I totally agree with you. Do the writers seriously think that we will not notice. Hello, we spend 5 days a week watching these shows. Note to writers, "We will notice." LOL, They are not thinking out the stories, I think they are writing them as they go. At least create a short "Flashack of Zack being in Paris talking to Bianca." I remember all sorts of flashbacks that they used to show or create. We hardly see flashblacks being used in today's soap telling story lines.Especially if you want to write a story that is going to be so controversial. I think I would have accepted it better if I would have seen a flashback or two, than Bianca just showing up in the middle of a tornado (of all things) pregnant. Put more thought into the story writers, and the viewers wouldn't be so irrate. Just saying!!!!

Quote:I totally agree with you. Do the writers seriously think that we will not notice. Hello, we spend 5 days a week watching these shows. Note to writers, "We will notice." LOL. I've seen this criticism expressed over and over, in a number of posts, and this is as good a place as any for me to ask: "HUH?" Why does anybody think the-powers-that-be are assuming fans "won't notice" stuff? I think it's very clear they expect you to notice. In the example cited here, the very fact that the writers went to the trouble of explaining what happened 7 months ago means TPTB understood there would be questions and moved to address them. If TPTB really had been banking on no one noticing, there would have been no attempt to explain it or point out where it fits in continuity. Of course you will notice.It seems to me the real problem is that people don't like "retroactive continuity," or retconning. Viewers feel like they missed something 7 months ago when they didn't see Zach hop a jet to Paris and have a conversation with Bianca. Perhaps this is related to our mondern society, where if it didn't happen on TV (or the web), it didn't "really" happen. And, please note, this a completely different discussion from whether one likes the changes that were made.I ask in all seriousness: Does anyone really think the writers at any show were truly hoping fans "wouldn't notice" something major?

WOW, was I just scolded by Weekly Joe? LOL. I'm just saying that it would have been cool to have a flashback or two, ya know. So we can kinda be in the loop. I'm kinda afraid to post my feelings at the moment for fear of being scloded again. LOL,

Quote:WOW, was I just scolded by Weekly Joe? LOL. I'm just saying that it would have been cool to have a flashback or two, ya know. So we can kinda be in the loop. I'm kinda afraid to post my feelings at the moment for fear of being scloded again. LOL, Have no fear, momxfive, no scolding intended. And my post wasn't even really aimed at you, but rather amorphous fandom in general. (Which is why I didn't cite you specifically in my comments.) Please feel free to continue to share.

Maybe when I wrote "nobody would notice" I miss-wrote. What I was trying to convey was the frustration of the throw away explanation with no backstory attached. (and I am sure TPTB don't really care if the viewers grind their teeth when something like this happens, they have to get the history in there somehow)

I get what you're saying, about the blithely playing with canon that viewers have already seen just to further a current story. Like Erica's un-abortion or un-killing Jesse and B&B's Taylor. It's all well and good for now but it tends to run roughshod over a LOT of what has already aired, a lot of characters who have grown and changed because of those events, etc.

My favorite example that's not quite as dramatic as secret impregnation is that of GH's Jason and Elizabeth, who could easily just have a "oh, look, they fell in love" love story. Instead, they've been established as soulmates or starcrossed, acting like neither one of them ever loved their previous partners as deeply as they love each other. That, from what viewers saw of Robin, Courtney, Sam, Lucky, and Ric, isn't the case. They absolutely valued those prior relationships. That's a good 10 years of being with other people that gets glossed over. There's also the fact that Carly pretends she never loved Lorenzo Alcazar, which cracks me up. And forgetting Alexis and Jerry knew each other back in the day when Julian Stone played him and having them act like strangers being attracted for the first time.

It's possible to move story forward without tearing up the past.

Quote:I get what you're saying, about the blithely playing with canon that viewers have already seen just to further a current story. Like Erica's un-abortion or un-killing Jesse and B&B's Taylor. It's all well and good for now but it tends to run roughshod over a LOT of what has already aired, a lot of characters who have grown and changed because of those events, etc.My favorite example that's not quite as dramatic as secret impregnation is that of GH's Jason and Elizabeth, who could easily just have a "oh, look, they fell in love" love story. Instead, they've been established as soulmates or starcrossed, acting like neither one of them ever loved their previous partners as deeply as they love each other. That, from what viewers saw of Robin, Courtney, Sam, Lucky, and Ric, isn't the case. They absolutely valued those prior relationships. That's a good 10 years of being with other people that gets glossed over. There's also the fact that Carly pretends she never loved Lorenzo Alcazar, which cracks me up. And forgetting Alexis and Jerry knew each other back in the day when Julian Stone played him and having them act like strangers being attracted for the first time.It's possible to move story forward without tearing up thepast. THANK YOU!!! That was exactly what I was trying to say.

Quote: [. . . Edited . . .] I ask in all seriousness: Does anyone really think the writers at any show were truly hoping fans "wouldn't notice" something major? My fear is that they don't know their own show's history. Most of us fans have been with our show decades longer than the current writers, so when they take characters with established history and act like it doesn't exist it leads me to believe TPTB don't know it exists (take ATWT's Lilly and Mike for example).

I know it may sound silly to say that we fear that the writers don't know the history, but I think it could be true. Every once in a while SOD does a feature where they ask the actors questions about the history of their own shows. It is always funny when some of them don't know very much about their own show. I know that the actors who play the characters come and go, so they probably wouldn't know old history, but I think the writers also come and go and I think the same would hold true with them. I guess you can't really fault them for it, but I sure wish they would do their home work a little better. (not so much with plot line, but with the humanity of the characters)

IMO< it's the writers JOB to find out what the history is. The head writers are making a huge salary..it's part of their job to find out what came before to help them figure out what would work now. There are former writers, producers, banked scripts, actors, soap mags and journalists.. and a gazillion fans they could go to to find out history.Is is harder to find out what happened before than just write some script without taking the trouble to find out? Of course it's harder..but that doesn't mean it shouldn't get done. There are a lot of things that are hard in everyone's job..but to do the job correctly, one has to know as much as possible about everything if we expect to be succesful.I expect any new writer to take small liberties with unimportant facts. That's to be expected. But to go against the whole core of a character or to totally contradict something now that has been of huge revelance before..is just simply a NO NO and cheap and lazy writing.

I agree with you glossy. They want us to keep watching but they do some stupid stuff sometimes. In some ways it makes those writers look lazy, that they aren't doing their homework. They definatley get paid enough where they should be.