Planet Soap

Agreed!

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.

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. 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.

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.

My sentiments exactly. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I can smell the writers cooking this up in the back room already. Meant to say I'm surprised it took *this* long.

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. 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.

Domesticating Lauren and making her loose her cattiness really slowed the character down. The same with Michael. He became dry after loosing his post prison edge. I liked the period after his return where he was the shark of a lawyer with a dark past.

I think 5 days a week for a written drama is tough from a production standpoint. When you have to write endless scripts with long often repetitive dialogue, focus becomes more about filling airtime. Even 1 day a week primetime shows are beginning to moan about producing 22 episodes a season, much less over 300. Thirty minutes maybe two or three times a week might help. Using CBS as an example: Y&R Mon-Wed, B&B Thu-Fri. Agreed! Some of the hosts are overpaid considering the quality of show being delivered. Today's morning shows pale in comparison to the years of Bryant Gumbell, Jane Pauley, Joan Lunden and more. But soap storylines have become gradually more sensationalist over the years. Today, a divorce would probably be deemed rather tame, particularly for a box-office Christmas episode, in an era when explosions, shootings, murders and a whole range of dramatic twists are now commonplace. Very true. Soaps have lost the slower more raw, emotional, conversationalist manner that added depth their character interactions. Something as simple as ATWT's Bob cheating on Kim with Susan was so powerful because of the decades old deep history between the players, the emotional weight in the acting and dialogue between the characters, and the fact that the story was played by mature actors. All this even though an affair was certainly a cliché by 1990.

Good! Lauren has had nothing to do since the Carmine affair and this should give the character some much needed life. In fact, since 1990, little of Lauren's storyline hasn't involved Sheila. The years in the late 90s/early 2000s where she and Sheila didn't interact, Lauren was on the backburner on Y&R and B&B.

Not gonna happen but Make an online collection of epsides avalible Paramount!

Victoria Rowell's second run had extra flourishes. I liked the matured version she played of Dru between 94ish - 98. Early streets Dru was alright aswell. When she came back in 2002 her performance was enjoyable but noticably more campy. There were shades of Michelle Staffords camp in her acting then.

Agreed! Came here to mention this aswell.

Y&R is so weird about preserving charachter relationships, after all they had charachters in bubbles with no interactions for years. For a few years characters are friends and then when they return there's absolutely no mention of that. You'd have no idea Paul and Lauren were married watching the modern show. Even Paul & Nikki's relationship is referenced more. Christine & Victor: their flirtation is ancient history given how much she seems to hate him now. Christine hasn't been then same since about 2000. She's far more miserable now. GH: Has it been refrenced that Monica used to be a confidant of Laura's in recent years?

Amelia Heinle as Victoria. If they can't get Heather Tom back on Y&R they could've tried for an actress with more attitude and spunk along time ago.they could've tried for an actress with more attitude and spunk along time ago.

Sheila's 2005 return to Y&R was really amped up!