The Rise of Los Angeles

In a recent blog post, I lamented the state of The Young and the Restless, and I referred to The Bold and The Beautiful as my "also-ran" soap. I'm not alone. If you track the ratings, media attention (anything, really, but the international appeal), B&B never quite has seemed to measure up to Y&R.



At the same time, in the last few years, the dynamic has changed. B&B has won the "Best Show" Emmy (in a shrinking field) for the last three years. While I hold my nose at this (not because the show is bad, but because Brad Bell and his team have scripted VERY SPECIFIC "Emmy shows", usually involving Susan Flannery and Betty White), it's hard to miss the fact that the dynamic of B&B has changed.




For those of us who are William Bell acolytes, it is also hard to miss that most of his proteges (folks who brought Y&R to Number One status with him)--Kay Alden, Jack Smith, David Shaughnessy, Ed Scott--toil on B&B in one way or another. Many of B&B's most interesting cast members these days also are those who were jettisoned by Y&R (Sony) in recent cost-cutting regimes.

So, I'm still ambivalent about proclaiming B&B as my #1 soap. B&B still does infuriating things that are simply eye-rolling. Examples: Steffy declares the much-older Bill Spencer Jr as her soulmate--but when he dumps her (in a great, heartwrenching arc), she turns her attentions to his son THE VERY NEXT DAY. After decades together, on the SUSPICION that his wife Brooke might have had berry-fueled sex with his son Thomas, Ridge dumps her--has a wedding with ex-wife Taylor the same WEEK--and dumps Taylor at the altar and returns to Brooke THAT NIGHT once the truth is revealed.




So, why can I forgive B&B, which has made a habit of these sudden story jumps (and of hiring top-notch soap performers from other shows, but dropping them within one or two contract cycles )? I think it has to do with the fact that B&B embraces its identity as classic soap.

Take the example of the Steffy tale, mentioned above. In the current story, Steffy now lusts after Liam (Bill's son). Liam wants to be engaged to the virginal Hope. Steffy's lust for Liam makes sense--he's BILL'S son, and he's in love with a LOGAN (the family she blames for all her troubles). Liam also saved her life recently--a bonding experience. In this triangle, we have three core families (The Taylor-Forresters, the Logans, and the Spencers) all mixed up. Liam's lust makes sense...he's a horny young guy and he's been veeeeeerrrrry patient with Hope. Hope's sexual reticence makes sense--she seen how her mother's "Slut from the Valley" ways have often caused mayhem. Bill Spencer Jr. will be torn with jealousy if his son takes up with the woman (Steffy) he was recently about to leave his wife for. The downstream stuff will be even better. Fighting for their daughters will pit Brooke versus Taylor against each other again...but for once not over Ridge!

I've often complained about Hunter Tylo's Taylor...who was once the sanctified oncologist/psychiatrist...but who really WAS the voice of sense on B&B. In recent years (since her second return from the dead), Taylor's been off the rails -- alcoholic, vehicular manslaughter, sleeping with Brooke's son, sanctimonious...endless. Taylor is now a spastic, hypocritical, controlling and sanctimonious (I use that word again because it is DEFINITIONAL) controlling mother.



Now, positioning Taylor as the show's evil mother is BRILLIANT. Evil mothers used to be the stock in trade of the best soaps! (think Phoebe Tyler and Enid Nelson on All My Children; think Vanessa Prentiss on Young and Restless). With Susan Flannery being open about wanting to retire (and her character having Stage IV Lung Cancer), the show needs a new "bad momma". Hunter Tylo is now perfectly positioned for that (living through her children because her own life is bereft; using her children to fight old battles).

The beauty of B&B is that the throughline of characters is not forgotten. Rick has ALWAYS hated Ridge (as the man who chased his daddy--Eric--away). Thomas grew to hate Rick (after Rick slept with both of his sisters AND his mother AND took a certain primacy at Forrester Creations). It was enough that Thomas tried to scare/hurt Rick twice. Amber, the needy social climber BRILLIANTLY played by Adrienne Frantz (much missed, by me, on Y&R), took BOTH of their virginities. Word that Jacob Young is returning in the role of Rick makes me think that a Rick-Amber-Thomas triangle is automatically going to unfold...and how amazing will that be? The triangle makes sense, the actors are capable, and we can already predict every reasonable beat in the story.

In the end, that's the thing about B&B that makes it best. It embraces classy soap storytelling. (Friday's cliffhanger was a very public proposal from Liam to Hope--and she was clearly ambivalent about it), it follows core families and doesn't mostly kill them off. Actions from decades ago are remembered and fuel today's characters. The show almost never veers into crime-drama or science fiction...so that one knows one is going to get good domestic/romantic/business stories. Even now, the show is setting up a Bill Spencer/Nick Marone alliance to bring down the House of Forrester (again)...and the story will be leavened with decades of justifiable personal resentments. The alliance is also on shaky ground, because both Bill and Nick have strong emotional connections to Bill's wife (and Nick's ex-paramour) Katie Logan. However this story goes, it will force Forresters, Logans, and Spencers (all intertwined already) to pick sides. That's how you write a soap!

Genoa City Lost

Readers of daytimeconfidential can discern the truth of Jamey Giddens' recent critique of Y&R. The state of the show is appalling...but it is also curious. All the elements -- from production to writing to acting -- are THERE...so why is the show so bad?

In short, the problem is the absence of heart...of emotion, nostalgia, or sincere feeling. Even remarkable actors who have bled on the stage for us in the past are clearly not connecting to the rushed, plotty show they're putting on.

My credentials: I have watched Y&R since 1973 (I was a wee 8 year old, but mom put it on). Y&R is so ingrained in the narrative of my life that I view it not from a "technical" perspective, but as someone who knows intuitively when the show is true to its nature. Or when -- as now -- it is not.

Right now, we have a canvas filled with original or veteran faces (Kay, Victor, Jack, Paul, Phyllis, Nick, Sharon, Ashley, Kevin) and characters we saw born on this show (Billy, Victoria, Chloe, Ronan)...but it all feels so flat. Characters are doing things they'd NEVER do (Kay annulling her son's marriage out of spite, Victor throwing a woman out of an ambulance and taking a son away from his father).

This happened once before. After a promising start, Lynn Latham's second year got seriously off the rails, as Nikki (Nikki!) ran for Senate and the entire town clustered around some rural village that was being turned into a resort (Clear Springs). Little made sense. Ratings began to decline precipitously during this period, and continued to do so well into Maria Bell's "rescue regime".

It is curious that Maria Bell's Y&R feels so off right now. We know she's capable of heart. Her nadir-story was "the death of Kay". Kay's funeral and eventual reunion were the ultimate of "heart", as a touching romance bloomed with Murphy, old friends and rivals reunited at Kay's funeral, and Marge got a touching "ghostly farewell" to the tune of Perry Como's "Papa Loves Mambo". Greatness!

But then the Silver Chipmunk happened. It is fair to say that, since then, Y&R has progressively devolved back into a crime riddled (Richard Hightower! Skye's multiple deaths! Patty's reign of terror! Corporate shenanigans!, Diane's murder! Baby stealing! Over-the-top Australian mobsters!) mess. Not only do these stories not elicit feeling or emotion...emotion is decisively left out. Examples:

Diane -- a character with a thirty year tie to Jack -- gets nary a tear (except, maybe, from the terrific Christian Leblanc's Michael). Adam is betrayed by Sharon, and embarks on a spree of revenge (thank heavens Michael Muhney -- and his eyes!! -- work against the malevolence of the tale). Three touching couples are made -- well -- not touching.

- Billy and Victoria: The story here would have been to see them stay together -- fight together -- against obstacles. Instead, they folded as soon as the first marital assault hit them. Where's the rooting value in that?
- Nick and Phyllis: Apparently they're sex buddies again. Okay. The actors still FIRE UP the room in every scene when they're together. So why is there no emotion or tenderness or motivation in their scenes?
- Lily and Daniel: (Controversial here--I know Cane/Lily have major fans). There's something beautifully touching in a pair that damaged their union through youthful mistakes rediscovering each other from a grown up perspective. Daniel feels he doesn't want to be a father (shadows of his own damaged childhood and paternity/maternity issues??)...but could Lily make him feel secure in his nurturing skills, so that he would be a good stepdad to her kids...and even dad to his own Lucy?

There WERE promising emotional stories.

The Lear-esque "Fall of the House of Newman" was especially good...and it really made the most out of Marcy Rylan/Eric Braeden's terrific chemistry. The family was fractured. This promised YEARS of rivalry and reconciliation. Instead...it is over. Forgotten. Done. Huh?

Phyllis -- inexplicably -- tried to pull baby Lucy from the secure loving parents who were raising her. (I guess I get it...it has to do with making up for her own previous shortcomings as a mom). Everyone picked sides. It was an agonizing story. Then...Phyllis got Lucy, was ostracized for week, then Nick and Michael seemed to mostly forgive her...and it's over. Forgotten. Done. Huh?

The Y&R canvas is OVER-STUFFED. The show seems to have little motivation to write for Tricia Cast/Doug Davidson, Kristoff St. John ... Yet the show also refuses to decisively clean house, and to commit to protracted story arcs we can invest in.

These days, I find little compelling material to draw me to the show. There are a few very capable actors (Muhney, Leblanc, Rylan, Thomas-Scott, E. Davidson) who are still finding emotion in every scene they do. There are a few others who rise to the occasion when they can connect with the material (Bergman, Braeden, Heinle, D. Davidson, Stafford). Still others seem utterly emotionally disconnected from this plotty show...even actors who have given us AMAZING performances in the past.

I still check in every day, but more and more reluctantly. My thoughts stray to cable (Breaking Bad, Torchwood, True Blood, Big C, Weeds). B&B (that's another blog post) --always my also-ran soap--has become my first soap of choice!. I guess I'm waiting for Genoa City to welcome me back to a big, nostalgic, sloppy, feel-good-or-feel-bad-BUT-FEEL-SOMETHING homecoming.

Why I'm dismayed by Y&R Diane Jenkings Murder Mystery (Killer "revealed")

This adapted from a twitter-stream in which I ranted this morning. Surely I'm not the only one who feels this way. Ugh...

Structurally, I actually LIKE the murder mystery, and if I'm reading it right (see the section at bottom for my guess about the killer), it's one of the best-constructed for Y&R in yrs.

What I don't like about the murder mystery is the underlying emotional mistruths and plottiness it forces us to endure. To wit:

(1) We KNOW (subjectively) that none of the nine prime suspects is a killer......even Adam, we KNOW--because Muhney's eyes tell us he's not. (He did NOT kill Hightower).

(2) Too many crime stories (Hightower, Patty, mob, murder) have infected Y&R since the latter days of Lynn Latham. What about emotion, love and family drama in small Wisconsin town? That Y&R seems to be dead, eh? (Interesting that GH, AMC, DOOL all seem to be RETURNING to the formula of emotional family-based drama...and B&B is excelling in that category these days...with nary a murder in sight).

(3) Murder derails the show in a single umbrella story. So many interesting tales (Nikki's recovery, Villy, Daniel/Lily rediscovering each other, Tucker's son) are ignored.

(4) The story is ultimately pure plot, minimal character. There are a few actors on this show who can still evoke emotion with their faces and body language (Muhney, Leblanc, Ryland, Braeden [when he cares/is invested], and ... shockingly, Heinle). Strangely, Peter Bergman has been really emotionally disconnected from his scenes for a long while, and all that reads now mostly is coldness. But while this crew is front-and-center in the plot, most of them aren't finding the emotional truth of it at all. That relates to my next point.

(5) Y&R is totally ignoring the emotional HEART of this story. Diane has been on canvas since 1982 and some DID care for her. Only Michael Baldwin, briefly, got to play the emotion. I suspect that owes itself 80% to Leblanc's strengths as an actor--his constrained emotions and tear-brimmed eyes told the story of his outrage.

If I had my way, Y&R would do a two-year moratorium on death and crime, and see what else they could come up with.



Also, it bears noting that while many of us felt Maura West was an odd casting choice for Diane, and the character was scripted from jump (during West's watch) as a lost woman with no sense of her self-worth, no real identity, just money-grubbing man whore, she still thrived in it. West reinvented Diane as utterly broken, and she pulled it off. It is the writers' fault that Diane's successful past as a fashion maven, model, and architect were all fully ignored. (Empowered Diane couldn't have filled the show's obviously much-desired victim niche). Nevertheless, during her brief year on the show, West was a STAR. She captivated attention even in the most throwaway scenes.

My predictions about the killer are below, in white font. I'm pretty sure I'm right. Highlight the text with your cursor to reveal:

I think the killer is Patty. As such, it's actually a brilliant move because it makes sense based on THIRTY YEARS of history.

Rationale:

Motive: Patty's life derailed, basically, when she married philandering Jack Abbott. The NIGHT before his wedding to Patty, Jack slept with Diane...and the affair continued after the marriage (leading to Patty's miscarriage). The show cleverly reminded us of this rivalry in a one-off episode when Haiduk's Patty confronted Susan Walters' Diane during a brief visit.

Opportunity: Patty is missing. No one knows where she is. We have a sense that she may be "around", when Adam talked on the phone to "someone" last week, telling him/her to stay away and that he was sending him/her enough money.

Character: Patty's a killer. Kitty-Kitty, Zapato, endangering Summer with peanut butter. It also seems likely -- although the show introduced ambiguity here -- that Patty killed Richard Hightower. (Adam reminded her that she did it...but we weren't clear if he'd really uncovered the memory, or if he'd implanted it). Let's not forget that as early is the early-80s, Patty went into a fugue state and shot Jack (for revealing, to Jill, he never loved Patty). Remember that Patty shot Jack MULTIPLE times? Just like Diane got bashed in the head MULTIPLE times. Girl's got anger issues.

Rumor: Someone told me, after I guessed this, that Haiduk had been seen on the Y&R set for a few episodes to "wrap up" her character. Plot construction: Suddenly, the criminally ignored Doug Davidson resurfaces. He's sudden the lead local detective (special investigator) on the Diane Jenkins murder. (Negative points to Y&R for ignoring how many years Paul and Diane had intertwined lives, from when she was married to his partner/best friend Andy. Davidson should have been allowed to grieve for what Diane once was). Anyway, why put Paul on the case (rather than, say, Coco from FAME??). So he can react with trademark shock and heartbreak when he realizes HIS SISTER IS THE KILLER.

I must confess, it is this last part of it...rooting this murder in 30 years of history and positioning Davidson to play the emotional beats of it...that makes me hate this story less.

We'll always have Paris! The Bold and the Beautiful

B&B is on a creative high these days, in part by fully embracing its identity. It plays adults (and senior adults) more than kids. It does bit of socially relevant stuff. It centers on the never ending drama of Brooke Logan and her Ridge. It knows that camp, vague incestuousness, vague perversity, and constant partner switching is its RECIPE...and it's doing it just fine. This week, the luminous Heather Tom's Katie is in the midst of (I think) a re-awakening triangle with ex-lover Nick (who is also the ex-husband of her sister and her niece) and Bill Spencer Jr. (my fave, Don Diamont). Ridge and Brooke--a "destiny/westiny" couple according to her son Rick--had an ultimate over-the-top moment in Paris (see image at top)...and then seconds later Brooke undermined her reunion with husband Ridge by having a flirtatious Skype session with his drop-dead-gorgeous son Thomas. We won't even mention the fact that my favorite, Amber, is in a three-way-who's-the-daddy tale (and I don't think she realizes her baby is going to be African American!). The show is firing on all cylinders.

the bold and the beautiful brooke and ridge by forrestersabrina

Why are its ratings not good? Why are its demos so awful? Oh well...even if B&B is not long for the world, we'll always have Paris!

Doppelgangers: Without comment

On Y&R, we recently saw Daniel Goddard's "Cane" gunned down. He died in one of the most gruesome daytime deaths in a long time...and in his wife's arms. Lest there be any doubt, we saw his cold cold body on a morgue slab for some time, and we've seen (I think) his ghost. In the scope of soap deaths, Cane is dead-dead. No? (Hard to tell. After B&B had an open-casket funeral for Taylor Hayes...who also died on screen...we later learned her body had been replaced by a wax doll, and that she'd been saved by her sheikh benefactor, Prince Omar).



Well, yesterday we saw this smirking guy, looking at Lily from an elevator. It can't be Cane, as Cane would have stared at her with a look of love or longing or pain...or he would have run to be with her. We're supposed to think it's Lily's delusion/hallucination, but I'm inclined to believe (as are many others), that this is a double hired by Cane's daddy (the sublime Tristan Rogers as "Colin") to create the impression of Lily's incompetence. If he can get Lily ruled an unfit mother, then as the blood relative of her twins, he may be able to abscond somehow with her twins.

Some folks on Twitter (e.g., @kate4lane) have taken to calling this new guy "Bane". Twitter user @unlimitedjason further says this stands for "Bullshit Cane". Sigh and double sigh. While I'm thrilled to see Mr. Goddard have a chance to essay a darker character, does Y&R need another doppelganger? Twitter user @jdracoules suggests that Y&R may now be in the running with Dark Shadows for the biggest number of dual roles in daytime. The wordle at the top of this page is presented without further comment.

Thanks also to Twitter users @_PhilParis, @Scott_Novick, @Robansuefarm, @berry198 for making sure my list of doppelgangers was complete.

Daytime on the Bubble: Renew/Cancel Index for Daytime

TVByTheNumbers has accurate "renew/cancel" index for primetime. A show's 18-49 rating is divided by network's average. See http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/the-renew-cancel-index for details.



I computed a renew/cancel for daytime,, dividing each show's 18-49 rating by the average of all 6 soaps. I couldn't really do a network-by-network renew/cancel (like the parent site does) because the pool of soaps is too small. I guess I could use the network daytime average (if I could find equivalent ratings for The View and the Talk, etc)...but I think what I did is already pretty informative.

In the Renew/Cancel index, numbers above 1 (the further above, the better) are "safe", around 1 are "bubble" and below 1 are "likely to be cancelled.

Renew/Cancel Index for Daytime, as of last week:
Y&R 1.43;
DAYS 1.05;
GH 1.05;
OLTL 0.95;
B&B 0.76;
AMC 0.76




Now, what makes this intriguing is the rumor, at Daytime Confidential, that ABC is seriously considering the future of its daypart, and whether to cancel a soap to make room for a talk show.

As once-stalwart (now lapsed) viewer of all ABC soaps, but especially AMC, this would make me sad.

Looking at those numbers, one wonders by B&B isn't similarly on the bubble?

Well, first of all, maybe it is. But, secondly, Les Moonves last year implied that it was one of the "special soaps", and therefore might survive. What could save B&B? Presumably the fact that it is the world's #1 most watched soap, and the international revenue helps the Bell family keep licensing costs extra-low for CBS? With a brand-new high tech opening sequence and a recent two-year renewal, B&B will survive at least as long as Stephanie Forrester (who currently has Stage IV lung cancer).

Cast Melody Thomas Scott as Beth Logan on B&B

The picture above is a dated composite of Beth and the Logan girls, created before the advent of good image manipulation software

Nelson Branco reports that Melody Thomas Scott is being written out of Y&R, since her contract negotiations are not going well.

I am dismayed.

This is the wrong thing to do. There are 20 (I'm not exaggerating) less interesting cast members who should be cut first...I'd give up 10-15 folks for Melody as Nikki. This (cutting core veterans for financial reasons) is the sickness that has killed the rest of daytime. It has been happening for a while on Y&R (Victoria Rowell, Jerry Douglas, Don Diamont), but this is the worst. Clearly, Eric Braeden is probably next. It's wrong, wrong wrong.

But, okay...even though this is just wrong, but I'm over it. Because the perfect role exists for Melody.

Melody as Beth Logan on B&B. Hear me out:

- Melody in catfights with Susan Flannery's Stephanie. Priceless.
- Melody as the mother to Heather Tom's Katie. SUPER-PRICELESS. Nikki and Victoria re-united.
- Melody as the mother to Jennifer Gareis' Donna (after cussing her out for years as Y&R's Grace Turner). Priceless
- Melody having confrontations with Don Diamont's Bill Spencer Jr. (after Nikki's many years with Brad Carlton). SUPER-PRICELESS.

Plus, Melody's skills at broad comedy and archness would fit in excellently in the campy B&B universe. I'd love to see her "counsel" grandchildren Rick and Bridget in their wicked romantic ways.

Sadly, Beth (save for a few days when she was played by Marla Adams -- Y&R's former Dina Mergeron) has been dull as dishwater. It's time to amp her up, and make her a mother SUITABLE for her Logan-slut daughters.

I just think Melody and Katherine Kelly Lang's Brooke would just SHINE in scenes! I'd love to see MTS's Beth constantly "coaching" Brooke in how to get her various men back.

I even think Melody sparring with Alley Mills' Pamela would be a hoot.

Universe, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make this happen! I'll even send money.

The Old and the Restless? Who skews older?

On SON's message board today, user CSF (Classicsoapfan) asked about my expression of the legend that B&B skews older than all of the other soaps. So, I decided to look at that using this week's data.

In the table below, I used the data provided by Toups at Soap Opera Network. I took this week's total viewers and subtracted women 18-49, girls 12-17, and men 18+. The "residual" in the second-from-right column is the leftover viewers. While a few boys under 18 and girls under 12 might be included in the residual numbers. These would be negligible. So, the column on the second-from-right mostly represents older women. What it shows us is that B&B is second only to Y&R in absolute number of these (mostly) older women. More importantly, the right-most column shows is the PROPORTION of all viewers that are older. This is a fascinating number, no? It does show in absolute terms, at least last week, that B&B has highest proportion of older viewers. But its' number is only 1% greater than its next neighbors.

The implication is definitely this: If the advertisers truly only value the 18-49 demographic, we can see that CBS has a serious problem...and we have an understanding of why (despite lower numbers) Days remains alive. It is the youngest of ALL the soaps. Why would NBC want to kill that?

One hopes that CBS is able to show the marketing value of reaching such a strong older audience. After all, ads for Depends and Centrum Silver have to run somewhere (just joking)!

SHOW	TOTAL	18-49	12-17	MEN	Residual (mostly women over 49)	% of viewers who are older
Y&R	4,874,000	1,085,000	18,000	1,104,000	2,667,000	55%
B&B	3,369,000	691,000	17,000	718,000	1,943,000	58%
OLTL	2,560,000	848,000	27,000	411,000	1,274,000	50%
GH	2,550,000	905,000	49,000	386,000	1,210,000	47%
DAYS	2,527,000	802,000	42,000	470,000	1,213,000	48%
AMC	2,518,000	793,000	8,000	461,000	1,256,000	50%
ATWT	2,394,000	530,000	17,000	488,000	1,359,000	57%
GL	1,951,000	434,000	15,000	396,000	1,106,000	57%

ETA: Carolyn1980 at SON tells me that the 18+ male figure includes men over 50 (of course) which, she says, constitute the MAJORITY of the male soap viewers. Thus, she is saying the proportion of older viewers is even higher than my right column would indicate. You could probably inflate those numbers by a substantial percentage. Wow...that is definitely an aging genre.

ETA2: I added the figure above to help visualize.

Y&R: "Rating" the headwriters

[Click on the link below to see the full version, if it is trucated]

ETA. SON User Paul Raven was able to give me 1999 ratings, which fleshes out data for Kay Alden. The pattern of data was identical to what I had published in an earlier draft, but it gives me more confidence in the Alden results.



Last week at Daytime Confidential, writer Jamey Giddens wrote an eloquent review of Tom Casiello's first breakdown at Y&R. It was a terrific review, and I agree with almost all of it.

But a funny thing happened in the comment thread. Jamey and a user named Monamis got into a debate about the relative impact of Lynn Latham on the ratings. Monamis points out things really went south with current headwriter (HW) Maria Arena Bell took over, but Jamey Giddens argues that Latham lost a million viewers.

What is the truth? Well, it sounds like a data analysis, and that's my thing.

Here is what I did. I wanted to go back to the start of Kay Alden's regime as solo Headwriter, but Toups' ratings archive at Soap Opera Network only gives me weekly ratings as far back as 2000. Okay, I'd start there.

Because different tenures lasted different periods of time, I thought I should post average weekly changes. These represent the slope coefficients that result when the household (HH) ratings are regressed on week. They represent the single best way to express ratings change in a common metric, despite the varying writing tenures on the show.

The figure at the top illustrates the data graphically. You can see that, as always, there was a lot of week to week variability. So, I am just extracting the linear trends from these data.

I divided the tenures this way:

Alden = Alden solo, before the arrival of Jack Smith
Smith = any period after Smith returned to the show, but before Latham joined
Latham = any period after she was formally named HW, even while Alden and Smith were still there
ArenaBell&Griffith = the disastrous (for ratings) period that began with the WGA writer's strike of 2007, and continued until Griffith's ouster in early 2008
ArenaBell = the post-Griffith period, in which she led a team that included Hogan Sheffer, Scott Hamner, and mahy others.

I further broke Latham's tenure into two pieces. 2006 was when she still had the legacy team (Alden, Smith, Ed Scott and many others) for most of it, and 2007, when she essentially had absolute control over her team without any "legacy" interference.

The table looks like this:

HW regime	Average weekly HH ratings change
Kay Alden	-0.010
Jack Smith with Kay Alden	-0.004
Lynn Latham (overall)	-0.003
Lynn Latham (2006 with legacy team)	+0.001
Lynn Latham (2007 without legacy team)	-0.006
Arena Bell/Griffth	-0.028
Arena Bell	+0.004

What do these numbers show?

It means the worst regime for the show was that Arena Bell/Griffth collaboration, that coincided with the WGA writer's strike and the sudde dismissal of Lynn Latham. Story-wise, the rushed introduction of Sabrina and her whirlwind romance with Victor seems to caused so much disgust that viewers tuned out in droves.

Alden's solo regime was next in problematic ratings. On average, she lost about 0.5 HH ratings points a year, which is a lot.

What that means is that the most disastrous period in the Toups/SON ratings archive is the several month period in which Arena Bell was writing with Josh Griffith. During this period, which encompassed the writer's strike and brief period thereafter, there were non-trivial declines on a week-by-week basis. "Bleeding". Many internet bloggers/message boarders blame this on the "damaged ground" that these writers inherited from Latham, but the descent was so precipitous, I have to believe that the introduction the much-younger Sabrina and Victor's whirlwind romance with her provoked a "disgust" response that led to massive tuneout.

More impressive is that in the time since Griffith left, Arena has actually stemmed the bleeding, and she is the only HW since Bill Bell to show ratings GROWTH.Now the growth is actually fairly anemic (.004 HH ratings points per week, on average), but in this climate, any growth is breath-taking.

Ratings-wise, the second-most difficult period in the post-Bell era was Kay Alden's solo regime, at least in the period beginning with 2000. Every ten weeks, on average, the show could be expected to lose 0.1 ratings points, or about 0.5 ratings points a year.

It seems that Alden's collaboration with Smith stemmed the tide...during this period, a much slower rate of decline set in.

And here is where it gets interesting. Latham was brough into shake things up. But, overall, her weekly rate of ratings decline (-.003) was only trivially different from the Smith & Alden era. She was not any more destructive to the ratings than her predecessors, but she was also not helpful. The truth, of course, is that Latham's era can be broken into "early Latham" and "late Latham", with these distinguished by when she had Alden/Smith/Scott around and when she didn't. If you compare these periods (roughly delimited by 2006 versus 2007), you find this:

In 2006, Latham and the legacy team achieved a weekly ratings change, on average of +.001...or slight gain. But in 2007, when Latham was solo (i.e., no legacy team) her ratings changed, on average, to a weekly decline of -.006!

Thus, Latham-solo was almost as negative as Alden solo.

Jack Smith's addition did stem the flow, and the rate of decline was much slower...but continuous. Interestingly, overall, Latham's weekly rate of decline was almost identical to Smith's, even though she was brought in to "fix things up". Ironically, a closer examination shows that when she worked with Alden/Smith and other legacy team members, she was actually experiencing slight ratings gain. But, once she let go of the team, her solo rate of decline was actually almost twice as bad as that experienced by Jack Smith.

The optimistic closer, of course, is Maria Arena Bell's current trend, which is actually positive. There has been a slow but steady very slight ratings gain. A little hope for the future....

Rafe: And so it begins...

ETA: The incredible Anthony D. Langford has started a "Rafe's Story" series on Youtube. I have embedded the first video just beneath the photo.





If you watched the Friday 4/24/09 episode of Y&R, you heard this dialogue:

Lily: Hey, you're gonna find someone. You have to just get back out there. I thought you were gonna go on that, um, that dating site.

Colleen: (Scoffs) yeah, I have.

Lily: And? What do you think so far?

Colleen: Eh.

Lily: (Whispering) hey, do you remember the lawyer that helped ana?

Colleen: (Whispering) yes, I remember. He's cute.

Lily: (Normal voice) hey, rafe.

[snip]

Lily: Yeah. Thank you. Um, so, what's a, uh, a good-looking guy like you doing all alone on a friday night?

Rafe: Um, I'm heading to a, uh, friend's birthday party.

Lily: Uh, are you going with anyone?

Colleen: (Clears throat)

Rafe: Actually, no.

[snip]

Colleen: Bye.

Lily: Bye.

Rafe: Good seeing you.

Colleen: (Chuckles) she's subtle, isn't she?

Rafe: Obviously, she doesn't know I'm gay.

Colleen: Well, matchmaker Lily strikes again.

Rafe: Hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

Colleen: Right. But, you know, we should still check out that bar. We could look for guys together. (Laughs)

Rafe: (Laughs) definitely. It's a date.

and later:

J.T.: That rafe seems like a pretty cool dude.

Colleen: Yeah, he is.

J.T.: It's good to see you dating again.

Colleen: (Chuckles) we are just friends.

J.T.: Oh, give it some time. I'm sure he won't be able to resist you.

Colleen: Oh, I'm sure he will. You, on the other hand...

J.T.: What about me?

Colleen: Much more his type.

J.T.: Uh... oh. Oh. (Chuckles) hey, you taking off?

Rafe: Mm. I got court tomorrow.

J.T.: All right.

Rafe: It was good seeing you, J.T.

J.T.: Yeah, you, too, man.

Rafe: Good night.

Colleen: Bye.

Rafe: Bye.

Colleen: This was fun.

Rafe: We'll come back soon, go trolling together.

Colleen: (Clicks tongue) it's a date.

Rafe: All right. See you guys.

Colleen: (Laughs)

And with that, Y&R launched it's first gay storyline since Katherine Chancellor took a liking to Joanne, back in 1977.

The introduction of the story was...subtle. Rafe's gayness was introduced without controversy...it is an aspect of him, like hair color or eye color. Moreover, although there was a moment of discomfort with Colleen and JT (both of them were a little surprised...the default expectation still reasonably remains "straightness"), it quickly passed. There was no judgement.

Some critics have complained that making a recurring, non-central character is a "cheat", and demonstrates a lack of commitment to the show. But which of their hitherto-straight characters should they turn gay?

The proof will be in the pudding, as we see which characters Rafe hooks up with, and how truly committed the story seems to be to telling his story.

I'm not worried about Rafe's current status. The Williams family was originally introduced in the same way (on the back of recurring island character Paul Williams). So too was the Winters family (Olivia and later Dru were introduced around recurring Aunt Mamie, the Abbott maid...and went on to become a key family for Y&R for many years). So, since Rafe is already tied to the Newman concierge, Estella, I'm hopeful this could lead to the introduction of a whole hispanic/latino family. If the story flows, the character will grow.

It is delicious to speculate where Rafe might find love. My picture at the top of this post sort of signals my wishes...in part because I'd just love to see the boys in bed together. I'm being truthful. It seems like it'd be a delicious sight...for male and female fans :).

The trick will be tying Rafe to a family we care about.

If it is Adam, many of us like him, and he is tied to the Newmans. Maybe finally being honest about his (bi)sexuality will free Adam, and bring him to the light. So it works.

If it is Billy (my wild speculation, since he and Rafe were school friends), it means Rafe is on a wild ride with the town man- whore...again, that will make many of us care.

If it is Phillip IV, that works too...because while we don't know adult Phillip, we saw him conceived, born, and fought over. He's a real lynchpin character, and returning into the maelstrom of the Abbott-Chancellors these days will be interesting. He's already been defined as interesting, because he's a returning soldier. We know he didn't go to Iraq for money (Nina's loaded), which means he did it for "call of duty"...and that makes him instantly interesting to me. If he's a gay "don't ask-don't tell soldier"...and a "hero"...what a truly interesting and innovative character. If, then, as P-IV is introduced to us, he also finds love .. with Rafe...well, I'm popping the corn for that as we speak!

I doubt it is JT. That would be a hard pretzel to twist. On the other hand, we saw Thad play gay (or, maybe, opportunistically bisexual) on Nip/Tuck, and the boy has glutes-of-steel. So, if that is the ride we're going on, bring it on.

The only one I refuse to believe it will be is Kevin (Michael's too old for this arc...they're not going there...he's happy with Lauren). I am totally in agreement that Kevin COULD go that way...it's clear he has spent his life confused, and a lot of his emotions for women were animus, not love. His best female relationships (Mac, Amber) were pure platonic friendship with no real sexual overtones (though I intuit that will change). And Jana...well....there isn't a lot of sexual chemistry there. The actors (Emily O'Brien and Greg Rikaart) even admitted that...they're not the couple that are shown in bed together. And with Jana's headaches, it seems either the couple has more of a "soul connection" (her headaches are his pain), or it's a doomed romance. Either way, it could be Kevin.

But here is why I don't want it to be Kevin. 'Cause Kevin is SCREWED UP. What a message to perpetuate..."the screwed up guy is the fag". That just feeds into too much stuff. On the other hand, I suppose if the arc is "when Kevin admits his sexuality, he is finally free", I will buy it. But I'd really hope not.

Right now, my hopes are (1) Adam, (2) the to-be-seen Phillip IV.

The question is whether we'll get gay bed scenes on Y&R -- something ATWT has so far avoided. (Brothers and Sisters, finally last week, showed a bona fide shirtless kissing/foreplay scene, and I admit even I was scandalized...simply because we'd NEVER seen something like that on primetime before). I doubt Y&R will go there...but they were so beautifully nonchalant about Rafe's sexuality...it was like eye color...I'm hopeful everything about this arc will be natural, realistic, not so unhealthy.

My one worry is the Bell family experience with "disgust" and massive viewer tune-out in the late 1970s. Let's see how they deal with that this time. I think it means there will be a cautious, subtle introduction to this story...and activist gay viewers need to be patient and just go along for the ride. There is much to be rewarded by trust.

Daytime and primetime ratings: Pas de deux?

A user over at SON asked “how tied have the fortunes of daytime and primetime been?” Is there any truth that as primetime declined on a network, so did daytime? The answer seems to be “yes, the fortunes of daytime and primetime have been tied together”. But it is somewhat more complex, because the ratings have shown stronger and weaker associations, depending on the network and decade. Data sources for primetime ratings are, and for daytime ratings are contained in the two threads linked below. Thanks are due to SON users dmarex, ReddFoxx, AllMyShadows and Sean, who helped me figure out which soaps aired on which networks.

I once previously examined primetime/daytime ratings overlap, but this is different. This analysis is more accurate, in some ways, than the overlapping slopes I presented before, for two reasons. First, this analysis breaks it down by network, and second, by now having coupled ratings for daytime and primetime in each season, we could more accurately examine actual year-by-year correlations.


We examined the association between primetime and daytime ratings (aggregate, averaged over all shows) for all networks from 1965 to 2009. I eliminated seasons before 1965 because, particularly for ABC, there was enormous initial variability as the networks grew.

What you see below is an analysis of variance table. The upshot of it is “the story is complicated”. The association between daytime and primetime ratings varied by network and by decade. But, look at that “R-squared” value, which says how much of the variance in daytime ratings we explained with this model: 94%. The legend, for the statistically minded: Dependent variable is Daytime Rating (D_Rat). Independent variables are Network, Decade, and Primetime Rating (P_Rat), and all possible interactions. (Click on the figure to see the full version, if it is truncated)



So, next, I examined the daytime/primetime associations separately by decade and network. The results look like this: (Click on the figure to see the full version, if it is truncated)



Now this is initially confusing, because it shows that the trends really varied by decade and network. “Green” means they changed together; “Red” means they did not or that primetime and daytime actually moved in opposite directions. The best way to visualize this is to look at the ratings, year-by-year, for daytime and primetime together. The next graphs show these: (Click on the figure to see the full version, if it is truncated)



Let’s note, overall, that a story I have told before – that soap ratings really began to decline almost from the beginning – is palpably obvious. ABC soaps grew through the early 70s, rebounded again with Gloria Monty’s GH, and then have declined ever after. In the 70s, ABC’s primetime lineup was growing at a faster rate than daytime…which was struggling with up-and-down. Just as ABC primetime was reaching heights (with Charlie’s Angels and Happy Days) its soaps were in descent. But then, beginning in the 1980s, ABC’s daytime and primetime lineups were yoked, falling in tandem. That association has broken a bit in the 2000s, as ABC primetime has experienced some upticks (Lost, Desperate Housewives, Dancing with the Stars) while the daypart has been on a linear decline trajectory.

For CBS, the story is quite similar. Remarkably, as you can see, the soap ratings were in decline through almost the entire period. That’s as close to a straight-line decline, for CBS daytime, as you’ll ever find. “OJ killed the soaps”. BALDERDASH. That slope of decline is remarkably constant since 1965, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. In contrast, CBS primetime was moving in almost the opposite direction all through the 1980s, as Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore and Archie Bunker and their network compatriots created a grand era of gain and maintenance… There was a late 80s fall, then a massive early 90s rescue, then freefall in the early 1990s from which CBS primetime has never recovered. Thus, from about 1993, daytime and primetime fell together. But again, by the 2000s, as with ABC, we see a separation of trajectories. Primetime has managed relative stability (CSI anyone?), while daytime has been in linear decline.

Except in the 1970s, for NBC, daytime and primetime have been a pas de deux. NBC daytime has been in decline, steadily, since the early 1970s. So has primetime, except for slow growth and decline in the 1970s that was followed by the mid-80s revolution that Cosby, Family Ties, and Cheers achieved, along with the early-mid 90s rebound that ER brought.

Looking at both the graphs, and the table above, we see that daytime and primetime had yoked trajectories, more or less, in eight out of 15 “decade-by-network” cells. Moreover, the overlapping trajectories were greatest in the 1980s and 1990s, as larger forces of global, systemic decline drove both sets of ratings down. This association has actually been weakened a bit in the 2000s as, for two networks, the rate of decline for daytime has been somewhat steeper than primetime (for ABC and CBS).

This last fact is, in my opinion, somewhat ominous for daytime. Although viewers are being lost all over the dial, if primetime is has declined at a slightly lower rate, it would seem to suggest extra vulnerability for the soaps. Indeed, I think that may be part of the reason CBS lost patience with Guiding Light.

Ratings in context: Soaps near bottom, but slower decline

Roger Newcomb recently linked an article reporting the recent March Sweeps ratings performance (both household rating, and one-year or season-to-date trends) of syndicated daytime and early prime shows. I decided to ask the question of "where do soaps fit in?". I had two questions. First, compared to other genres, how does the average ratings of soaps compare? Second, how does the one-year change rate compare? The answers follow in detail, but in summary, soaps really aren't doing very well in the overall daytime landscape, but their bleeding seems to have slowed. Other genres (judge shows, sitcoms) declined faster in the past year, but because they are cheaper and pull better numbers (sitcoms, anyway), I imagine they might still be more viable.


These answers were a little surprising to me, because I don't pay much attention to other genres. As a caveat, I am showing brute averages, and it would probably be more correct to do weighted averages that adjust for numbers of viewers, etc. In addition, these focus on household ratings numbers (which is all I could get, for the most part)--when we're constantly told it is that 18-49 or 18-34 demo we care more about.

Sitcoms: HH = 3.3
1st Hour morning news (e.g., Today): HH = 3.2
Game Shows: HH = 3.2
Entertainment news (e.g., ET): HH = 2.6
Soaps: HH = 2.2
Talk shows: HH = 2.1
Judge shows: HH = 1.6


That's pretty striking. In terms of delivering eyeballs, the relatively expensive soaps are in the bottom half of daily stripped programming! Yikes! If you were a bean counter, what genre would you pick to deliver eyeballs? Probably not a long-running drama that skews old in the demographics.


Now, the one-year decline trends tell a slightly different story...but this is again a bit of a problematic analysis (because it mixes new programs with long-running shows, and it doesn't control for things like affiliate clearance rates and the like). Still, I think several interesting stories emerge from these numbers:


Sitcoms: -13%
Game Shows: -7%
Entertainment news (e.g., ET): -3%
Soaps: 0%
Talk shows: +3%
Judge shows: -13%

First, in the short term, the soaps seem to have bottomed out, something Sara Bibel has also recently wondered. While we have still seen declines in many shows (B&B, GH, ATWT, GL), these have been offset by minimal decline and gain for others (Y&R, DOOL, AMC, OLTL).

Second, the highest decline rates seem to be for judge shows and sitcoms...but both of these are so relatively cheap. The judge shows, both at the bottom of the ratings pack and with the steepest descent, would seem to be at greatest risk...but they cost so little. The sitcom decline is more interesting to me, since the era of the "grand hit" (Friends, Cosby, Seinfeld) is over, and so I don't know if that genre can flourish without another big primetime hit. On the other hand, since there are no incremental production costs for repurposing and stripping primetime shows, I think all it means is that affiliates will be able to license syndicated shows at a lower rate.

Third, there is enormous variability within genres. That talk genre has some shows that show big to huge gains (Oprah, Ellen, The Doctors, Steve Wilkos, Bonnie Hunt), and these all suggest the talk genre still has momentum. On the other hand, no sitcom, judge show, or game show showed gain...and that suggests that some of those genres may be even more stale than soaps. Still, because those other genres are cheap, I'd still predict they have a better shot of persisting than soaps. The celebrity fascination is still viable, with several gossip/entertainment news shows showing growth.Maybe Soapnet is right to bet on more celebrity-oriented fare? It is somewhat surprising that 'reality' has still not found a foothold on daytime.

Wheel of Fortunea	7.2	-8%
Jeopardy	5.8	-6%
Oprah	5.4	+10%
Two and a Half Men	4.8	-8%
Judge Judy	4.4	-6%
Entertainment Tonight	4.3	-2%
Today Show (1st hour)b	4.2
Family Guy	4.0	-13%
The Young and the Restlessc	3.7	-1%
Seinfeld	3.6	-12%
The Viewd	3.5
Dr Phil	3.5	-17%
Good Morning America (1st hour)	3.4
Everybody Loves Raymond	3.1	-16%
The Price is Righte	3.0
Inside Edition	3.0	-6%
George Lopez	2.8	-13%
King of Queens	2.8	-7%
King of the Hill	2.7	-17%
Live with Regis & Kelly	2.6	-4%
Friends	2.5	-14%
Today (2nd hour)	2.5
The Bold and the Beautiful	2.5	-9%
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire	2.4	-14%
Ellen Degeneres	2.3	+10%
TMZ	2.3	+5%
Judge Joe Brown	2.2	-12%
Access Hollywood	2.2	-4%
Days of Our Lives	2.2	+2%
CBS Early Show (1st hour)	2.1
All My Children	2.0	+12%
One Life to Live	2.0	+11%
General Hospital	2.0	-7%
The Doctors	1.9	+46%
People's Court	1.9	-17%
As The World Turns	1.9	-7%
Rachel Ray	1.8	-5%
Maury	1.8	-5%
Extra	1.8	+6%
Insider	1.8	-14%
Deal or No Deal	1.7	+6%
Judge Mathis	1.6	-20%
Guiding Light	1.6	-4%
Judge Alex	1.5	-12%
Family Feud	1.5	-21%
Today (3rd hour)	1.4
Divorce Court	1.4	-18%
Tyra	1.1	0%
Cristina's Court	1.1	-8%
Jerry Springer	1.1	-8%
Steve Wilkos	1.1	+22%
Bonnie Hunt	1.0	+25%
Judge Karen	0.9	-18%
Morning Show with Mike and Juliet	0.9	-10%
Judge David Young	0.8	0%
Martha Stewart	0.7	-30%
Trivial Pursuit	0.6	0%
Family Court	0.5	-17%

^a Ratings and change data taken from http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/196222-Syndication_Ratings_Doctors_Ahead_of_the_Pack_in_Rookie_Field_During_Sweeps.php; where the show had been on for less than a year, ratings reflected change since premier

^b Morning show ratings taken from http://nbcumv.com/release_detail.nbc/news-20090409000000-big039today039.html One year change data were not readily available.

^c Soap opera season to date ratings taken from Soap Opera Network, http://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=30056&view=findpost&p=704665. One year change rates computed from one-year change in total viewers as reported at SON

^d The View ratings taken from ABC daytime press release http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/04/09/sweeps-ratings-for-abc-daytime-programming/16404, total viewers = 4,100,000. HH rating estimated by linear regression (Rating = viewers), using data from Soap Opera Network (see footnote c above). The conversion formula was Rating = .096 + 7.081E-7*Viewers. One year change data were not readily available.

^e. The Price is Right ratings were averaged over Part 1 and
Part 2(first and second half hour), and reflect season-to-date as reported in January at http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Dayparts_update_51/Price_is_Right_falls_off_with_new_host.asp, total viewers = 4,800,000. HH rating estimated by linear regression (Rating = viewers), using data from Soap Opera Network (see footnote c above). The conversion formula was Rating = .096 + 7.081E-7*Viewers. One year change data were not readily available.

A good "Break" for the future of the serial?

One of the reasons I'm not so disappointed about the apparently sunsetting of the daytime soap genre is because I think I have seen the future...and I love it.

This post was motivated by last night's episode of Breaking Bad, which is (for my money) truly the best show on television right now. But more on that later....

===

When I was a child, primetime drama was all procedural, all episodic. Even long-running shows, like Gunsmoke or Bonanza, really had no continuing stories or themes. A guest star this week would likely never return to the show again...at least not playing the same character. Marcus Welby, Owen Marshall, Columbo, Barnaby Jones, Mannix...on and on. There was a heavy dose of cop/lawyer/doctor shows, and they also seemed to retain no threads that ran through the series. Only the regular characters and their consistent reactions provided continuity to the shows.

Thus, for continuing, character-based, emotional drama or melodrama, daytime was it.


===

I'm not being unique when I parrot the idea that Hill Street Blues changed primetime drama forever in 1981. Suddenly, we had a show that -- on the face of it -- was another cop show. But embedded in it were continuing characters with narrative threads that extended over many episodes. Scenes were written simply for character and atmosphere (e.g., close-of-episode intimate moments between Furillo and Davenport).

The melodramatic serial clearly had bits of life in prime time (Peyton Place being the most obvious 1960s exemplar), but serials were uncommon. Dallas had debuted a few years earlier (1978), but it was not until it connected more fully with its soapy identity (melodramatic tales, episode-ending cliffhangers) that the show took off. "Who Shot JR?", in the summer of 1980, launched the birth/rebirth of the primetime soap. Hill Street Blues would modulate that a year later, when it provided a less sensationalistic, more thought-provoking, more cinematic template for the serial a year later.

From these two auspicious beginnings, the primetime landscape was transformed. On the melodrama side, we had Flamingo Road, Knot's Landing, Falcon Crest, Dynasty, and later 90210 and Melrose Place, and these days Gossip Girl and ... On the serious adult drama, we got St. Elsewhere, Thirtysomething, and LA Law and, later, ER, and still later, the Sopranos and Six Feet Under. As I write this, three unconventional serials (24, Lost, Heroes) are at least moderate TV successes, and both are noteworthy because they curry favor with a large male audience.

The serial has become so common place that even the primetime procedurals (NCIS, CSI, Law and Order) have small snippets of continuing narrative and character history that recurs throughout the shows, making the characters more relatable and themselves (outside of the situation of the week) more interesting to follow.

===

No better exemplar of the wholesale transformation of primetime can be seen than in the difference between Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek was a complete episodic. Never once did Kirk, for example, remember a girl he met in Season One when he encountered a similar girl in Season Three. It just didn't happen. By the time Captain Picard and gang came along, all kinds of multi-season arcs were in play, including the Crusher-Picard romance, the Troi-Riker-Worf triangle, Worf's troubled family history, Data's enduring quest to become a "real boy" (i.e., have an emotion chip). The serial had become commonplace.

I have argued elsewhere in this blog that what the serial uniquely does is create a sense of home. Familiar characters, familiar situations, narrative throughlines that (like any good novel) make you want to read the next chapter. Serials make you want to come back, to see how it will turn out. (In contrast, procedurals make you come back to see how they'll solve the puzzle "this time"...but there is nothing in the story itself that compels your return). I cannot wait to see what will happen to Nora and her children on Brothers and Sisters. I simply cannot wait.

So, we have come to place where you don't just have to look to daytime for that "sense of home". Instead, you can find it in primetime...all over the dial.

===

Now, as we are the cusp of the demise of broadcast TV (in favor of some kind of more pay-as-you go cable/internet model), it seems that cable television has appropriated the serial and made some delicious motivdations of its own.

HBO and Showtime have been playing with serials for some time. But it is commonly held that the one-two punch of HBO's The Sopranos and Sex and the City really remade the serial for cable. Uncommon, envelope-pushing premises ("the domestic travails of a mobster and his consorts in New Jersey"; "the romantic travails of a fashionista/columnist and her girlfriends in the big city"), but with clear serial narrative elements. It was a grafting of the ordinary quotidien life onto words that we, the viewers, would never experience directly. Suddenly, the serial format let us live with these unusual, surprising characters and situations. We followed them, and vicariously joined them.

But HBO (with Six Feet Under and Big Love and Rome and Deadwood and John from Cincinnati), and later Showtime (with Weeds and Queer as Folk and the Tudors and the L-Word) effected another transformation: Serials were no longer meat-and-potatoes...they had become confections--not filling, but satisfying.

There is nothing more "meat and potatoes" than a daily serving of soap opera. Day in and day out it's there. Not particularly special; indeed, the soap's very ordinariness, blended into the daily life of the housewife, meant that you could skip a day...and catch up again. Like a meal of staple foods, it gets you through the day, but you probably won't remember it next week.

What HBO and Showtime did was transform the serial into 10- or 13-week nuggets. Little appetizers that kept you breathlessly tuning in from week to week...and then they were gone. If the show was renewed, you might have to wait 39 weeks or longer for your next serving. Instead of the long hiatus breeding boredom and disconnection, the long breaks between seasons served to frustrate, tease...build a growing lust for fulfillment.

(In passing, I also note that HBO and Showtime have worked hard to build "appointment TV"...a fixed time, usually on Sunday nights, when you just have to watch the show live...you can't delay the next installment for another minute).

Of course, the HBO model has been so successful, they've had a hard time topping it. And better yet, "basic cable" has stolen the methdology. The Shield, Damages, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, Battlestar Galactica, Mad Men, Breaking Bad. Whole networks are now being built around these "nuggets". Come for the treat, and our promos will keep you coming back for other offerings.

===

Which leads me back to Breaking Bad.

The premise is this: An embittered high school chemistry teacher, Walter, who feels cheated by life, has been living just-at-his-means in a working class Albuquerque suburb with his wife and disabled son (Walter Jr. -- one of the most attractive, engaging new young men on television today). In a drab house with olive-toned kitchen appliances, the "rut" of their daily lives is interrupted by the dual traumas of his wife's unexpected mid-life pregnancy, and his own terminal lung cancer diagnosis.

What to do? How to provide for his family after he is gone? (Walter seems to have little confidence that his wife and son will manage; he has control issues and seems to need to 'fix' the situation). The answer is "become a manufacturer of crystal meth". Walter pairs with one of his worst former pupils, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul, who is a revelation).

As the series spins out, it compares favorably to the Sopranos. We're plunged in a life of addicts and dealers and DEA agents...seedy and grim and violent...but the serial drama and the "ordinary" protagonists serve as our passport into this surprising and shocking world. The writers also creatively shift the rooting dynamics. Jesse Pinkman is an irresponsible stoner...but as time goes on, we see he is hurt by his failings, and that he has a good heart for children and ... even insects. Walter, on the other hand, the "noble" science teacher has serious issues of wounded pride, deceptiveness, and amorality. Who knew Jesse would turn out to be the good guy?

Like the best of the HBO dramas, the unrelenting drama is leavened by humor, and there are dozens of laugh-out-loud moments in every episode. In addition, most episodes end with a breathtaking cliffhanger...one dare not miss the next episode.

===

One thing the Sopranos and Deadwood and Lost and Breaking Bad all share is that they stay with me. After the episode is done, I cannot stop thinking about them, cannot stop quoting key lines. The episodes compel re-viewing, to catch nuances one missed.

I cannot remember (outside of Y&R these days) when a daytime soap last engaged me thus.

Maybe this is the level of investment and respect that the soap always deserved? Maybe the ending of the unsustainable daytime dinosaurs--deprived of their "specialness" by being so unrelentingly available, day after day--means that the actors and writers and characters get a deeper, more loving treatment? I'm still getting my "soap" fix, but in a very different way.

This is why I am optimistic. The serial is alive, well and ubiquitous. It has evolved into short-term gems that consume the imagination, and that satisfy the viewer long after the closing credits have rolled.