Actually, Lydia never meant anything like that, as is clear from what she goes on to say.
Like what? That's a quote. It was just a nice observation about Lamar and the viewers being in comparable positions though; I wasn't reading anything further into it.
My point was that to take that particular remark away from the context of what Lydia goes on to say can easily imply that the point she was making was that with the switch to 1841PT the audience as well as the show itself is trapped in a bad storyline and thus it dies there. But within the full context of what she says it's clear that isn't what she was saying because after making that remark she goes on to say how much she loves 1841PT. However, I can now see from your explanation that that wasn't the implication you were trying to make by taking her remark away from its context.
As for the horror and soap elements in 1841PT, when I watch it and wonder what it lacks for me, I do notice a lot more relationship discussion going on for long stretches without a horror element, and in those scenes I notice how inappropriate the viola/cello music seems.
I can't really say as I've ever found any of the music to be inappropriate. Perhaps when one of those scenes comes up for you, you can comment on it at that time?
One thing I have noticed, especially since watching the pre-Barn eps, is that music that I'd come to associate with certain types of scenes in the later storylines wasn't always used that way, particularly in the pre-Barn days, For instance, there's one piece that I always associated with the Leviathans and I was quite surprised when I found out it had actually been introduced on the show in the pre-Barn period and was originally used to underscore very different types of scenes than I was most used to seeing it used for. So I suppose that caused me to reexamine what that particular piece was supposed to convey and why DS' music supervisors had believed it worked well for each of the types of scenes they'd used it for...