j swift

They may not have lasted as long, but Brett, Lisa, Kelsey, and Sofia were all good girl ingénues young adult leads with contemporary stories created after 1985. And in terms of long term good girls on modern soaps, B&B's ultimate good girl Bridget has been an adult for 20 years, DAYS Belle just completed a 16-year gig, and GH's Dr. Robin Scorpio Drake is the sweetest gal in Port Charles.

In most cases, it was not only ridiculous that nobody on screen copped their disguise, but also IRL these people has entire hair & makeup departments that couldn't hide their identity. I mean, Nina knew David Kimball for more than a year, and all he needed was a cheap wig and bolo tie to conceal himself?

I think history demonstrates that most soaps find their footing in the second season. Knots, Dynasty, and Falcon Crest are examples of that lesson. Not just because they found their protagonist, but they established their tone. The first season is experimental, the second shows progress, the third is often when a primetime soap hit its stride, the fourth begins showing signs of repetition. By the seventh season, when the primary contracts have expired, much of the initial cast is gone and they can never recapture the magic.

I've often thought that the failure of establishing a female Quartermaine through Dawn Winthrop led to the creation of Emily. Dawn was recast four times, and her origin story was a mess, but a female Quatermaine in that generation had a lot of story potential. So, Emily filled that void.

Reading @Soaplovers interesting analysis of the Love twins, I was struck by the missed opportunity to explore the arbitrary nature of their circumstance. By a flip of a coin, Vicky could have been raised in the mansion and Marley would have been playing on that swing set in Lassiter. The diversity in their upbringing is emblematic of the random nature of the universe. Just as I believe that Vicky's acceptance that it wasn't personal was the key to her developing successful relationships as an adult.

Bonnie/Bunny from Santa Barbara "It's hard to understand," Joe admits in his dressing room. "There are men who admire women so much that they enter the world of femininity. With Bunny, he's trying to understand women better so he dresses up like them. If you're rejected enough as a man, you can become the woman who does the rejecting. Bunny doesn't want to be with another man, he just wants to be a woman and have that feeling of power that he thinks a woman has. There are groups, a couple of heterosexual groups, most of them in the East. They get together and talk about gender relief, as they call it, because of the pressure of the masculine world. (Cross-dressing) is a release of anxiety from that masculine role. A lot of them come after marriage, breakups, stuff like that where people feel like, "What did I do wrong ? Maybe I'm not masculine enough." The men usually give the person they dress up as a name and they call her their sister. I call (Bunny's after ego) Bonnie. "Bunny's going to take Bonnie out for a drink." The asexual aspect of this type of masquerade still puzzles the Connecticut-born actor. "For a heterosexual (transvestite), it's a lot more bizarre. It's truly deviant behavior, whereas I think of a homosexual doing it, there would be humor in it. There would be more sexuality in it." I'll just leave this one here... (credit: The French Santa Barbara site)

I assume EJ's DNA will be used to prove that he's not the father of Sloan's adopted son, which gets a 3/10 on the clever meter for me, (don't they print the date on the test?). Meanwhile, Titan should acquire the DNA lab, they'd make a fortune in Salem!

It does not stand to reason that any network would purposefully try to dismantle a show's viewership. They have contractual agreements with advertisers to meet audience minimums, or they would need to return money, which is a horrible position for any company If an executive didn't prefer a show, they could cancel it at any time, (see Capitol) If an advertiser found out that a network conspired to reduce ratings, they would pull all of their ads from the network and inform the media of the fraud being perpetrated There has never been any evidence to support this claim Moral of my thesis - don't take it personally when a show doesn't succeed, and the plural of anecdote is not data.

Although I won't try to change your mind, there's more evidence that some writers and producers were hacks than that they deliberately tried to sink the ship. I believe the production had too many fiduciary responsibilities to ever conspire against the audience. Because if they were caught, then every advertiser would abandon the network. It was far simpler to try to maintain a show with loyal viewers than take a risk on a new soap. They just weren't great at their jobs.

I asked before, based on the idea that thirtysomething actually took over Dynasty's timeslot, if it was a soap, despite desperately trying to escape that moniker. My argument would be that it fit many of the conventions. It used melodrama to tell a story with an ensemble cast, told over time. Like Dallas, there were weekly cliffhangers and season finales (although that became common in many other TV genres). There were social issues, romance, and affairs. Much like Knots, the moral center was always that family is the most important value. And much like Dynasty, it went from realism to fantasy after the first season. The corporate stories with Miles were wild, and suddenly two guys from a small ad agency in Philadelphia were directing national commercials and walking the beaches of Malibu.

Which is the reason that I entitled it as a dilemma. Because it sucks that a genre created to sell household products constantly implies that no woman's life is complete without a child. Even if it means telling a story about an accomplished, intelligent, creative person who somehow forgot that they gave birth. I assume advertisers believe that people without children don't feel the need to buy the more expensive toilet paper for themselves. They need a dependent to motivate their purchase. But it is worthy of outrage how they try to sell that idea.

Isn't that the unique part of what made the multigenerational aspect of soap fandom fun? It was a conduit to the lessons that women knew about men, family, and romance because it catered to mothers at home. You could debate silly stories with your Mom. Hear whether Aunt Linda liked a guy with a hairy chest. Talk to housemates about their theories of who shot Jake. So, when a soap got outrageous, it was so entertaining to experience that within a community.

Amazing example - thank you Because even though Vivian loved Lawrence, she was hardly maternal, so it is very Lichtenstein Dilemma that she wound up with three sons, each of questionable origin, and never mentioned during her decades on screen.

I am not a fan of melodrama and sentiment, so stories about illness, or social issues, are not usually my vibe. I love a female empowerment tale, a mystery, or an insightful mother-daughter drama. Yet, for my peculiar sense of humor, an illogical wacky tale is totally fun. For example, Grant met Rachel in 1990. He was married to her daughter. And never remarked on the fact that she looked exactly like his mother. It was coo coo for coconuts, and that's what is funny to me. So, it made AW thrilling to watch, and yell at the screen, and joke about with my friends. Which are some of our favorite memories. However, it is completely foreign to me when others feel personally offended by bad writing, or feel as if the production is treating the audience as if we are dumb. I've read the memories of fans who feel this way, and I can understand that it raised their ire. But, that has never been my experience. And, honestly, I don't get why anyone would continue to watch if they felt disrespected.

I wonder if certain soaps just fit better with the characteristic programming of certain networks. For example, I can't imagine a family soap like Knots playing anywhere else than CBS. The sexy young adults of Melrose Place feels programmed specifically for FOX at that time in history. And the camp of Dynasty played into the rest of the escapist/bombastic shows on ABC in the mid-80s. A show like Barringers or Titans didn't fit on NBC, regardless of their creative quality (or lack there of). So, when we discuss Dynasty's foray into OOT storytelling, we need to think of the fact that it was on the same network as Hart to Hart. And it found success at the same time of classic ABC sitcoms like Happy Days and Too Close for Comfort. ITA, but it is the music, the male stuntmen, and the final shot around the room that makes it camp. The earnest intent of showing Krystal's outrage coupled with Alexis laying on top of a vase of roses meant that nothing would be played seriously anymore.

Were Marley's fertility issues written as being associated with the disease that precipitated her need for a bone marrow transplant from Vicky? It seems like a missed opportunity that none of Vicky's kids had a similar disease. During Vicky's baby switch, that could have been an interesting twist.

It's ramping up quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if Nicole gets her baby back by Christmas. Unless it is all a dream (again). 👎 on Dimitri's new hair

Generally, I appreciate when a soap takes a big swing like “Lumina", “Justine”, or whatever that Egyptian Death Powder was that Carl desperately wanted. As an avid SOW reader during the early 1990s, if a soap that I stopped watching tried a stunt, I usually tuned back in to see how it was going. To @Xanthe's point, I can certainly understand why a long time viewer who watched during the Harding Lemay period would feel alienated during these plots. However, I would argue that unlike pure science fiction, soaps usually play these plots against a story of romance. Such as the Cass/Matt/Lila triangle during the Lumina story, or Nancy/Chris during the Arizonan/Egyptian artifact plot. If anything, I get annoyed when a big plot has no repercussions on the romantic lives of the characters, or does not involve the cannon of the show. However, the production issues during Lumina were so evident that it distracted from the plot. The recasting of main characters, the cheap effects and costumes did not help. And then, on screen, we never got clear exposition about what was happening. For example, was Matt being hypnotized or drugged? And finally, the ending had nothing to do with the established history of the show. So the fact that it occurred after the cancellation had been announced, and I was feeling more nostalgic for old Bay City was annoying. As for the gorilla, I can see your hot take mostly because it was only around for a couple of episodes, whereas Lumina dragged on for months.

My immediate impulse is to say Alexis and Krystal's first catfight in s2ep29 "The Baby". Because it set the tone that everything was going to be treated like a cartoon, even the loss of Krystal's baby. And the obvious use of male stuntmen was parodied all over TV. It is as if after the success of that scene, they felt the need to keep wrenching up. Then there was the catfight in pool, then the mud, and it became an annual tradition.

I had never considered if Tom Eplin either directly or indirectly blocked his ex-wife's return to the soap in 1991 until I re-read that article. For example, did Tom Eplin ever say that he didn't want to work with his ex? Or, did the production feel that in deference to their lead actor, (after a protracted contract negotiation during Jake's coma), that they shouldn't hire her? Because it is within reason that SOD wouldn't mention their relationship unless there was some issue, and it is too reductive to blame a single actor, producer, or executive. Of course, there's always a third option, which is that the production in 1991 no longer appreciated Ellen Wheeler's performance as Vicky.

It is also ironic that Dynasty was seen as campy fun even while it aired, because it seemed so excessive in every way. For example, shoulder pads were in style, "In times of insecurity and instability, shoulder pads are like armor.“ But nobody was wearing leather cocktail dresses with matching furs and hats to the office like Alexis and Dominque. However, today, one often sees pop-cultural references to Dynasty as if it was an accurate representation of the entire landscape of 1980s fashion. And shoulder pads have come to represent excess, when in fact, they were a reaction to the recession.

Yes, but I imagine Nicole won't use the names Mickey or Grace either... 😉 I bet she'll name him after a Carver. Also, are we to assume that Melinda is using her own money to pay off the doctor? If so, this leads back to the question of why is Melinda so invested in this adoption?

I think it is amusing that both Anne Heche and Jensen Buchanan used a breathy voice that sort of mimicked Ellen Wheeler when they played Marley. But, according to SOD in 1991, Ellen Wheeler wanted to return to AW, but they made her audition and then rejected her. So, even though she created the iconography of the character, the production didn't actually want her. It is giving Mary Astor - “There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor Type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor?” This is prior to the screentest

@vetsoapfan TV Guide only publishes every two weeks. So, it is either for technophobes who want to plan what they'll watch on Tuesday night a week in advance. Or, those who are really wondering about Harry Hamlin's recipes. 😁