He Said/She Said: As the World Turns

Almost two weeks ago (yikes!), our SoapWikiJohn blogged about the final week of ATWT in the latest installment of our He Said/She Said: ATWT Finale series. He loved Jack and Carly’s wedding, Parker’s decision to become a cop and Katie getting a happy ending with Chris. He was also highly critical of the final week, his major complaints being: No enough returns, useless recasts of Liberty and Hope, lack of Martha Byrne, no happy ending for Luke or Nuke and too much Janet. Judging from what I read on the blogosphere, twitter and in the mainstream soap press, J’s thoughts mirrored what many fans felt about the finale. For the most part, I agree with a lot of what’s been said, though I do seem to hold some unpopular opinions (be prepared for a defense of Janet!) It’s been awhile since the final week of ATWT aired, so forgive me if some of the things I mentioned were aired before the final week. So here’s my roundup, Good/Bad/Ugly Remix style!

He Said/ She Said - As The World Turns Final Week - Part 1

There is no denying that there was a lot of good within As The World Turns final week, but even so there were a lot of issues that could have easily been rectified. So grab your hat, and get ready because we are about to dive right back in to Denial Island's "He said / She said debate!"

To read my thoughts on the final episode click here, and to read Melanie*SoapOperaBabble*daisyclover1938 (.... She could not possibly pick a longer username could she?) click here.

Let's tackle the good first shall we?

Jack and Carly Got Married!

So within the final days of world turns, the fan favorite coupling of Jack and Carly reunited and got married one final time. The wedding was nice, simple, and brought closure to the CarJack coupling's story.

The wedding also brought the character of Parker full circle as he announced (with the help of Margo) that he was going to join the academy and follow in his father / stepfathers footsteps.

Another good storyline for the week was Katie and Chris's relationship, it was nice to see the two of them happy and for Katie to get her happily ever after that she has always deserved.

See Mel, I can do nice! I can, really! But um now let's get onto the bad.

No returns!

Okay let's see, we have a 54 year old show, with hundreds of people going through the doors to Oakdale, and you are telling me we cannot have ANY returns within the final week? Not even for CarJack's wedding? I mean even at the end of Guiding Light they recast Payton and brought her on, but we cannot get a recast J.J?

There were so many little characters and little moments that could have brought up so much history and tied things together so much nicer. Why didn’t Daniel return and have the past between Emily and Tom winked at while Emily is getting ready to marry Paul. Or we could have had a recast Liza, or seen Johnny, or any of the little kids in Oakdale for that matter.

Oh but we did see the kids you say, we saw Recast Hope and Recast Liberty….And that brings me to my next point. WHY DID WE NEED THEM? I am sorry, I know that they didn’t really want to kill off the character of Liberty after having just killed off her father. But the death would have been so much more memorable and made so much more sense then recasting the character with someone we didn’t care about so to have a plot device and suck up more airtime that could have been devoted to other things. Then we have Nu-Hope……again what was the point? The character lusted after her cousin and made a fool out of herself while she was busy worrying about reuniting mom and dad….then at the end of the day she made no real contribution to the story what-so-ever.

But hey, at least we got to have Martha Byrne back for…oh wait we didn’t, we got to see Holden and Lily reunite a little but no real closure whatso ever. And that is just bull crap. I am sorry it is, they could have easily brought Rose either back from the dead, or as a ghost and helped wrap up the storylines while giving the fans one last good-bye to an actress that they loved.

There was NO HAPPY ending for 'Nuke'?

Okay are you serious P&G? Out of all the characters you gave unbelievable endings to, the only one you decided to happily forget is the one who happens to be a homosexual? Wow there is no horrible discrimination here at all is there? I didn’t need to see an ‘instant’ relationship, but why couldn’t Noah have called Luke and invited him to come down to LA for a bit, and their last scene been a reuniting kiss?

To Big of a focus on Janet -

I love Janet, I love the actress and all of her hard work, but I did not need for the entire final week of World turns to be about her and her baby! There was other things we could have focuses on had we simply wrapped up that storyline on Monday and moved on with things. But that was not going to happen, we instead got Janet and Dusty EVERY SINGLE DAY. While I understand that the storyline was a part of ATWT's history and needed to be wrapped up nicely, you could tell that the writers were trying to force the storyline, and that is why for me at least it fell flat.

Anyways that's my take on the final week, look for Mel's posting soon as we continue to discuss the ending to a fantastic show.

He Said/She Said: As the World Turns

It's been a week and a day since the last episode of As the World Turns aired and I'm still in mourning. ATWT was never "my" show, but I watched it regularly since the 90s and while the show wasn't perfect (what show is?) I thought it had a lot of life left in it. When fellow Denial Island resident SoapWikiJohn suggested we do a series of He Said/She Said pieces about ATWT and it's finale, I thought it would be a nice way to keep the show alive for a little while longer. We're thinking about doing this in Parts - Initial Reactions, Final Week/Final Year, Characters, etc... I hope you enjoy the discussion, and we'd love for you to share your thoughts and memories of ATWT.

To read SoapWikiJohn's Initial Reaction to the ATWT finale, click here

I agree with some of John's observations: the happy endings did seem forced and rushed, and the Reid/Luke/Noah fans were cheated. But generally, I liked the last episode. I cried, I laughed, and I enjoyed all the performances. Not to mention the fact that I got what I'd been wanting desperately for years - John and Lucinda together again!!! I was also moved by Bob's narration (which seemed very Our Town-ish to me). Call me corny, but I liked the happy endings - it's what we fans wish for our favorites, and it's something we can only get when a show ends. Most of all, I liked that the show's finale was really about what soaps should always be about: Love, Family & Friends, and Community.

I didn't love everything though. I was shocked that Eileen Fulton was relegated to what was essentially a cameo appearance, it did seem rushed (as if TPTB just ran out of time and quickly slapped something together at the last minute), not enough interactions between the characters, too many of whom seemed to exist in their own little bubble (Paul and Emily, for instance), not enough returns, and I was hoping for lots of clips. Most of all, it was heartbreaking that Martha Byrne wasn't there. Noelle Beck is a fine actress, but not having Byrne resume her signature role as Lily was criminal and a real slap in the face to the actress and her fans.

All that said, I found the final episode to be satisfying. Sure, it could have been better but I'm hesitant in being too critical because 1) I don't know what kind of restrictions TPTB were working under and 2) It seems useless to pick on a show that's gone now, went out on a high note, and I found to be more entertaining than most of the other soaps still on the air.

So these are my initial reactions. Look for SoapWikiJohn and I to get into a more detailed discussion about ATWT in the upcoming weeks! I know I plan on discussing: my beloved Reid & LuRe, CarJack/Janet/Dusty, favorite stories/characters, and stuff I hated. And I'm sure SoapWikiJohn and I are going to do lots of arguing!!

Thanks for reading! We'd love to hear what you think!
-Melanie/SoapOperaBabble/daisyclover1938

The Great As The World Turns He Said - She Said Debate Part 1 - Initial Reactions- The He Said Version

Welcome one and all to a good ol' fashion "He Said" vs. "She Said" debate! Me and our Melanie will be tackling the end of As the World Turns, in which we will debating the finer points to the final months of this groundbreaking soap opera and how it's executive producers, writers, and cast decided to handle the daunting task of ending such a epic show.

Since our Mel isn't quite ready yet I am going to take it upon myself to start off the debate.

In part 1 of our debate we will simply be tackling our 'initial reactions' to the series finale.

Initial Reaction To The Finale-

After finishing the final episode of World Turns I could not help but grasp that the show was 'really' over. The final story thread of Bob Hughes, played by actor Don Hastings, retiring and narrating his final day was the most brilliant decision that TPTB made when planning the final episode. But unfortunately for me, I found the rest of the episode to be very bland.

When discussing the Guiding Light finale many fans speculated that there was a giant list created to which Ellen Wheeler simply checked off as the episode progressed. I kinda got the exact same feeling from the As The World Turns Finale. That someone had a mandated list of 'things that HAD to happen' and that is why everything was forced into nice little bubble.

The most shocking thing about the finale however was lack of closure for the 'gay' storyline. As I will get to in a moment, the Luke, Noah, Reid storyline was botched in what appeared to be an attempt to give the 'Nuke' fans a happy ending. Only that 'ending' did not appear on screen. While EVERYONE else in Oakdale seemed to be given a happy ending, Luke was left by his lonesome, mourning the death of his boyfriend Reid.

I have come to accept the loss of ATWT, but that does not in anyway negate the fact that the show had it's issues.

So there you have part 1 in our hopefully on-going debate about the end of World Turns! Look for the 'She Said' edition soon, followed by part 2 in which we tackle some of the more gritty details of the shows ending.