The End of As The World Turns

To Les Moonves and the eejits @CBS Daytime:

Last year you retired Guiding Light shortly before its 75th anniversary. Today you did the same to As the World Turns before its 55th one. How stupid are you? If your PR and marketing people and net execs had bothered to think things through, you could have taken advantage of those anniversary years and made a year-long production number with much ballyhoo and reflection that would have garnered you more viewers than either soap had seen in a very long time.

Please know that I no longer watch CBS. I am still in your preferred demographic, but I refuse to watch the CSI or NCIS franchises live ever again because you'll figure a way to destroy them soon enough. And I'll be giving the new Hawaii 5-0 a pass even though I grew up on the original and even played the theme music when I was in the high school pep band. You know, we played that music at Duke during Coach K's first year as the men's basketball coach. So while my emotions run deep in relation to Hawaii 5-0, I won't be watching, no matter how swoonworthy I find your lead actors.

Pfui to you, CBS. You were once the network I watched most. I was loyal many years past the advent of cable and the increasing number of channels. Tell Harry Smith I still adore him, but that I can't ever watch him again. My blood pressure goes up every time I inadvertantly land on my local affiliate's channel.

To the actors of As the World Turns, and also Guiding Light, know that I appreciate your skills. The amount of dialogue you dealt with on a daily basis was astounding and even though I despised some of your characters for decades, it was you who helped give me my fire to become an actor, and now a writer. Thank you for the laughter, drama, and tears. Thank you for the times I screamed at the television and even for the ones when my eyes rolled so much that it's astonishing that they didn't pop right out and land on the floor.

Soap operas, particularly Guiding Light and As the World Turns, provided me with an extended family and company during some of the worst times in my life. You got me through cancer. You got me through my parents' divorce. You enabled me to experience my feelings via your work and that is a gift I do not take lightly.

But the best thing of all, As the World Turns and Guiding Light, is you taught me the value of a really good villain. Villains so vile they could not be killed. Villains who rejoiced in their villainy and actors who thoroughly enjoyed playing them. Michael Zaslow's Roger Thorpe will be the penultimate dramatic villain for me until my light goes out. A close second is, without question, Anthony Herrera's James Stenbeck on As the World Turns. Even when the writing was crap, those two actors gave the viewers amazing performances. And don't think I've forgotten about the shabby treatment you gave Zaslow, CBS and then P&G. I can but hope that Karma was swift for the idiots in charge who shafted him when he became ill. My loyalty to the L&O franchise is in part due to their hiring of Zaslow when you cast him aside.

In closing, CBS, I'm shed of you now. A network that gets rid of fine actors and characters populating two venerable soaps yet employs the likes of Charlie Sheen is not one I care to watch any more. Fortunately USA, Syfy, HGTV, Food Network, TCM, AMC, and more, fill the void more than amply. And really, I can catch reruns of your line-up elsewhere. I don't need you at all.

Ta!