Soaps … Are They Wasted Time?

Wasted Time

Well baby, there you stand
With your little head, down in your hand.
Oh, my God, you can't believe it's happening again
Your baby's gone, and you're all alone
and it looks like the end.

And you're back out on the street.
And you're tryin' to remember.
How will you start it over?
You don't know what became.
You don't care much for a stranger's touch,
But you can't hold your man.

You never thought you'd be alone this far
down the line
And I know what's been on your mind
You're afraid it's all been wasted time

The autumn leaves have got you thinking
about the first time that you fell
You didn't love the boy too much, no, no
you just loved the boy to well, Farewell
So you live from day to day, and you dream
about tomorrow,

And the hours go by like minutes
and the shadows come to stay
So you take a little something to
make them go away
And I could have done so many things, baby
If I could only stop my mind from wondrin' what
I left behind and from worrying 'bout this wasted time …

There’s something reflective about fall. Days get shorter; the wind takes on a nippy bite, especially in the evenings. Trees burn with an amber glow then shed their leaves raining down over the earth, nature’s bittersweet farewell before winter.

This is one particular song that, for years, has haunted me on lazy autumn afternoons. It inspires me think about life and how it cycles, leaving me with a peaceful sense of resolution as its final strains fade out.

Of course soaps cycle too, although not in seasons, but in sweeps. Fall is usually more tumultuous on the shows in order to prepare for the November Neilsonfest. Breakups, lying, cheating, scheming, blackmailing and murder are all on the upswing and I’m sure there are a few extra boxes of Kleenex sitting around set side to wipe away all of the actors’ manufactured tears after the cameras are done rolling. (I bet GH has even stocked up on extra barware for Sonny's living room!)

Whatever it is, I’m finding romantic, “warm and fuzzy” moments few and far between on all three ABC daytime dramas right now. After watching them, I’m often left feeling melancholy. All I can do is toughen up and hope for a holiday season reprieve. I’ll sit back and somewhat impatiently wait for my end of sweeps payoff.

But what if I don’t get it? Have I wasted my time? Are all daytime viewers wasting their time?

It’s a controversial question for sure and I surf the message boards enough to see that the percentage of complaints is pretty high. What I wonder is, if people are so miserable, then why are they still watching?

Many aren’t.

Plummeting ratings have indicated that fewer people are tuning in. That point really hit home when a friend of mine mentioned that years ago anything below a 4.3 (overall average) rating used to be considered a bad week for her favorite show. Today all three ABC shows are lucky to clear 2.5 and advertising revenues are down resulting in budget cuts, more and more actors being put on recurring status or being let go altogether.

I can’t speak for the actors personally, but I can only imagine how that must affect morale. They go to work each and every day, (if they’re fortunate enough to be in a story and work a full week) and give it their all only to watch the numbers fall and the executives sweat.

Some of the fragmenting audience can be attributed to the diversification of media outlets. “The big three” (ABC, NBC and CBS) are no longer the driving forces in broadcasting. Cable networks, the Internet, DVD’s, podcasting, etc. have all captured viewers. Indirectly, so has lifestyle. In the past, stay-at-home housewives were the primary audience for daytime. Now most moms work and TiVo shows to watch later if they can steal a free hour.

Since time has become a much more valuable commodity, daytime brass have to work twice as hard to keep their original core audience so, in recent years, they’ve scrambled to attract the younger demographic in hopes of snaring and hooking them early on. Good game plan, but I can’t help wondering if they are “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. By devoting significant airtime to the younger set, are soap writers alienating the 35 plus crowd and is that taking a healthy chunk out of pre-existing viewership? Moreover, are fortysomethings being devalued for simply being too busy?

I have to admit I have a certain amount of sympathy for their dilemma. It’s pretty basic business sense that you cannot be all things to all people. You need to focus on your core competency and drive it home. The trouble is; I’m not sure if daytime execs know what defines that core. They spend time and resources knee-jerking to the opinions of focus groups, then furiously rewrite in an attempt to capture lightening in a bottle with disjointed plot points and stunt casting come sweeps time.

Hence, we see characters’ behavior change on a dime, history rewritten and stories suddenly shift or have no resolution at all. On some shows, only a limited number of cast members are featured. This all leads to a frustrated audience who is now re-weighing the value of their daytime investment. Given the choice of being continuously disgruntled with their favorite show or watching something else, many people are electing to go elsewhere.

Even more ironic is the fact that “elsewhere” is often times viewing edits of the exact same shows they’re boycotting. What? They’re turning off currently airing programs to watch reruns of past episodes? You bet.

The reason is simple. There is something about the quality of story telling that was far superior in the 80’s and 90’s - even five years ago. Granted, viewers had more time then to invest in their favorite characters but the stories were told with a richness, depth and history that is lacking in today’s hectic writing and taping schedules.

“I used to watch the clock,” a friend enthusiastically told me. “I couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen on my show each day! Weekends were hell waiting for Monday to resolve Friday’s cliffhanger.”

Nowadays my friend records a show but is lucky to view her tapes once a week, if at all. Often she just hits the rewind button and re-tapes over unwatched episodes. She has clearly assigned a higher value to her time and the show she tapes hasn’t managed to garner enough interest to attract her attention. How sad for the cast and crew that worked so hard to create those hours of unviewed programming.

It takes time to produce a show, time to watch a show, time to get to know and invest in the characters and time to tell a good story. But time is something we all have far too little of, or so many people claim.

“Time, time. time, see what’s become of me?” (Paul Simon)

Some viewers I’ve talked to manage their time by following certain actors’ performances rather than watching entire shows or even bothering to follow along with story lines. If their favorite actor isn’t on, they don’t tune in that day at all. Wow. That makes it even harder for “TPTB” to build a faithful audience, especially if they elect to feature only a handful of performers in front burner stories.

Back to my original question. These days, if I watch ABC soaps waiting for a story to resolve to my satisfaction, am I wasting my time? Not to be indecisive but that, my fellow daytime viewers, is an open-ended question. Personally, I admit that I currently find more joy in “moments” than ongoing stories and recently there were several wonderful moments to savor:

AMC

Any time Bianca returns to Pine Valley, it’s a good thing. Eden Riegel brings sincerity to the character that exudes beyond her to whomever is fortunate enough to share a scene with her. Welcome back, Binks!

GH

Tristan Rogers and Tony Geary together never fail to take me back to the good ole’ days of GH. This week, like her mother Anna before her, Robin acted as a catalyst sparking the two overgrown boys’ witty defiant banter in response to her more adult voice of reason. Hilarious!

I’m not much of a Sonny fan lately but I love him with Luke anytime. It’s one of the best male friendships in the history of the show and sadly underused. Luke actually makes Sonny more entertaining and Sonny commands for Luke to be serious at times when it’s his MO to give in to a wisecrack. Good stuff.

I’ve gone on record saying this elsewhere, but it bears repeating. It’s a rare treat when scenes are so well written and delivered that you forget you’re watching acting. Ric and Alexis’s hospital homecoming scenes had it all. Even viewers who aren’t fans of the couple praised Rick Hearst and Nancy Lee Grahn’s performance. They went from trepidation to tears to laughter and back to tears in a matter of minutes, seamlessly. They had me at ”hello”.

OLTL

I saved my favorite for last. Of all the ABC shows I truly appreciate the writing on One Life to Live. They know how to capture the spirit of a family and it was never more apparent than at John McBain’s Irish wake. For a moment, I felt like I was watching an old episode of Ryan’s Hope. I was in the bar with Nathaniel Marston as he delivered Michael’s beer toting eulogy to his big brother with the hint of New Jersey accent. Folks I know from Jersey do let it slip, especially after a few libations. Loved it! Wouldn’t it be cool to see mom Eve on the show as a regular? And is John really dead? Nah! Bring on the McBain clan!

Another thing OLTL does so well is developing male relationships. I am thoroughly enjoying the growing father/son “thing” between Bo and Rex.

Robert S. Woods and John - Paul Lavoisier have such a great onscreen rapport and it’s been fun to watch Rex grow and mature under the police commissioner’s tutelage.

In the end, I guess I choose to continue searching for the gold in daytime. After all, I’ve invested nearly 30 years of my life in the good people of Pine Valley, Port Charles and Llanview. As long as I find scenes that entertain me, move me and remind me why I became a daytime fan in the first place, I’ll stick around.

Ooh, another love has come and gone
Ooh, and the years keep rushing on
I remember what you told me before you went out on your own:
"Sometimes to keep it together, we got to leave it alone."
So you can get on with your search, baby, and I can
get on with mine
And maybe someday we will find, that it wasn't really
wasted time

- The Eagles

Until next time, pop in a favorite CD, kick back, relax and enjoy the music!

Trish :)

The Eagles

Email Trish

Trish's Archives

Magic Man

Trish's Muse Writer Archives