Best and the Worst Black Storylines

[Leia]

I'm biracial but I'm feeling incredibly black today. I never thought it would come to this but it looks like it has. We'll probably max out after 2 or 3 pages but the black storylines deserve some focus for once. We talk about everything else so why not this topic?

What is your idea of the best storylines for black characters over the years?

What is your idea of the worst storylines for black characters over the years?

Best black families. Best black romances.

There is little hope but what would you do to fix daytime's problem with segregation? (Wow it is obvious that it is segregation)

[Cheap21]

Best Storylines

AMC:

The stuff in the early 90s with the Fryes. Lucas, Livia, Derek, Mimi, Terrence and Taylor. There was some good writing there. I appreciated AMC's attempt at a Fryes revival a few years back but unfortunately they never followed through with it

Jesse and Angie's reunion, 2008 The show was on fire the first half of the year and it was mainly bc of them

Y&R:

Lily's paternity reveal. It sucked that Malcolm wasnt around but the 3 main parties, Neil, Dru and Davetta's Lily did an amazing job with the fallout

Days:

Lexie's downfall. This was a good story. Not black specific, but she was lead and shined throughout the baby switch and its aftermath. I also loved her affair with Brandon

WORST Storyline

Y&R

The Neil/Tyra/Anna/Devon/Karen crap. Seriously WTF was that? Horrible triangle. Ruined Neil. Devon dabbled in incest. Mess all around

Sunset Beach

The turkey baster. They basically had a black woman rape another black woman by impregnating her with stolen sperm she stuffed up her vagina with a cooking tool. That was taking things too far

OLTL

Keri's suicide. I cant handle my life bc my ex moved on so let me kill myself and leave my daughter and orphan.

The Evans family. Completely pointless. Horrible an unintesting characters. Greg and Rachel's romance sizzled before it started

GH:

Lainey and Stan. I thought they had alot of potential as a couple but the minute they brought Spinelli on, Stan was declared redundant and was quickly killed off. I didnt even know Lainey was still on the show till I saw her in the episode counts for 1 show last month

PASSIONS

Vincent's pregnacy. He is revealed to be Eve's long lost son who ends up blackmailing her and gets her hooked up drugs. It goes downhill when its revealed he's a hermaphrodite and has been in town as years as Valerie. He has sex multiple times with his father and gets pregnant. He later becomes obsesed with Luis and kidnaps his aunt Sheridan, and dons a blonde wig, plotting to take her place

Some of my favorite couples:

Jamel/Imani, PC

Neil/Dru, Y&R

early Chad/Whitney, Pssns

Virginia/Michael, SuBe

Dara/Justus, GH

Lexie/Brandon, Days

Best families:

Winters

Fryes

Hubbards

[DeeeDee]

Hire Minority Talent behind the screen.

[DRW50]

Just a few...

ATWT Best:

Duncan and Jessica getting together and their families being opposed.

ATWT Worst:

Marshall degrading, humiliating, and finally raping Jessica. Bonnie pushing him out a window in a desperate and shameful wrapup of yet another poorly told storyline.

GL Best:

Hamp/Gilly. David's romance with Kat, friendship with Bridget, his time on the run.

GL Worst:

The sicko story where Gilly fell in love with her own father.

AMC Best:

Hubbards return.

AMC Worst:

Dogboy.

[DeeeDee]

And his non acting daughter.

[Bright Eyes]

Days Best:

Initial romance of David/Valerie

Worst:

Giving in to the public's racist demands.

[DeeeDee]

The more things change...

[SFK]

What I wouldn't give to watch Carla/Sadie Gray play out. I wouldn't be born for another decade.

Like Cheap, I also enjoyed the Fryes and company on AMC in the early '90s, when AMC still felt like AMC. Admittedly, it was a little comical visually speaking, but I enjoyed Taylor masquerading as white and going undercover with the boys of Deconstruction.

Not so much a storyline, but I liked the relationships of Hank, Nora, Rachel, and Matthew on OLTL and they really left us (me) wanting more. Have said this before, but I think it's so cute how little Matthew has this gorgeous older biracial sister, and then his relationship with Destiny. I guess it's a personal thing, like Leia, my parents were down with the swirl and I see some parallels to my own life. And of course there was R.J. who also had a biracial daughter, my watching was spotty then and I'm trying to recall if there were any scenes with first cousins Rachel and Keri. Would have loved a sweet conversation between these two comparing and contrasting their lives growing up with a black dad and a white mom. I love slice of life.

What I'm realizing as I flip through the mental Rolodex is that it's hard for me to come up with storylines as much as I can recall characters who were well-played yet didn't have many huge standout moments. For instance, I enjoyed Mary Mae and Justice and all of that Bradley Ward stuff, but it was more the interesting performers who I'd known and admired from other shows who stood out to me more than any material they were given to play. I enjoyed watching Jill try to get Mamie out of the house, out of the state (!), sending her walking around town with a million bucks in a shopping bag but it's Jess and Veronica who made that special, and those ice cold nail-you-to-the-wall stares Mamie would shoot Jill were better than any dialogue. I guess what I'm trying to say is that daytime has been spoiled with many of the finest black actors in the business and they hardly ever have had the opportunity to show what they really got. Debbi and VR have perhaps been the most fortunate.

[DRW50]

Rachel and Keri weren't on the show at the same time.

I loved the relationship between Hank and Nora, especially those first few years they were on the show. They were so believable as angry exes who still cared about each other.

[DeeeDee]

Tim Stickney is amazing but Nathan Purdee is so underrated.

[tanyia2]

Hands down the David/Kat/Bridget/Vinny Morrison storyline on GL. I watched the clips of the storyline recently and the story still blows me away.

The story is 100xs better than any of the storylines that is currently being written.

Another storyline I liked was Drucilla dealing with her bitch of a mother on the Y&R. To this day I hate the name Lily Bell and that is because of the great writing and acting at the time.

[DRW50]

He always had to play the straight guy, and then on OLTL, he had to be the first strong black male character in a decade, one who mixed it up with the Buchanans, and who represented law and order. He came on the show when they were in such major transition. Then they used him to introduce what were, or should have been, long-term characters, in Nora, Rachel, later RJ. He did such a magnificent job with all this. Apparently this was mistaken for being effortless, because he just slowly faded away, then most of what was interesting about his backstory with Nora was ripped off for FOJ supreme Sam.

[DeeeDee]

+1.

It's very hard to play that type of character especially when introducing a new family & as you said he did effortlessly.

Purdee is very subtle but when he wants he can command the screen.

[SFK]

He could have been just as tentpole as Bo. Maybe even another kid from a chick on the side, an explosive controversail scene where Nora comes out of her mouth with her dad warning her about black men (cries of "OOOOOOH! No she DIDN'T!" across the country) and Hank shutting her down before she tearfully appologized. I enjoy issue-oriented envelope pushing.

I didn't really watch AW then, but for some reason I'm reminded of Marshall Kramer, III. Strong, accomplished black man who kinda fizzled too.

[ChitHappens]

Not necessarily the answer. Look at that stupid ass hack, Shonda Rhymes. She can't write for black characters any more than the white writers have a desire to. Then you have Tyler Perry who has made the same movie 12 times but changed the actors some of the time. The man has serious potential, but his writing tells me he has issues. Unfortunately, the likes of Tyler and Shonda are being recognized while the truly gifted black writers are being ignored. Only until black people are treated as human beings that are equal to everyone else, we will continue to slip lower and lower to the bottom of the food chain. It's not just television. It's a way of life!

ANDREA