The Coming of the Soap Opera Apocalypse: Famine

So, we're in the final chapter of this series about a genre being in the final chapter of its life. Last up to show you that the apocalypse is coming is "famine".  It's a sure sign that the end is near. No organism can live without nourishment.

Now, let's be honest.  People on soap operas aren't literally starving.  However, I think a few of them need to eat a sandwich desperately.  Hope Brady, please, chow down on a pizza.  Sam McCall, you need a sundae or something as the heroin chic with the inverted cheeks looks isn't working for you. But the famine I mean is being starved for money.  It's been widely accepted that soap operas were dying because they were being denied sustenance, so it counts. In this case, it's about the bucks.  No money, no actors, no sets, no writers, no show.

Isn't this what's happened?  I remind you of the one show that was allegedly always in the black- OLTL. The reliance on day players and newbies kept the bottom line working.  The Fords?  Please, if those guys made more than minimum wage, I'd say they were overpaid. They weren't exactly making Lucci bucks but they weren't starving either. However, even Lucci wasn't making Lucci money and that says something.

Now I'm no Lucci fan, believe me, but when it comes to the "face" of a program, she's it. She was the iconic character of AMC, whether I like it or not. She should have gotten top money as she was top dog. Like Slezak, she was what made the show what it was and she deserved compensation. I wasn't always happy with the result, but the woman was a hard worker, dedicated, and loyal to that show for a good long time.  I don't think anyone would deny her value and she should have been justly compensated.

However, as times changed, so did salaries. I hear everyone at ABC took cuts, well, everyone at OLTL and AMC, that is.  But they stayed. Almost no one walked and they ate the losses and soldiered on, as they should. These shows gave them homes and lives and careers and families for some. They did as they were asked and took one for the team.

But there's one and there's ten. There's a difference there. As my father, the siding salesman in Chicago, taught me on many a boring weekend in my childhood "looking at his jobs" on the West and South Side of Chicago, you have to spend money to make money. You can't make anything work on the cheap, unless you expect to make little. You then have to work in volume.  You do a lot of little, crap jobs and work ten times as much.  Or you do one big one, invest more resources, and make a killing. Who wouldn't rather do one job a year as opposed to a thousand? That's just logic....but I keep forgetting we're talking about ABC executives here. Logic rarely comes into play.

You need to be sure that people get paid but you also need to be sure that there's some semblance of quality left to keep it going as it's fading.  I appreciate all the efforts of the fabulous Vets on OLTL and AMC, and I even stomached the focus on dayplayers and newbies to waste time, to some extent, but isn't there some kind of compromise?

Couldn't the cast have been cut down to fifteen great people and not kept at the bloated state it was at the end? Couldn't we have had all the best working and none of the rest? I mean, I get that no one wants to be in EVERY show, as that's a lot of work, but couldn't we have had more Dorian, who wasn't expensive I hear, rather than a "Dani" or "Nate"?  I don't care about them. I bet you could have Dorian be more interesting reading the phone book than any of the cheapass kids thrown in my face.

I think production values were also an issue. I don't know how much it costs to shoot indoors but I'd have rather seen a cheap set than shooting in a park. Soaps are stagey. I'm used to it and I don't care. Taking them outdoors is strange and off-putting. Is it really cheaper? Maybe but I don't want reality in my daytime. That's why I'm watching a soap.

I don't know. I hear this Katie crap is costing twice as much as OLTL did and I'm sure it won't be nearly as entertaining. I know I'd rather see Bo chat with Nora and then arrest Todd for something he probably did and have Viki scold him and then have Blair argue her feelings for him as he's incarcerated while Dorian and David toast him being gone...for now.  I bet that wouldn't cost as much as Katie and it would bring in some decent ratings.  Better than Katie's anyway.  I'm not interested in listening to that little chucklehead talk about how it feels to be a single mom or a working mom or an overpaid anchor who doesn't know how to make her life "mean something".

I'm uninterested. I want some fun and a good laugh and a moment that makes me get off my couch and say "Holy Crap!"  I doubt Katie will do that...until they announce she's been cancelled and OLTL is back.  Which I know won't happen, BTW. 

But it would be a "Holy Crap" moment. I bet Viki could be in the promo smiling while saying "We're back".  But that's a pipedream.  Even I know it. But, I'd pay for it. Literally............