No More Life to Live

I have a confession to make and please don't judge me.

I have, from time to time, watched a daytime soap opera.

I will pause for ten seconds while you gasp.

Oh, I don't DVR Monday through Friday episodes and watch them non-stop on the weekend.  But, if I am flipping the dials just before bedtime, I do wander over to Soapnet on an occasional basis and check out "One Life to Live."

So, now, you know.

The good news is that, if this has prompted you to change your original opinion about me as a human being, I won't do this anymore after tomorrow.

After 43 years on ABC, "One Life to Live" is going off the air.  The latest soap opera victim of dwindling, aging audiences and even lower advertising revenues.  Like "All My Children" which bit the dust a few months back, "OLTL" is being replaced by another how-to show.  The former was supplanted by a program designed to help you eat better.  "OLTL" is being dumped for a show that will help you how to lose weight.  Perhaps, it will tell you not to eat what you saw on the food show.  The bottom line is that those types of programs are much cheaper to produce and that's always the bottom line in media these days.

How did I wind up watching "OLTL?"  Well, as with many things you read on this blog, the genesis goes back several decades.

Grandma.

She loved her daytime "stories."  First, she would take her daily nap.  Well, she would call it her "beauty rest."  From 1PM to 2PM.  Then she'd pop up off the couch and hit the TV dials for the trials and tribulations of OLTL's Llanview and whatever city "General Hospital" was set in.  I never got suckered into those folks.  But, somehow and almost magically, I found myself hooked with her on OLTL.

I was off for the summer and doing nothing much.  My mind was available.  A diversion was needed.  I wandered past Grandma in front of the tube.  There was a woman crying on a witness stand.  I asked simply who she was.

"She's a tramp."

That's all it took.

To give you an idea how long OLTL has been on the air, my grandmother will be dead thirty years this July.

The amazing thing is that, as I would check into the show infrequently over the ensuing three decades, I'd see some of the same actors and characters that I first met with Grandma.  There's Erika Slezak and Robin Strasser and a bunch of others who contribute to a wonderful consistency and you understand how a daytime soap opera becomes a member of your family.

Oh, sure, some plotlines are implausible.  Let's face it, Erika's "Viki Buchanan" went to Heaven and met God three different times.  Dead characters suddenly resurfaced as twins whenever departed actors want to return to the fold.  And the local hospital should be closed given the number of times babies were switched.

But, still, it's pure entertainment and an art form that goes back to the days of national radio in the 30s and 40s.  At one point, there might have been ten or twelve daytime soaps on network television.  With this latest departure, the number will be down to four and that may go down even further soon.  Television programmers say the audience has changed.  Perhaps.  But, given the replacements, how riveting is it to learn the number of different ways you can serve an artichoke?

There had been a chance that OLTL was going to move on-line with this internet company named Prospect Park.  It was so assured of happening that the writers included several cliffhangers in their ABC closing episode.  After production shuttered, the on-line opportunity dried up when they couldn't get agreement with unions repping the actors, writers, and directors.  The sad thing is that OLTL now wraps up with loose ends as they didn't have time to go back and reshoot.

It's never a good thing when actors and crews are put out of work, especially after several decades of a steady paycheck.  I am sure most of the cast will wind up with gainful employment.  Hell, I'm looking at two of them myself for an idea we are working on.  But, yet, for the sake of a few saved dollars, another broadcasting icon bites the dust.  There should be room for all sorts of entertainment, regardless of the age or the size of the audience.

Nevertheless, I have DVRed the past two weeks of OLTL and will certainly watch the end tomorrow.  Good job, folks.  And that goes to all those actors, writers, and directors who carried on the art of good soap opera as long as they could.  A cap tip to all.

And I bet my grandmother would agree.

Dinner last night:  Homemade tomato sauce.