Missing the Past

[Matt P.]

I'm sure this has probably been posted in some sort of capacity but I have to say that I've been missing the recent soaps that have been cancelled. It hit me when I was watching AMC and saw Jordi Vilasuso. I thought he used to be on GL with Ricky Paul Goldwaith who used to play Gus. They used to have scenes together. GL used to be a separate soap on a different network.

What about in the 90's when we had Sunset Beach and Another World. Then Passions came along became a guilty pleasure but after it was axed to DIRECTTV that's when it all went downhill.

So what do we have now? I see soaps using all of these actors but my main concern is, won't that cause the writers to forget their main stars? OLTL has so many GL/ATWT characters I can't even count. Y&R seems to be taking in a lot of them too.

It also hit me when I was reading an article written by Robert Newman. Oh yeah he used to be on GL. Then there was a tribute to ATWT. It's 2pm. No more favorite soap opera to watch anymore.

Not only that but as an actor in NYC there's 1 NYC soap. ONE! That's just disgusting. Two years ago there was four. Twenty years ago there was 6. Now there's ONE!

I can't even look at the ratings anymore. if only I could turn back time.

[Gray Bunny]

Which soap is this a spoiler for? Oh, and where *is* the spoiler?

[Mr. Vixen]

I agree with what you're saying.

I always kind of hoped SOAPnet would do something.

One big soap with all kinds of people. Some of our favorites from AW, SB, SuBe,ATWT, GL...and even some old characters from the soaps still on the air. All winding up in the same town.

That would generate so much story, having all those characters with such in depth backgrounds to a large canvas of soaps? It would really intertwine all of the soaps and strengthen them up.

To bad SOAPnet was more worried about 90210 and One Tree Hill....

[Scotty]

That's what I'm wondering...

I'm moving this thread to the "Discuss the Soaps" forum now.

[OLTL_fan]

That wouldve been a great idea. If only SoapNet was more creative.

[bellcurve]

Getting permission to use all those characters would have been an absolute legal, logistical, and expensive nightmare.

[Mr. Vixen]

True. I'm not even saying it was possible. I'm saying it would have been cool, from a creative standpoint.

And even if they couldn't get the rights to the characters, it would have been fun for them to launch a soap featuring some oof our favorite veteran actors from those shows, even if they were all playing new characters.

[Dr Neil Curtis]

+1

[lovely_m]

I thought there was already a soap like that, The Young and the Restless.

[Mr. Vixen]

Except on Y&R it takes away from the show because you're swamped with these new ABc rejects.

However, if you launched a new show where ALL of the characters were new and played by some of our beloved soap veterans, it wouldn't detract from the history of anything.

[~bl~]

It would be great if a show existed with a lot of former soap stars on it that didn't usurp the history of a particular show. Of course, that show in the minds of some was Santa Barbara. There was a joke in SOD back when that program was on the air that soap stars don't leave they end up on Santa Barbara or something like that.

Even 15 years ago, there were six soaps in NYC and during the time right after Santa Barbara ended and before Sunset Beach there were more NYC based soaps than LA ones. Weird how the tables turned, though the same thing happened in prime time as way back NYC was were television was made, and that changed.

[EricMontreal22]

I think the problem (and I do see it both as a problem and a good thing) of hiring the same actors from show to show (and for that matter hiring the same writers--even the flop writers--from show to show) is nothing new for the industry whatsoever. But with the increasingly dire straits the soaps are going through, it becomes increasingly a problem.

I definitely do find it TERRIBLY sad that we have one New York soap--I admit, partly cuz of my theatre bias, that I always loved the way soaps were more New York than LA (to the point that I admit I often looked down upon LA soaps...)

[SFK]

I would love to see an innovative move that borrowed from the '80s (Another Life, The Catlins), Wheeler's GL (Peapack), and primetime where new soaps (I use that term broadly to include the inevitable wave of legit online programming) are produced in areas outside of NY and L.A. A soap shot in New Orleans, or Baltimore, or Chicago, or Seattle, or Missoula, I dunno, but familiar soap faces pepperd with local talents. I really fell hard for the look of those Cara and Griffin vignettes AMC did, and I could see myself getting into a new soap shot on digital that I could watch on Roku. But like, a really good one produced by a network even if it was 15 min. long and dirt cheap to produce.

[SFK]

I totally agree. I was just looking at the OLTL episode counts, something I NEVER do and I had to laugh when I spotted an actor I went to college with in a role that I had completely missed. I've had several friends pop up on the soaps when they were still alive and well in NY, and that's a fun little right of passage that the NY acting community will miss. When I graduated high school and first came to New York, we had AMC, OLTL, AW, ATWT, GL, and The City had just been cancelled. Geesh. Like you, I enjoy theatre but didn't really catch on until I was studying it, so to look back and see that folks like Carole Shelley played Iris (!) and Tommy Tune guest starred on The City (!), it's sad that all of those Broadway stars only have One Life to Live (<--sorry for that ).

[SFK]

As for the CA soaps, for me they'll always symbolize a certain glamour and excitement, Santa Barbara in particular. When I first watched the debut episode one afternoon at The Paley Center back during the Worlds Without End exhibit, I could just tell that I would have been so stoked about this show had I been sitting in front of the TV back in '84 (I was busy that day in kindergarten). Then I remember the debuts of SuBe and Passions, I gave SuBe a week, Passions a day, the thrill of a new soap was there, but neither of those had the pull of SB. I'm pretty SB ignorant actually, but from what I've seen and know about the show, they boasted an awesome cast and the show itself had an undeniable charisma. Capitol could match it scene for scene in terms of the cast and look, but Capitol lacked that intangible star quality. As Marlena once put it while discussing clips from the 50 years of Soap special, "the forgotten Capitol and the never to be forgotten Santa Barbara."