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Agreed But, I don't want my main point to get lost. P&G did not stop producing soaps because they lost interest in the genre, or even because of low ratings. They stopped producing them, (and presumably are disinterested in digital distribution), because their consumer testing division was negligent in producing honest research about the safety of their products and once this was proven, civil lawsuits bankrupted the company and caused it to be broken up and sold off by corporate raiders. My main impetus for responding to this discussion is because every few months somebody writes about how stupid P&G is for missing the opportunity to make money by streaming the soaps, when in reality the company that we all knew as P&G really doesn't exist any longer and it has nothing to do with music rights or lack of interest in making money. I feel like we are all at various levels of expertise when it comes to soap history or critical analysis of characters and plots, because we are long term fans of daytime TV. But I get annoyed when fans assume the same expertise when it comes to production, distribution, or networks executives without any actual experience in those roles. I apologize for ranting but it remains a pet peeve when fans assume that those with power are dumb or disrespectful because they disagree with their ideas. Lastly, let's say you did get the job at P&G. After the failures of Soapnet, Pop TV, and Retro TV, would you want to be the one to try to convince a board of directors to fund a streaming effort for soaps that were cancelled 20 years ago? Because there is significant data that nobody beyond this website wants to watch those shows. Disney and Paramount are making money hand over fist by streaming reruns, does anyone really think that if the market existed then old soaps would not be a part of those services?

Without going too far into the weeds on consumer corporate history, you would have to ask who is "they"? P&G now exists as at least 15 different entities, raiders sold off parts of the company to numerous other owners. So there is no "they" in charge of P&G anymore and it would be like asking people in charge of selling toothpaste to develop a strategy to sell spaceship parts (which P&G also produced at one time).

I guess it bares repeating that asking P&G to stream soaps from their archive is like asking GM to remake the Oldsmobile. The company got out of soap production not because of ratings or disinterest. According to Alecia Swasy's book Soap Opera: the inside story of Proctor & Gamble, (which I encourage everyone to read) lawsuits over faulty testing of consumer products created such huge loses in revenue that it took down the company. Toxic shock from tampons, not poorly written characters or insipid plots, caused the company to be insolvent. Since the 1990's P&G product divisions have been sold multiple times. I mean when was the last time you saw Prell shampoo or Dreft detergent that were staples of daytime commercials? And once they stop producing the items that were intended to be sold on daytime TV, it negated the purpose of producing soap operas. The company was negligent in testing the safety of their goods before bringing them to the marketplace. This fact is indisputable and bares no relationship to a lack of desire to continue producing or distributing television dramas. Those that were in charge of production are long gone, and there is no infrastructure in place to set up a streaming service. Fans hold such a degree of ownership over soaps that it feels like corporate neglect when soap history is not respected. However, much like Buicks. Oldmobiles, and the AMC Pacers, the company is no longer in the business of producing that type of content and the multiple new owners have no interest in getting back into that field.

I noted earlier this year that it would be reductive to attribute SB's failure to thrive solely on the creatives in charge. First, it debuted against the first week of the 1984 Summer Olympics on ABC which were a huge ratings draw. The premiere episode is lavish and provocative, but most people were watching track and field in Los Angeles rather than soaps set in Santa Barbara. We've all experienced that if a soap isn't established as a habit among viewers, then it will never survive, and SB lost the opportunity to be habit forming because so many people were drawn elsewhere. Then, you have to factor in that NBC historically had a terrible time adding a third hour of soaps to its lineup. The 1970s are littered with soaps with interesting premises but failed to attract an audience because NBC could not gain audience support against GH and GL. Third, soaps overall were down in ratings in 1984. The Price is Right expanded to an hour and it gave CBS a significant lead in the ratings. The 1984 Tumblr Soaps of Yesterday, noted that part of Y&R's historic reign at number one was due in part to the lead in of the super successful Price is Right. Even GH's ratings were down due in part to the popularity of one Miss Reva Shane, as well as the loss of Luke Spencer. The changes in the first year, including recasting Joe, axing the Andradre and Duvall family, and firing many of the original writing staff were in response to a poor start, they did not cause a drop in ratings. Like most things in life you can't blame one thing for a project that is claimed by multiple owners.

I think Paula Irvine was a charming actress who was well cast as a scrappy young ingenue. My problem was that Lily never made sense as a character. Gina's original backstory was that she adopted Brandon because her husband was older and it was assumed that he had fertility issues. Then, Lily comes along with questionable motives (was she a grifter?, was she a believer?, was she manipulated by others?, it was never clear). She leaves and is never heard from again for years, then de-SORASed and re-retconned into existence. I guess after Summer and Mac they had exhausted siblings for Gina. However Paula's Lily spent so little time with Gina that their connection seemed unnecessary. In my opinion the most underrated character was Sophia. She drove the original plot and then was sidelined for years. Her exchange with Mason regarding Pamela during the Capwell dinner party lives rent free in my head as one of the great scenes in SB history. The only reason that I stayed tuned in the final year was that Sophia was finally given a plot that made sense with her background. Thus, I totally agree that Brick was a missed opportunity. He was another one whose motives seemed unclear at first, then he was just portrayed as a good guy. But, I would have loved to see the dynamics between Sophia's kids with CC and her child with Lionel. The Brick and Warren rivalry was interesting (for the three episodes that they let that be thing). The issue in bringing back Brick was that they needed to differentiate him from Warren. Warren was always a junior Lionel, a womanizer with a romantic flair, always up for a get rich quick scheme, but never wanting to work hard in business. If Brick sided with Minx to try to drum up some Lockridge business interests that might work. However, good guy Brick was made redundant by good guy Warren. Meanwhile, I have grown obsessed by my own idea to have Eileen Davidson as Victoria Lane, post Eden. Victoria was not a well drawn out character aside from her drug abuse. So, a sober Victoria who wanted to establish a relationship with her child with Cruz, win his trust, and establish herself in Santa Barbara is intriguing. We would have been spared the odd issue of where Cruz sent his kids in the final year. It could have established a Cruz vs. Mason issue because Victoria was involved with both of them. I like the idea of Victoria and Sophia bonding over being aging actresses, or even Sophia being jealous of Victoria's ability to maintain a career in Hollywood. My fanfic fantasies are overwhelmed with the prospects.

Thankfully, unlike Robyn's hats, Karen didn't get cut out of the pictures this time

Here's my theory (based on absolutely no evidence, but when did that stop anyone on the internet), the story notes that she co-produced Big Shot with her own production company and she recently changed podcast networks to iheart radio. So, I think: (1) she found out that producing less than 10 episodes of reality TV is not that difficult to do on your own, she can sell it and keep all of the profits for herself, (2) MGM was recently acquired by Amazon which may effect the distribution of her show to Netflix, (3) iheart media already owns a lot of tv production firms so she may be able to get a larger cut when she produces her next show.

I was thinking about your question and, if anything, Eileen was typecast at Kelly. Both Y&R Ashley Abbott and SB Kelly Capwell gave off major Jan Brady, middle daughter, vibes, so I think it made sense. Again, I think it was the plotline. Cruz could have gone on for a year or two without a love interest and still have been a viable character as a crime solving moral compass. Having him escape the law, (without his younger kids), in order to save his previously unknown daughter was a major character assassination. If you think about other soap super couples splits, like those on DAYS or GH, both Bo and Felicia were allowed to be in other successful relationships, because they were paired with new characters as part of a captivating mystery storyline. Cruz and his middle class high school sweetheart, that wasn't Victoria Lane (who could have been a good alternative part for Eileen to play), did not have the same appeal. Meanwhile, I liked Kelly and Connor as a couple. I enjoyed Eileen's familial chemistry with CC and Sophia. And I think she had potential to play a more confident Kelly who had grown from her earlier relationships with men, rather than being defined as Eden's little sister. Eileen has a gravitas that made her Kelly seem slightly smarter and more worldly than Carrington's portrayal. As a result, Kelly seemed to have matured beyond CC's princess that we met in 1984.

I feel like this has been adjudicated thousands of times within this thread, but here's my take. Carrington is my favorite Kelly, and hindsight is 20/20, but if you think about that time, Eileen Davidson was on the number one soap opera, in one of the most popular couplings, so it stands to reason that if they wanted to replace Marcy, two months after she left, and pair Kelly with Cruz, then hiring Eileen makes sense. Although, admittedly, Terry Lester's hiring did not improve ratings, and production incompetence regarding his contract renewal lead to his departure, but that was under a different production team. Furthermore, I was recently watching Cruz's final scene when he leaves Kelly begging on the tarmac. It was bad mostly because there wasn't enough history between Cruz and Kelly to justify her reaction. After Joe, Jeffrey, and Robert, it made no sense that Kelly would loose her s&*t over Cruz leaving town. However, it wouldn't have been made any better when played by another actress if the writing and production were some of the primary faults of that plot.

The "Cruz and Eden Show" was a fairly short period of SB. Cruz and Eden were married in 1988, when there was a lot of focus on them as a couple, and all of those dumb stories about being kidnapped on an island and having visions of their wedding place (I mean even Sophia knew about Pebble Beach, are we to assume that Eden never took a vacation up the California coast?) By 1990, Marcy was pregnant, which necessitated a maternity leave. Then, she took time to work on her primetime movie, then left for good in August 1991. During this period the show worked hard to buoy Julia, Kelly, and Gina. They expanded the Blake and Timmons family, new hotspots opened around town, and they brought in a number of other young male leads. So, in my opinion, the criticism of the show only focusing on Cruz and Eden is slightly overblown. I agree that the Dobsons did not plan well for her departure. However, when we reviewed the 1991 SODs about their return and her departure, she announced her resignation before their work started airing. So, they needed to transition the show into their vision all the while planning for Eden's exit (who had already been in a coma twice in two years, and kidnapped numerous times). They inherited the multiple personality story, because Eden started having flashbacks to being a jewel thief when Robert Barr gave her a necklace two months before the Dobsons returned. Also, in all fairness, the Dobsons had no idea if Marcy might return because her primetime gig was not successful, so they didn't want to write a final ending for Eden.

Congratulations Maybe one day we'll learn the secret of how a university student from Melbourne came into a collection of mid-western US newspaper soap opera summaries from 37 years ago. I hope it includes time travel, an evil twin, and a fascination with old video store advertisements.

As the kids say, "I was today years old when I learned that" I am shocked! I never put it together that Catlin was Jeanne's son and not Fred's, I had always assumed Fred was the one catting around with bastards strewn here, there, and everywhere. I guess Blaine had a bit of Jeanne in her all along...

The pacing is definitely odd. They burned through Alexis and Jeff's divorce, the sale of the soccer team, Fallon's ownership of the access roads, and Dom living in the house all in one episode. I was certain that either Dom's mother was not really dead, or she had some other document that would save the Carringtons, but it looks like she's just dead. On the other hand, Fallen had essentially the same story as last week, doubts about running the dynasty, then pulling out a win at the last moment. Her future with Blake was telegraphed so obviously that only a person who never saw a soap opera would be unable to catch it. But, where were Liam & Kirby the whole episode? Does Adam work as a doctor in the hospital or is he just an administrator of MRI (great joke)? And why did Culhane suddenly want to sell the team? I'm still betting on either Culhane or Jeff in the coffin, although I read a theory on reddit that it might be Steven, which would be an alienating move for a large portion of the tiny audience (last week they got a 0.0 in the demo).

I agree that Catlin was brought in as a love interest for Sally, and to further her antagonism with the Love family, but not to further the Ewing clan as a legacy family. Sally was the central character, and plotwise, she needed a romantic ally. I also think it is credit to MPK, that unlike audience reactions to her contemporaries of Lily at ATWT or Cricket at Y&R, there was very little criticism of her "taking over the show." I wonder if Blaine mentioned other family members when she was first introduced on the dude ranch? Did she just work there, or was it meant to be her family's property? I also wonder how Jeanne knew that Fred had another son, given that he had died four years earlier?

now that's a party The expansion feels especially odd given the failure of Somerset. It seems like history foretold that you couldn't bifurcate the plot in order to extend the time. The 90 minute episodes feel like too much chocolate fudge, yummy at first but it quickly becomes too much of a good thing. It is interesting from a programming perspective that NBC always struggled getting a third hour of soaps off the ground. It feels almost prehistoric to consider how hard the networks worked to stop people form switching the dial. However, someone recently mentioned that the 90 minute episodes coincided with Holly's rape on GL and Karen's admission of being a hooker on OLTL, so the competition was fierce. The types of plots being shown in daytime were changing and these episodes still play as very "drawing room based" drama without much sex, passion, or action to fill the time.

I wonder if our reactions to the 90 minutes episodes are also biased by the lens of hindsight and the experience of watching streaming series today? We have all gotten used to faster paced stories with shorter scenes and more plot development. My understanding of the longer episodes was that it was supposed to allow the audience to languish in the relationships that we liked to watch. We liked Iris and Vivian, so now rather than a single scene once a week, we saw them for 4-5 scenes per week. For me, the problem was that Bay City became too large as the cast grew too much to include characters that were redundant. We didn't need multiple ingenues and fine young men, one couple like that was enough, but suddenly there were multiple characters serving the same purpose.

Luann seemed like she knew that saying the word angry would be triggering, and she tried to avoid it, but then she became too impulsive. What I like about Eboni is that she's not averse to drinking with the girls. She constantly has a glass of booze in her hands and she's fun when she's a bit tipsy. I was concerned that after last season they would all try to be teetotalers, but Ramona, Sonja, and Eboni are shooting 'em back for the rest of the girls. I really enjoyed Sonja, From her delusions about men to her new face, she is always entertaining. I appreciated when she said that she was giving Leah space, because it exemplified that Sonja is never trying to be mean or calculating, she's honest in her approach and willing to express her opinions in ways that (usually) are inoffensive.

It's ironic that Catlin came to Bay City to connect with his half siblings Larry and Blaine, but they both left town soon after he arrived

They did not get a good bye scene. But, did you know that there was behind the scenes acrimony between the actors in the roles?

I feel like Liam has usurped the role of "the normal one" in the drama. But, why doesn't he have a job? And why are his relationships with all of the other characters so underdeveloped?

I was reading the wiki on Fox Crane during lunch and I came to a realization; Passions was a show with very interesting characters, but horrible plots. Certainly, a lot happened in Harmony during the years Passions was on air. But, the pace was bizarre. A single day would last for weeks, a single discussion could last for days, and plots, characters, and sets would just disappear without explanation. However, the characters were unique and well rounded. Fox as a young, rich, playboy also discussed how his issues with being neglected by his mother caused him to obsess over the love of women who were kind to him. Other soaps have had boarding school raised rich guys, (Nick Newman), but few allowed them to realize the impact of their childhood on their current relationships. Theresa was not just a social climbing vixen trying to get what she envied in others, but she was more interested in creating a stable family for her children that was missing when her father abandoned her family. Rachel Cory and Erica Kane had similar backgrounds but they were so much less self-aware in their 20s. Dr. Eve Russel discussed prejudice both in her own relationship with Julian, as well as in her expectations for her daughters love lives, that are rarely talked about in daytime. I would also note the racial, cultural, and sexual diversity in Harmony was different from most soaps. There was humor in the surname Lopez-Fitzgerald given how each character was forced to use the full hyphenate. However, think of how rare it is for latinx characters to actually maintain their cultural heritage in daytime. Chad's foray in bisexuality was particularly unique. He was not using men for schemes or underhanded plans, he was actually tormented by his desires in ways that most men in daytime are not allowed to discuss. The gays of DAYS experience difficulties with coming out, but their struggles are all with external acceptance, not self acceptance. So, while it's easy to write off Passions as a failed experiment in paranormal plotting, I am beginning to understand how truly revolutionary it was.

Isn't odd that Sienna and Mercedes had essentially the same thing going on? They're both being gaslit by younger women, and their men doubt them. It is weird to have a soap do two similar stories at once.

In the SB universe timeline, how long was it between CC & Pamela's divorce, and CC & Sophia's wedding? Mason seems to be around 10 years older than Channing, (who had to be born in their first year of marriage if Sophia was pregnant by Lionel when they wed) so I would guess CC & Pamela had been divorced for 3-5 years. I know for suspension of disbelief purposes we shouldn't calculate the ages of the Capwell kids, but Elena would have to have been older than Channing or Eden, if Pamela was preggers when she left CC for Europe, correct? I also wonder what Pamela and Augusta's relationship was like as neighborly newlyweds? I don't think Pamela and Augusta ever shared scenes, and I don't think Augusta was in SB when Pamela returned.

That clip is like OLTL in an alternate universe, including Megan with recast Tina and Dorian all acting cordial toward each other. But, at least we know that Brenda hung around until August 1991. Do we think baby Steven inherited the Grande fortune? And did anyone else move into the Grande Mansion? That was a lovely set.

This week's episode defied logic. The Carringtons live in a universe where J-Lo is still dating A-Rod, but there's no COVID? How did Fallon buy the roads surrounding the mansion, can a private citizen buy access to state funded streets? A reporter cancelled her story on Fallon because her family was too crazy, then rescheduled a live interview, the day before it aired, because she thought Fallon was just crazy enough? Why does Liam suddenly want to move out of the mansion, despite the fact that he has no viable means of support, which means they would go from her mother's house to his mother's house? How is Sam's boyfriend not supposed to be rich but wears Louis Vuitton shirts for Zoom calls (admittedly I like the fashion on this show regardless of the logic of how they bought it)? Why does Blake need a Moldavian war criminal to threaten a priest, when he could just out him for having an affair to his congregants? Why wouldn't the press believe Culhane about the gambling ring if he has less to lose? Why does all of the action take place in the last six minutes of the show?