Bold and Beautiful in 78 rpm

I've been a Bold and Beautiful viewer since its first day in 1987 and it's the only soap from which I've never strayed. I proudly dubbed the show "a camp classic" its first year. For many years, I loved living in the endless fantasy world of the wealthy, wealthy Forrester family.

Perhaps I have always watched because for most of its history, B&B has remained a classic soap opera. But today, B&B is a classic soap opera which has caused itself big problems.

To keep up with the direction of all soap operas, current B&B honcho Bradley Bell has quickened the pace of the storylines over the last two years or so. It’s a technique that's worked well in longer, more boring hour-long soaps, but presents special problems to the only half-hour soap on the air. The same old stories repeat themselves twice as often as some characters become literally "used up." In the speeded-up pace of a soap opera that's only a half hour in the first place, some key characters have lost effectiveness and believability.

Take the character of Nick Marrone. In the last year and a half Nick has weathered three marriages (Bridget, her mother Brooke, and Taylor), fathered at least four babies (all miscarried), almost lost his mother in an accident, had his boat sunk from under him, and been falsely accused of murder. On his wedding night with Taylor, the newly-weds went to a fertility clinic, where he contributed his sperm toward a future baby. Married or not, Nick is being pursued by hellbent Brooke again! A real person could never keep his sanity through so many life crises in a such a short time.

I'm convinced that the only way Nick maintains any viability is because Jack Wagner is a talented leading man who is personally quite pugnacious, plus Nick's the only male character in B&B history who has been permitted to have and keep his balls. Even so, when Nick married Taylor last week (after a courtship of perhaps two days), he looked very tired and worn out.

And Taylor! What was once the most vibrant intelligent, believable woman on the show has been ground down by too many storyline tragedies (divorces, absent kids, running over Darla) to a mere shell of a person. Likewise, Hunter Tylo seems somewhat dazed and vacant onscreen these days.

Perhaps the reason Bell can speed up the rate of romances, marriages, children and divorces is because his central couple, the ever ultra beautiful Brooke and Ridge, appear to be two characters who can take it. Both are soul-less and gutless. Like two shiny balls in a pinball machine, they can spin and ricochet off each other endlessly. Gorgeous but shallow, Brooke and Ridge must have come together and broken up 2,398 times since B&B's premiere. They are unlike the complex, multi-layered characters, the real adults who are Nick and Taylor, who are worn down by it all. And forever on B&B, every other character on this show will continue be trampled by Brooke and Ridge's endless mating ritual.

It's too bad, because there are many other characters on the show who are always subordinated to the rapid pace of the stories, and, of course, serving as background for Brooke and Ridge. I love the very vulnerable and intelligent Dr. Bridget Forrester. Ashley Jones has so much depth in this role. Last week Bridget suddenly and ridiculously was made an ob/gyn in the service of story. I'm guessing she secretly used her own eggs in an in vitro fertilization procedure on the new Mrs. Nick, namely Taylor. After all, we all know Bridget can't over the miscarriage and stillborn daughter she had by Nick when she was married to him.

And Bridget's mother, Brooke, another ex-Mrs. Nick, is bent on getting Nick back from Taylor. I always hated mother and daughter (Brooke and Bridget) having being married to the same man, but that's the inbred world that has always been the half-hour soap B&B.

Now speed up the individual storylines, wear down the characters, come up with intolerable incestuous relationships, and what you have isn't such fun, campy, classic soap anymore. What you have is something I don't love as much as I used to.

In a future column: my opinion of the current story in which Ridge murders Shane the homeless guy with the aid of his mother, Stephanie "Ma Barker." Wouldn't it be a hoot to see Steph in jail?

Nothing else left to be said...

Nothing else left to be said...

No suprise that I agree <90% with her since I just posted this assasment yesterday HERE: http://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/index.php?showtopic=18924

Yes, I read it.