Best & Worst "Back from the Dead" storylines

[Nate4]

I hate these so much, are there any actual good ones? Most are bad, but what are the worst?

[cassadine1991]

Most of GH's since Ron has been HW

[soapfan770]

Hmmm, best ones in my opinion?

Roger on GL, Victor's 93 story on Y&R, Hope on Days and I'd go with Sheila on Y&R/B&B.

Worst ones?

Phillip III on Y&R(faked his death because he was gay!), Damian on ATWT, and Melaswen on Days although I was at least happy they were alive.

[SFK]

The multiple deaths/resurrections of Dixie Cooney were messes.

[quartermainefan]

Frisco on GH was good. I forget why he was presumed dead but he returned to walk into his wife getting married to the brainwashed agent who tried to kill him. Something like that.

Edward back from the dead was cute. His ghost was on the show all along, but he turned out to be alive sipping drinks out of coconuts on some island somewhere hiding from the cartel. It was so nice to see him alive.

[NothinButAttitude]

Best:

Most people would say James Stenbeck's return back in '86.

Worst:

The undoing of all those deaths on AMC. While I disagreed with a lot of those deaths when they originally occurred, undoing them was pointless. Especially since the show was going off the air anyways.

[soapsfordays]

I would say that I can't agree undoing them was pointless because some of them ended up back on AMC 2.0. So I'm glad they undid them.

[Cheap21]

Any character brough back from the dead only to be killed off in that SAME story arc. Victor Lord from OLTL comes to mind. GH's Peter, whatever his last name that was connected to Felicia and most recently Frank Smith. Why bring someone back from the dead only to have them die like 2 episodes later? RC has done this twice with Stavros

[SFK]

Oh yes, Victor Lord's return was awful and I actually really appreciated Ron Carlivati (it's going to snow in July!) for throwing Robin Strasser and the audience that bone i.e., Dorian really killed him/was that even the real Victor in '03.

[Paul Raven]

Why and how did back from the dead become such an over used plot point anyway? Up until the early 80's,writers pretty much avoided it and then it was open slather.

I don't think Bill Bell ever used it on either Days or Y&R except Tommy Horton.Maybe because he seldom killed off characters and when he did they stayed dead.

[Franko]

Best: Tommy Horton.

Worst: The un-abortion.

[Y&R21395]

Best: the only one I can think of that I like is Victor's return in '92 or '93, sometime around then?

Worst: as much as I love the character and loved having her back, Taylor's return to B&B back in 2005. I just could not buy it.

[YRBB]

I tend to not count any stories as "back from the dead" if the audience knows that the character wasn't really dead from the very beginning (or almost). If the person didn't die, then it's nothing more than a plain misunderstanding (lol) from the rest of the characters. For that reason, Victor's deaths or Sheila's death aren't really back from the dead.

Now, if Phillip III (oh, wait...) or Ryan or David Kimble or (holy shudder) Eve Newman came back, those would be back from the dead, and they would all be truly horrendous. Thankfully, until her Holiness Queen MAB, Y&R stayed far away from that (as far as I know). When someone died, they died. There's really not much of a chance to reverse a real death without it being horrible.

[edgeofnik]

Best:

ATWT - James return "Hello, Barbara." was amazing because it was unexpected and revealed in a cool way.

Y&R/B&B Sheila 'dying' on Y&R only to re-emerge on B&B. It was a brilliant cross-over

ATWT - Sierra. She was presumed dead and it was interesting that Sierra's 'ghost' (figuratively) hung over everyone for a long time and impacted a lot of characters (she was talked about a lot). But Finn Carter had moved on. They finally had to bring her back for just a few episodes to show she was alive (and I seem to recall it coincided with SB leaving the show with her).

Worst:

Melaswen - one of the absolute worst in soap history because the show had gone on record about killing these character off, was getting a ton of mainstream press; they should've let things be. Most of the revived characters didn't matter at all in long haul. What was completely unacceptable was Alice and Maggie.

PIII - If TB has been a good actor, it would've been OK to bring the character back, but they'd already established Cane as a workable alternative and the reason why Philip did it was so insulting to both the characters and audience. As if Kay and Jill would spot loving Philip because he was gay? Are you kidding me? Ruined an iconic story that had impact for years and resulted in nothing. (I think this is the reason why Cassie would never ever be resurrected and thank goodness for Mariah.)

B&B Felicia - even though I loved MC in the role, they went on record that they were 'killing' Felicia. It was completely unbelievable when she came back with basically all 'new' organs.

Y&R Malcolm - only because it was completely botched, including giving the wrong return date to the public (somehow it was a day earlier) and the story was just bad, but it worked out because SM ended up on CM and has always been appreciative of Y&R and his fans. If only it had been as hyped as SM's cameo last September

SHOULD'VE REVIVED: Y&R John Abbott and, of course, Dru.

[NothinButAttitude]

Wasn't Dixie the only one revived that was on AMC 2.0.? IMO, she should've remained dead. With Tad not being on the reincarnation, Dixie was not needed.