Tristan Rogers Articles
Check out
The Scorpio Files
Faison is alive and
Robert Scorpio returns
Duke is Faison – did you all guess that to be true as the mask came off? I
found it frightening but invigorating. Faison is the most frightening villain
ever. He’s not even real, yet he’s very scary.
Some of the Faison stuff is a bit hard to swallow. It really begs so many
questions. How does Faison keep pulling his Duke mask off? Does he have a large
collection of them? And can’t Anna tell something is off by the way his face
feels?
The real Duke is alive, which is a plus because he didn’t kill Jason (if
Jason is really dead, that is). So there’s still hope for a real Anna and Duke
reunion. That’s something for fans to look forward to.
And the return of Robert Scorpio was just what we all needed. Who else but
Robert can find Robin and save Anna? And with the help of Olivia, who else will
figure out that Duke is really Faison. Nobody else.
Michael is giving AJ a fair chance – good for him. Poor Michael – he’s really
getting a lesson in what Carly and Sonny are all about. They really did push AJ
over the edge all those years ago.
Carly is such a hypocrite – didn’t she once upon a time steal her mom’s
husband? And later, didn’t Carly shoot that same man? Yet Carly is on AJ for the
horrible things he’s done in the past. If you ask me, Carly is just as bad as AJ
and they really are perfect for each other. Think about it – don’t Carly and AJ
make the best and most dysfunctional couple?
In actor news, be sure and take a look at
Michael
Logan’s interview with Faison portrayer, Anders Hove. And according to
SOAPnet, this week will bring the passing of Edward Quartermaine due to the real
life death of actor John Ingle. Watch for some of the missing Q’s to return to
pay their respects.
Tristan
will be returning to Y&R as Colin this Spring
Tristan Rogers' Secret Mission
By Robert Schork
Tristan Rogers
Robin Platzer
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For the 12 years he dazzled audiences as spy-turned-supersleuth Robert
Scorpio, GENERAL HOSPITAL's Tristan Rogers was quietly proceeding
with a "secret mission" of his own. Rogers was making mental notes and
observations on the art of producing a successful soap along the way —
lessons he hopes to put into practice today as he aspires to get a new
soap he created produced.
According to Rogers, his soap would be set in the fast-paced, colorful
worlds of the music and tabloid journalism industries, and would employ a
lot revolutionary ideas in production as well as story. If this sounds
like deja vu, that's because Rogers joined GH at a heady time, back in
1981. Then, GH's legendary former executive producer Gloria Monty
rescued the show from cancellation and made it the highest-rated soap in
under a year's time — and did so by modernizing the show (and ultimately,
the entire genre) with innovative writing, directing, and production
techniques that were revolutionary for their time. Two decades later, as
the soap genre continues a protracted decline in the ratings, Rogers is
aspiring to break new ground and revitalize the medium once again.
A year after Rogers left GH, enough time had passed for him to gain
some perspective. "I turned my attention back to soap opera, looking at it
for what it was, what I had accomplished in it, where soaps had come from,
and in particular, why GENERAL HOSPITAL had been the success that it was —
and why it really didn't last that long. No one ever really asks, 'What
happened?' So I've sat down and really pieced together the events that
brought about the rise of the show and the demise of the show: Why we
didn't last as long as why we should have lasted (as No. 1). I discovered
a lot of things about how it was put together, the changes that it brought
about and why a lot of the changes were resisted by everybody else. We
stuck out like a sore thumb back then because of what we were doing and I
think everybody looked at the show and said well 'Yeah, that's great but
it won't last — pretty soon things will come back to the way they were.'
And people were largely correct on that.
Tristan Rogers (Robert) and Anthony Geary (Luke) on GH
ABC
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"A lot of people look back at that [time] and go 'Oh, yeah, it was all
about Luke and Laura!'" continues Rogers. "It wasn't Luke and Laura at
all: They were the tip of the iceberg. It was about a whole series of
things that came together. Basically, Luke and Laura personified what the
work behind the scenes had been, and how they just got up there and
broadcast all the hard work that had been done. But the show had a number
of unique characteristics: It had a unique story management and structure,
which to this day has not been emulated by anybody else. And GENERAL
HOSPITAL was the only soap that employed a star structure, we had a star
system on that show. Gloria set about doing that; it wasn't accidental, it
was by design. All the other soaps, back then and today, employ a a cell
system of story structure, where each story for the most part tends to be
a self-contained little island. GENERAL HOSPITAL stories weren't like
that. When I became the police commissioner, I was involved in everybody's
story. I minded everybody's business. I also had my own specific story
that I was involved with."
In Rogers' estimation, the magic formula that Monty concocted didn't
last because subsequent producer and writer regimes tried to hard to make
their own mark, instead of maintaining the status quo. "I felt that we had
a successful system that Gloria had set up. What we really needed was a
caretaker for that system." Instead, "Every time we got a new producer,
they reinvented the wheel. They brought their own ideas onto the show and
very subtly we moved away from what GENERAL HOSPITAL's unique signature
was. And the one thing it had gobs of back then was style. This was one of
the things that was on my mind when I started to sit down and [develop my
own show]. I looked at the whole genre and realized it truly has so much
going for it. People now are all tied up with reality television, but I
don't think that's going to last. Reality television absorbs ideas at a
ferocious rate; it just chews through concepts. You'll sit down and come
up with ten concepts before you get one that'll work. When you get to that
point, where else do you go? Reality television is almost exhausted with
what it can do, so your faced with going back. "But most people really
aren't interested in the next step for daytime soap opera," Rogers
continues. "I think I'm the only person out there who looks upon the genre
as the glass being half full and not half empty. I see a whole new
beginning for the genre, where as most people have passed over it. I think
once this new concept of putting a soap together that I've developed gets
out there, it's going to change [people's cynical opinions] completely."
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