Rauch's problems are generally brought down to three major issues:
1) Lack of racial diversity
Upon his arrival at One Life To Live in 1984, Rauch almost immediately fired original cast member Lillian Hayman, infamously by telling her on her way home for the evening that she'd just filmed her last scene. Hayman's on-screen daughter, Ellen Holly, lasted only a few more months, being canned later in 1985. From that moment on, OLTL was white as bleached socks, with only a smattering of supporting African-American characters until Rauch's 1991 departure. I don't recall even one African-American being mentioned on Another World during Rauch's 1971-1983 tenure there, black characters appearing only after Rauch was canned from that serial. Texas was too busy trying to be Dallas to remember that there are black people in the South. Guiding Light's black cast members were hastily canned upon his 1996 arrival, and Y&R's black set have been quietly backburnered for ages during his tenure there. Some issues, Paulie?
2) Ridiculous plotlines
For some reason, Rauch didn't think to include any crazy storylines when he was at Another World or Texas, but once he moved to One Life To Live, boy did things go a bit insane. I always have said that Days of Our Lives' late 90s resurgence owes a lot to OLTL's nuttiness from the late 80s, and how can you really argue with that when confronted with some of the stupidity inflicted upon the unsuspecting audience, starting around 1986. Crazy supervillain Mitch Laurence and his never-really-going-away evil cult, magic insta-poisons that can kill you within seconds simply by being lightly dabbed on your earrings, the underground city of Eterna built into Llantano Mountain, Clint Buchanan's trip back to 1888 in the Wild West after falling off his horse (which he was riding while temporarily blinded....which makes perfect sense of course....<_<), Mad scientist Patrick London magically having plastic surgery to look exactly like Bo Buchanan in order to take over the family company (Y&R fans will immediately recognize THAT one), and of course, Viki Buchanan nearly dying and going to heaven for a few weeks on a magical spaceship.
This madness carried over to Guiding Light, where Rauch had popular character Reva Shayne (Kim Zimmer) cloned after her presumed death, and obviously carried over to Y&R where the show produced multiple doppelgangers in two distinct story arcs, and an endless string of psychopaths and has-been guest stars (all white, of course) in a desperate bid to prop up the show's flagging ratings.
3) Repetition
Of course, by what I've just said, I'm sure you realise there's a bit of repetition going on. One would imagine that Rauch wouldn't have so much influence on the story direction, being Executive Producer and not head writer, but as he co-EPs with head writer Maria Arena Bell, it's not hard to see the line. Wait for Jill Foster-Abbott-Fenmore-whoever to push Katherine Chancellor off a balcony and have her despondent family clone her before Rauch's time is through. I can see it happening yet!
Not to mention Rauch's awful production (the lighting and sets on his shows being absolutely generic and bright they zap any drama out of the scene), and you begin to wonder why anybody would hire this man. The problem is, when he's good, he's damn good. From a business perspective, anyway. But is it time to put the dinosaurs to sleep, already? Some fresh blood did OLTL good: Linda Gottlieb, Rauch's replacement, renewed the show dramatically, moving it back to the Top 3 in the ratings after bottoming out in 9th in the summer of 1991. Yet, no one's thought to hire from outside since then, and ratings are in the toilet across the board. Would some fresh blood do the soaps some good? Will Y&R take advantage of this opportunity, or simply plug in more dinosaurs from the 80s who will continue with the cliches and plot-based nonsense?
