GL Scribe Starts Over
The woman who brought you Richard Winslow’s dramatic death on GUIDING LIGHT — Millee Taggart-Ratcliffe — has embarked on what may be the greatest “storyline” of her career: the real-life saga of six women thrown together in a house in the syndicated series STARTING OVER.
“It is a soap opera,” affirms Taggart-Ratcliffe, STARTING OVER’s executive producer. “I mean, our storytelling techniques are slightly different from soap opera. I’ve been trying to reinvent soap opera for 15 years. It’s not that I don’t love it — I’m a devotee of traditional soap opera, and I like it to be pure, old-fashioned, character-driven soap opera. But I was looking for something fresh, because the way we tell story in daytime sometimes is not relevant to some of the young women who watch the shows today. This show feels different. It’s not your mother’s soap opera.”
The cast of “characters” includes: Josie, 21, who has a baby girl, Chloe; Towanda, 30, who comes from a prominent show-business family; Sinae, 18, who suffers a blow; Jennifer, 21, who’s struggling with a childhood trauma; Deborah, 46, who’s determined to find a husband; and Kim, 46, who’s rich monetarily but poor in other areas.
“I thought there was no harder job in the world than head writing, but this in unbelievable,” admits Taggart-Ratcliffe. “You don’t last very long here if you don’t love it.”
Despite much critical acclaim, Taggart-Ratcliffe didn’t last long on GL, for that matter, but she doesn’t have any hard feelings. When told the show went downhill after her departure, she responds, “I saw that it did, and it killed me. I should have been gleeful but I wasn’t because, as you know, that’s the show of my heart.”
STARTING OVER, the real-life daytime drama from NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution and Bunim-Murray Productions (THE SIMPLE LIFE), premieres Sept. 13. Check local listings.
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