SON Community: CarlD2 - Viewing Profile

Are there any soap couples who should have worked, but for some reason, be it bad writing, or something with the actors, it just didn't click?

What about couples who should have never worked, but somehow did?

For the first, I would pick Nick/Chelsea from DAYS. That relationship could have been special, but there were too many downright horrific storylines shoved at them in 2007, to the point where his having sex with her mother was the highlight of their relationship. Poor Nick probably got more bad writing than the rest of the Horton family combined.

I would also pick Logan/Lulu from GH. This could have been a classic storyline, and instead, for so many reasons (JMB's asexuality, whatever backstage issues were going on with Josh Duhon, the usual wretched writing), it was a disaster.

For couples who shouldn't have worked but did, I would pick Max/Roxy from OLTL. The show obviously had no real plans for them, but Ilene Kristen and James de Paiva really clicked together, and Max was better than he'd been in years and years. I was very upset when this was so abruptly ended.

Whether we see these children born during the show's lifespan, or they pop up out of nowhere via rewrite, are there any soap characters whose endless amount of offspring seems excessive to you? Or soap characters who only have one or two children, but have them for no apparent reason other than bad writing?

My picks:

Ridge, Taylor, and Brooke, B&B. Of their combined eight or nine children, only two have ever been involved in decent stories (Rick, Bridget) and that ended sometime before Friends went off the air. The Ridge/Taylor kids have been particular failures, to the point where even killing one of them off fizzled out after a few months.

Tad, AMC. Why does he have a child with Krystal? And why did they spend an eternity on his miracle child with Dixie, complete with two women being murdered (Dixie, Julia) to try to generate some sort of emotional resonance for this story, when Tad barely ever spends time with her? I guess he did such a great job with Jamie and JR (one of whom apparently no longer exists and the other only exists when Tad needs to score points against Adam) that the show just couldn't resist tossing a few more traumatized tots into the Martin moat.

Harley, GL. I still, almost a decade later, have no idea why she had a child with Rick Bauer. At one time she and Cassie seemed to be in endless cycles of pregnancy (or in Cassie's case, miscarriage and adoption and the occasional childbirth), and in the end, it all added up to nothing.

Time to say goodbye to Brad Snyder. And to see if the good streak ATWT was on last month will continue. Supposedly this month's ratings will determine the show's future, so hope for the best.

And Carly's back! Welcome back Maura West, you've been missed.

Over the years of your soap viewing, which character introductions stood out for you in a good way?

I don't necessarily mean those which were well executed, because even if we can admire something, we may not care.

I mean introductions which, for whatever reason, you really enjoyed, and stayed with you.

For me, it would be Siobhan on Ryan's Hope. Stumbling in the door, laughing, on crutches, with a huge Irish wolfhound at her side. Mary's scowl said it all. The kooky, somewhat frustrating, but basically good-hearted child/woman that you couldn't help loving.

For about 2-3 years, Tracey Melchior (I think there was a Lynn in there somewhere) went from soap to soap. She played Benji's nanny/Derek's cohort on Sunset Beach. Then she was Kristen Forrester on B&B for a year or two, with some later guest appearances. Then she was on OLTL for a few months as Kelly Cramer.

Was she just lucky or was she well liked at the time? Was she just a fill-in at OLTL until they could get Heather Tom, or did they just decide she wasn't cutting it?

I thought she was good at B&B, not great, but she did fit in with the Forresters. As often happens with interesting stories on there, they burned through most of Kristen's storyline in no time at all, from her conflict with Stephanie (I think Kristen's relationship with Stephanie is the most interesting of all Stephanie's parent/child relationships -- she was so obsessed with Kristen's bond with her father that she paid a man to drive Kristen away from the family), to her relationship with HIV-positive Tony.

Last I heard of her, she had written an autobiography about how she'd regretted having an abortion and about her deep Christian values.