Twitter
Facebook
Stunner: “One Life to Live” to drop groundbreaking Oliver Fish-Kyle Lewis gay storyline
This is incredibly frustrating news: TV Guide reports that ABC has axed the Oliver-Kyle storyline from One Life to Live.
“We are concluding the story that we set out to tell with Kyle and Fish,” says executive producer Frank Valentini. “We are very proud to have broken new ground with a same-sex couple on daytime.”
Both Brett Claywell and Scott Evans are also being written off the show which I can tell you right now, after their departure, I will probably never watch it again.
This makes me sick. It’s just another reminder of how far we have to go to not only establish equal rights, but to have decent continuing storylines on broadcast television.
I will root and celebrate the future career successes of these two fine actors who really won our hearts and who, I think, leave the show as bonafide stars. I am especially grateful for Scott Evans for being an out actor and for bringing so much heart to the role. I also want to give kudos top the show’s writers who really did a superb job of telling this story – of making these multi-dimensional characters and integrating them into the lives of those in Llanview.
Was it a matter of gay overkill that turned off the mainstream audience TV Guide wonders: Sources at the network say the duo failed to resonate with the mainstream audience. Ratings for the ABC soap were particularly dismal in late 2009 during the weeks that Fish came out of the closet and he and Kyle officially became a couple. Also playing simultaneously was a sprawling plot that had Robin Strasser’s character, Dorian, pretending to be a lesbian in order to win the gay vote in the Llanview mayoral race.
Here is the plan for the departure of the characters, according to TV Guide: On the March 29 episode, Fish will learn for certain what viewers have known for quite a while—he’s the biological father of baby Sierra Rose, via his drunken one-nighter with psychotic stripper Stacy Morasco (Crystal Hunt). With Stacy now dead, there are rumblings of a custody battle with Stacy’s sister Gigi (Farah Fath) but, ultimately, the law is on Fish’s side and the two dads will blissfully start a new life with the baby.
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
Bernard says:
I can’t believe that One Life to Live has axed this wonderful storyline. Why can’t they stay in Llanview as a happy couple with a brand new baby? I just don’t get it…I’m going to have to create my own gay soap opera….
joebatch says:
it’s easy boycott all abc soaps.just stop watching and have everyone you know who cares about the ‘hidden’creative different direction bull(belive me i know about so called we’re going in a different buzz words)stop watching also maybe if they are just left with their mainstream watchers have at it and just for them perhaps include some teabagger type story lines.again turn it off and keep it turned off and let them know why.
Don Hansen says:
Welcome back to the 20th Century, ABC/Disney! You, especially Disney, who have so many LGBT employees (and friends!) should be ashamed of yourselves. Instead of evolving into a 21st Century show, you’ve chosen to retreat and hide behind your mothers’ (or grandmothers’) skirts. People need to see gay couples as just that — loving couples who have the same wants and needs as heterosexual pairs, and by removing this story line, you’ve committed an act of discrimination, which is just another word for “hate.” Isn’t it time that our culture caught up with the American Psychological and Psychiatric Societies? They’ve been on the side of non-discrimination toward gay people for over 30 years! You have a responsibility to reflect American ideals, and equal rights for all was long ago selected as an ideal in this country, and now there is only one group left to “equalize,” and it doesn’t take a genius to see which way the issue of gay rights is going — you feature it, people realize that it’s not at all that strange, just something of which they have been ignorant.
While you may think that you’re bowing to some sort of majority opinion, you need to remember that the upcoming generation is majority-friendly to gay marriage/relationships, that a major segment of the “Queer as Folk” audience were women, and that a major part of your daytime soap audience is gay men (lesbians, too). So, for the portion of your audience and sponsors that are not used to seeing a gay couple, but would quickly get used to it, you’re alienating a very large, and growing, chunk of the buying public.
Remember, too, that this isn’t a new thing to the public. Many nighttime shows have had ongoing gay relationships, and Ellen is on in the daytime, too. You need to lead, not follow, sell the concept to your advertisers (it really will make you, and them, friends), and help the very last segment of the population that is subject to legalized discrimination/hatred/denial of rights.
Get half a spine.
md1347 says:
I don’t buy their excuse for a minute. Their ratings have sucked for a very long time and there really is not much movement in the ratings numbers if you look at them. Ratings last week showed every show, except for ATWT, lost viewers and 2 shows lost more than OLTL.
It’s nice to know that the Mitch character, a religious nut job who electro shocks and wants to have a baby with is own daughter “resonates with the mainstream audience” more than a committed gay couple just blows my mind (and not in a good way). Shows how pathetic their argument really is.
The reason why their ratings suck is the bad storylines. Sure, you need drama but who’s the baby’s father has gone on way too long and has made Oliver look completely foolish. Get a DNA test and it’s over in a couple shows instead what seems like months of it.
The only positive thing is when Kish goes, I will not watch. I won’t have to see all the bad writing/actors they have on the show. No more Gigi and Rex or Jessica who thinks she still in High school.
David in Houston says:
The worst part of all of this is how they’ve treated Brett Claywell. He had been playing a long-term character on the show, and he bravely agreed to risk his career (being typecast) on playing one-half of a gay couple. This is how ABC repays him. It really makes me sick to my stomach. I feel very badly that Brett had to lose his job over this.
christa lyon says:
this is not worst thing ever when they treated brett claywell he gay and he didn’t lose his job he is taken time off so kyle and olvier raise their baby sierra rose before their return to oltl. i want to see brett claywell as kyle lewis and scott evans as oliver fish to bring them home to lianview i feel fine as when they coming back again onscreen
christa