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Review: ABC's NASHVILLE Could Learn a lot from Legit Soap Operas
By: Matt Tamanini Sep. 24, 2015
Wednesday night's Season 4 premiere of ABC's NASHVILLE brought a heavy helping of the show's soapy best and worst. I make no bones about the fact that when it comes to TV, I have a few guilty pleasures; one is this country music, primetime soap opera, and another is ABC's lone remaining honest-to-goodness soap opera, GENERAL HOSPITAL. While NASHVILLE opens up its season with a heaping helping of delicious melodrama, I find myself becoming increasingly weary of the repetitive storylines that the show has been stuck in for the past season-plus. I think if Callie Khouri and her writers leaned in and fully embraced the show's soapy nature, it might result in a more fresh and creative product. So, I have come up with five soap-inspired rules that I think will help the NASHVILLE writers as they plot out the rest of the season.
DISCLAIMER
First off, let me get something out of the way; I know that a weekly soap that airs 22 episodes per year and a daily soap that turns out over 10 times as many are inherently different in terms of storytelling structure, number of characters, required twists and turns, etc., but what I'm talking about is the basic nature of what makes a "soap," be it daytime or primetime, compelling. So, let me know what you think.
Also, you won't see me criticize anything involving Rayna Jaymes, as Connie Britton can do no wrong in my eyes.
Rule #1: No More Near-Death Cliffhangers with Characters We Know Aren't Going to Die
Earlier this month, Port Charles mob kingpin Sonny Corinthos was shot while trying to free a kidnapped college student that he had taken under his wing. Anyone who has watched GH over the past 22 years (as I have) knows that unless Maurice Benard decides to retire, there is no possible way for Sonny to be killed off. So, the perilous hours of surgery that the character underwent were nothing more than a device used to create emotions in those that love him, because in the end, we all knew that Sonny wasn't going to die.
Similarly, the new NASHVILLE season opens with a bit of medical misdirection. After last season's finale, the question was, which character is flatlining and presumed dead? Is it the beloved, central romantic and dramatic lead Deacon, or his despicable, selfish, semi-recurring sister Beverly?
Obviously, Deacon (Charles "Don't Call Me Chip" Esten) wasn't going to die; just like Rayna wasn't going to die after the Season 2-ending car accident. The twist of course is that Bev (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) didn't die either. Despite opening the season comatose, having suffered an aneurism following the surgery that allowed her to donate a liver to her baby brother, all signs point to her waking up in the next episode.
I understand that stakes are important for any show, and there is no higher set of stakes than life and death. But, when, by virtue of who is involved, the option of death is removed from the equation, the stakes are reduced dramatically. While SCANDAL is beloved for not being afraid to kill off central characters, did you ever really think that Olivia was in danger of not surviving her kidnapping last season? I didn't think so.
Rule #2: Don't Let Characters Become Static for Too Long
One of the great joys of soap operas is that at some point, almost every good guy has been a bad guy, and every bad guy has been a good guy. With traditional soaps, because of the daily format, often those personality shifts must be black and white for a given period of time, so that missing an episode doesn't completely confuse the overall narrative. However, most primetime shows, which are considered higher on the artistic totem pole, prefer for their characters to be more grey and conflicted.
One of my favorite pairings on NASHVILLE is Juliette (Hayden Panettiere) and Avery (Jonathan Jackson), because it seemed to grow so organically and most resembles a real relationship between people who love and respect each other, glaring warts and all. However, since the pair has become parents, Avery has gone from being the bad boy who broke Scarlett's heart to being nominated for sainthood for putting up with his short-sided, post-partum plagued superstar wife.
Obviously, character growth is important in every long-running show, but in focusing on Avery's maturation, the NASHVILLE writers have painted Juliette into a corner of always making the wrong decision. That kind of storytelling is boring and reductive. After the drinking and the cheating and the child-neglecting, I am longing for a bit of the old, fun Juliette, who, despite her out of control vision of self-importance, occasionally reminds us that she does have a heart, and is capable of as much personal growth as her husband.
This works in the converse as well. While Avery has become my favorite character on NASHVILLE not played by Connie Britton, I, of course, first knew him as GH's Lucky Spencer, the scion of supercouple Luke and Laura. Despite his on-again, off-again status in Port Charles, there is no doubt that the love of Lucky's life will always be Elizabeth Webber; normally the show's moral and ethical center (just ask her). However, she is now embroiled in a way-too-long cover-up hiding the fact that the amnesiac man with facial reconstructive surgery that she is now engaged to is actually the presumed dead father of her child who is technically still married to the mother of his other child. While obviously they are building towards a November Sweeps reveal, the change in character for Elizabeth has worked in creating more drama than the normally milquetoast nurse has seen in years.
Rule #3: Falling in Love is Fun
Remember when Scarlett (Clare Bowen) and Gunnar (Sam Palladio) started flirting while working at the Blue Bird? Remember how adorably awkward the two were any time they actually mustered up enough courage to speak to one another? Now hold onto that memory, because the NASHVILLE canvas is so jam-packed with sob stories right now, that there is little time available for anything resembling fun or romance.
The situation has been fairly similar over in Port Charles for quite some time; with so much attention paid to the mob, corporate espionage, psychotic breaks, and kidnapping, no one has time to fall in love, or even worse, to actually be in love. One of the few couples without major issues (that they yet know of) on GH is Patrick (Jason Thompson) and Sam (Kelly Monaco), but they could be the most unhappy, unsexiest pairing of physically flawless people in love that I have ever seen on TV. Any scene they share is an instant energy drain, much like the never-ending back-and-forth with Scarlett and Gunnar. I by no means ship this couple (in fact I wish that they had let Scarlett leave town last season), but I wouldn't have as much of a problem if their renewed courtship was done with touches of sweetness, instead of anger. Every interaction between them is so overwrought with anguish that their eventual reconciliation will likely be robbed of any joy it might have once had.
This lack of romance has been such a sticking point for GH fans that the show's head-writer was recently fired in hopes of preventing the show from being canceled. New head-writers Jean Passanante and Shelly Altman have promised fans to return the show to its romantic roots. It goes without saying that drama inherently requires conflict, but when all an audience is ever given is conflict with little to no substantive payoff, it becomes tedious for viewers to stay invested for long periods of time. Hopefully NASHVILLE's crew figures this out soon and brings back some of the show's early fun, or else, I'm afraid that it might go the way of ALL MY CHILDREN and ONE LIFE TO LIVE.
Rule #4: Not Every Character Has to Receive Equal Time on Every Episode
I don't know about you, but after the first two segments of last night's NASVHILLE premiere, I felt like I was getting a bit of whiplash. Between Deacon and Bev; and Juliette and Avery; and Will and Kevin; and Scarlett and Gunnar; and the girls and Teddy; and Layla and Jeff; and Luke and Steven Tyler, I felt like we were playing a game of storyline roulette. By giving us surface reintroductions to every single character, the NASHVILLE writers missed the chance to establish what would be most important on the show this season.
Obviously this is done out of necessity to fill a daytime soap's 250+ episodes a year, but part of the fun of daytime TV is not knowing which storylines; and by extension, characters; will be featured each day. If you take this idea to primetime, obviously there are certain A-stories that will always be a part of NASHVILLE (basically anything with Rayna), then there are the B-plots that will likely get a lot of play each week (Juliette, Avery, Gunnar, Scarlett), and then there are the C-stories that don't need to be jammed into each and every episode (everything else).
A little less Layla, Will, Jeff, Teddy, Maddie, Daphne, et al. would go a long way to allowing the dominant storylines time to naturally breathe; because as it stands now, stories and characters appear to be being boiled down to the least common denominator, so that they can jam as much "stuff" in as possible.
On the flip side, you have to be careful not to leave a storyline on the bench for too long (Brad, Lucas, and Rosalie on GH), but whether it is over or underexposure, effectively managing your roster is essential for any ensemble series.
Rule #5: No Evil Twins
This is more of a preventative rule (and microcosmic reminder) for NASHVILLE, as they haven't fallen down this specific rabbit hole yet. While the ridiculous Ava Jerome/Denise DeMuccio (Maura West) storyline that GH fans just suffered through is not technically an evil twin situation, it does serve as a cautionary tale of just how hard to swallow some soap storylines can be (and let's not forget the year-and-a-half "Fluke" fiasco).
All fiction requires a certain level of suspension of disbelief, and soap operas require more than most, but the "evil twin situation" is emblematic of how soap operas regularly strain every last ounce of credulity out of a storyline until it rightly offends the viewers' collective intelligence.
We are supposed to believe that no one at either the Port Charles Police Department or General Hospital knew enough about how DNA worked to ask for a saliva test to confirm the blood test that established Ava and Denise as different people? I know that all drama has to ignore some facts here and there on the road to a good story, but when only semi-intelligent viewers (like yours truly) can drive semi-trucks through plot holes, it doesn't bode well for the story being told.
So, I urge the NASHVILLE writers to respect their viewers, and if a proposed storyline doesn't pass the "Smarter Than a 5th Grader" Test, forget it and move on. No one wants to see Kimberly Williams-Paisley brought back (although she is great) as Peggy's evil twin, hellbent on bringing down what's left of the Wyatt family.
Conclusion
In the end, soaps of all kinds are designed to be fun, melodramatic escapes from the real-world. However, when they veer off into somber, self-serious exercises, they lose the joy that makes them unique from any other genre on TV. Here's hoping we don't have to put dirt on NASHVILLE's grave just yet.
What did you think of the melodramatic NASHVILLE season premiere? Let me know in the comments below, or on Twitter @BWWMatt. If you want to follow along with my "366 in 366" articles, you can check out #BWW366in366 on Twitter. Also, don't forget to follow @BWWTVWorld on Twitter and Like us on Facebook for all of the latest TV news, reviews, and recaps.
Photo Credit: ABC
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