Not that long ago, CBS Soaps In Depth published their list of the 100 Greatest Couples On CBS soaps. I don't remember the order, but the top four were Y&R's Victor and Nikki, ATWT's Lily and Holden, B&B's Brooke and Ridge, and GL's Josh and Reva. Do you agree with this list? I can think of some substitutions for at least two of these, but what are your thoughts?

This may be a bit off topic, but I HATE supercouples. I hate the whole philosophy on soaps that two people are meant to be together no matter what. It adds for very little character and relationship growth. I like characters to have numerous relationships without being attached to the stigma that they were specifically meant to be with a specific person for the rest of their lives. I think supercoupledom is what crippled DAYS, in particular, the most and gave them these rabid fanbases they don't accept the partners of their favourite couple with anyone else.

Bill Bell was very much against supercouples. Though Victor and Nikki always went back to one another, that never prevented them from having successful relationships with other people.

I like this article and what Bill Bell had to say, though it focuses mainly on youth, it related to the supercouple craze:

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2009/04/flashba...antic.html#more

DAYTIME SOAPS MATURING IN ROMANTIC WAY

By Jan DeKnock

Chicago Tribune

July 13, 1986

The summer of '86 is a time of real transition for daytime soap operas.

On the way out are the spy sagas, treasure hunts and sci-fi escapades that have dominated most of the shows for the last several years.

On the way back in are old-fashioned stories about romance--and this time, the lovers are not just the young kids.

"Every summer we're usually bombarded with teenage storylines," says Nancy M. Reichardt, a syndicated columnist who has been observing the soap opera scene for nearly a decade. "This year . . . while there's some of that happening, there aren't really a lot of front-burner teen storylines.

"Last year, for example," she says, "everything--and I do mean everything--on DAYS OF OUR LIVES was Bo and Hope, Bo and Hope. Personally, I don't mind a teenage storyline, but DAYS just carried it to extremes. I mean, here Hope is supposed to be just barely out of high school, and suddenly she's married, she's running a private detective agency, she's running around looking for Russian spies.

Continue reading...

"But this year, I think the soaps are kind of going back to the old 'love in the afternoon' approach, and they're utilizing the people that they like to term as their 'older' actors."

Reichardt believes the trend of "action" storylines originated in response to changes in prime-time programming, including the arrival of such big-budget, high-glamour soaps as DALLAS in 1978 and DYNASTY in 1981.

"Someone noticed the success of the nighttime shows, with all their murders and car chases and expensive clothes, and said, 'Well I guess we need some of that excitement, too.' And then all of a sudden," Reichardt says, "everyone went into a James Bond binge."

What the daytime soaps lost when they went for that fast-paced, prime- time look was much of the sense of "family" that developed for viewers as they watched their favorite characters grow and evolve over the years.

But there are signs that the soaps are going back to basics, according to Brian Frons, vice president of daytime programming for NBC.

"The main thing happening now is a renewed focus on families, with each member of the family really having a love story, be they 65 or 17," he says.

"I mean, we've not changed soaps so that they're back to two people in a living room drinking coffee," Frons said. "But we're looking less for, say, 'Who's got the laser that's going to destroy the Earth?' and more for, 'How will these characters deal with problems on an emotional level?' "

What viewers also are seeing, according to Reichardt, Frons and other observers, is a backlash against the "youth craze" that was set in motion in the early '80s by the extraordinary success of ABC's GENERAL HOSPITAL, which soared to No. 1--and, most days, remains there--on the strength of what has become known as the Luke and Laura Phenomenon.

That storyline, which featured actors Tony Geary and Genie Francis (now both gone from GH) as a pair of star-crossed lovers involved in increasingly bizarre tales of international intrigue, had an immediate impact on viewers--and the competition. Suddenly, on shows from CBS' AS THE WORLD TURNS to NBC's ANOTHER WORLD to ABC's own RYAN'S HOPE, entire families of characters were put on the back burner to make way for more action-packed, teen-oriented storylines.

"At that time, there was a lot of misinterpretation about the youth movement in soap operas," says Jo Ann Emmerich, vice president of daytime programming for ABC Entertainment. "The idea of a summer story that appealed to young people was misinterpreted as a story about teenyboppers, and that's not at all what had been popular.

"Young people are like anybody--they like a universal story. A wonderful romantic story or a wonderful adventure that has romance at the core is going to be appealing to a universal audience.

"I mean, why did we see such high ratings for The Thorn Birds? It's not just because people like a story about a priest and a woman; it's that it's a wonderful, forbidden-fruit romance. And every age group was interested in it.

"And besides," Emmerich says, "Luke and Laura were not kids. She was a young woman of maybe 20 or 21, but he was obviously over 30. And though their kind of adventure story was very appealing to the young people, it was also appealing to the older people.

"Other shows copied the inanities and didn't copy the essence, which was the romance of Luke and Laura--that chemistry and that relationship."

During the height of the Luke and Laura mania, there were few shows that didn't jump on the teen-scene, cops-and-robbers bandwagon. One that resisted, notes Meredith Brown, executive editor of Soap Opera Digest (a fan-oriented magazine with a circulation of 825,000), is CBS' THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, which during the last few years has become a consistent No. 2 behind GENERAL HOSPITAL and occasionally hits No. 1.

"YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS hasn't been a faddish soap opera," Brown said, "and it has really kept its center. It's still done in a very kind of old Hollywood way--lots of closeups, lots of long pullbacks and pauses; very glamorous."

The person largely responsible for keeping YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS on an even keel is its creator and executive producer, William J. Bell, a Chicagoan whose reputation as a soap opera master goes back 30 years, when he began writing dialogue for THE GUIDING LIGHT. (He also has had a hand in AS THE WORLD TURNS, ANOTHER WORLD and DAYS OF OUR LIVES.)

When some critics say that THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS is not just "old Hollywood," but also old-fashioned, Bell has this response:

"I deal with people, I deal with families, I deal with feelings, and if that's old-fashioned, then hallelujah.

"You can't just suddenly say, 'Well, the kids are home from school, I'm going to pander to the youth of America and hype the show.' Because you can't do that to your regular viewers--you have to keep them involved in their stories as well."

Bell and his wife, television personality Lee Phillip, are in the process of creating a new one-hour soap (Phillip also helped create YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS), which is scheduled to premiere on CBS in early 1987. The only details Bell would reveal is that the show is to be about Chicago families, with possibly some exterior scenes shot here.

"If I told you what the background was going to be for one of the families," Bell said, "two other shows would have plenty of time to start families just like them between now and then."

And competing soaps do watch--and copy--each other, according to NBC's Frons.

"Let's say GENERAL HOSPITAL does a young love story, say Luke and Laura on the run," he said. "Everbody duplicates it. And finally you have an overload. Then everybody says, 'No, none of us are going to do that any more; we all need to do something else.' So they have this vacuum until somebody figures out what the new trend is.

"A few years ago," Frons continued, "I think what we faced at NBC was a lineup that was getting old fast, because we had a larger number of women watching who were over 40 than under 40. And you don't have to be a Harvard- trained demographer to figure out that if you have nobody young watching your show, in 20 years you're going to have a big problem.

"So I think we may have gone overboard, as did the other networks. I think that's what we all did in an attempt to get the younger audience."

And it's not a coincidence, he said, that soaps are returning to a more mature viewpoint at the same time that America's largest and most sought-after group of TV viewers--the baby-boomers--is starting to show a few gray hairs.

"That baby boom group is now 22 to 40 years old," Frons says. "How can we not react to the fact that the largest group demographically in our country is starting to hit 40?"

Another factor that can't be overlooked is the ever-increasing presence of the videocassette recorder in the American home. According to A. C. Nielsen Co. figures, some 5.6 million households are now using VCRs to record daytime programs.

"The VCR is having a very positive impact," says Brown of Soap Opera Digest. "It's kept the working woman--and the working man--still interested in the soaps, years after they first got hooked on them in college.

"And let's face it," she says. "There are not that many women now who can afford to stay home all day."

ABC's Emmerich says, however, that "most of the people who are watching are still home during the day. That's our core audience."

But Brown says there's no difference in what her magazine's readers want to see, whether they watch their programs "live" or on VCRs.

"They want the romance," she says. "They don't write in and say, 'I love that spy story.' They talk about the love stories.

"As a people, we just love romantic stories, we really do. And I'm not talking about romance novels. The greatest stories that we've ever watched or listened to or read are about love--any kind of love. Family love. Romantic love."

I like supercouples because true supercouples wound up having the kind of stories I used to like. They would be targeted by an enemy, there would be a lot of running around, a lot of running around while holding hands, maybe going undercover to try and get the goods on the badguy, and they would fall in love while danger lurks around ever corner. Also, they would have location shoots so they could run around outside. GH's Frisco and Felicia were the perfect supercouple for all these reasons. Budget concerns and a getting away from action and adventure killed the supercouple. But even the supposed last supercouple of GH, Sonny and Brenda, just watch the 1990s opening and what are they doing? They are running around, running around holding hands, and running around holding hands on a beach. If you don't do these simple things, you just are not super.

AMC would deviate from this formula with Nina and Cliff and Greg and Jenny. But other than those two, I don't think that show ever really had supercouples.

But there are signs that the soaps are going back to basics, according to Brian Frons, vice president of daytime programming for NBC.

"The main thing happening now is a renewed focus on families, with each member of the family really having a love story, be they 65 or 17," he says.

Nice to know some thing about Frons will never change.

But other than those two, I don't think that show ever really had supercouples.

Reichardt believes the trend of "action" storylines originated in response to changes in prime-time programming, including the arrival of such big-budget, high-glamour soaps as DALLAS in 1978 and DYNASTY in 1981.

"Someone noticed the success of the nighttime shows, with all their murders and car chases and expensive clothes, and said, 'Well I guess we need some of that excitement, too.' And then all of a sudden," Reichardt says, "everyone went into a James Bond binge."

Which is sort of effed up because neither Dallas nor Dynasty were particularly action-oriented. Definitely not in the "He's going to freeze the entire world!" or "We have to find the missing jewels!" sense, at least. Dynasty and Dallas were about business and family, family and business. Family relationships, business relationships, and how the two worlds collided.

They can attribute the glamor to the nighttime soaps, as well everyone getting rich suddenly and some other things (OLTL's Buchanans), but they need to stop blaming David Jacobs and Aaron Spelling for the daytime soaps all wanting to be like GH. They should be blaming themselves for wanting to piggyback off of its success, but if they want to credit the person who began the whole thing, her name is Gloria Monty.

"I mean, we've not changed soaps so that they're back to two people in a living room drinking coffee," Frons said. "But we're looking less for, say, 'Who's got the laser that's going to destroy the Earth?' and more for, 'How will these characters deal with problems on an emotional level?' "

Well then, ATWT is no longer ATWT, then.

And they wonder why the die-hards started tuning out. Why in the world should DAYS/AMC try to pander to youth audiences in non-summer months? They generally air early! Teens are in school! Collegians are most likely in class! It doesn't matter if they watch on SoapNet because those ratings DO NOT MATTER!

Edited April 19, 200916 yr by All My Shadows

Supercouples were so "faddish" as the article pointed out. They worked for that particular era of soaps in the 80's, but by the late 80's it was no longer in style, and GH and DAYS both started to lose success with that formula. Hell, Gloria Monty even recognized this herself when she returned to GH in the early 90's, she knew that what worked before wasn't necessarily going to work then, but her second run was a disaster for other reasons altogether.

I'm with Alvin. The super-couple thing, in the long run, has hurt all of these shows. Every last one. It goes back to what Sylph said in another thread about evolving, and how soaps live in this reality that is completely unidentifiable to most people. The super-couple concept is a great example of that.

I also think that because of the super-couple fad, most of the shows have wasted WAY too much air time trying to force it to happen again, instantly. And it never, ever works. "Supercouples" happened because all the stars align in the right place (writers, actors, stories), and usually are never really planned.out. When the character of Luke was brought on, NOBODY said "This is what we're going to do with Luke and Laura, and people will remember them for all time". It's a happy accident. But since then, almost all the shows keep trying to force that magic to happen again. Not saying that it won't - there's a good chance the stars will align again for some show at some point. But this need to TELL the audience "They're a new supercouple so get used to it" is really a detriment.

This may be a bit off topic, but I HATE supercouples. I hate the whole philosophy on soaps that two people are meant to be together no matter what. It adds for very little character and relationship growth. I like characters to have numerous relationships without being attached to the stigma that they were specifically meant to be with a specific person for the rest of their lives. I think supercoupledom is what crippled DAYS, in particular, the most and gave them these rabid fanbases they don't accept the partners of their favourite couple with anyone else.

Bill Bell was very much against supercouples. Though Victor and Nikki always went back to one another, that never prevented them from having successful relationships with other people.

Agreed 100%.

Here's a OLTL supercouple for you.....Viki and Dorian. Their feud has been going on for about 35 years. They're the perfect couple.

Here's a OLTL supercouple for you.....Viki and Dorian. Their feud has been going on for about 35 years. They're the perfect couple.

You beat me to it, Scotty!

I was just going to post that the REAL soap super-couples are the non-romantic ones. Viki and Dorian. Jake and Vicky on Another World (BEFORE they stupidly decided make them a couple in the last few years) Cass and Felicia on Another World. Jill and Katherine on Y&R. Stephanie and Brooke on B&B. THOSE are the "supercouples" that truly stand out.

You beat me to it, Scotty!

I was just going to post that the REAL soap super-couples are the non-romantic ones. Viki and Dorian. Jake and Vicky on Another World (BEFORE they stupidly decided make them a couple in the last few years) Cass and Felicia on Another World. Jill and Katherine on Y&R. Stephanie and Brooke on B&B. THOSE are the "supercouples" that truly stand out.

Great minds think alike brimike. Great minds think alike.

To me, Viki and Dorian are the best non-romantic couple in Llanview. I suppose you could also throw in Nora/Lindsay or John/Todd. But none are better the original.

Add Roger and Holly to the mix, perhaps the biggest and most anti-supercouple ever. I just loved them, because underneath all of the dark hatred and shame, you know they loved one another and couldn't function without interacting. They might have had a marriage and sexual realtionship at one point, but most of their time was spent apart, not together.

Edited April 19, 200916 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

This may be a bit off topic, but I HATE supercouples. I hate the whole philosophy on soaps that two people are meant to be together no matter what. It adds for very little character and relationship growth. I like characters to have numerous relationships without being attached to the stigma that they were specifically meant to be with a specific person for the rest of their lives. I think supercoupledom is what crippled DAYS, in particular, the most and gave them these rabid fanbases they don't accept the partners of their favourite couple with anyone else.

Bill Bell was very much against supercouples. Though Victor and Nikki always went back to one another, that never prevented them from having successful relationships with other people.

That sums up my feelings towards them as well.... I have always had couples I've enjoyed, but every couple has a shelf life and there comes a time for them to be split up.

Tad and Dixie from AMC will always hold a special place in my heart in terms of "supercouples" I guess.