Planet Soap

This is a longshot, but I wonder if we'll ever see Dru again for the 50th? At least she came on for Kristoff's passing.

19 minutes ago, Dylan said:

Because Doug is still running his mouth about being "fired."

 

If He would shut up Paul probably would be on. 

Exactly what went down with Doug Davidson exiting the show?

4 hours ago, SAPOUNOPERA said:

Jill planning to marry a businessman and having to deal with two sets of young daughters who didn't think that much of her.

Kurt Costner was basically Brad Elliot 2.0

Lori Brooks and Ashley Abbott dealing with the fact that another man had fathered them.

 

 Exactly. Jill with Phillip, Stuart, and John. 

Plus  Phyliss and Danny was basically Scott and Sheila 2.0. Phycottic dark haired woman drugs man and claims to be prego destroying his current marriage.

Piggybacking off of that, Dr Tim Reid and Phyllis mirriors his relationship with Morgan on B&B. Femme fatale manipulates vulnerable unconfident man using her sexuality.

17 hours ago, asafi said:

I Guess Jill abbot after Katherine's death.. 

Agreed.

Y&R: Lauren Fenmore after her affair with Carmine in 2013. she hasn't been front burner in a story since. Little of Lauren's lead story hasnt involved Sheila since 1990.  She faded from the canvas in the brief periods during the late 90s and early 2000s when she wasn't interacting with Sheila. 

I'm notincing how much repitition there is on Y&R. Kay & Sheila both had puzzle schemes to reveal an affair. Lauren & Cricket constantly dealing with psycos. One just struck me. Danny and drugs three times in about 4 years. 

1990- Danny on trial after being framed by David Kimball for cocaine posession.

1993- Danny (during Michael's hearing)  drugged and framed for sleeping with Rebecca. 

1994ish- Danny drugged by Phyliss and led to believe he'd impregnated her. 

He just couldn't catch a break lol. 

8 hours ago, Dylan said:

I'm not so knowledgeable about this part of the show, do Danny and Phyllis get along?

Long story short, in the mid 90s Phyllis (a fan of Danny's) stalked him, drugged him, then falsely told him they'd slept together and concieved a child (Daniel). In reality, Phyliss was really pregnant by a man named Brian Hamilton.

Danny divorced Christine and married Phyliss out of obligation, driving Cristine to marry Paul. Danny later divored Phyliss, eventually won custody of Daniel, and regaurds him as his son, despite finding out about his real paternity. 

On 11/4/2022 at 2:00 AM, Paul Raven said:

Those two really are an exception. Offhand I can't think of any other couples who managed to stay in a marriage for a length of time w/o being backburnered.

I want to say Bob and Kim, but they were backburnerd by the late 90s-ish. At least Alan and Monica (married in '78), had story till at least '02.

exactly how small is Liam & Hope's house.

On 11/3/2022 at 5:11 PM, Joseph said:

LOL and I Remember he was once Interested in JoAnna Manning, Lauren's Mom, another No Good Lady, Dina Was His Weakness Every Decade she reappeared and He Would Briefly fall back in love with Her, Bill Bell always seemed to want to find a way for them to get back together but would never really go there, The Nearest of A Reconciliation they could get was after John Divorced Jill, But Dina Left At That Same Time! I Wonder if he Felt that Once Dina Became The Abbott Matriarch, Mamie Would Have To Go! Also What A Sin Dina Didn't Come For John's Funeral, I would love a Good barbs exchanged between Gloria and her

And What Can Be Said on Nikki And Victor's Last Free For All??? Wasn't it Weird Of Them to renew They're vows to have an Open Marriage?

The bell soaps aren't really good at keeping couples together long term. Yes it's a soap and there's rifts and cheating, but I like couples like Margo & Tom or Alan and Monica where you see them work through their issues over time. 

BEST: already mentioned but GH: Monica and Rick Webber (1979). Such history leading up to this, and to see Alan and Monica at their most toxic and intense was great television. 

close second: Alan and Susan Moore / Monica & Phelippe, not to mention the  Susan Moore murder mystery. 

On 11/1/2022 at 8:36 PM, Paul Raven said:

Y&R Worst

Jill/Jed

Jill had only recently remarried John , which I never bought considering the horrible divorce they went through.

I can see Jill wanting to be Mrs John Abbott again, but John looked like an idiot for going back to Jill.

Then Jill turns around and starts sleeping with dreary Jed, even though extra marital sex broke up her marriage the first time. Apparently John couldn't satisfy her sexually...

All that lead to John and Jill breaking up again and the dead end 'romance' with Mamie.

In regards to Nathan and Keesha I wondered why they didn't let it play out onscreen. 

Why the hell would John marry Jill again especially since she'd slept with Jack twice, one of which cost him 25% of Jabot. Even worse, the marriage barely lasted a year. Jill has not had a  long term romantic lead to my recollection since that second divorce. John really hadn't learned his lesson about these kinds of women when he married Gloria much later on, not to mention Dina. 

20 hours ago, carolineg said:

Yeah, it's a shame they discarded Wayne's Roman at a point when he had so much story to give.  Roman was in the middle of a huge plot and just left. So odd.  Even if john/marlena were endgame, there is no reason roman/marlena couldn't have given it a go for a bit while Kristen was around but I guess it would have been difficult to build the possession and subsequent stories with him around.  Although it's not like Carrie, Sami, Bo, etc couldn't use Roman in their stories.

Agreed!

33 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

Hard to argue with the impact of this one.  I do hate what became of Wayne’s Roman, especially since it took years for John and Marlena to actually be together.

One I absolutely hated was Felicia and Luke on GH.  What a chore to get through, and just wrong for almost all the characters.

Alan and Monica had some of the best!  Rick/Leslie/Alan/Monica, Susan Moore, Sean, Lucy, so many greats.  And it is a real testament to Stuart Damon that Alan never seemed diminished by his relationship with Lucy.

Its crazy how Alan and Monica's endless affairs never seemd to get old. It think what made it work is that the charachters only divorced once, as opposed to most soap couples that have repeated marraiges. It felt real because they were together for roughly 30 years.

Favorite episode of the year! They hit alot of the major scenes from the 90s in those flashbacks.

6 hours ago, Soapfan8 said:

What do you all think about Brooke and deacon?

I loved that 2002 storyline. It was trashy soap goodness and one of the last good plots the show had in its last solid year. B&B has always had affairs but this was the most shocking and the lowest Brooke's charachter ever stooped.

3 hours ago, carolineg said:

Best- John/Marlena/Roman Days.  No bad guy in this scenario (really) and even if you don't like either couple, you can't deny the impact the storyline had on the show to this day.  Sami still brings it up 30 years later lol.

46 minutes ago, j swift said:

Single character best/worst affair Alan Quartermaine edition

Best - Alan/Lucy, it was in character for both of them to get together, Lucy was using Alan for money and status, Alan was using Lucy for sex and revenge against Monica for her relationship with Sean.  However, the outcome of the relationship brought Alan and Monica back together and strengthened their bond.  It was truly remarkable that Alan never looked like a buffoon even when Lucy showed up at their wedding in that huge red hat.

Worst - Alan/Rhonda Wexler - came at a low period for Alan in his career and his dependency on pain killers, this relationship teetered between a Days of Wine & Roses relationship between two addicts and romanticizing rich white guys saving poor women from abuse.  What could have been a responsible story about what happens when medical professionals become sober turned into a sorrowful story  of the accidental death of a low life all played out in the tiny Wexler kitchen.

John & Marlena's affair was well done and extremly concequential to future plots. 
 

I really liked the Allan/ Ray Conway plot.  The Riche/Levinson era was solod at creating dramatic moemnts and i like that Quartermaine's we're caught up with semi youth plots. 

6 hours ago, Spoon said:

Y&R.  Paul after the Ricky storyline, his last big hurrah.  The Dylan arc was really all about Nikki and Paul was just kinda there.

Yess!

Cheating is an overdone saop cliche but we still wach lol! What do you think were some of the best or worst written soap storylines about cheating? (or) even if it was well written, did you hate the concequences?

Best: 
ATWT- Bob, Kim, Susan (1990). Mature respected charachters with 20 year old history between them. Despite their past history, Bob and Kim gave off the image of a respectable conservative American family. Accordingly, it was pretty surprising to see the the respected town doctor cheat on his longsuffering revered wife. 

GH: Bobbie/Tony/Carly: This love pentagon (AJ, Jason, Carly,Tony, Bobbie) was well written with mutliple consequences that drove story for about 3 years straight and had an impact lasting a quarter century now. 

Mixed:

Guiding Light Ed/Lilian affair (1992): many will say this plot was well written. From what I saw, I can agree. The consequences, Maurine's death felt, unnecesary and damaging to the show.

I feel like a thread like this was already made, but nonetheless....

When did a particular charachter get moved to the backburner or become utterly irrelevant?

For example: 

GH: Tony Jones after 1998. Once he kidnapped Michael and got shot by Carly, the charachter never recovered. He was background at best untill he was killed off in 2006.

Monica Quartermaine after 2007. Alan and Monica started loosing steam after that Rick Webber story in 2002, but once Alan died in 07, Monica's role further began to evaporate. Even Tracy has arguably has gotten more story in recent years.

OLTL: Clint Richie's Clint Buchannan after 1992. The charachter never recovered from Viki's affair with Sloan and didnt pick up speed again until Jerry Ver Dorn assumed the role.

13 hours ago, Faulkner said:

I totally agree. So much of popular culture (from music to cinema to literature and newspapers) is dying due to the fracturing of the old monoculture, and I’m certainly grieving it to an extent. Streaming has been a godsend for TV in many ways but most stuff serves a niche these days, which has its pros and cons. Everything is preaching to the choir nowadays. The stuff that breaks through to find a huge audience feels less interesting to me than it did in the past. Very calculated and algorithm-determined.

One of the great things about Spotify is that you can dig into all kinds of old music. There’s so much that I’ve never listened to that I can discover. It may not be new music, but it’s new to me. I wish we had something similar for the soaps. I don’t need new soap content when I could dig deeper into the old stuff, which often holds up way better than I thought it would. (Certainly, the stuff from the ‘70s and early ‘80s was in many ways more progressive than what GH, Y&R, B&B, and DAYS are putting out today, even accounting for the LGBT inclusiveness that didn’t exist then.) Give me ‘70s DAYS before any new soap. Let’s make some effort to preserve this history, which most people alive haven’t seen. But that’s also a tough ask. Classic soap is a niche, and I’m not sure the ROI is there for it.

My sentiments  exactly. 

10 hours ago, SteelCity said:

I does suck that we have 10 ESPN channels, but not a single soap channel. SOAPNet really screwed itself, and I'll die on that hill.

This! I get that SOAPnet was ABC centric but more CBS and NBC soaps should've gotten airtime.

SOAPnet could have been so much more than it was. Classic episodes should have been more frequent, it could have been like the Turner Classic Movies of daytime. Anything other than constant Beverly Hills 90210 reruns and OLTL episodes from two years prior dubbed "classic", at 8am. 

53 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

And totally eff it up most of the time. Or use it for stuff nobody asked for (like the whole Austin debacle).

Exactly. They have an obsession with unnecessarily tying new characters to the existing canvas with random retcons.

Meanwhile on Y&R we have to beg for a crumb of history acknowledgment acknowledgment.

32 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

One of the reasons I can’t be bothered with these shows. They are so frustrating to watch when they ignore history that would enrich stories, sometimes history we’ve just seen play out.

I get that B&B was trying to wipe the slate clean with KA’s Taylor and memory-hole some of the unhinged stuff HT played in her later years. But still they haven’t respected the complexity of Taylor as a character or her relationships with Ridge, Brooke, and her kids. B&B is written for kindergartners and has been for years, though. 

Y&R is especially bad with acknowleding past history outside of the occasional Victor and Nikki flashbacks. GH wether well or poorly written will bring things up from the butt crack of history and run with it. 

On 10/27/2022 at 11:51 AM, Faulkner said:

These shows had a good run for 70+ years on television, and nothing lasts forever. 

 

This is true. Im just sad the genre (and broadcast tv as a whole) is dying in my adulthood when I'm old enough to appreciate it. 

12 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

Hope I didn’t spoil B&B in 2023 too bad….

 

Lolllll.

I wonder if they'll ever do Carter and Brooke?

9 minutes ago, Taoboi said:

As much as I would love to see Steffy give a Stephanie style slap, let's keep Finn farrrrrrrrrrrrr awwwwwwwwayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy from Hope. 

I can smell the writers cooking this up in the back room already. 

1 hour ago, ironlion said:

Hope and Thomas. That was predictable, just surprised it took too long. Next up, Hope & Finn. 

Meant to say I'm surprised it took *this* long.

34 minutes ago, BoldRestless said:

According to Y&R canon, that was Sheila. That's why in 2010 they had to make the Lauren lookalike "Sheila's sister" because "Sheila" was dead. And apparently the "Sheila" that was in jail was really her crony Sugar with plastic surgery to look like Sheila. So, I guess if B&B wanted to honor the Y&R version, the current "Sheila" is really "Sugar."

 

I feel stupider for having typed that out...

Who sat down, wrote that Sugar business and thought...YES let's put this on the air! Michelle Stafford as Sheila was one of the worst things Ive ever seen. If they insisted on going down that road, they could've just said Sheila wore prosthetics to look like Phyllis thus giving Kimbelin Brown an opening to return in the future.  Good thing Brad Bell erased that travesty from the cannon.

18 minutes ago, kalbir said:

We only saw Sheila pregnant twice on-screen though, Scott's child that was miscarried, and Mary Warwick.

IDK where those mystery kids Diana, Ryder, Daisy, and Finn came from. Mary Warwick would be a great addition to add some Sheila drama. 

Her current issue is that she can't be a long-term functioning character if she's out committing murders. Lighter acts of evil like messing with Bridget's paternity test, poisoning Stephanie with mercury etc, are softer acts of evil allow her to be around long-term rather than having to be sent to prison immediately.

Overall, Sheila's most solid and memorable stories were on Y&R, but she was a better long-term functioning character with development on Bold.

Hope and Thomas. That was predictable, just surprised it took too long. Next up, Hope & Finn. 

Growing up in the 2000s I had never heard of Sheila until looking back at her storyline on YouTube in the 2000teens. The first I'd heard of her was that horrendous Phyllis plastic surgery storyline.

 I was amazed at her first run on Y&R concerning the baby switch. It was one of the most well plotted stories I had ever seen on the show. The farmhouse and transition to B&B just blew me away. Seeing her go toe to toe with the ruthless Stephanie Forrester was a great site.

Sheeila's best story was 1990-92. 1993 to 2002 was okay. 2003 with the island was cartoonish. 2006-Present was sub par. Her only recent saving grace was 2005 with Soctt Jr and gaslighting Lauren. It was past Sheila's  prime, but better than anything recent.