Planet Soap

awesome!!!!

Hearing presumably wild rumors about an OLTL/AMC revival. (Hoping this is real) Being that online failed the only way it wold work for me is back on tv in a 1/2 hour format (maybe 3 days a week) with reruns on streaming. 

I really liked OLTL and grew to appreciate and enjoy older AMC, but if I had to save one back in 2010, it would be OLTL. Granted, the show wasn't as great as its older self by then but it had energy and diversity! AMC for me began running out of steam by the turn of the century. AMC 25th anniversary:

Sheila most certainly is the villain, no doubt. In the Oct '92 episode though, Lauren is kissing on Paul during her wedding to Scott, which I presume is only to retain custody of Scott Jr. Plus she pretty much bullied Tracy for years. (All this aside I enjoy  the character of Lauren though)

Watching the October 1992 episode. I never realized Paul had that in him. In years recent he's been the "good guy" but the outright disregard for Scott Grainger here, wow. Sheila might have been crazy but Lauren was no saint either. Lauren was upset Sheila stole her husband only to cheat on him when she does have him to herself. Scott seemed like a pretty good husband, only to be caught between a cheater and a crazy, lol. 

Looking back the baby switch and puzzle story lines comes off as karma. At least Stephanie Forrester managed to size up the Lauren character over the whole Eric mess. 

22 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

When WAS the last time a daytime soap was consistently good? Twenty five years ago?

Agreed,  GH under Riche from 93-00 was teriffic; All My Children was decent for me until about 1997ish. 

A great era of consistent quality was Y&R from 1989-1999, perhaps up to 2001 if you want to stretch it. (but especially anything 89-93). The show pretty much tanked (like pop culture and daytime in general )  post 2005.

Nothing else has really been consistent in quality as far as I've watched. I will say, One Life To Live's last stride was probably 92-95 under Malone. Anything after that was past prime quality. However, OLTL kept the action pumping straight through the 2012 finale. The Tomlin era had it's crappy moments but I really liked Todd & Blair from 2000-2003.

The attack on Steve and Audrey was pretty brutal but displays how much emotional power GH had in those days. Watching Ryan now isn't scary one bit, it's comical to say the least.

Sonny Corinthos pales in comparison to Todd Manning in terms of crime. It's amazing how Todd went from a scary "hateable" bastard to a comical villain. But once TSJ (who is a decent actor) took over the role and his Todd did things like beat up Cole, berate Langston and  push Starr off the boardwalk he became reprehensible all over again. The two Todds story was convoluted but I'm glad it brought back RH. 

The Margo attack was Law & Order SVU quality disturbing

Agree with many of the sentiments here. For me, B&B was never on the level of Y&R, GH, ATWT, but it was fun watchable "smut" up until the early 2000s. The problem was that B&B was heavily dependent on (often near incestuous) romance based drama, occasional fashion business drama, and Brooke being a slut. Not much plot diversity there.

Amazingly it's still #2 in the ratings, and still boasts better production quality than that of DAYS or GH. As for why it's still #2 IDK, the show has been in the gutter for a while now. Stephanie was the Erica Kane/the Viki Lord of the show and now that she's gone the show is suffering. Her antagonistic relationship with Sally, Sheila and of course Brooke played well for years. 

The one thing B&B did right though was sticking to the 30 min format. At least it's easier to produce 19 mins worth of content 5 days a week with a smaller cast,  stretch plots, and maintain decent production values. 

Favorite scene: Sheila taunts Stephanie about marrying Eric (1993):

1999!!!!! Teriffic, Wish I could find the whole Veronica Landers fiasco anywhere.

Y&R 1998- Nikki hospital scenes after being shot by Veronica Landers. (Wish I could find that full story line anywhere). They really did a good job making Melody Thomas Scott appear as if she were actually on her death bed. It lead to the whole Victor divorcing Diane to let Nikki die in peace then Nikki surviving fiasco. Of all the soaps 90s Y&R arguably had the best directing: ornate camera angles and shadowy lighting. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_9CxbSuzZXNwXleXR56goOsQGesp0ZKq

13 minutes ago, carolineg said:

 

Jason.  Always Jason... Sonny is just an afterthought.  I THINK Sonny and Brenda are still the endgame couple but I could be wrong...

FACTS! If anything, Sonny belongs with Brenda, Carly with Jason and Elizabeth with Lucky 1.0, as for Sam....eeeh.

Question:

Carly is not the most revered charachter here (LOL), but who was the best in the role. I found Sarah Brown the most compelling, and that she had more chemistry amd sex appeal with Jason than the others. Tamera Braun I thought had the most chesmistry with Sonny. Brown to me had more fire with Sonny as Claudia.

SB: Laura Wright isn't bad either. 

17 hours ago, titan1978 said:

 

That absolutely did happen.  I even recall when she lost a few pounds, maybe 10 to 15 after the Lucky fire story and all of a sudden they bought her some stylish new clothes and had her hair styled more sexy and she got new show publicity photos.  She was back in their good graces for losing a little bit of weight.

 

She looks great right now, and she seems to be happier.  As bad as the show is her character is being used better than she has since the Nikolas backstory was created.

 

Not to keep the thread focus solely on GH, but this was a great point. They dressed Laura and ESPECIALLY Luke terribly in the 90s. Luke didn't have a decent haircut or wardrobe in the 90s till around the Liz rape story line. Yet, Bill Eckert, Geary's other character, was dressed way better. Well, acting is #1 and they were very compelling in that regard.

Now that two Carlys are on GH (Maura West and Laura Wright), I'm starting to notice several parallels between Sarah Brown's Carly and 90s Carly Tenny ATWT. Both debuted around the same time, 1995 & 1996. Both denied their child his natural father: Michael & AJ, Parker & Hal. Both ran through several men despite being in love with someone else: Carly Tenny: John Dixon, Hal & Brad while in love with Jack; Carly Benson: Tony, AJ, and Sonny while in love with Jason.

1 hour ago, Khan said:

 

Oh, FFS.  Those actors and their blasted egos.  

 

GH had the same problem with Luke/Felicia that DAYS had with Shane/Kayla: you can't build a viable couple or supercouple on the proverbial ashes of two former couples.  If you want us to believe that Luke could live w/o Laura and Felicia w/o Frisco, then you have to give Luke and Felicia two new partners who have not been in popular pairings before.  Otherwise, the audience will resent it and they'll revolt.  (Again, look at what happened with Shane and Kayla.)

 

I guess I should be glad, however, a Roy/Laura pairing never came to fruition.  A Martinez and Genie Francis would have had absolutely no chemistry.  They'd have been better off pairing her with Ingo.

That's unfortunate that the actors were so eager to run from the couple paring that made them a household name. Ironically, the charachter of Luke suffered without Laura as he became a cynical, "cool man" drunk. Having began watching GH around 2006, I had no clue Luke was the show's IT man in his heyday.

Now he's running over Jake, marrying Tracy and split personality? 

Laura on the other hand is coming off as strong and into her own on Frank Valentini's GH compared to the victim she often had to play under Monty, Riche, and Guza's watch. The hard truth is that star actors sometimes shouldn't be involved in the writing of their charachters. 

It's also interesting how GH shifts between male charachters as the star of the show. Steve Hardy, then Luke, Robert, Sonny, now Jason. I suppose it balances out the stong female stars on other soaps (Reeva GL, Stephanie B&B, Erica AMC, Viki OLTL). (Meanwhile, Victor remains the star of Y&R)

Awesome, hard to find anything after '95

Awesome thread. Curious as to what is considered the last solid quality year for AMC? In watching old  episodes on youtube something seemed to fall off after 1997. 

Great thread. CBS daytime late 80s-02ish to me had the best promos..."Don't Blink & Don't Look Away", "Get It On", Clarence the announcer, "Everything is Everything", "Turn on the Light Guiiiding Light" were some of their best. 

89-93ish Y&R had stong material!....Paul framed for murder/Cassaundra gaslighting, Sheila baby switch, David Kimble marriage con, Katherine and Marge the doppleganger, Christine sexual harassment, Bill Bell firing on all cylinders then

Decent material to come out of 2003 was the Rick locking Tamera Braun's Carly in the panic room storyline.The Metro Court crisis was undoubtebly GH's most compelling disaster plot...however the fallout was terrible, killing off Alan and effectively rendering the Quartermaines irrelevant. If they could raise Jake Webber from the dead, hell, Alan and could have been back ages ago and AJ could STAY alive.

Great scene (but no actual clip) Y&R Sheila kidnaps Lauren and takes her to the farmhouse (May 1992). The awesome dark scenes played out over 5 days in which Sheila finally tells Lauren about the baby switch a year prior. To me Sheila's best character developments came on the Bold & the Beautiful but her most solid and dark story lines played out on Y&R (the baby switch and the 2005 return as "Brenda" the author). Flashback from B&B 1995:

Glad the woman of the year speech was the first clip here. Lucci's alpha moment! Maybe this was posted already, All My Children from about 1978: Tom finds out Erica is on birth control despite claiming she wants a baby:

Phelps/Guza era General Hospital (2009) Sonny EXPOSES Claudia at the her own birthday party for shooting Michael in an attempt to kill Sonny. Crazy music cue, plus Sonny calls her a "psychotic piece of trash" ROFL!

Alan and Monica really got pushed off the canvas after that 98/99 pill popping storyline. They're really underrated as a couple, often just lumped together with the rest of the Quartermaines. The appeal of them to me was that (depite the cheating) the charachters were together for a LONG TIME. The Monica/Rick affair and Susan Moore fiascos were my favorite storylines of their's. 

The storyline was okay to me. Viki shifiting from her stoic self to other wild alters was awesome. It was arguably a gem of the Malone era and to take it a step further one of the best plots in the show's history.

I guess camp is a turn off but personally thats the draw in factor for soaps (post 80s). Over the top melodrama....the one thing the writer must do though is make the storyline as watchable, serious, and believable as possible.

With all the criticism of Brad Bell and Mal Young it seems no EP can truly do justice for the Bell soaps outside of Bill Bell himself. Alot of posters on this site cite 1996 as a year b&b fell off which is about the time Bill Bell stepped away as head of the show. Similarly when Bill Bell left in 1998, Y&R's slow decline began, even more so after his death in 2005. Other soaps seem to be able to stay afloat despite shifiting regimes but apparenly not the Bell soaps. Yet, desite this they have remained #1 &#2 in ratings despite years of lackluster storylines since about '07ish? 

Perhaps the fact that Y&R and B&B still grant major screen time to their veteran actors and still have a decent production value (compared to GH and DAYS) can be attributed to this?

LOL! Quite possibly Lucci's greatest AMC episode of all time!

OLTL over visited the DID issue during it's run. The 1995 plot is a favorite of mine however, at least with the initial Jessica/Tess story, Tess was an actual character per say with a goal: have her own life and be with Nash. Nikki basically became a cartoon and it was confusing as to what her purpose was in destroying Viki's life.