OLTL - the Eternia years and later on the Rappaport years. Other than Lindsay, all those Rappaports needed to die horrible immediate deaths.

GH - Jason's return to present.

BEST

Dark Shadows - 1967 or 1970-71

I loved the initial Barnabas storyline as well as 1795... same goes for 1840 and 1841PT, which I thought were excellently executed for the most part

Ryan's Hope - 1977, 1983, 1987

In terms of its acting and storylines, I don't think RH ever quite got as good as it did during 1977, when everything was firing on all cylinders... it could move slowly at times, but Labine and Mayer always maintained the momentum of their storylines. 1983 was also an excellent year for the show -- though I'm thinking specifically of the Charlotte Greer storyline.

WORST

Dark Shadows - 1968

Everything that happened between the 1795 and the haunting of Collinwood storylines was immensely boring. The Dream Curse and the Adam and Eve storylines are ones that I never want to revisit, to be perfectly honest.

Days of Our Lives - 2004 (post-Melaswen reveal) or 2008

The serial killer storyline, for better or worse, was engaging. Everyone sitting around that damn island for a good chunk of 2004... not so much. And I'm still not a Dena Higley fan.

Ryan's Hope - 1984/1985

The entire Pat Falken Smith period was god-awful. So many of the show's core characters had a complete change of characterization, and most of her stories focused on characters who were introduced at the beginning of her tenure. A lot of people criticize her for blowing up Ryan's bar, but the worst part of that entire experience was that it completely sidelined most of the Ryans since it took almost a full year for the bar to reappear... it blew up in January 1984 and didn't return until November of that year. In the meantime, core characters like Maeve, Johnny, and Pat barely appeared.

DAYS

Best: 1993, 1995, 1997, 2002

Worst: 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008

Oh, and Best:

For GH, I would have to say (for THIS decade), 2005.

That was when we had the whole Faith Roscoe kidnapping Sonny's kids (i LOVED Faith), then everyone thinking Michael was dead (STELLAR performances by Tamara Braun)....Also the trainwreck was good, and it brought us Laura Wright, who was just a million steps ahead of Jennifer Bransford, and came on with good storylines, and good acting...And even before that, the whole s/l with Reese Marshall was OK too...

There were also the DOWNS of 2005, like us finding out that Allan covered up AJs murder attempt on Jason, and the whole hypnotizing Michael to believe he killed AJ thing...and that GOD AWFUL Carly recast...

Before that, I would have to say 1999 was the best....And I liked the panic room story in its early stages (2001), becuase I thought Tamara Braun kicked ass throughout.

DAYS

The best for me was all of 1992, mid-1994 - 2000, mid-2002 - early 2003, and the bulk of SSK 2003-2004.

The worst was 2000 - mid-2002, anything Higley-related, 2007-2010. Days, as of 2007, feels like a totally different show now and I regularly go days or weeks without watching. Otherwise, I'm generally bored with 60% of it.

ATWT

The best was 2000 - early 2006, mid-2008 - 2010. It's my guilty pleasure. I watch it religiously now.

The worst was most of 2006 through 2008. Like right after Emily shot Paul, it just became difficult for me to follow.

AMC my fave eras I actually saw were prob 1991-94, 96-97 and I admit some of 99-00 (even if it was such a shizo time)

Worse? 2001 (Passanante/Libidizone/Dog Boy etc) and maybe the Rayfield era (2002-2003?) The last year or two of McTavish wasn't much better, neither was a lot of Brown/Esensten.

OLTL--best I saw "live" again would be 1992-95. There are a lot of worse years for me--Higley's entire run and muhc of 96-98 might top it (particularly when Leah Laiman and Pam Long were HW, resptively)