Planet Soap

Name a role that was negativity impacted after being recasted 3 or more times.

Basically the opposite to my other thread 

Billy Y&R. I see why they went back to OG actor David Tom after Billy Miller left the role. He should have been given more of a chance. Burgess Jenkins and Jason Thompson did not fit.

Going to sound dramatic but the current intro has to be in the top 10 worst since 2000.  This is what I imagine the intro would look like if Restless went to streaming only. skyline in the back is too General Hospital.

Name a some soap role that had three OR MORE actors who did a good job in the role.

Dorian OLTL- Nancy Pinkerton, Claire Malis, Elaine Princi and of course Robin Strasser were all good. It was refreshing to see the sex pot femme fatale version of Dorian that Claire played in the 1977 episode on YT.

Adam Y&R- All four Adams have been good so far, with Michael Muhney having been the best. I'm not sure whether Grossman or Hartley was the superior Adam.

CBS Sunday Morning. Hopefully this wasnt posted already. Lol the report days they never tweaked the theme which they did from 99-03...but in all fairness it had elements of the OG.

So exactly why was Paul fired?

On 3/23/2023 at 11:25 PM, Paul Raven said:

The 88-2000 opening was hardly groundbreaking at the time, just some poses against a white background. I recall a kind of glittery effect in the early days that was a little chintzy. But it was the first major change and introduced the new logo.

I do like the idea of Victor placing the necklace on Nikki- especially as the show has her enthralled when he gifts her with jewelry, but I wonder Eric would go along with it -in terms of sharing the screen time with Melody.

The anniversary open could have been charachter sketches (like the late 70s/early 80s) which transform into live pictures (like the 88-99 intro). Or they could have re-created the jazzy red intro maybe with a different color like gold instead of red for the 50th. Instead we get a windows movie maker intro with a horror movie font. I wonder if the cast can tell how awful it looks.

This is easily one of the worst soap intros of all time. It really lifts GH's off white epilepsy opening out of the gutter. Idk how soaps are allowed to come on the air with such poor quality. Audience loyalty is truly strong.

I had a feeling Y&R might drop the ball in some way for the 50th, hopefully GH doesn't disappoint. Their 50th celebration in 2013 was epic. 

The whole Brenda may have slept with Michael thing was odd and out of left field considering she knew him as a child. 

That is true, most of the characters for Brenda to play off of are gone. Jason, AJ, Robin, Jax. She would have to go against Nina and maybe have some interactions with Sam or Drew, IDK.

Leslie Charleson needs to make an appearence assuming she's well and so does Tony Geary. Now that COVID is over I wonder if they'll allow Steve Burton to return. That would be a perfect opportunity for him to be paired with Brenda now that Britt is gone. 

It would have made more sense to say Jason is missing than presumed dead--yet again.

Eric went way too hard in his comments and needs to calm down. Eva is a decent actress and her Isabella role was a highlight of the early 2000s.

I recently saw a CBS Sunday Morning profile on Eva Longoria with no mention of her time on Y&R despite it being a CBS show. Eva has always struck me as someone embarrased by her time on soaps (ironic because a nightime comedy/drama soap made her a household name). That in contrast to Kelly Ripa , Judith Light or Julianne Moore.  Cant find the clip but Eva seemed coy and embarrased when the bathtub/knife scene with Christine was played on the Late Show w. David Letterman.

I would understand earlier in her career if she embelleshed her daytime roots because of showbusiness bias. Now now that she's established I wished she'd embrace her Isabella role more. 

Soaps do get an unfair rep. Crappy primetime shows, scenes, or actors dont drag down the entire medium. Soaps on the other hand get disparaged as a whole based on a few examples. (Today's quality however doesn't help this perception at all).

1 hour ago, titan1978 said:

I found it to be nothing more than a stunt, and one that ultimately didn’t pay off beyond some minor media attention.  And I was completely over JFP/Guza’s misogyny on GH in regards to female characters.  They have retconned it repeatedly, so I’m not sure if Sam was assaulted or not by his version of Franco.  But back then it was skeezy.  I did kind of enjoy his creepy mom though.

I can see why GH would jump at the chance to have a hollywood star on but the direction of the plot was confusing. To top it off they had the former Todd Manning jump into Franco's role as a former rapist turned romantic lead.

On 3/14/2023 at 3:02 AM, AMCOLTLLover said:

Michael Easton! He had so many great pairings and made them work. Only pairings that didn’t work are with Beccy Herbst and Idk why. Normally every pairing of both actors work.

Beccy Herbst is a chemistry machine aswell. 
 

Ron Moss. He was a great 80’s/90’s actor and he made that show work on B&B. I mean he had chemistry with not just one lead but three. Hunter Tylo, KKL and the Caroline actress. Even after a decade he still had chemistry with them and platonic chemistry with Susan Flannery, John McCook.

 

Maybe if he were playing John McBain I could see him with Liz and Sam.

9 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Peter Bergman 20th Anniversary interview 2009

On Nov. 27, Peter Bergman will celebrate his 20th year playing Jack Abbott on CBS’s top-rated The Young and The Restless. The veteran soap star (he previously played Dr. Cliff Warner on ABC’s All My Children) talked exclusively to EW.com about what it was like to originally assume the role, how he felt about his character talking to a ghost, and whether he and the cast believed that Eric Braeden would ever really quit the show.

EW: What was it replacing Terry Lester, who had previously played Jack Abbott, 20 years ago?
Peter Bergman: He had burned every bridge he could burn before he left. He had alienated pretty much everybody in the building. Had I showed up as anything less than an axe murderer, I would have been welcomed. That said, every lighting guy, every wardrobe person knew more about Jack Abbott than I did. That took some getting used to. Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki Newman) was very friendly to me but Eric Braeden was a big Terry Lester fan so his wasn’t the warmest welcome.

From the start, Jack was a very angry character.  We didn’t see his compassionate side for a long time.  What was the journey like for you?
The journey was an interesting one.  I actually loved playing a careless, womanizing, and manipulative Jack for as long as I did. But one of the cool things about being on these shows is that characters grow and change.  And I can tell you who the characters were who changed Jack Abbott: Nikki, followed by Phyllis – the least likely person ever to touch Jack’s heart — and then Sharon, who of all people, I think was a disaster on the writers’ part.  It’s almost like they thought, ‘They both are basically in the same predicament. Put them together.’ I can remember the day Sharon Case sat in the dressing room with me and how we decided to make it believable. And I think we did a pretty respectable job. So three women changed this guy so much in these 20 years, so he’s a very different character now.

Let’s talk about one of Jack’s most memorable scenes – sitting at his dying father’s bedside.
It was far and away his most emotional experience. He still hasn’t recovered from that. He is still seeing his father in his office, in his home, in his car. He’s everywhere he goes.

How did you react when the writers said, ‘By the way, you’re going to be seeing your dad’s ghost’?
Oh my God. I’m on the one show that’s based in reality and suddenly I am in charge of the f—ing ghost storyline? Oh, great! But you know what? I was wrong. In the end, it worked. It was Jack’s conscience coming back to him. He had lost his conscience.

You’ve been at this for a long time now.  What do you think is going to happen to daytime dramas?
I have good things to say about that. We are all going to get leaner, tighter, with smaller casts. Fewer sets. Tighter stories.  Better-written stories than you see on the air [now]. And when they minimize the casts, they are going to cut away the bad acting. They are going to keep as many of the good actors as they possibly can. Get rid of the scenes we didn’t need to see, like ‘Well,  let’s follow the maid and what her life is like. Let’s see who her boyfriend is.’ No! Let’s focus on Victor and Nikki and Katherine and Jack and Ashley and Phyllis and Nick and Sharon.

I know you are pretty optimistic but there are a lot of predictions that we’ll see another soap opera die in the next five years.
We will. We’re on the top floor of a sinking ship at Y&R. But I do think that when we are talking about seven, eight daytime dramas, do you have to replace all of them? That’s too much programming.  What the f— are the networks going to do with a giant hole in daytime television?

Eric Braeden has been very vocal about his recent salary negotiations, especially about how he was being told to take a pay cut – or else.  Had you experienced the same type of negotiation?
Everybody on this show was asked to share in some of the burden and Eric was no exception.

Did you really expect that Eric was going to leave?
There were days that we all thought he was going to be gone. In the end it was fighting with a corporation, and the corporation was going to win. It wasn’t whether or not they were going to fold. It was always whether or not Eric was going to agree to come back for a lesser salary.

Are you going to retire as Jack?
I will retire from daytime television as Jack, yes. With All My Children moving to Los Angeles, everyone’s saying, ‘Oh, well, that would be fun. They’d probably love to have you back.’ And I think, ‘No … that’s a different character.’ I get to play one of the truly great characters in daytime television.

Boy was Peter wrong about daytime dramas getting better as a result of tightening production.

Susan Picks a scene from the other day

On 3/13/2023 at 12:21 PM, Darn said:

Brooke and Deacon led to the next two decades of Brooke involved in increasingly stupid sex scandals. Hurting her close family members because why not and being forgiven in a month as they rolled onto the next stupid story. For whatever reason she stopped being a character and just became a blow up doll for Brad Bell's sick quasi-incestuous fantasies. It's a slippery slope before they have her start an affair with a blood relative because why not.

It would be interesting if they said Brooke had a sex addiction to explain the amount of scandals she's been in from "following her heart". 

35 minutes ago, Darn said:

GH: I think Laura Wright has chemistry with everyone. And that just comes down to her committing to what's on the page, it has little to do with anything Carly is.

Genie Francis has chemistry with everyone except John Lindstrom.

Maura West has chemistry with this forum. My fingers. The air. She just sells absolutely everything and everyone they throw at her. Hell, she's making me almost like an actor (Roger Howarth) I have never liked in my 25 years knowing of his existence.

Off topic. Maura West in style and acting is selling the golden era soap diva camp. I could see her fitting into the 70s and 80s era. 

Name an actor/charachter that had great chemistry with several (more than two) romantic pairings. 

Hopefully this isn't a topic already. Basically the opposite to characters that never had a good romantic lead.

GH Steve Burton: Jason had chemistry with Brenda, Karen, Eobin, Keesha, Carly, Sam and Britt. 

Y&R Don Diamont: Brad had chemistry with Dru, both Ashelys, Jill, Nikki, Victoria, Cassaundra, Sharon, Diane, and Lauren. Didn't see much of his Olivia storyline. 

AMC Susan Lucci: She had great chemistry with Adam, Dimitry and Jackson. Didnt see much if her other relationships. 

16 hours ago, I Am A Swede said:

B&B: Brooke and Deacon. Yes, SK and KKL may have had sizzling chemistry, but this story came out of nowhere, didn't make sense based on what we had seen up till then, seriously damaged Brooke as a character (not a good thing to do to your leading lady) and it also gave us Hope..... 

I was tempted to say this, but I do think this was one of B&B's last gold era storylines before it's decline in 2003. 

GH Franco & Liz/Carly. GH dragged down Elizabeth and further lowered Carly trying to redeem Franco. A man that caused Michael to get raped in prison and who insinuated that he raped Sam. 

1 hour ago, carolineg said:

You are probably correct.  Days more than any other show loves a wedding, interrupted or not lol.  Sami just takes after her mother who loves a good old fashioned wedding to the same man dozens of times lol.  

So soap writers ever think, "it's enough for them to date, marriage is unnecessary?" lol.

Had this thought because I mentioned his named in a different thread. How did you all feel about James Franco's stints on GH. 

9 hours ago, Taoboi said:

I feel like Y&R Ashley rules this thread. 

Brenda Epperson was great with Brad and decent with Victor. The blade pairing is what I need to look more into. Eileen & Shari's Ashley's on the other hand...

Y&R Jess Walton's Jill. Outside of John and Rex did she sizzle with anyone? Manye that young glo by jabot producer guy, I forget his name.

Life has come full circle because now some primetime shows pulling in numbers like 3-4 million which is around the audience Y&R  and B&B pull in.

Good too see some older clips in HD. Some of the material looks less dark and shadowy than i remember once digitized.

Aside from the actors choosing their favorite moments, it seems like the same clips always come up when the show does rememberace periods. Prime example l, Michael's proposal to Lauren. 

Name a charachter or actor who you never bought in a romantic pairing (or) several romantic pairings.

B&B: I never cared for any of Stephanie's romantic pairings outside of Eric. She seemed too tough of a charachter to be in a relationship.

Y&R: Eileen Davidson's Ashley or Peter Bergman's Jack never really sold it in any of their relationships. The only couple pairing of Jack's I can say I cared about was Nikki. 

Name a charachter from one show that would also fit in on another soap.

Erica from AMC could work on either B&B or Y&R. I could see Erica going to to toe with Stephanie Forrester or arguing with Nikki over Victor. 

GH Jason would definately fit in on 2000s era OLTL especially with endless crime stories and John McBain.

OLTL- Starr & Cole? Based on reading YouTube comments from that era, many viewers complained that teens were taking over the show.

For the poster that said Victor and Nikki...there were a few charhters who got pummeled to facilitate their union. Namely Jack and Diane. Nikki pretty much wasted Paul's time in 2009 just to pine after Victor. Maybe Ashley in the late 2000s? Would you say the a couple pairing ate the show?

On 3/2/2023 at 9:13 PM, soapfan770 said:

LOL I mean to quote this! See above post.

There was a time we hated pre-emptions. These days it doesn't matter.

15 hours ago, Sapounopera said:

I hate the idea of every older female character on soaps becoming an alcoholic at some point.

Y&R has done it to the death with alcoholism. Nikki, Katherine, Neil, Phillip III. Drugs, pills and sex exist too. Mix it up a bit. At least they tried gambling with Billy--not that it was interesting though.