soapfave06

I think the bigger issue is the forcing of pets to the forefront. B&B spent years focusing solely on Hope/Liam/Steffy and IMO it was briefly great but then they had nothing else to rely on and when they did they ruined it (Maya and Aly) while GH focuses solely on the deadly boring quad whose names I won't mention. I think some people-audience and behind the scenes- become so attached to the pets that they become all the show focuses on. 

Y&R spent literally a decade struggling to build young talent while giving the same boring non suspenseful storylines to the older cast. I am still haunted by the horrible casting and staleness of 2009 era Noah and Eden, bad casting for Daisy and Kyle and other forgotten attempts. When they did find great talent-Ricky Williams, Ana Hamilton, Fen Baldwin, Hilary Curtis for example-they ruin or write them off. 

When the soaps try to build the younger talent it is so out of wack and unnatural that it is simply painful to watch. 

The other issue as I believe someone said above is that no one has CHARACTER. Every single scene is the same boring conversation for every character. No one is quirky, glamourous or over the top anymore. 

I would love to see one of the shows make a lasting change, become diverse and feel alive again but outside of a few good story months here and there I have lost faith. 

I love reading all of these!

The first I actually remember is Passions from the Tabitha/Timmy days and Sheridan's life being threatened via the poisoned ring at her wedding. I was 8 watching with my cousins and brother at my aunt's-we were hooked and still talk about it to this day. I watched again in 2006 with the chalice story, then on/off until cancellation. The constant raping and Timmy being gone-they just could not keep me. 

I then remember watching Lily getting a tattoo on Y&R and Lily trapped in the well on ATWT in summer 2003 and being hooked, I would be angry to miss the well saga when my stepmom wanted to go to doctors appointments

I love suspense stories and being a teenager I fell even for the bad stories I remember loving John having to choose between a burning Natalie and Evangeline at the stake and Tess on OLTL, then found SoapNet and got hooked on AMC with Dixie creeping on her family, Janet having a breakdown and I just loved Babe (unpopular, I know LOL).

As I got older Pratt ruined AMC for me, the teen craze and mass firing of the non-white, non-straight people on OLTL drove me away (despite me being a teenager) until spring 2011 when they balanced the canvas with vets and GH became dullsville by 2009.

DAYS I watched on/off until becoming hooked with the baby switch arc in 2009 until 2011, then hooked again in 2013 through 2016 (Ciara's rape and dullsville once more) until RC came now I watch when John and Marlena and their family have story.

GH I enjoyed from 2006, was hooked with the MCHC and loved it until 2009 when it became boring and depleted after years of horrible decisions. I will say Pratt had a long term vision and did not write Sonny and Carly as saints. I got back into GH in 2012 but Franco, pets and Connie/Kate forever ruined it for me. I watch on and off for Laura now, honestly.

B&B I LOVED Hope/Liam/Steffy but by the time they could have moved them to more mature stories and focus on Rick/Maya and Oliver/Aly they absolutely killed all momentum in 2015 and devastated me. That was the last time I was hooked on a soap. I am literally still bothered by this. 

I am pretty nostalgic and for past soaps I LOVE OLTL so I bought all I could afford and find-I love the Tina/Viki 80s years, as much of Karen and Carla in the 70s and 80s as I can find and Asian Blair and Billy Douglas drama. I love the balance of the social issues and absurd plots within their history. 

The Y&R classics have been amazing to see. Sad that the show was more diverse and taking more risks 14, 20 years ago. 

Ultimately after 14 years of watching the soaps just want to cater to the wrong audience and provide a product the consumer does not want. After years of more misses than hits, backstage politics and bible belt pandering I am essentially done. 

I loved the show back then too-and Carly and Vivian's initial returns were great. I was hooked and the show felt like they had a true longterm vision until it fell out around 2011. I did not enjoy the show again until 2013 with Sami vs Gabi at the wedding. 

I actually really am wondering what he would do with GH-the Quartermaines, Liz and the teen scene especially. I think Joss and Cam could shine with more fast paced character driven drama versus the constant spinning in circles the show does now. 

It would take Kirkwood years of disasters and serial killer stories to reset the show as there are too many pointless, aimless characters. 

9 hours ago, Dion said:

 

 I think you are right again.

In addition, I would also say that ideally Y&R should go to an updated version of the Classic Bell style which might not suit Kirkwood, while I think the smaller cast and scope of B&B would be too limiting.

 

 

I think the last person from outside who tried was Mal Young at Y&R and that wasn't too successful. That said, I think if he'd gone to GH he would have had more luck.

I think Mal could have done much better at GH, not familiar with him outside of Y&R but he did do great at setting up the next generation which they actually squandered IMO after years of struggling-Lola and Kyle are meh and Ana and Fin gone. 

Agreed about Y&R-if they became a modern day film noir with psychological angst I would be glued again. 

I have watched sporadically for three years, it is my favorite current soap available that I have checked out and I actually watched all the US ones less upon discovering it. Only reason I watch sporadically is a mixture of work keeping me too busy for tv and the extremely large cast and cycling of stories. Most of the cast and stories are amazing to me but it is easy to get lost when someone mehh takes the lead for a few weeks. I hope his replacement is someone from within and that they keep the diversity of the show. 

I would love to see him at GH in a world without Sonny and Sam (I can deal with Jason and Carly). DAYS doesnt have the budget and the Bell soaps will never take any long term chances against the bible belt. But I really don't see anyone taking on the US Soaps at this point. They deserve to be cancelled. 

I really hate that they killed Stefan and it was too late to save Stefan/Gabi. It's clear that they have no clear idea what works when filming. I am so glad they lost the air to tape ratio but I am sure that will not last long. 

Thanks for all your hard work!

Thanks, guys! I'll have to find it but there are some recaps from a Nancy/Russ/Frank/Betsy quadrangle. I'm sure it was mostly backburner but Frank turns to Betsy at some point throughout being jealous over Nancy and Russ. 

Caroline was scheming over the secret of Nancy's paternity of Carl, with Frank being the father and not Carl Blair who had died. Not sure if she just kept mum or was an actual schemer from just reading recaps though. 

I hate that Carl and Frankie could not co-exist. Of course I wasn't watching then but I love, love, love the Hubbards and they erased everything with Nancy/Carl/Frank so on. 

Does anyone know of the character Betsy that Frank Grant dated? Is this Betsy Kennicot? 

I can't complain on the Y&R repeats chosen but since they have the entire catalogue intact it would have been nice to have neutral themes with say two 70s episodes on Monday, an 80s episode on Tuesday, 90s Wednesday, 2000s Thursday, so on. It took a pandemic for them to open the archives and I still doubt they will have interest in sharing any further. 

Wow-would be awesome to track issues of that newsletter and compare them to FrenchFan's. Would be the only hope of accurate, full 1970s soaps recaps. 

Did the newsletter possibly compile all of the initialLesley/Laura story into one month? That seemed really fast-paced and jammed a lot into one month for a time I thought was deemed boring for the show. It's a shame they just completely ignored the Vining parents. That is a lot of backstory supplied for them to go off of

This is the third year in a row that their was a strong focus on the Evans-Black family around this time and everyone cheered. If they do not maintain that momentum this time then it just proves they do not care. I would be surprised if they don't get a small ratings bump again too. 

I feel very strongly that they could axe almost the entire cast, focus on John and Marlena and their extended family and the show would dramatically improve (for me) and perhaps with a smaller cast it would fix the budget constraints. 

Thanks for sharing!

Seems like Dorian's party, Viki's descending down the stairs and Dorian unveiling her portrait led to Viki's pregnancy with Kevin? I had heard about the party and thought it was epic but never knew it led directly to Kevin's birth. 

It appears they had more of a balance within the cast with Carla and Ed having their biggest recap yet, Vinnie being in on things, etc. Nice to see Ed and Carla with realistic family drama and a slight nod to social relevance with Josh worried about his white friends, Pat seething at the politician and Vinnie's nightmare concerning his job path. 

I loved your assessment of all the 1975 soaps, FrenchFan. Thanks for all you do!

Yes please to 1976! I am loving this and greatly appreciate!

Awesome to finally see Sara with some story. She is one of the most interesting characters to me and I have always enjoyed her small talk scenes. I wish we could see the Dean Blackford climax. 

If they are coming back with the same old, same old they are making a huge mistake. If the soaps don't come back with heavy promo and a true "season premiere" then I truly think they will fail. Then again, DAYS tried the time jump and that was a fail. 

I just can't believe not even one channel is willing to take a chance, to be different. To have a multi-cultural canvas. GH is set in a hospital. B&B in the fashion industry. It just makes no sense. They were right about the soaps recycling the same people.

Why can't they use interns of all different backgrounds to broaden the canvas? 

I'm not saying its easy to modernize the show's but it damn sure ain't that hard. 

OMG this is nauseating. Will the reign of Sonny ever end. 

You guys are awesome, thanks for sharing! Nice to see details on Agnes' last months with Gordon at OLTL. 

I'm sorry I'm not sorry that they are leaving. I feel like I am watching them rehearsing the material and not taking it seriously and then boom its the finwl product. This has gone on for months. The show itself is dying unless its doing that well on streaming and if a new viewer comes in and sees that they won't come back. I would rather they recast Paul and add a new gay character and recast Will down the line. 

1 hour ago, FrenchFan said:

As I am a bit overwhelmed with work until early July, I don't think I will post the rest of 1975 before. Would you be interested in my posting Dec. 72 - Feb. 73 I have on my archives. I posted it I think but more than 10 years ago so maybe some of you would want to see it again.

Please share, I am loving this!

Just read back through the pages here and it amazes me looking at all the ratings how all over the place they are. ABC seemed more patient with their soaps which paid off in the long run while NBC let AW and DAYS rot in the late 70s and CBS/P&G systemetically destroyed their soaps I guess due to timeslot changes and bad executive producer/head writer changes. A lot of short lived soaps that deeply interest me were doing a helluvah lot better than soaps still on today in various postings. 

The only other guess I have as to the ratings being dramatically all over the place is that more of the soaps had better quality back then so people were checking them all out. Sad to think by the time I started ratings were so stagnant it would never happen again. 

I truly wish ATWT and GL/OLTL and AMC had just dropped the hour format and done thirty minutes and hell if that failed then 15 minutes. 

The EON scenes with Nancy and Serena/Josie sound epic. I wish those were available. 

On OLTL were DB and AP still playing Anna and Vinnie? It seems the show was definitely moving past the ethnic backgrounds and social stories they started with after reading 9 months of recap. Only Ed is even mentioned. No Carla. 

I try not to complain about the classics but...Chloe and Kevin?? Really? I remember thinking in 2009 that Chloe, Kevin, Jana and Gloria were just taking up space and that only got worse by the time Jana lost her mind and Chloe and Kevin were played on the front burner (unless I am remembering it wrong between them and the dreadful stunt casting consuming the show)