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Watching some of these mid/late 80s AE clips has got me thinking about the Rauch era and the Gottlieb/Malone/Griffith(basically until JFP became producer) era that immediately succeeded it. Has any other soap seen two back-to-back eras like that that are so polar opposites and yet both so celebrated/polarizing? On the one hand you have the Rauch era, known both for it's campiness and over-the-top melodrama, featuring storylines like: The revelation that Tina is Viki's sister Nikki Smith/DID 1985 Alison Perkins kidnapping Jessica The initial Cord/Tina/Maria saga Viki's aneurysm and trip to Heaven Everything involving Argentina, Iguazu Falls, Tina's "death" and return, Cord and Marcia Cross's Kate, and Max/Gabrielle's origins Buchanan City/1888 The Lost Underground City Of Eterna The Fraternity Row stuff Viki as mayor Crown Jewels of Mendora Badderly Island Many loved it and still think of it as a golden era, peak soap opera, the heyday of Viki/Clint, Tina/Cord, and Max/Gabrielle, all soundtracked by the Peabo Bryson song; others found it to be too over-the-top, and times delving too much into fantasy and sci-fi. And then you have 1992-1998, starting with Gottlieb and Malone, and extending really all the way until JFP took over at the end of 1997. This era is obviously known for much more grounded storytelling in contrast to the previous era, but also storylines that led naturally in and out of each other, starting with: Megan and Cord's deaths, leading into Clint/Viki growing apart, enter the Carpenters... Viki/Sloan affair(some don't like it but I think it's one of the most well-written adultery storylines I can remember) The Billy Douglas story Andrew/Cassie relationship, culminating in her 1993 miscarriage and their subsequent adoption of River Also enter Marty/Nora/Todd/Blair, the Bo/Nora romance, and the legendary Spring Fling story Also enter the Gannon family Cord's return from the dead to Karen Witter's Tina Max/Luna and Max's gambling addiction story The Lord-ification of Todd and Todd/Blair Sloan's book leads to Dorian ending up on death row, after which she retaliates by seducing Viki's son Joey, which leads to Dorian telling Viki the truth about Victor... Viki's 1995 DID story Todd's 1995 "death" in Ireland and Marty/Patrick/Dylan Enter Angel Square and the Vegas, which leads to Luna's 1995 death Jessica/Cristian teen romance Starr's birth, Todd's 1996 return from the dead, and Todd/Blair/Patrick/Marty/Kelly Marty/Patrick wedding/departure And the last gasps of the era in the early days of JFP imo were the Dorian/Mel relationship, the initial Todd/Tea story, the Who Killed Georgie story which climaxed with a primetime special in the summer of 1998 and Drew's death in late 1998(which Bob Woods did some great work for), but that was it, then the "Rappaport takeover" happened, and it was a different era entirely. Many have celebrated this as a golden era for the show, for the adult topics it explored(death of children and how a couple can grow apart because of it, homosexuality at a time when it wasn't popular to talk about it, miscarriage, gambling addiction, the question of whether or not a rapist can be reformed or if he should be given a second chance, child molestation via Viki's DID story), the diversification of the cast via the Gannons, Vegas, and Angel Square, and all the new characters it introduced(Sloan, Andrew, Nora, Marty, Todd, Blair, Kelly, Luna, Patrick, Dylan, Addie, Starr, Hank, RJ, Rachel, Carlotta, Antonio, Cristian, Tea), many of whom became legacy characters. Yet, not everyone loved it - there were criticisms of the show being too un-soap-like, of the stories being too grounded(I've seen someone on here once derisively refer to this era as "thirtysomething in the daytime"), complaints about the decision to break Viki and Clint up, the apparent retconning of Victor Lord's character(and death), Max and Luna(instead of Max and Gabrielle, even though FH had left), and the "90s Tinas", as well as moral objections to much of the Todd stories. I just find it fascinating that these two completely opposite eras happened back-to-back and are yet both so memorable in their own distinct ways.

Today marks ten years since OLTL aired its final episode on ABC on January 13, 2012. It marked the culmination of a very substantial purge in the daytime soap genre over the course of the previous three years. CBS announced the cancellation of Guiding Light on April 1, 2009, and five months later the final episode aired on September 18. Less than three months later, on December 8, CBS announced the cancellation of As The World Turns and, nine months later, that show aired its final episode on September 17, 2010. Seven months after that, ABC announced the cancellations of All My Children and One Life To Live on April 14, 2011. Just over five months later, All My Children aired it's last episode on September 23 and, just under four months after that, on this day, One Life To Live aired its final episode. When the dust cleared, only General Hospital, Days Of Our Lives, The Young And The Restless, and The Bold And The Beautiful were left standing. If you'd asked people in January 2012 if these last four would survive another decade, I feel like most would have said no. It really felt like the networks were done with soaps and that they would all be gone in short order. So I start this topic to pose three questions to the community here: 1. How have the remaining four survived another decade after the purge? Is it just that the networks have decided the afternoon hours on weekdays are a dead zone and no one is going to watch anything they put there anyway, so they might as well leave the soaps? Did the failures of The Chew and The Revolution give other networks pause? Has the audience for the remaining shows simply proven to be big enough to make the shows profitable? Curious to know your views on this. 2. Will they survive another decade, in your opinion? Or are they inching closer to demise? Will there still be daytime soaps on network television a decade from now, or will it be completely over? 3. Put aside 'will they' for a moment; Should they survive another decade? Does the recent quality of the shows warrant it? Does the audience still care enough? Or are these shows just zombies at this point that should put out of their misery? I felt the occasion of this anniversary was an opportune time to bring up these questions and start a potentially interesting conversation.

AMC tried some things in the early/mid 00s. The Bianca coming out storyline was a big deal, a first for daytime, even though it had already been done in primetime with Ellen/Will & Grace, etc. Then there was the Zarf/Zoe storyline in 06/07, which I think(not sure) is still the only transgender storyline ever done in soaps. I gather that there was some criticism that they essentially created a throwaway character to do it with instead of doing it with an established character, but at least they tried.

AMC I never hated Krystal and Babe. They garnered a lot of ill will for what they did to Bianca wrt to the baby switch, and a lot of people never forgave them, but I always thought it was over the top. I thought Bobbie Eakes and Alexa Havens were really good, and I think Krystal was one of Adam's best romantic pairings, maybe the best outside of Brooke. I think Adam loved her for real and was truly devastated when it came out that her baby was Tad's. I know a lot of people love David Hayward a lot, and Vincent Irizarry is great, but I felt the character became progressively more cartoonish as time went on - at times being inserted as a villain in certain storylines when it wasn't necessary(like when Maria returned in 2002), and at times having his medical abilities put him just a step away from being a Marvel superhero(just magically bringing people back from the dead at the very end in 2011...I loved Dixie and Zach coming back, but it was a ridiculous storyline). Plus he always was getting in the way of Tad/Dixie. Irizarry is a great actor, and at his best, the character was pretty compelling, but I don't hold him up in quite as high a regard as some do. I liked Sabine Singh as Greenlee. I don't usually take to recasts very well, at least not very quickly, I don't think anyone does, but I liked Sabine. OLTL Jerry verDorn was a great Clint recast. Clint Ritchie will always be the best, but I think verDorn was a good a replacement as anyone could've hoped for. His Clint got a fair amount of criticism, particularly when he was made into some kind of supervillain when the character had never, ever been that in the three decades he'd been on canvas, but that's an issue with the writing. Acting-wise, I thought verDorn was great. I think I may prefer shorter-lived, original Cristian(Yorlin Madera) to David Fumero. I liked the character of Luna and still think she was Max's best pairing, someone who would push Max to be his best self. Sandra P. Grant was maybe my favorite Rachel. I know this is unpopular as I've seen people say they'd take both Ellen Bethea or Daphne Duplaix over her. I think Nash was always polarizing, but I still think he was Jessica's best pairing. FM was maybe not the greatest actor, but the chemistry between him and BW was real. I still hate that they killed him off. No pairing Jessica had after was close imo. GH Tony Geary is....a bit overrated? I mean he's turned in some great performances to be sure, but he was working half-years for the last decade+ he was on the show and seemed to be phoning it in a lot of the time when he was on screen. I don't know if this is actually unpopular, but...Laura Wright is the definitive Carly. I know some still love SJB or TB over Laura, but Laura's been playing the role longer now than SJB and TB(and Jennifer Bransford) combined. I think she's earned it. TBH, I think TB is the anomaly, insofar as I can imagine SJB's Carly and LW's Carly being the same person, but TB's is just different, softer. That's not any kind of criticism of TB's acting ability, it's just her take on the character was different. As a OLTL lifer, I wish those four characters had never been brought over to GH. OLTL/GH Roger Howarth gets a lot of criticism around here...and TBH I don't really care about any of the roles he's done outside of OLTL, and I agree having him play two, and now three, different characters on GH in close proximity is dumb(they did the same think with Michael Easton). But his performance as Todd imo earns him a place among the greats of soap actors.

I've come up with a number of fairly notable ones, that iMDB says never acted in another soap... Michael Nader - AMC(if we're only counting daytime; he was obviously on Dynasty) Cameron Mathison - AMC Sarah Michelle Geller - AMC Colin Eggsfield - AMC Trevor St. John - OLTL Renee Elise Goldsberry - OLTL Michael Storm - OLTL Clint Ritchie - OLTL Phil Carey - OLTL Thom Christopher - OLTL Jonathan Jackson - GH

These are some outside-the-box examples, and they happen to fall in the same family orbit on AMC, but... Zach has a child, Ian, with Kendall, and he was also the sperm donor for Bianca's second child, Gabrielle. Bianca has said daughter with Zach, and she also has Miranda, with Zach's brother, Michael Cambias, although I don't know if anyone wants to count that in light how she was conceived. Also, I don't know if we're only looking for biological connections here, but Trevor was Tim's adoptive father with Natalie, and Amanda's biological father with Janet.

Does anyone else agree that Dixie's 2005-07 return was pretty much botched from beginning to end? I don't just mean it how it ended(everybody hated the pancakes), but the whole thing. First, the whole Di story preceded it for the better part of a year. Someone in here a while back said they weren't sure if Di was always supposed to be lying about being Dixie or if the writers just changed their minds because no one was buying it, and I think that's a fair question. Then Cady first appears again around Christmas 2005 in a bizarre scene with Di in Paris where Di updates her on life in Pine Valley and asks if she's going to come home. This is the problem with the initial return story. Dixie would not allow Tad and JR and the rest of her family to think she was dead. It was completely out of character. And then she does return to Pine Valley, where the skulks in the shadows for two months(I know this is a soap right of passage for people coming back from the dead, but it's still dumb) and reveals that she signed her and Tad's baby away just like that upon birth for the half-baked reason that she briefly thought she was going to die and had let the doctor, Greg Madden, manipulate her into thinking that Tad would blame the baby for her death. Tad and JR are understandably pissed. And then so much of Dixie's airtime was dedicated to the Greg Madden nonsense, culminating in Tad burying the guy alive. And then pancakes. Because, I think, McClain had been too publicly vocal in disparaging TPTB for treating older actors, specifically older actresses, like Julia Barr, badly in favor of youth. It was just poorly written.

Yeah, I've been watching those "Wildwind Chronicles" YT clips as well, and I noticed the same thing while watching the 2002/03 Maria return storyline - that it felt a lot different than the show would by as early as late 2003 when the Bianca/Babe baby switch started. In hindsight, 2002/03 was a time of transition. These Maria/Edmund/Brooke clips feel like 90s AMC, but at the same time, on the periphery, there are characters like Kendall, Ryan, Zach, Aidan, etc, some of whom would become cornerstone characters of the show's last decade, early-ish in their runs. By 2004, you had SORASED JR and Jamie on canvas, along with Babe, while Brooke was backburnered(and ultimately written out), and Edmund/Maria were torn apart for no reason before Edmund was killed off and Maria left again. All of a sudden, all of the old-school vets other than Erica/Tad/Adam/maybe Jack/David(on-and-off) were marginalized and Kendall/Bianca/JR/Jaimie/Babe/Ryan/Greenlee/Zach/Aidan/eventually SORASED Amanda/etc were upfront. It wasn't all bad post-2003, and I remember a good deal of it fondly, but it was definitely a different show.