JellicleCat

6 minutes ago, Marlenaphan said:

It’s worth watching if only for Jack. 

I don't care about Jack anymore. All his deaths and resurrections has turned the character into a joke. In fact all the deaths and resurrections, not just Jack's, has turned the whole show into a joke.

Why should I bother watching DAYS, or any of them, when they treat their audience with such lack of respect?

No thank you. I can think of many things I'd rather do with my time.

A beautiful tribute to my favorite character, Sansa Stark

1 hour ago, Gray Bunny said:

LOL that nobody is clamoring for The Bold & the Beautiful to be included on this list. 

I've been thinking about that too. It's not surprising though. It feels like B&B has always been looked down upon and been underrated.

Of course it doesn't help that it is so dreadful at the moment. But back during the first decade or so it was actually a great soap. Back when Bill Bell was still involved....

It's easy to see that Brad Bell has not inherited his father's talent, and what little talent he had is evaporating rapidly in front of our eyes.

It is a show which has had some incredible highs, but also some awful lows.

I haven't seen enough to make a list of all-time best soaps, but if I were to pick the soaps that, in my mind, were the most important to the soap genre it would be (in alphabetical order):

All My Children:  Susan Lucci/Erica Kane! Enough said! She gave this show, and the soap genre, mainstream attention, and is probably the single most famous soap star.

As the World Turns:  The first half-hour show, #1 for 20 years, introduced the first super-couple (Penny & Jeff) and the original soap vixen (Lisa), the quintessential soap

Days of Our Lives:  Famous for its many super-couples, bucked the trend in the 90s when most shows lost viewers and soared in the ratings through its outlandish storylines, setting a new trend for soaps

General Hospital:  Luke & Laura, the most famous daytime couple ever! Changed daytime in the 80s with action-adventure and then reinvented itself again in the 90s to critical acclaim.

Guiding Light:  Started on radio in the 1930s and survived the transition to television to become the longest-running soap in history.

Honorable mention:

The Young and the Restless: The #1 daytime soap for over 30 years, longer than any other soap, but the competition is less fierce than it was during earlier decades.

11 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

If it’s about influence, sure. But if it’s about quality, a far more subjective criterion, I’d expect a level of familiarity with the shows that most modern viewers (and certainly the editors of media websites) simply wouldn’t have.

That's absolutely true. But then they should have called this list "Top 10 greatest soaps of the last 20/25 years" or something.

2 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

Right, which is why they shouldn't even PRETEND to have the ability to compile a credible list of shows they have no way to judge. 

Bingo!

13 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

I’m curious as to how old the TVLine editors are and were they old enough to watch, say, ATWT in its heyday. (I doubt many of them are old enough to have watched Santa Barbara to be honest.) Unlike with primetime (and with the exception of Dark Shadows), soaps haven’t had the benefit of constant reruns to introduce old stuff to new generations. We can watch I Love Lucy in its entirety; we can’t watch the first 20 years of ATWT. 

That shouldn't matter though. They should know enough to realize that ATWT should be on this list. It was the first half-hour soap; it had the first supercouple (before such a thing was even invented) in Penny & Jeff; it was a ratings champ for 20 years; and perhaps most importantly it had the first soap superstar in Eileen Fulton and introduced the original vixen in Lisa. She was the blueprint for all the memorable soap vixens we've had since then: Rachel (AW), Erica (AMC), Jill (Y&R), Dorian (OLTL), Brooke (B&B) etc

I'm frankly amazed that TV LINE could leave it off the list. In my mind it should be #1, but at the very least top 3.

This must be a joke, right?

A top 10 list of the greatest soaps without ATWT?! What the hell have they've been smoking? 

15 minutes ago, P.J. said:

And I kinda doubt Eileen Fulton or Don Hastings were either.

Eileen Fulton did receive a nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category in 1988.

13 hours ago, kalbir said:

Bill Bell's second worst nepotism.

Which do you consider the worst? Lauralee or Brad?

1 hour ago, Eboneece said:

As much as I love EF and Lisa, her complaints ring hollow. She could have left the show at any point and she was probably still getting paid a comparatively high rate per episode even though it was obvious she had a low/no monthly guarantee. I am no Goutman apologist, but EF did have two tribute episodes, in 2000 and 2010, during his tenure. Neither Kathryn Hays nor Marie Masters had tributes in that time frame.

No disrespect to Kathryn/Kim or Marie/Susan, but while they both played important parts in ATWT history, neither of them were as iconic as Eileen/Lisa. She was the original daytime vixen, and the blueprint for all the memorable vixens that came after her, including Erica Kane.

Ca 2.00-4.20

0.00-6.30

I looked at the list on page 1, and I might have missed them (it's a veeery long list now  ) but I don't think I saw Katherine Kelly Lang or Timothy Patrick Murphy.

I never saw Ellen Dolan as Maureen so I cannot compare her and Ellen Parker in that role. I just want to say that the exact same thing that many hold against Dolan is why I loved her as Margo on ATWT.

She wasn't the warm, maternal type. She was a career woman and as such I felt she was a welcome change from the norm.

I also think she was/is a fine actress who did the best she could with the horrible writing that she (and the rest of the show) got during its final years.

With strong writing she was certainly capable of giving memorable performances. Her work in Margo's rape story and the story with Casey's euthanasia is proof of that.

Also interesting to see Capitol doing relatively well, and yet knowing that when these ratings were published the show had already been cancelled and would soon be replaced by B&B.

10 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Published in Daytime TV March 87, so probably a few months earlier

1. Y&R 8.8 /31

2. GH 8.3 /27

3. DOOL 8.0/28

4. OLTL 7.7/26

5. ATWT 7.3/24

6. AMC 7.1/23

7. GL 6.6/21

8. CAP 5.1/17

9. SB 4.8 /17

10. LOV 3.9/14

11. RH 3.0/11

12. SFT 2.7/9

These must be from late December 1986, since Search for Tomorrow is still on and that show went off the air on December 26, 1986.

^^

So true!

Don't get me wrong, I love Ellen Dolan. She did some fantastic work with Casey's death and Margo's rape story, and did the best she could with the crap she was given the last few years of the show.

But she was never a sexy, sensual Margo.

On 2018-06-04 at 10:51 PM, Dax7000 said:

That 1993 episode really reminds me of how insane Katherine's Jill obsession was. It seems like her story often became nothing more than her obsessing over whatever Jill was doing. 

On 2018-06-04 at 11:06 PM, Soaplovers said:

Just reinforces that Katherine was pure evil and the later switch to her being a saint was laughable and insulting.  She was pure evil (she killed a man after all).

On 2018-06-04 at 11:11 PM, YRfan23 said:

Jill wasn’t a saint by any means but I do also hate how everyone in town did seem to think Katherine was this angel when long time viewers know better....it’s the same with Victor and how everyone turns a blind eye at all he’s done...

5 hours ago, Dax7000 said:

Amen! Jill was often a witch, but Y&R was so much better when the complexities of each character was acknowledged. Katherine was truly obsessive and bitter towards Jill, but she was also compassionate, kind, and not snobby despite her wealth and social standing. Jill was devious, rude, self involved, but was shown to have a heart and the ability to care for others. It was great.

 

I hated years later when they tried to literally strip it to "Jill was always so mean to poor Katherine". That, along with the weird way they made Katherine a staunch Victor cheerleader in her last decade or so, was really irritating. 

31 minutes ago, DeeeDee said:

A lot of the problem with the Katherine & Jill situation was that most of Jill's friends left and/or were written off.

 

It wasn't so bad initially because Jill still worked at Newman so she interacted with a large part of the canvas but once the writers went with the mother/daughter twist and Jabot got rid of their Men's Line there was nothing left for Jill.

Reading all this makes me realize just how much of Katharine and Jill Bill Bell re-used when he created Stephanie and Brooke on B&B.

I know most people mainly praise Bill Bell for his achievements with Y&R, but I would like to put forward his work on B&B as well. I know it's hard to believe now when the show has become such a travesty, but during it's first years when Bill Bell was HW it was much different and so much better. Characters like Stephanie and Brooke were vastly different and much more complex compared to the caricatures they later became under Brad Bell, the battle over BeLief remains the best story ever on B&B, early Sheila was a fantastic villain, and he also created the one-and-only Sally Spectra.

Even after he handed over the reigns to Brad I'm sure he still provided input for a few years, which is why the show didn't veer of the rails too much until somewhat later when Brad was on his own.

13 hours ago, slick jones said:

 

 

 

 

NICOLAS COSTER

 

YOUNG DOCTOR MALONE     Dr. Matt Steele        1962

THE SECRET STORM        Paul Britton     1964; 1967-69

OUR PRIVATE WORLD    John Eldredge     1965

AS THE WORLD TURNS    John Eldredge 1965-66

ANOTHER WORLD       Robert Delaney     1970; 1972-76; 1980; 1989

SOMERSET         Robert Delaney      1970-72

FAMILY                 Al Krantz    1978     

DALLAS                Joe Morris       1978

                                District Attorney Lyle Sloan   1980

ONE LIFE TO LIVE       Anthony Makana      1983-84

SANTA BARBARA     Lionel Lockridge      1984-88; 1989-93

ALL MY CHILDREN      Steven Andrews      1988-89

BEVERLY HILLS 90210       George Azarian     1991

THE BAY                Mayor Jack Madison     2010-17

 

Didn't he also play Eduardo Grimaldi on ATWT in the mid-90s?

On 2017-12-25 at 8:06 PM, YRBB said:

Merry Christmas Part Deux