All: Big Mistakes Soaps/Networks made over the years

[JtSmarts]

DAYS

Salem Serial Killer Storyline and Aftermath

Having EJ rape Sami

The Whole Santeen/Changing John's Parentage again

Getting rid of Shawn/Belle instead of further developing their characters

[Mr. Vixen]

ABC SOAPS:

GH: Phasing out of veterans such as Leslie Charleson, Stuart Damon, Susan Brown, Peter Hansen, Jackie Zeman, etc.

Turning the show into a Soprano's knock off.

Going from a show centered about powerful strong women, to a show about a mob enforcer without whom no woman could survive.

Killing all of the Quartermaines.

Recasting Carly instead of Killing her.

Ruining Felicia.

Killing off Georgie.

Bringing Skye back to sit at a bar for 6 months and do nothing.

Retconning Rick Webber's death.

Making Ethan Luke's son instead of Robert's.

OLTL:

Letting Mitch Laurence stay around as long as they did in 2010.

Jessica's 17 yearold revisted story.

"Is Victor Lord alive or not?"

Dorian's lesbian marriage.

Completely whiping Kish out with no explanation.

Letting Stacy die in the lake instead of GiGi.

Never bringing Kevin back full time.

AMC:

The shameful way they let Julia Barr slip into oblivion.

Not recasting Bianca sooner. (Very clear that ER was not the end all be all of the character. CBL is better, IMO)

The unabortion

CBS Soaps:

Y&R:

Not casting Carrie Genzel as Victoria after Heather Tom left. (I like AH, but CG would have been amazing.)

Giving Victor Colleen's heart. (shoulda let the fuckker die)

Not using Nina and Tracy hardly at all, but keeping Sharon and her ever hungry !@#$%^&*] on the frontburner.

Sharon falling for a murderous kidnapper.

Skye falling into a volcano.

Hiring Michael Muhney.

Underusing Tonya Lee Williams and Kristoff.

Firing Davetta HomeGirl Sherwood for VanillyLily Christel.

Never bringing Dru back.

Ending the Jill/Kay rivalry.

Making Kay a saint instead of the troublesome old bat she always was.

B&B:

Not getting rid of Brooke, or at least keeping her away from Ridge.

Endlessly playing out the Brooke/Taylor/Ridge triangle.

Rewriting history to make Brooke look like a homewrecker, when in all reality everyone thought Taylor was dead.

Bringing Amber back and not giving her a storyline for a good FIVE MONTHS.

Hiring that girl who plays hope. Kim somebody I think.

Having Brooke fuckk her daughters boyfrined. Guess 20 some years of being with a man doesn't help you remember what his penis feels like??? DUMB.

NBC:

DAYS:

Firing Deidre Hall in 2008.

The endless Sami show.

So much endless "I'm gonna tell him!" "No dont!" between Carly/Daniel/Chloe over the babies DNA.

Not mentioning Tommy Horton JR. at Micky or Alice's funeral.

Not letting Marie speak at her own mother's funeral.

Bill Horton NOT staying in town.

Not pairing Chad/Will.

[SFK]

Yeah, no offense to CM (I think? I'm assuming he's a nice guy IRL). But AMC didn't need a knight in shining armor, women losing their [!@#$%^&*] to be with him, acting unbearable once they've got him. To catch an episode with Ryan featuring Annie, Madison, Kendall, Greenlee, and even Erica (PAINS me that she's on that list), it's just an embarrassment of bitches riches for this dude. I wasn't a big Leo fan, but he'd have been the more fun male lead if they just insisted upon going that route.

[SFK]

Yes! I'm sitting here cracking up remembering Jessica's pouty tantrum face when she saw Cris kiss Layla at the dance.

I loved the DID s/l and all futzing with Victor Lord's history should have ended there. bringing him back was the crapiest piece of fanfic ever, they need to wipe up that mess once and for all or I guess I can just go on pretending it never happened.

I mean, whose body (that had pillow case fibers in the lungs from Tori smothering him!) was in the sarcophagus then??

[DRW50]

Josh Duhamel had far more charm and natural chemistry with people than Mathison has had as Ryan, especially in Mathison's second run. The only downside is that his more laid-back quality meant Greenlee was even more of a shrewish hellbeast and scene-killer with Leo than she is with Ryan.

Ryan is the default Fronsian leading man. Sad to say, if CM wasn't there, and Budig of course, I wonder if Frons would even make an effort to keep the show going. (Too bad he can't make an effort to find a strong producer).

[Titus Andronicus]

Days:

Over-reliance on supercouples. Sure, they propelled the soap to its highest point in the 1980s, but it hurt badly in the 1990s. You still have couples that Days can't do anything differently with and it's been nearly 20 years after the fact. Shane and Kayla wasn't the best worked out storyline, but by 1991, neither was Shane and Kimberly.

Destruction of Roman Brady. Yeah, pay Wayne Northrop all that money and kill everything that was good about his run in the 1980s. Roman should have stayed dead, barring a Northrop comeback and if you really wanted to bring back Josh Taylor, do it as Chris Kositchek.

Nina Laemmle. The massacre, oh the massacre.

John Black. In theory, it's about the most interesting character to ever exist on Days. In writing, he became a dumping ground for all crazy ideas, especially those about his parentage/family.

The handling of Genie Francis. You just let her go? You didn't want her? [smacks palm against forehead]

Coming back from the dead. In the 1980s, it was spouses. The first couple of times - Anna, even Emma - it wasn't bad. By the time we get to Cal and Marina ... In the 1990s, it was just about everybody else, including the bad idea that was the Alex North storyline.

Sami. One of the main reasons I quit watching. Must she be involved in everything? Must these #$%@*@#% triangles still be going on 16 years later (albeit with different males)? Must she be Colleen? Must E.J. be Santo? Must this crap even exist?

[Eric83]

GL-

Maryanne Caruthers Storyline (even though I loved it), it is pretty much universally hated and screwed up the GL timeline and lead to Peter Simon leaving the show

Letting Jonathan and Tammy eat the show, because by the time they left they had nothing to fall back on.

Not bringing Grant Aleksander back in 2008, instead of 2009. Had they brought Philip back and had interesting story the transition to the new format might have been easier to digest.

DAYS-

Bringing all the SSK victims back from the dead. None of the characters killed off were really worth anything then. Alice and Doug wouldn't have died if not for the rewrite, and as much as I love Maggie on the show now she was just a glorified extra back in 2003. Say what you will, but from Abe's murder up to Tony's, that story was very interesting.

[Darcy]

AMC:

Erica "adopting" Baby Sonya allowing Maria to believe her baby was dead

Everything about the unabortion from his ridiculous birth to his death at Zach's hand and giving his heart to Kendall

Tad burying Madden alive

Dixie eating Babe's poisoned pancakes just as Kate arrives in town (even Frons admitted this was a big mistake)

[bellcurve]

+1

[Mitch]

GL..of course, killing Maureen. Actually I would extrapolate that to killing Maureen but not having anyone on hand ready to take her place. They tried with Van, but that is not who Van is. They should have brought in Aunt Meta to meddle about six weeks before Mo's death so that there could be a comforting presence around during a really dark (but excellently written) death storyline and the aftermath.

I would add that killing Mo and then changing the show into the Buzz Cooper/Justin Deas hour added to the pain. The show became fragmented, dark and and depressing and we had endless storylines of women demeaning themselves for the chance to screw that creepy troll, and of course, other 5th Street antics. The show never recovered.

ATWT- the decision to do away with Bob and Kim's set. Sounds goofy but during Marland that was the go to set where everyone traipsed through. No matter how goofy the story line or the quality suffered, you could turn the show on and see that it was still centered. You couldnt get the same feeling even in Emma's kitchen and certainly not in that ugly diner they used for years, or Lisa's hotel (which Bob and Kim started to use as if it was their living room set, they were always there.) Gautman and Sheffer could have gotten away with a lot of the changes if they kept that part of the show intact.

[DRW50]

What annoyed me was when I started watching again and Kim's kitchen was now the WOAK kitchen set. Why? It just felt like a slap in the face.

To me the biggest mistakes at ATWT were destroying Craig once they brought Hunt Block in, and the generally vile tone of the show during those years. But before that the one that really made the most was destroying a lot of what made ATWT unique, starting around 1994-1995, mainly 1995. Another last straw moment I had was when Felicia Minei Behr arrived and immediately fired Allyson Rice-Taylor and completely changed the character, and Susan Batten basically told the press hey, my friends got me a job! That was the first real sign of the ABC envy that went on to destroy once promising characters like Paul Ryan.

[Sindacco]

I completely agree. That was the most idiotic thing Corday ever did.

[Dr Neil Curtis]

Things were looking up then! Tony DiMera returned, I fell in love with Cassie DiMera, fan faves were making special appearances, etc.

Now we don't have any of those great places like Salem Place, Wings, PentHouse Grill, Alice's, or Chez Rouge.

[Mitch]

Especially since there were no substantial scenes taking place there, it was always the backdrop to let us know we were at WOAK. Why not just show an undressed set with some mics, etc, and we would know. My sister says that they did have Kim or someone say they based the set on Kim's "

actual," kitchen. So why not just use it as "Kim's friggin kitchen then???

In general both of my P & G soaps got uh, more "lower class," as the years went by. For some reason I think they did some Focus Groups for people they really felt were the audience they wanted, you know, the hillbillies watching Jerry Springer, etc. I think they did a FG and some idiots said, "I don't like to cook, I just put somethin' in ma microwave or eat a candy bar, or a big of Doritos! So why do I want to see these kitchens on ma TV!" They got rid of the Hughes kitchen and when Wheeler switched to the new format (aka filming it as cheap as possible) she would refuse to show the Bauer kitchen, even though they kept it (as seen during the last Baer BBQ and last week of the show.)

I really, really liked HB's Craig. I know, most people hated him, but I thought he was sexy as hell and made a great !@#$%^&*]. I personally remember and love the Craig of the switching paternity tests, blowing up Steve's truck and faking paralysis so he can hang on to his borderline retarded wife, and hated the Marland newly wimpy and earnest Craig ( I know it was needed for character development but did he have to be SO boring and SO earnest. People don't suddenly become "all good," after they are redeemed.) I just got tired of the one note performance from Block, all he played was !@#$%^&*] and all Sheffer wrote for Craig was !@#$%^&*] (I am also convinced that Craig was Sheffers fantasy version of himself, tall, slim, sexy but a big ole' A-HOLE!) It had to be the writing, as he played a similar character on GL but someone gave him some depth.

[DRW50]

Oh you are definitely not alone in liking Block's Craig. For a long time I thought I was the only one in the world who didn't like him.

The main reason I hated him was he was so unpleasant at all times (aside from some bad fake crying for about a day after Bryant died), and he was unable to layer any scene with any emotions. Craig once had complex relationships with so many characters, relationships that were critical to many people. All that was gone with Block. Instead he just sneered and smirked and spat out his lines and everyone else was his patsy. Watching Bryce, even when Craig became syrupy, he had such a fascinating relationship with Lucinda, one that could have driven years of story. ATWT never bothered to capitalize on this when they brought Craig back in 2000. They didn't understand his relationship with Lily, with Sierra, with anyone. Instead they had that awful stuff with Carly that went on for years and years. Even at the end they used that as a crutch. When you make a sociopath the center of your show, then the show no longer has an identity - and ATWT for years had always been a show with heart. The big hoopla over Block's Craig also gave them more of a greenlight for other soulless and unpleasant recasts like Dusty and Paul.

By the time Jon Lindstrom was in the role they had so totally eviscerated Craig that we were learning he had whored around with maids in Montega and Sierra had run off his mistress and love child. And the "happy" end was that he learned forgiveness from Lily. At least bring back Betsy for a day or something.