Soap Cliches That Have Worn Out Their Welcome

[Tishy]

Triangles can work if we love the people involved in them. Like ten years ago triangles worked....not so much anymore.

But to answer the question

Amnesia

American Idol rejects

Whores/Prostitution

Rape

[aMLCproduction]

charaters that DONT do time for there crimes

Kate, Days,

Lucas, Days

Stefano

Julian, Passions

etc etc

[Quent]

Parties or events where hardly anybody relevant to the occasion is there. ATWT is notorious for this. Today, at Jack and Katie's engagement party....no Margo (Jack's boss and Katie's sister), no Henry (Katie's best fiend in the world), no Emma (Jacks's aunt , who OWNS the place where the party was), no Craig (Katie's brother), no Meg (Jack's cousin)....I could go on and on.

[titan1978]

I am a firm believer that some soap staples can still be fresh with the right actors/material. However, the worst one for me is the child custody battle. I burned out during the original AJ/Carly/Jason fight for Michael, and haven't cared for one since. Now OLTL wants to win me back with Todd fighting for his kid? No thanks.

Also, rape. Way overused, and not in a great way in many years, on any soap I watch.

Triangles come and go, but when that is all the show is doing, that burned out some time ago.

[stenbeck212]

That's the only bit of your post I disagreed with. I think that technique serves as a way to see what characters remember about specific events. If I miss a day of a show, I prefer flashbacks to dialogue recaps. ATWT used to do flashback voiceovers too, with just a memorable line here or there.

Great responses, people. I believe that these tired conventions have killed the genre much faster than competition from other media. TPTB have been forcing us to think that soaps have their own special reality, but that's bull. We've seen the genre's best talent write stories we can relate to many times before. It's not that other formats are perfect either. For the life of me, I can't figure out why the CSIs and Law & Orders don't trust their audiences with story arcs that go on for weeks. It's completely unrealistic for law enforcement workers to solve all their cases in a couple days. As far as soaps, I think the 3 biggest offenses are psycho criminals, unpunished criminals, and yo-yo romances that form and fail endlessly for years. The last time I remember someone truly paying for a crime was when Billy shot Roger on GL. He was sentenced to 9 years in jail, but even though his sentence was reduced, he was definitely off the canvas for a few years. Here's another annoyance - convoluted writing to get rid of pregnant actresses. Can't their characters just go visit a terminally ill relative?

[EricMontreal22]

Mythical kingdoms (I liek flashbacks too except when they're for osmethign that happened ion the past week or month--liek Reilly loves to do)

[TC]

Great thread, keep going.

I'll add (if it hasn't been added already) Dopplegangers / Evil twins.

Also: amnesia

and: the contrived "get together" moment for past lovers (be it a cave during a storm, a plane crash, an elevator during a power failure)

BLINDNESS!

Proclamations of infertility that are suddenly proven wrong - OOPS.

[DevotedToAMC]

Back From The Dead

Who's The Daddy

Long Lost child

[applcin]

Also, the creating/reducing/ignoring of friendships & relationships for the sole use of plot. Examples: ignoring children unless they are central to the plot, friendships that are ignored until they are trotted out for specific reasons, the lack of male-female friendships without setting up a couple or conflict for a couple. Used to be characters had a wide variety of relationships and rich histories with one another; nowadays, if it doesn't figure into the plot somehow, it doesn't matter.

A specific one for "GH"...centering the show around 1 or 2 characters to the degree that a majority of the other characters are involved or obsessed with them one way or another (as lovers, enemies, lackeys, etc.).

[bellcurve]

I tend to stick with James...I also think its really lazy.

Missed the show?! That's too bad! What if I didn't?! Should I be tortured with half of a show I watched yesterday?! How is that rewarding me as a viewer if you assume I don't watch everyday? Shouldn't the fact that I missed a catfight or juicy bits of a confrontation encourage me to make sure I tape every episode and don't miss the next one?!

Y&R, a show that used to be REALLY REALLY good about using dialogue and relying on the intelligence of the viewer to get it, is now the worst offender with more never-ending flashbacks than an episode of SUNSET BEACH.

I prefer temporary recasts...they are far more fun.

It's interesting that you mention cliches...I'm trying to avoid them in my own small soap opera project. There's still the old tag shots, some of the dialogue, etc. that are soap standards, but I'm proud of the fact that there's no long-lost twin, back from the dead, or amnesia in my project.

[august1229]

Dialogue

I have to protect (character name).

I have to protect my children.

(Character name, female) can't go to jail! She has a child! (Even though she is gulty)

You lied to me.

Leave!

Let go of me!

I’m just trying to protect you.

Are you lying to me?

You lied to me.

There is something you are not telling me.

I have to go.

It’s all your fault.

Are you all right?

You ruined my life.

You destroyed his/her life.

Just let me explain.

I don’t want to hear your explanations.

I have no time for this.

I won’t listen to this. (Listens)

How could you?

Why are you doing this?

I will do everything in my power to stop that from happening.

How could you let that happen?

If it weren’t for you, this would never have happened.

What are you doing here?

[stenbeck212]

The soaps have bigger problems. Besides, that's like saying I shouldn't see footage of a judge's confirmation hearing on the news because I missed the original broadcast. Can we bring back old characters we've never seen? Where does that strict stance end? I have yet to see the show that substitutes past footage for an entirely new episode.

My only problem is with a gimmick that's done to death. There are instances of those cliches that show how they can be done quite well. I think the amnesia stories of Holden on ATWT and Jason on GH were great because those guys turned into different people for years to come. Compare that to Buzz losing his memory on GL! I believe that's true of back from the dead stories too. I'm much less agreeable when it comes to sudden siblings or long lost children. I think there's something so misogynistic about the whole thing. As if a woman would be so wiped out from an epidural that she'd have NO IDEA whether her baby lived or not. That brings me to something hilarious I found on Wikipedia:

[JamesF]

I see both points about the flashbacks situation though I am still inclined to take a hardline stance. Okay they are not so jarring if it's a particularly memorable act/event (e.g fire) but there's just no need for them to get viewers back up to speed. People miss episodes in primetime all the time and the way they deal with it is through recaps at the beginning of episodes. I'm staunchly in favour of them. They do the job for those who have missed anything, refresh the memories of those who are watching and give a sense of progression because the episode is moving forwards from the point it left in the previous episode. Of course soaps are now so entrenched in exposition and flashbacks that using recaps would only serve to highlight just how dull it is to watch 5 episodes a week.

As far as gimmicks are concerned, they've all been done to death and not in imaginative ways. Amnesia and back from the dead are the two stories that are most likely to elicit groans of boredom - they are completely representative of the soap stereotype. While the stories themselves need not be total duds, soaps have to stay away from that to try and claw back credibility. They've been used so much that people are immune to them and bored of the consequences. DOOL in particular is obviously the worst offender as far as bftd is concerned. If viewership requires you to care about the characters and what happens to them, death is surely the ultimate heart wrenching story with the highest stakes. But if people just come back from the dead at the drop of a hat, you've been cheated and nothing means anything in a series. There are no consequences. Every event is hollow because there's no real threat to "happily ever after."

Bottom line is soaps need credibility. All of these cliches wreak of sensationalism and desperation which is exactly what daytime needs to be avoiding to get it back.

[bellcurve]

For me, that IS a big problem. It's as though they believe the audience isn't smart enough to "get-it." Not to mention the time wasted on those useless flashbacks can be used to strengthen the dialogue/story elsewhere.

I agree with this.

Basically everything can be a cliche. It's a matter of how you reinvent the wheel...

[poohbear19]

Multiple marriage... especially those that marry within the family time and time again.

The "invalid" marriages too, those it doesn't seem to happen as much now, back then it seem like every major couple had an invalid marriage.

Muder mysteries... the ones where the victim and the killer are not connected at all (Y&R's Carmen Mesta mess).

I'm not big on the plot device or plot point, of using rape as a way to redeem or give sympathy to a character.

Mystery family members and characters that are suddenly related (or in OLTL's Jessica's case, not related) to each other... soon incest will be a regular thing with the way this happens.

The "I want to have a child, but I'm suddenly infertile" mess that they pull.