Part 1: What would Irna think…

About Beyond the Gates?

CBS

In May 2009, a month after the cancellation of “Guiding Light,” I began researching GL’s creator, Irna Phillips, life with a simple question: “What would Irna think?” At the time, I was considering what Irna might have thought about the new production model GL adopted the year before it left the air after 52 years on television (following 15 years on radio). 

It seems fitting to now ask the same question about “Beyond the Gates,” broadcast television’s first new soap opera in 25 years. A coproduction of CBS, P&G Studios, and the NAACP, BTG premiered in late February. I had planned to share my thoughts earlier, but you know what they say abobut making plans…

First, a few caveats:

I was in diapers when when I began watching soaps with my mother — the Procter & Gamble shows — GL and “As the World Turns.”  After ‘World Tuns was cancelled in 2010, I pretty much stopped, though I continue to check in with a few fan sites. So, it’s been more almost 15 years since I last watched soap operas on a regular basis — a lot has changed. 

As I considered what Irna might think about how soap opera has changed since her death in 1973, a song from 1970 popped into my head — Melanie’s: “Look What they’ve Done to My Song, Ma. Even more on point, the original title: “What Have They Done to My Song?”

When soaps began on television, daily episodes — each a four scene, one-act play — were broadcast live. By the time Irna died, episodes were recorded, but still shot in sequence. 

In the early 1980s, shows began editing videotape — shooting movie style,   set-to-set — rather than in sequence. But it was still a single episode being produced each day. Now, it’s an assembly line: pieces of several episodes are shot during the course of a single day, then pieced together in the editing suite. This production model reduces studio time, and  is a major factor in soaps’ financial sustainability, so it’s likely here to stay. But, as Irna noted in a 1972 interview with Broadcasting Magazine (now B&C)  pre-taping has a tradeoff:

"I'm out of patience with pre-taping way in advance because that locks you in. Daytime dramas should be flexible so that you can rewrite an outline if it doesn't seem to be working out in the performance. I'm usually about three weeks ahead on my outlines, but I have no objection to changing horses in midstream on a moment's notice."

When BTG went on the air, they had already recorded three months worth of episodes, which finished airing in late May. While it always takes a few months for a new soap to get settled, with so many episodes in the can there were limited opportunities to make any adjustments along the way. And there were stories and characters that have needed adjusting from the beginning, which I’ll discuss in a subsequent post. 

In a 1948 letter to P&G executive, William Ramsey, Irna suggested that televising serial dramas could provide a “commercial angle where the product could be seen and used but not announced,” Over the years, a few soaps have flirted with idea, but the flirtations were short-lived. Early on, “BTG” embraced this “commercial angle” when Nicole Richardson entered her living room spraying a can of Febreeze. Soon, cameras began holding on laundry baskets with Tide’s signature red bottle. Fans start taking note of every appearance, and the commercial that often immediately follows. 

With one notable exception — an awkward scene with Nicole and her mother, Anita Depree, extolling the virtues of Febreeze — BTG’s placement has been following Irna’s suggestion that products be seen but not announced. Initially, Irna imagined “two girls washing out sheer hose in a hell of a dramatic scene.” Back in the day, characters often talked in the kitchen — some with running water and working appliances.  But, these days no one seems to have a kitchen — at least not one viewers can see — so that leaves out Dawn, Cascade, and Bounty.

Of course, Tide and Febreeze are only two P&G products. The show could have fun and throw in some Downey, or a box of Bounce dryer sheets.  Maybe switch off with Tide Free and Gentle in the white bottle. And while changing a diaper wouldn’t work, should newlywed Haley Richardson’s recently announced pregnancy end happily (never a given on a soap:), P&G’s premium diapers, Pampers, could be mentioned. And maybe a box of Puffs tissues on a desk or night table. But please — enough with the camera holds — viewers will notice. 

And what might Irna think about the stories on the current soaps?

She didn’t live to see the impact the enormous popularity of “General Hospital’s” Luke and Laura and primetime’s Dallas and Dynasty had on the daytime soaps in the early 1980s, when soaps began to be dismissed as “soapy,” and  associated with cat fights and campy characters. A recent poster’s succinct observation that, “soaps have been going further and further off-course since 1981. TPTB just don't have a fundamental understanding of what makes soap fans so loyal,” echoes perfectly what “Days of Our Lives”executive producer, Ken Corday, whose father, Ted, worked with Irna, noted in his memoir: 

“Irna raged against what she called the dying of the light brought on by the corporate and network creative control.” She called them “temporary people making permanent decisions who didn’t know what they didn’t know.”   

More on that in later. But, next time: 

How “Beyond the Gates” is continuing Irna’s storytelling ethos… and how it’s not.