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From what I have seen. It feels like all the characters were really strong and the style was support system and lots of people in scenes. Very few 2 on 2 scenes. No real cliques. Unlike YR where characters never interact. On ATWT. Everybody interacted with each other.
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I would agree until the last few years when many characters were in "bubbles" and rarely interacted with anyone else. For example, Katie was rarely in a scene (much less a story) with Craig, her brother, and about once a year she had a scene with Margo, her sister, who she had been close with (didn't she give her part of her liver?). Depending on who was current in her love life, that's who most of her scenes were with (and she had no friends, until the writers moved Reid in with her BUT they wanted us to believe Nancy was her best friend!!!). That's just one example, but since she was a main character the last few years ("sweetheart of the show"), that's why I'm highlighting her. I could give you many more examples with other characters. It was very irritating.
Also, since the show has been off ten years, all of the other shows have had to cut way back on budgets, so that's why you are seeing so many one-on-one or two-on-two scenes. I'm sure ATWT would've gone that route too, if it had lasted since the shows all copycat each other and yes, it's cheaper to keep characters in bubbles and in cliques. You don't have to pay for extraneous people. -
Watching some Vintage ATWT and to me they seemed to use the cast well. Great dialog. I don't like that ATWT did not let Classic Craig/Lilly play out the last month. I wish it was on. Sometimes I felt like they had duplicate characters. Antonio/Damien/Simon all seemed to be sort of the same. Caleb/Jack as well. Although Jack was a bit more heroic. Caleb was sort of sneaky. Rosanna and Lily were sort of interchangable. Casey-Lyla's husband and Larry were both younger guys married to older women. Susan Stewart was like a female John Dixon. Too many Matriarcs. Kirk Anderson was basically a diet coke version of Craig. Hunt Block's Craig was more sinister. I prefered ED's Margo over HB's Margo. Loved Scott's Tom Hughes.Comment
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I agree that the characters definitely all knew one another. I watch certain soaps sometimes and when a character is talking about another character they have to say the first and last name. GH is definitely an offender of this. I think in large part it is due to the never ending door of new characters that replace existing ones. Which Y&R and Days are both guilty of at least in recent years. Which I suppose is in part due to them trying to keep viewers engaged an also bringing in new viewers.
Everyone knew one another on ATWT's and were connected. I always felt that OLTL was the same way. B&B is too but B&B has a much smaller cast.Comment
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This was definitely a strength of ATWT. If you look at episodes in the decades when the show was at its peak, it seemed like the entire town would be at weddings and funerals. Those events would stretch out for days as assorted characters interacted with each other before, during, and after. When I go to a hospital, I generally don't run into anyone I know, but it seems like on any given day in Oakdale a huge percentage of the population was running around the hospital hallways engaged in intrigue and gossip while suspenseful music played in the background, haha. Look on you-know-where--tube for the Christmas episodes; there were usually two locations (for example the Snyder farm and the Hughes house) with almost the entire cast split between them, and sometimes characters from one would migrate to the other.Comment
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Once Craig/Margo came into the picture. It felt like ATWT became more Action Adventure like. Unlike YR which is more stoic. I am looking at old ATWT clips from the 60/70's. The soap seems kind of tame. 80 to 00's ATWT way more action packed. Anything before ATWT comes across as people having tea and tame.Comment
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ATWT offered viewers real mysteries and surprises, something B&B never does. The show was not predictable like soaps today, especially B&B.Comment
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ATWT really thrived under Doug Marland as head writer - he strengthened all the families....brought on many wonderful new characters....the entire Snyder family was his creation, and he tied them to Lucinda and Lily beautifully by making Lily adopted....he revitalized the Hughes family completely.....and he dug into show history to create new stories for Bob and Kim Hughes, and Lisa (whatever her last name was that week)....gave her a long-lost child (that she new about but had not spoken of since he was raised by his father's family)....he added diversity to the cast, gave Tom Hughes a Vietnamese daughter....etc., etc., etc. - he did SO much to make that soap a powerhouse in the 1980s. He brought James Stenbeck back from the dead the first time (and really the ONLY time he should have been brought back - later writers made a mockery of that character with his additional long-lost children and the stupid way they explained how he was alive again...) - he did so much right with that show....I loved watching it in the 80s. Once he was gone....the show paled in comparison....sure, they had some interesting stories, and some interesting characters joined....but all in all, the show was, in my opinion, never as good as it was in the 80s.Comment
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80/90's ATWT was great. Thats when I watched it and I was kid. It was cool watching Lily/Andy/Paul/Liun grow up. They were my age range.Comment
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