All: When did each soap start to decline?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

The Springfield blackout was 1992, and I believe that was JER's brainchild (Toups would be proud).

I think Zimmer returned at the VERY END of JFP's tenure at GL, the dream/ghost stuff was definitely during JFP's tenure actually. The Amish trash was McTavish/Laibon though.

And if it wasn't for some brilliant acting by Cynthia Watros, B&E's first year at GL would've been a total disaster.

But anyway, Dan is love for his GL assessment.

[PJA]

Yesterday I was watching some scenes from GL when they had the Phillips ex-wives storyline going on. From what I remember shortly after that was like the last truly good storyline that GL had. It had some okay ones but nothing as good as that.

Y&R has its moments but overall it's still a great show.

ATWT just got stale for me 2 years ago and I don't even watch it anymore.

B&B is the same as Y&R although I have to agree..that Brooke/Deacon storyline made B&B less classy and more trashy and it has just gotten worse. Every character on the show is a slut but I still can't help but watch it.

[Shawn]

Passions: The day it debuted

GH: The day Wendy Riche left

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Anyway, my list:

Y&R: 2004, After David Shaughnessy left, Jack F. Smith got too much power and it wasn't a good thing. After Cassie died, the show spun out of control, compounded by the awful Sheila return in late 2005. Latham's first few months seemed like a breath of fresh air, but she like Smith before her gained way too much power and it wasn't a good thing. Thankfully she was ousted before the show became 100% unrecognizable.

B&B: 1998, Bradley Bell got rid of too many of the supporting charcters who weren't strictly tied to the Forrester/Logan clans. This hurt the show in the long run IMO.

GL: What Dan said...

ATWT: 1993 really, the show hasn't been the same since Marland died. Sheffer's first year might have seemed like a surge in quality, but he quickly spiraled out of control.

GH: After Wendy Riche left as EP and Guza's exit in 2000. JFP totally decimated the show when she rolled in, and though Guza came back, the show continued to become more and more unrecognizable.

AMC: Some would argue the late 80's and I would agree to an extent. However, it was when McTavish retuned in 1998 did the show become crappy and in some ways it has yet to fully recover.

OLTL: After Linda Gottlieb left and the show went through constant HW's and EP's. JFP came in 1998 and totally killed the show in ways it has yet to fully recover from.

DAYS: I think DAYS has the must inconsistent history of all the soaps. It's the one soap that's suffering from an identitay crisis. Some would argue the show hasn't been itself since the end of Pat Falken Smith's first tenure. However, I'd say things got much worse after JER's first run.

[RoseVioletDaisy]

I agree with Dan that GL has been on an almost steady decline since about 1994, with several absurdities and insults along the way, but the big decline into the irreparable destruction the show has experienced under the current regime began in October 2004.

It was October 2004 that really set the course and served as a virtual blueprint for everything Wheeler and Kreizman would end up doing to this show:

1) They took the highly anticipated Roger Thorpe closure story, which had started so nicely, and they blew it within a few short weeks by having Holly locked in a cage with the annoying amnesia-riddled Michelle and Tony Santos while Roger's never-before-seen son, Sebastian, tried to get Ed Bauer to come to the island to save him from the disease that supposedly killed Roger. The biggest problem: Wheeler had lost Peter Simon months earlier and had greenlighted this stupid story without even asking him if he wanted to return to appear in it. As it turned out, he didn't. And the whole thing degenerated by the day and ultimately fizzled out and came to nothing as did the character of Sebastian, who they went to the trouble of casting Doug Hutchison to play. Save one appearance at Ross's funeral, we never saw Holly again after this story died and Blake and Ross, who had been nothing but window dressing during the story, got featured even less frequently when it was over. This mess sent the message that historical characters and families were meaningless to this regime and that character destruction aplenty was on the horizon.

2) During that same month, they set into motion the catalyst events that would lead to the "murder" of Phillip Spaulding. This story would include an insultingly simplistic GoodCoopers vs. BadSpauldings "class war" and Harley's creepy and beyond atrocious alter ego, Ruth Karloff. This story butchered the character of Phillip Spaulding, once one of the most complex characters on soaps, turning him into the love child of Montgomery Burns and Scrooge McDuck. Even worse, the whole exercise had simply been an excuse to paint Kreizman's St. Harley as a martyr via a prison sentence and stint on the run, which were also used as obstacles for the already tired Gus & Harley pairing. This garbage set the standard for the "above all, Harley" attitude that still prevails to this day. Whether it's making her CEO of Spaulding over people like Alexandra and India just because she was married to Alan's bastard Gus, her cheating on Gus and betraying Dinah to get a roll in the hay with Mallet, or her betraying her entire family in order to steal her own niece's fiance because she's pathetic and lonely, it doesn't matter what characters have to be manipulated, used, or destroyed as long as the glorification of Harley is the end result. This is a huge problem to this day.

3) They introduced Jonathan as Reva's son which set the tone not only for their creepy, co-dependent relationship but the disgusting incestuous one between Jon and Tammy as well. Not only were we stuck with two and a half years of the sexually obsessed kissing cousins hogging airtime like nobody's business and had to endure Reva playing dim sidekick to her psychotic lunatic son, but DK's obsession with Jonathan is akin to Frankenstein's obsession with his monster. He pulls Jon out of a hat way too often and really needs to get over it. Two and a half excruciating years in which he totally dominated the show were more than enough, let it go.

4) This was also the month that began of the return of PsychoEdmund so that his marriage to Cassie would be doomed and Jeffrey paired with her. This not only led to a horrible pairing but various San Cristobel related crap over the next two and a half years that have kept Cassie and CastratedJosh on the frontburner but might finally be ending with the exit of Will The AntiChrist.

[P.J.]

ATWT....I agree with YRWTer...in some ways ATWT has never recovered from Doug Marland's death. From what I understand, even with a year's cushion (since he wrote a year in advance) the show hit the skids with whoever wrote the ModelPaul/Sarah/Zoe years (and whoever was EP made horrible decisions, recasting Connor with Susan Batten...). Broderick managed to stablize it from '97-'99, and looked like a genuis compared to LethalLaiman's six month tenure.

I know Hogan gets a lot of credit for a resurgence, but the truth is he ran out of material after the first year, seemed to delight in handing out personality transplants to established characters, eviserated the concept of motivation, and relied on farce way too often to wrap up tanking stories. Not to mention, starting the trend of killing off "legacy" characters with little or no long term effect played out on-screen. Honestly, if he hadn't been such a good interview, I doubt the press would have hailed him as the Savior they did.

B&B....Taylor's last resurrection.

GL....Megan McTrash's reign.

[Soapsuds]

That was Felicia M. Behr who recasted Connor. Broderick was writing at the time. Model Paul/Sarah/Zoe was written by Stern and Black.

[Dan]

Not to mention the return of the fabulous Maeve Kinkead. Even though it came with the horrible chatroom story, her reunion with her family was wonderful.

[Faulkner]

I quite liked the Rick/Abby story during B&E's time on GL.

I thought Lorraine Broderick's last stint in the mid-'90s came close to bringing that back, and then McTavish returned and sent everything to holy hell.

[MTSRocks]

I was hesitant to put 2004, but there was some good stuff which prevented me from doing so.

-Katherine's descent back into alcoholism (Cooper was sublime)

-The beginning of the Fisher clan (Joan Van Ark's Gloria), with some great Michael/Kevin stuff.

-The adoption storyline with Devon (Rowell was excellent here)

-Joshua storyline with Nikki, couple with the hotness that was Enos and Melody

-Cameron Kirsten (solely because of the riot that was Sharon and Nikki)

-Drucilla and Phyllis (drunken elevator)

-The beginning of Daniel/Phyllis, and creepo Alex the first time around.

However, that year also included some major crap (Ie. Elliot Hampton, Damon Porter)

[DeeeDee]

2004 was horrid.

It's only redemption was the vets.

[DevotedToAMC]

AMC: 1998....it recovered from 1999-2000, fell again in 2001, recovered near the end with Culliton, improved a little in 2002, fell from November/2002-April/2003, recovered from May/2003-March/2006, fell from March/2006-January/2007, recovered from January/2007-August/2007...fell again

[koos]

ATWT: 1995

Days: 1993

GL: 1994

[Cheap21]

AMC: 2002. MMT briefly revived it in summer of 2003 and it was good through the Baby Switch but completely fell apart after

[Sedrick]

For me, the genre as a whole sold out quality-wise back in 1994/95 following the Marlena possession storyline on DAYS. I'm not attacking that story nor the talents (at that time) of James Reilly...in fact, at the time I was quite impressed with how he took what had been a badly faltering show (which hit bottom when they had Marlena kidnapped by Stella and thrown down into an abandoned well for several weeks, an out and out ripoff of timeslot competitor AMC's hugely popular Natalie/Janet/Dimitri tale) and not only made it must see tv, but did something that nobody had done since Douglas Marland and Gloria Monty in 1978 with GH: dramatically increase the ratings of a soap to take it to the top (at one time there was heavy speculation that DAYS might be able to topple Y&R from the top spot).

Unfortunately, TPTB at all three networks and numerous EP's and HW's for some still unexplained reason all decided to DAYS-ify their respective shows. In quick order, all the shows (except Y&R) promptly lost their individual identies and time-honored themes.