down, and the two top writers just quit out of frustration. (Wow...I guess Emmys can’t buy happiness.) Just because GH has an edge over a few better soaps right now, doesn’t mean anything. GH is a mess, and it’s getting messier all the time. ( I realize that I run the risk of offending readers who think GH is the epitome of soap opera. I think it’s an overrated sleep-inducing, mob-endorsed piece of crud, which coasts on a couple of good dialogue writers and a small group of talented actors. Of course, half of that group spends most of their time on vacation, or mired in backburner stories.)
GL: The dialogue and characterization has improved, but the ratings are slipping. No, I don’t believe that the audience is too dumbed-down to appreciate Claire Labine’s storytelling skills. I do believe that as important as dialogue and characterization are, story and plot are also important. Labine is gifted in the former, not the latter. Even Estensen and Brown knew that GL needed movement and a front-burner plot that people could easily latch onto. Labine needs an attention getter, and I don’t mean another clone saga, or “Woman carries dead fetus” story. But having every character saying witty, intelligent things to no purpose just isn’t enough.
AMC: They’ve been smoking for two weeks now. It took them a lot longer than that to get into this ratings hole. Let them prove they’re not only on the right track, but going to stay on it.
ATWT: Ditto AMC. Though I must say, I am really impressed by the miracle Hogan Sheffer, a soap novice, has performed on ATWT. I don’t expect a ratings turn-around overnight, but I do hope they turn around eventually. So far, Sheffer has proven himself to be the new blood that the industry needs. And I think Sheffer’s success or failure will ultimately have far more impact on the industry, than say, the success of Passions.
That’s all for this week. If you have a comment about this week’s column, or soaps in general---and you’re man enough---e-mail me at snarkieposter@yahoo.com. I’ll bring the pasta.