DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '03 II => Topic started by: David on October 07, 2003, 02:59:48 AM
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So Port Charles ended on Oct 3 2003.
It may have failed because it was more interested in being slick and sexy than in being scary. It may have failed because the Caleb Morely(Michael Easton) enjoyed being a vampire too much. Frid's tragic Barnabas gave DS a heart and soul that PC never had.
Regardless, our ignoring of PC may have cost us a new DS. The vampire stories on Port Charles were a last ditch effort to save a show that was dying. Had this succeeded, it might have shown the networks that there is a market for a new DS.
And there sure are enough of us DS folk around to have given PC another ratings point, which would have saved it.
We may really have pulled a blunder here.
Oh, well.
Live & learn.
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Truthfully, I think all soaps that fail, fail for the same reasons.....the plot and the writing just couldn't keep the audience tuned in. The actors come and go too frequently for it really to hinge on the performers....it's really all in the writing.
And I don't think that anyone out there in "Production World" is saying to themself...."Gee, 'Port Charles couldn't keep an audience....guess people are getting tired of the fantasy/horror/supernatural thing." People have enjoyed being scared to death since the first cave people began telling stories around the campfire. That's never going to change.
If there's never another version of DS it will be because Mr. Curtis doesn't want there to be. He brings it up once in a while, like the old family patriarch mentions changing his will....not because he really intends to......but just to see who jumps and runs.
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Well, we had "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" that was very popular for 7 or so seasons on WB/UPN. That alone did not give us a new DS like I had hoped it would. And PC was just a cheap daytime show with barely half the ratings that Buffy gave. I think the failure of the 91 DS series is still in some execs minds. Provided they have any minds to speak of. As for daytime soaps, their ratings are eroding constantly, and I doubt they will all be on the air in 10 -15 years from now.
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I couldn't agree with you more. Compelling characters and good writing keep the audience tuned in. Pretty faces and gimmicks will only carry a show so far.
nancy
Truthfully, I think all soaps that fail, fail for the same reasons.....the plot and the writing just couldn't keep the audience tuned in. The actors come and go too frequently for it really to hinge on the performers....it's really all in the writing.
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I watched Port Charles, on and off, when the vampire story first started. Caleb was far more of an evil, loathsome thing back then, making the whole spiel more interesting. I just didn't have time to keep up with it. TV Guide, in an article, lamented the show's passing, saying that it was fun because of its over-the-top approach. Maybe it should've been given another chance, by both the public and the network, but like they say, that's show biz.
Gerard
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I've been watching it on and off too since it was about a group of mostly interns dealing with problems as mundane (by today's soap standards) as murder and drugs. But I enjoyed it more as a supernatural soap, and though the quality of those plots had declined to a ridiculous point I think it's a pity that it was cancelled just as a werewolf had been introduced.
Anyway, on the Jump the Shark site, a chief complaint about PC's more recent stories seems to be that it borrowed too heavily from contemporary stories such as "Frequency", "Back to the Future", and "BtVS" in addition to DS. While our show was guilty of the same (if you think the DS writers borrowed only from literary works, you have only to check out "Horror of Dracula" on TCM this month, which was ripped off for at least 2 scenes), DS also offered the audience some very creative material, excellent writing, and often some superior acting, none of which PC could claim.
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In my not-so-humble opinion, the era of anything on television remotely resembling theater--shorthand for narratives with three dimensional characters and some semblance of attention to production detail--is in its death-throes.
By five years from now, there will be very few series in any genre left on the tube that do not fit some version of the "reality" TV model. Even cable is going the same way--a friend has been updating me on the struggle to keep East Enders on the BBC's American channel, but apparently even the Beeb is more interested in "Trading Spaces" or whatever the Hel it's called than a quality series.
As for Port Charles, I never watched it, but I think its failure is indicative only of a show that did not start out with very much reaching the end of the line. They kept that Caleb story going for, what, 2 years? it was meant to last a couple of months, iirc.
G.
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Yup, Gothic, it was meant to run for 13 weeks. I guess the intent of the show was to having storylines run in 13 week segments, each with its own subtitle. The vampire one was called: Port Charles - Tainted Love. But I guess the vampire schtick proved rather popular and they kept it going and going and going. Kinda sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Gerard
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I'm not sure that PC would really have had much of an effect on the possibility of a new DS one way or the other - I keep hoping Buffy and Angel will encourage some network to take another stab at DS. I certainly think DS had its effect on PC though. At the time they first decided to bring in supernatural elements the show practically had one foot in the grave (so to speak). The idea of throwing in time travel, vampires, etc was really part of the last ditch effort to save the show and give it a niche of its own. In doing that I know they lost some General Hospital fans. One main problem was that, like DS, I'm not sure that ABC quite knew what to make of PC.
I was a pretty regular PC watcher and saw the majority of the show from day one, so adding supernatural elements to the show was just an added bonus for me. I agree that the real down fall of PC stemmed from the writing. What that show needed was a Sam Hall to breathe some real life into it.
(side note to any pc watchers - Lucy as a vampire slayer?!? I can't be the only one who thought that was a horrible idea¢â‚¬¦ let her help with the vampires, sure, but a vampire slayer?!? So very wrong!)
grayson67 (Melissa)
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the time slot didn't help either i think this was a show that would have
appealed to a younger group 1230 ET is when they are at school
would DS have made it at that time?
they were also going to bring in a girl werewolf but alas ran out of time!
jennifer
Lucy as a vamp slayer was pretty funny though[lol2]
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I have a feeling that we won't be seeing a new DS, regardless if PC lasted or not. Dan Curtis always talks about how there will be a new Dark Shadows, and yet there hasn't been one. It'd probably be almost exactly like the first remake, and we know how great that one turned out. ::)
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Melissa (Grayson67).....LOVE the text under your avatar!!!
Patti
and welcome dahling
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Melissa (Grayson67).....LOVE the text under your avatar!!!
Patti - Thanks!! Apparently my sarcastic side just couldn't help but come out when trying to figure out what to put below my avatar [gring]
grayson67 (Melissa )
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Hi,
I didn't watch too much of Port Charles, but recently I've been watching..just before the series ended. It was a good series, but I didn't seem to get the same feeling as with DS.
They really had a good series with DS, both the original and the '91 series. I can only hope we can see a new DS series before too long.
Donamarie :)
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Welcome, donamarie!
[crowdhappy]
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There could be a new DS after Dan Curtis passes or retires.
Johhny Depp has said he would love to play Barnabas Collins, and both Stephen King & Tim Burton claim DS as among their childhood influences.
Look how often Dracula, Frankenstein, & Jekyll & Hyde get redone, again and again. In the future, I think there will be a DS fan in the film industry who'll remake it.
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Johhny Depp has said he would love to play Barnabas Collins, and both Stephen King & Tim Burton claim DS as among their childhood influences.
I doubt Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, and Stephen King would want to work on a Dark Shadows tv series. Maybe they could be involved in a DS mini-series or maybe even a movie. >:D
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As for daytime soaps, their ratings are eroding constantly, and I doubt they will all be on the air in 10 -15 years from now.
Industry insiders say that the demise of the soap is actually probably less than five years away. That's why shows like Days of Our Lives are killing off major characters--to get the high-dollar people off the payroll as a means of survival.
But the real reason the form is dying is because the writing generally sucks and is totally manipulative, unnatural and silly. And casting directors tend to cast genetic masterpieces as opposed to people who are pretty much good looking, but who can actually act--like DS did all those years ago.
Port Charles probably also failed because it was against--in most markets--The Young & The Restless, TV's top-rated soap.
Passions--Spike's favorite soap--is also big with the supernatural storylines--but, oddly enough, now that PC is canceled, it is TV's lowest rated soap.
If soaps do go the wayside, the producers and writers have no one to blame but themselves, for they are the ones killing off the audience.
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For Scout: if they don't get back to stories with heart & substance, the genre will indeed die. Passions is cute, and I like it, but I doubt it'll last.
I think DS will always have a following among horror fans, because it has heart!
And because the 1795 & 1897 stories are brilliant and scary.
For Lite Shadows: a movie is what I meant!
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for most of the soaps they have become so boring! been there,done that a million times. they need new writers and new blood or they will die out
if i'm home in the day now i'd rather a rerun of Law and Order than
Vicki on OLTL become Nicki again!
jennifer
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For Lite Shadows: a movie is what I meant!
Ooh, sorry, I missed the last part of your post. [sun]