lynn liccardo's Blog
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Jan.01.2009
a quick happy new year to all. i'm in the midst of the final revision of my essay for a forthcoming book on soap opera, not to mention, i'm still digesting the voluminous postings generated by a group of bloggers who visited the guiding light production site in peapack, new jersey last month. hope...
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Dec.10.2008
It's been hard to keep up-to-date the past few days: Dirty Sexy Money's canceled, but wait, a couple of actors say not quite yet. NBC announces the come fall 2009, Jay Leno moves from 11:30 PM, Monday-Friday to 10 PM, M-F. And then, there's the never-ending discussion around the future of daytime...
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Dec.03.2008
I have been watching soap operas for a long time - 50-plus years - and never can I remember a story that has generated more passionate, thoughtful and, yes, contentious, discussion than the past six months of One Life to Live's Todd and Marty saga. And by that measure alone, this current story,...
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2 comments
Nov.23.2008
There is certainly a lot to be said for the power of a subpoena. Last week, Congress sent the heads of the big three auto companies packing after they failed to explain how they would use the $25 billion of taxpayer's money they say they need to save their failing companies. Actually, what...
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Nov.16.2008
fool me twice, shame on me... fool me... so how many times has it been?
Fan response to last week's news that Grant Aleksander will be returning to Guiding Light next month to reprise his role as Phillip Spaulding was, well, let's just say, muted.
On TWoP, hnee was apathetic:
That should be good...
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4 comments
Nov.12.2008
When my cable provider added SOAPNet a couple of years ago, I finally had a chance to see Ryan's Hope. The episodes airing then were from 1980, about five years into the show's 14-year run. I have to confess, the character of Delia Reid Ryan (Ryan Coleridge Crane Coleridge) didn't make much of an...
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2 comments
Nov.11.2008
Sam Ford asked me to pass along information about a great conference taking place next week in Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT's 3rd Futures of Entertainment. I attended both previous FoEs, and found most of the panel discussions had a lot of relevance for soap operas. As will this years': panelists...
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3 comments
Oct.27.2008
For a the past few years, primetime soaps have provided a real refuge for fans disenchanted with the current state of daytime soaps. In fact, some of us (mine are here and here) have been arguing that TPTB of daytime soaps would do well to take a good look at why. What I hadn't anticipated was that...
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Oct.27.2008
in my previous post, i mentioned that i would be posting reviews of the books from my housewarming party prize. my first, "why's a nice girl like yu go and get a tattoo?," a review of chick in: 40 stories of tattoos and the women who wear them, edited by red room author, karenl hudson is...
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Oct.24.2008
the first part of my 2nd place prize in the red room housewarming party. i've always been a voracious reader, but since i live in a tiny studio apartment, in recent years, i've been getting books from the library -- a task made simple by on-line requests. i just pick up and drop off. of course, i'...
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Oct.20.2008
Tom Casiello recently posted Viewing Habits of a Soap Writer, which got me thinking that I should talk about my own viewing habits. I started watching the CBS lineup with my mother in the mid-50s. I could catch all of Search for Tomorrow and half of GL before I had to go back to school after lunch...
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Oct.06.2008
It's not as though I've been going out of my way to find analogies between the 2008 election and soaps. But some have been hard to miss. Peggy Noonan let one loose on Meet the Press: While discussing the operatives of both campaigns she said, "I have the sense sometimes lately that these guys...
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Sep.29.2008
Like my Red Room colleague, Jennifer Gibbons, I've been in a bit of a funk of late and haven't felt much like writing. Like Jennifer, the election and the economy are sapping my energy. Then my 92-year old uncle died and two days later Paul Newman. So...
But that's real life. Then there are the...
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3 comments
Sep.15.2008
I generally resist, indeed reject, the term soap opera when it's used as shorthand for those cheap and melodramatic plot twists that define soap opera as an adjective (discussed here ). Of course, if I had a dollar for every time the 2008 election has been described as a soap opera, I'd have a nice...
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1 comment
Sep.08.2008
You have to hand it to the Republicans. They really do understand soap opera - the short story arc, the long story arc, the need for characters with compelling back stories. And boy, do they know how to weave all those structural elements together into a cohesive narrative to engage viewers - sorry...
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About lynn
critical observations about soap operas – their content, the industry that produces them, and the culture that both loves them and loves to ridicule them...
I love WomenArts' pithy and succinct description of my work.
I began writing about soaps in 1990, and...
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