OLTL Experiment: the Verdict

I’d been struggling to come up with the appropriate rating system to express my take on the last two weeks of One Life to Live. A rating out of ten? Stars? Thumbs up/thumbs down? Pass/fail? In the end however, I’ve decided to keep it simple.

The verdict is this: at the moment One Life to Live is damn good soap.

Why?

At the moment it is delivering all that’s good about soaps.

The second post I ever wrote for this site – back in the deep dark depths of 2006 – started with as follows: In my humble opinion, the three things at the heart of any soap opera are Family, Romance and Friendship. Sure there is tragedy and humour and adventure, but those are all born out of the big three.

On OLTL I haven’t seen any tragedy yet, but I’ve seen all the rest.

And while I can’t speak to it personally, I gather the show is also delivering pretty well on that other element that’s great about soaps: the ability to draw on years or decades worth of history to inform or drive stories.

The pacing is good, the dialogue isn’t clunky. There are clichéd soap stories – the love triangle – being dealt with in ways that may not be ground-breaking but so far are entertaining. There are characters with layers, characters who are grey, characters who have flaws that can be seen and spoken to by the general Llanview populace rather than just the pained audience.

There is family conflict and support, friendships on display on a daily basis, romance, drama, and humour. There’s a socially relevant story going on that doesn’t feel like it’s bashing me about the head. There are umbrella stories.

It’s balanced in tone between the drama and the humour, the light and the dark. Coming from the relentlessly dark place that General Hospital has become, that may be the best thing of all.

It’s good and soapy, plain and simple.

It is not, of course, perfect.

There are stories that are more interesting than others, and couples and characters more or less appealing, but that’s just the nature of large canvas soaps and for every person who dislikes a story or a couple there will be another who loves it. So I don’t ever expect to be liking everything about a show. That aside, there a few signs of more fundamental flaws.

While Viki and Charlie are front and centre the show appears to be suffering from the same abuse of veterans syndrome as most shows other than Days. For example, since Cole, who I gather is in her care, ran away, we haven’t seen Nora once. Or Clint.

It also is suffering a bit from having front burner characters on every day; Starr, Cole, Jared and Natalie were all on nine of the ten days of the experiment, at the expense of a more balanced use of cast. That can be a problem very quickly even if slightly more forgivable during sweeps than at other times.

At the beginning of the experiment I asked two questions. The first, is the show as good as I had heard?, has been fairly comprehensively answered in the positive.

The second, can a new viewer pick up and be sucked into a show with which she has no history whatsoever? is best answered like this: I want to see what happens with the wedding, and the return of David Vickers, and this police sting.

So I’m going to keep watching for a while. Just to find out what happens during sweeps. And the aftermath of sweeps. And maybe in two months time.

So, congratulations Ron Carlivati and team, you’ve found a convert. And thanks to everyone who linked over here during the experiment, and joined in the comments – feel free to dive in and fill me in on all the history now – this has been a fun project.

And it’s been a while since I’ve been able to say something about soaps was fun, rather than boring and/or relentlessly dark.

Comments

[lisa]

Hopefully with RC back, we'll have more vets on display, as he's been very good about that. In fact, he's the one who removed Viki from coffee pourer/wallpaper and created Charlie so that she finally has a love interest again (it's been years). And yesterday, we finally got Addie again! Poor woman disappeared into the attic the day that scabs took over and hadn't been mentioned until yesterday when she had that wonderful set of scenes with de-bitchified Adriana. (Which was nice as Adriana went from annoying glitter princess to BITCH instantaneously when the scabs took over. It was nice to see RC address the transformation which took place in his absence.)

And since the question is probably coming as they never clarified who she was yesterday, Addie is Blair's mother and Dorian's sister. Addie has been institutionalized with mental illness for most of her life (which is why Blair was raised in foster care. Dorian didn't know about Blair then). Addie has been a recurring character for years as a simpleminded truth-teller. Early last fall RC had Addie's doctor explain that he was going to put Addie on an experimental drug. A few months later, at Christmas, Addie had an "Awakenings" moment and we got the delightful Addie we've had since, with Blair thrilled to *finally* have her mother and Dorian frightened that it's all temporary and that Addie will slip away again. Addie, meanwhile, was set on seizing life and experiencing everything she's missed. Then, the strike happened and Addie completely disappeared from the show under the scabs. So YAY to Addie coming back!

[TraveSteve]

Glad to read that you'll be sticking around a while, Zara.

I think the current slate of writers still have a lot of cleaning up to do. As regards some of the veteran characters: Viki and Charlie had front burner story before the strike, but were largely ignored as characters in their own right for most of the last 2.5 months. In fact, Viki underwent a bit of a Renaissance prior to the strike: Carlivati penned her first front-burner story in years, indeed her first real romance in a long time. I think it's only a matter of time before he gets back to plotting out story for Viki, Clint and Nora.

[V]

I loved your experiment. I've enjoyed it so much its made me rethink why I watch GH. Why do I put up with this horrendous show when I'm watching a good soap like OLTL? Your experiment convinced me to just stop watching GH and free up that hour of my day.

Yes, OLTL is not perfect, but it has elements that are sorely missing from GH - sorely. You named them at the beginning of this post,"Family, Romance and Friendship. Sure there is tragedy and humour and adventure, but those are all born out of the big three," and I totally agree.

You've put into words exactly how I've felt for the last year and a half or more of watching GH. I used to love this show in the 80s - it was this and DOOL - and then I was an avid fan of Santa Barbara. But lately GH is just plain... "unwatchable."

So, I'll keep coming by here and reading your blog and hope you will start posting on OLTL.

Thanks Zara

[zarathelawyer]

Thanks guys. And thanks for the back-story on Addie, Lisa. I was wondering about her.

[Cherries]

Zara, I wanted to add my voice to the chorus of thanks! I have a great deal of appreciation when someone tries out a new soap because they are a bit of a commitment (coming on every day, and all!). I think your critiques were pretty dead-on and as a long time viewer of the show, I am very happy you gave it a chance. These days, I find myself really excited to see what's going to happen next on OLTL. Haven't felt that about GH or AMC in many years! Cheers!