Passions Discussion Thread

[KMan101]

 

I agree. I'd prefer shorter revivals. Honestly with the other three soaps airing reruns in the summer this year I don't even think we need them all year long at this pont. JMO.

 

I was encouraged when SyFy aired reruns of Passions years and years ago but it went nowhere. It's probably been a long time now. I can't even remember when they aired the reruns.

[Vee]

 

Oh no?? I didn't watch AW. I watched Reilly's DAYS (and BTW, it had bad dialogue too before he left the first time). I watched the first months of Passions. I remember. It was that bad from jump.

[KMan101]

 

In your opinion it was bad. I liked it. It's subjective

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Of course it had bad dialogue. It was repetitive. Days lasted MONTHS. I watched Reilly's first and second run. I'm well aware of his faults. 

 

I enjoyed 1999-2001 for the most part. It's not for everyone and that's fine. I respect those that think it was bad. I get why. I liked it and I'm not sorry I enjoyed it lol. Does it stand up to other truly great soaps? No. It just happened to hit me at the right time and I enjoyed it for what it was  

 

Trust me, I remember the bad storylines, I remember the bad actors. But I think people forget it wasn't THAT bad in the first few years  

 

"Sheridan's death" was great soap, IMO.

 

We all like what we like

Edited July 30, 2020 by KMan101

[FrenchBug82]

I think the thing that people liked about Passions was that it had a twinkle in its eye. It knew what it was - I mean the premise of the witch stuff was pretty much a giveaway this wouldn't be Shakespeare - but it had fun with what it was doing so the cheapness of it all was forgivable. It was charming trash.
But then the novelty wore off and people stopped judging it on a scale.
Because people started caring about the characters and taking the stories involving their favorite characters seriously, TPTP had to ramp up the rascally silliness to try and distract from the frustration fans were feelings. However, instead of being amusing the nonsense ended up just driving the show into the ground. They chose to try to artificially keep their goodwill longer than necessary rather than use it to pivot and build the quality of the show up.

But when I compare it with the other soap that was started around that time and that was similarly horrible and cheap-looking, Passions had heart that made it easier to root for, at least for a while.

[KMan101]

 

Thank you!

 

I respect why people think it was bad. I get it. But some of us did like the first few years

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People also have to remember I was younger when it hit. It was perfect for me at the time. I was so into it. But I get why people don't like it.

 

Of course I have a higher standard for soaps but I took the show for WHAT IT WAS.

Edited July 30, 2020 by KMan101

[AbcNbc247]

Count me in on that too.

 

I thought 2000-2002 were great years for Passions. It only started to really go downhill once Reilly started writing DAYS again

[FrenchBug82]

People tend not to give it credit that it managed to build a much younger audience for soaps that anyone thought could be achieved already by that time.

Considering how much hand-wringing there (rightfully) is even more now about the aging demographics of soaps, it always surprises me that not more people have tried to study why it comparatively caught the imagination of many young people at least for a while, despite being cheap and not particularly well-written.
I guarantee you that there is a cohort that came of age around that time that still remembers things about Passions, even if they didn't actually watch it. When was the last time a soap had mainstream watercooler moments?

[Darn]

It caught on with young people because...frankly it looked like a Saturday morning sitcom but with worse writing. I was 15 when Passions premiered, I thought the theme song was fantastic and Jesse Metcalfe quite possibly changed the trajectory of my life but it was brightly lit garbage.

 

It was just so mind-numbingly repetitive. The same conversations day after day, month after month. Characters constantly talking out loud to themselves recapping the plot. The show treated the audience like idiots. It was actually insulting after a while. That's So Raven should not have had more nuance than a daytime drama. 

[Vee]

It was insulting to me as a teen from Day 1.

[Manny]

I think the reason why I liked Passions in the beginning was simply because I was excited to see a soap opera from its beginning. Yes, I have seen Sunset Beach before that and that was also an excited time in my life (lol), but by the time SuBe premiered in my country and I started watching , it was pretty much known it would get cancelled, so I did not hold out too much hope. With Passions, they were doing well in that demo and I just thought that this would be the soap that I watch from the start and it would last and last forever. Stupid kid I was. lol

 

Despite the witch and the living doll (I did love Timmy), I liked it up until the hell in the closet story. I don't know. That was just the worst thing I have ever seen... anywhere... ever. Was that in 2001?

 

Also, am I wrong in saying that the first year (or at least first couple of months) the pace was better/faster than later?

 

But the dialogue was horrible (and it got worse with time) and the stories just went to hell.. literally. So I could not bare to watch literally same scenes repeat for days. You could miss a week and there would Theresa be, still convincing Whitney that Ethan is her destiny and she will get him from Gwen. They'd be wearing same cloths and they would be at the same spot they were a week ago. No movement whatsoever. Horrible. lol

 

 

[pdm1974]

I think when JER went back to DAYS a second time and was writing both shows it was just simply too much for one writer. Both Passions and DAYS ultimately paid the price in quality.

[Franko]

It'd be interesting to find out exactly how many days were depicted during PASSIONS' run. I swear there was a time where one night seemed to last a month's worth of episodes.

[All My Shadows]

At one point, either DAYS or Passions had a total of 4 "days" advance over the course of a year's worth of episodes.

[Vee]

What!!

[AbcNbc247]

I’ll never understand how he thought he would have been able to do that. Even the greats struggled with writing two soaps at the same time. 

 

It had to be Passions. Charity was only supposed to be trapped in Hell for like one day, but in real time, it was over three months. 

 

And I know that final night in LA lasted like three months too. When the day began, it was summertime but by the time it ended, characters were preparing for Thanksgiving