Pratt, Prat, Prattle: Are We Sensing A Theme Here?

I'm having a difficult time wrapping my head around the reveal of Stuart's murderer. Not because I am surprised--it's been heavily telegraphed the past few weeks to the point that even Reese, with her blindness and complete obliviousness to the world around her (how sad is it right now that I can look back on the Reese era of this show wistfully?) and even before that, many people guessed that Adam was the culprit. No, I am having a problem coming to terms with the fact that one soap opera storyline could be infused with so much rot.

• The decision to kill off Stuart was terrible.
• The half-assed setup for the murder itself, with the dark and stormy night, and the hysterical raging at Adam for circumstances almost entirely out of his control, and the parents leaving the side of the child they thought was dead to go confront someone who was not responsible for the death at all, was terrible.
• Turning the death (violent, of course) of a much-beloved character into a story almost completely about Kendall being suspected and eventually imprisoned, kind of, for a crime that she only wanted to, but did not commit (because Kendall hasn't had enough over-the-top drama this year) and Annie being crazy and/or crazy like a fox and/or the subject of a Pine Valley witch hunt (because we haven't seen that before) was terrible.
• The writing staff's understanding of the legal system (because picking up tips from Law & Order is out, since reruns of that show are such a rare commodity) was terrible.
• Randomly deciding that Marian existing is too offensive to bear and sending her off to the nuthouse was terrible.
• Having the show tread water for months while the writers came up with a plausible culprit, and having literally nothing happen, was terrible.
• Centering a large chunk of the show on Emma was terrible (not least because Emma scenes mean Ryan scenes, and if there is anything Ryan is good at, it's further souring things).
• The choice to have Adam be the murderer of his twin brother was terrible and while David Canary is going to rock everything related to this shitfest of a story, that doesn't make it any less terrible. If anything, it makes it worse, because they are exploiting David Canary's talent and grace and innate sense of awesome.
• Charles Pratt's crowing to the soap press about how effing clever he is and how shocked the audience will be by this turn of events was--it's not even terrible. Terrible does not do it justice. Atrocious is a bit closer, but still not descriptive enough.

I literally cannot even. All I can say is hate. "Hate hate hate. H!A?T!E? Hate! Hate hate. Hate? !!??!! Haaaaaate." And you know what? That sentence is just one word, repeated, with random punctuation marks, and it hints at an impending psychotic break but it is STILL better written than anything during the Pratt era of AMC.

Comments

[Celine]

What kind of army do I need to get you two to write for the soaps? Because I would.

[Beth R.]

Well hell Pratt probably thought Dead Diego being the TMK was brilliant...so no wonder he went "Adam as the killer? GENIUS!" Man where's an angry mob when you need one?

[danny]

All I can say is that I hate HATE this show almost as much as I hate HATE Ryan Lavery.

[Dirk Mancuso]

I can't believe at this point that you are shocked by anything this guy tries to pass off as writing.

Did you miss the complete mess he made of MELROSE PLACE after Darren Star left? Did you not witness the trainwrecks that were MODELS, INC and TITANS?

Perhaps you glossed over the complete trashing SANTA BARBARA underwent when in his hands.

I see the name Charles Pratt and I immediately turn off the show. Period. And judging from AMC's ratings, I'm not alone.

[Femina]

ITA Dirk! Pratt has a looooonnnnng history of destroying ANY show that he is a part of. So to expect any more from him as the HW for AMC is terribly naive. I suspect that Pratt goes through life singing "LALALALA I'm not listening" because that is the only way to explain the man's obvious delusions about his skills as writer. My only question is how many stakes will it take to finally put him down because he seems to have more lives than a cat.

Femina

[Mallory]

I think that's what gets me the most, Femina. Obviously, I know that the man is an untalented show killer, and I'm not surprised that he is killing the show, untalentedly, but it still irks me to no end that he keeps getting chances to do that to poor, innocent shows!

[Mel]

Is Pratt related to Guza? Or maybe they're the one and the same. Because the mind shudders at the idea that there could be two of them in this world...and worse yet, they'll soon be residing in the same city. Lord help us all.

[Carl]

Pratt idolizes Guza. He's said so. He used to write for GH with Guza around 2003-2004, during the time Courtney ran roughshod.

Frons loves them both. That's why, even as both shows hit rock bottom on every level, they aren't going anywhere.

[Louise]

So I haven't really watched AMC in the last couple of months because it's the most awful thing that ever happened to television, but after reading your post I figured, "Eh, why not give Friday's episode a shot b/c at least there's something actually happening, even if it's terrible." Oops. I had to turn it off after ten minutes when it was clear I'd already seen the episode two months ago. What is the matter with them??? Did this happen gradually or quickly? Also, it seems to me that the cast has maybe gotten a little too small for much non-recycled story potential.