I think there are a number of plots soap fans are nearly universally tired of seeing:

Sleeping around within families (male and female characters)

Whose your daddy?

Given up for dead - only to have the character come back to life multiple times.

Trick pregnancy used to hold on to a man who isn't the child's father.

What are the storylines you actually MISS!?!?!?

I miss the socially relevant storylines soaps use to do that soap writers THINK they're doing now (Ha! Ha! Bold and Beautiful, the joke is on the audience). When ATWT revealed that Angel Lange's resulting inability to have a child after an abortion was because she aborted her father's child and not Caleb Snyder's child, I could have fallen over!

Caleb couldn't forgive himself for what he thought he'd taken from Angel.

Angel appeared to be a bit of a sociopath (forcing Holden to stay with her, stealing from her father)and in the end, she was a desperate young woman fighting to free herself from her abuser.

I'm not advocating an abuse storyline per year per soap, but I do miss storylines that had grit and shined a bright light on serious issues.

Edited April 23, 201114 yr by NorrthCafe

I hate socially relevant stories on soap these days bc they are usually preachy and boring or make a joke of the issue and insult the intelligence of the viewer

ICAM, Cheap. Today's "SR" storylines are treated as if they're just a minor diversion on the way back to the cheesy storylines the writers really wanted to tell (whose your daddy? trick pregnancies. etc)

I miss "the black storyline."

I miss people at work.

I miss twin stories, with the actor playing a dual role. I mean stories where one twin isn't evil.

I miss stories where everyone has an equal point of view and the view is respected, instead of the damn propping that has destroyed soap operas.

I miss topical stories, of course, but I also miss the sort of "umbrella stories" that used to include large numbers of cast members. I realize they have their detractors, too, but I feel like they only enhanced each soap's sense of community, as well as helped to make each individual story feel less isolated from the others. (Ironically, as cast sizes have shrunk over the past 5-10 years, now would appear an ideal time to return to that kind of storytelling. Yet, the increasingly hectic taping schedules make that virtually impossible.)

Moreover, I miss tortured, star-crossed love stories that could go on for years. You know what I mean? Not the kind of [!@#$%^&*] that goes on these days w/ AMC's Rylee, or OLTL's Todd & Blair. I'm talking about romances between genuinely empathetic people you could actually root for (think my two personal favorites, GUIDING LIGHT's Quint and Nola, and AMC's Greg and Jenny), and not emotionally and/or morally bankrupt fools who are being shoved down our throats b/c so-and-so thinks they are "hot" together. There's a difference.

I miss blackmail stories and real whodunits where the killer comes out due to evidence. Soaps used to have such good villains, but now they all seem sort of blah.

Oh do I miss blackmail storylines - where you didn't know who was behind the plot. There also hasn't been a mystery as delicious as the DC's stalker plot since ATWT aired it. Douglas Cumming, Frannie's boyfriend, turns out to be her stepmother's stalker. PRICELESS.

All My Shadows: It's sad to think that soaps will die out without ever appreciably diversifying the cast and storylines. Soaps will die without any real recognition (via Emmys) of the conributions of multicultural actresses and actors. That will be a stain on the history of the genre.

Edited April 23, 201114 yr by NorrthCafe

I miss genuine and unexpected friendships, which again, don't involve propping. I doubt anything like Marlena/Eugene would ever be on any soap today. He would call her "Goddess" and obsess over her, like that floating turd Spinelli.

I miss people at work.

I miss twin stories, with the actor playing a dual role. I mean stories where one twin isn't evil.

I miss stories where everyone has an equal point of view and the view is respected, instead of the damn propping that has destroyed soap operas.

+1.

There used to be a time where soaps could get YEARS of stories from characters at work.

Now every character is rich & has no need to work to survive.

I miss when soaps let villains run their course. Now and days when a villain gets popular or the actor is considered too good too let go the soaps twist themselves into pretzels to keep them long term. They ruin other characters or the show themselves to fit them in.

It miss when writers knew that just because someone was good that didn't make them a bore, sanctimonious, or a doormat. Now all we have are anti-heroes/heroines posing as heroes/heroines because writers want to be edgy (lame attempts at "grey" or "flaws" basically gimmicks).

Edited April 23, 201114 yr by lovely_m

Well thought out TRUE whodunnits. Ones not involving fake deaths, convenient plastic surgery makeovers, or villains of the month getting bumped off.

Romances, business and realistic (but non preachy) social issue stories.

Whodunits.

I miss good intriguing slowly unfolding family secrets/mysteries about characters we actually care about.

Affairs. True, passionate, forbidden affairs. Not sleavy and trashy, but true forbidden love.