Planet Soap

Phillip, the best example. 2 years living produced over 40 years of posthumus story. Victor Lord was OLTL for a relatively short time, yet his postmortem impact lasted the show's entire run. Claudia GH: Claudia's year long stint on GH set in motion Michael's coma, SOARSING, imprisonment and rape, it also helped set in place the feud between Johnny and Sonny.

In watching the 1989-95 episodes list on page 310, you can just feel a certain energy die down storyline wise beginning in 1994. Granted 94-97 is miles above what we have today, but not as great as 90-93 before it, and late 97-2001 after it. I did enjoy Victor's shooting drama, the aftermath of Matt Clark's shooting and the scenes associated with Nathan's affair.

the masquerade ball is playing on CBS today (AGAIN), well its better than a new episode

Similar to Diane's return on Y&R, the Sheila plot feels aimless. She wants to reconnect with family. Get that, tried it, didnt work. What now? Give Sheila a solid plot to keep her in town long term.

So many paralells between 2002 and 2022 Sheila with the lightning storm scene. Not to mention we got a semi repeat of Deacon and Brooke this year.

I liked 1990 in that it set the stage for future stories, with Sheila, Drucilla and Olivia's introductions. Plus, the year had three solid plots ongoing: The George Rawlins murder, the start of David Kimble & Nina, and the Katherine/Marge doppleganger story. The problem with todays show is that the stories are dry, too down to earth and lack imagination. The creativity behind Sheila switching babies or posing as a book author to Lauren's son, or even David Kimbles intricate plot to murder Nina cannot be found (or would be poorly written) on the modern show. Old Y&R's strength is that it could be down to earth and have exciting camp. For example, while the baby switch story could be considered over the top, we got really relaistic small moments like Lauren calling the insurance company to to set up a scheme so she could obtain the baby's blood to perform a paternity test against Scott, or even Sheila's mom's speech therapy after her stroke.

Joss and Dex remind me of Carly and Jason. Eden McCoy resembles Laura Wright, and the scenes where she's taking care of Dex compares tto Jason, as he always had a female character tending to him after being injured. How do you all feel about Esme being Heather's daughter? There goes GH's incessant need to tie new characters to the canvas again. Maxie might aswell be with Spinelli. Nathan aside she hasn't had a viable romantic pairing --or storyline-- for that matter in years. The character has burned out. If they wanted to keep Nathan alive, the actor who plays Detective Chase would've been a decent recast.

Y&R has been beyond saving since 2006, moreso since 2013. Every EP and head writer since Jill Farren Phelps has failed to bring the show back to some semblace of bring interesting. LML and MAB's tenures are beginning to look better compared to more recent marterial. That's a strong statement considering how damaging those periods were to the show.

We're loosing alot of people these days, especially in the soap world. RIP Epiphany. Grew up watching her!

oh no

Good retcon: B&B negates Sheila having plastic surgery to look like Phyliss.

Seems like Geary was just determined to turn Luke into this dark charachter. Its almost as if he resented the fame the charachter achieved. Its crazy how the biggest supercouple in soaps is constantly being destroyed by writers. As a viewer, Luke was at his best in the mid 90s, an enthusiastic family man. I can understand why fans are glad to see Laura free of him, even though I would like to see them together again with better writing.

Lollll! Rory being kind and polite isn't grinding Trina's gears. Spencer keeps her on her toes. There's drama, she doesn't know where she stands with him, plus there (was) competition in the form of Esme. A range of emotions! Rory might work for someone like Willow though. Either the show makes something wrong with Rory, or they kill him — he was seen walking into a suspicious room yesterday — to clear the way for Trina and Spencer. Exactly. The cast is way too bloated. Too many characters with nothing going on, or too many characters with dangling plots that start up, go no where, then randomly pick back up. The show feels unfocused and disorganized. They need to trim the fat quickly. As I've said before, I think this is one of the reasons why I found it hard to keep up with classic ATWT on YouTube. Aside from a lack of isolated storyline playlists, there were ALOT of characters during the Marland era. At least then the writing was better and there was a sense of community.

When was this?👀 Tell me more. It was just bad ontop of stupid writing. Undoing Jill as Kay's daughter was a good move with a bad explanation. Undoing Phillip III as Jill's son infavor of Cane and then reversing course and bringing Phillip back from the dead made no sense.

Nice guys finish last lol. Both Trina and Joss and leaving Rory and Cam for toxic and or messy men in the form of Dex and Spencer.

What were some soap rewrites thats did or did not work for you? Examples: OLTL - I understand why two Todd's had to be done (brining Roger Howarth back). The Irene CIA explanation though was convoluted and confusing. It could have been explained better. OLTL- Victor Lord is alive. Victor's life has been revised too many times. They changed it to Viki killing Victor, all for him to pop up alive in 2003, only for Dorian to intimate that he wasn't the real man. GH - Two Jasons: everything involving Franco, Betsy Frank, memory mapping and Afganistan was all over the place. When you recast a character, sometimes it's best to just not acknowledge that they look different in the event that the original actor wants to return, otherwise you end up in a situation like two Romans, two Todds, and now two Jasons. On the other hand, acknowledging a recast leaves room for a separate character (Drew or Victor Jr), if the OG actor returns. It also means the recast doesn't have to get fired like Greg Vaughn being ousted as Lucky in favor of OG actor Johnathan Jackson.

Yes! that was the name! damn! I really wish I had taken the time to watch the Aremeid story and some of the Sami execution plot. Again, soak up as much SONY soap content as you can online before the copyright police come for it.

Cant remember the name but it had full storyline clips from the 80s through early 00s like John & Marlena's affair, 2 Roman's and the Posession. Its logo was pink.

Damn. I used to rush to watch any classic Restless episode on YouTube back when things were scarce. Now that the show's content has become more abundant I've become more relaxed when new stuff comes out. That's a reminder to soak up as much y&r content on YouTube that's not in the vault as you can because it will eventually be taken down.

Is the YouTube channel that had all the DOOL full episodes still active?

So the RR channel is gone? That sucks, really wished I'd taken the time to watch more of its content before it shut down. Seems like the same thing happened to that DAYS channel. Is the vault active again?

Do you guys think Greg Vaugn could ever fit back into the role? Is Robert Kelker Kelly done with soaps? Could they not have brought him back as Bo all those years when Peter was gone?

IDK what it is but soaps, broadcast tv, popular music, etc, all seemed to go downhill after that year. I am thankful for maintained production values on *some soaps* DAYS looked pretty good until about 2009 lighting and set wise. All My Children had a nice production value rebound with the move to LA in 2010ish...only get cancelled a year later . ATWT's production value, though declining, was still pretty okay until the end compared to OLTL for example. Y&R and B&B held up pretty well until about the mid 2000tens. GH's production value was gone by the mid 2000s (lighting wise especially). They have really good sets these days though despite a bloated cast.

I think 2005 was the cut off point for a lot of the early 2000s momentum on soaps. B&B was pretty good from 2000-2002. Broke/Deacon/Bridget, Brooke & Thorne, Kimberly, Amber & Rick were all decent stories. GH has had some good events in the midst of the JFP Guza turmoil. Brenda's 2002 return, the train wreck, the virus outbreak, the Metro Court crisis, and the return of a few vets since Frank took over. Y&R was good between 2000 and 2001. Jack/Phyliss/Diane, spermgate, Carter Mills and the Glo by Jabot had the show going. 02-05 were alright.

Was just thinking about this. I think Brenda plays a more well-put-together and softer Ashley. Eileen's version is more messy. I haven't bought any of Eileen's Ashley in any of her romantic pairings. She sizzles more as Kristin on Days, especially with John. I even found her more attractive on DAYS in the 90s. Brenda did well with Brad, Victor and to a degree Blade. Overall I prefer Brenda's version. SB: Brenda Epperson really bares a resemblance to Nina Arveson, who played Cassandra.