ALL: Soaps "Jump The Shark" Moment

[Michael]

I think Days could have survived the murders (disrespectful as a lot of them were) and even the back-from-the-dead thing, which was at least exciting, if there had been any kind of explanation for any of it. They dropped WAY too many clues and misdirects during the murders themselves and then had to back out of it all in such a crappy way. "Oh, uh, Tony was walking around Marlena while she was hypnotized, and she only imagined killing everyone, but really, Tony was shooting them with tranquilizer darts and then swapping their bodies for doppelgangers." What?! They might as well have just flashed a title card on the screen that read Please Forget This Entire Story Ever Happened!

[quartermainefan]

For AMC I would say when zillionare Palmer was suddenly sweeping floors at Opal's chicken shack after going bankrupt in a week long story that happened off camera, and that somehow selling a 2 piece meal with mashed and a coke enabled Palmer to recoup all his millions in less than a year. I guess everyone ordered the meal as two breasts and paid the extra 89 cents.

[DRW50]

I think James Mitchell agreed with you...

[Antoyne]

All of that just made me die laughing because it's so true but to see it put into words just highlights the ridiculousness of that period on DAYS.

[Cheap21]

I was fine with the murders but the island crap completely ruined the original story. As a viewer it just insulted my intelligence far too much. The murder stuff was exciting but bringing them all back with that stupid island nonsense was not. They should have had the balls to leave things as they were and move forwad from there

[will81]

Looking at the old JTS website Days has a few marks. The earliest being Doug and Julie's divorce in the late 70's, it does seem once Bill Bell left in 1975 the show hit a rough spot until the DiMera's and Brady's came to town in the early 80's. Then a lot of people say the Gina/Hope and possession storylines ruined the show. I tend to agree, I also think it was a cop out to make Kristen a villan, though I kept watching because it was so much fun watching Eileen, I stopped watching daily when she left, I think James E. Reilly left at the same time in 1998.

I stopped watching B&B in 1999, though I think once Ridge and Taylor got together and Brooke went after Thorne as well as Shiela's departure in 1998 is when the show JTS. I kept waiting for them to put an end to the Taylor/Ridge/Brooke triangle and they seemed to make Brooke more and more pathetic. When she married Grant, I really thought they would move on and Brooke finally had the backbone to tell Ridge to f%^k off and it should have stayed that way. Though you could go back to the Prince Omar story as well in 1994. Many on the JTS website also state Brooke marrying Eric and Caroline dying as JTS moments and that was around 1990/1991.

For Y&R I stopped watching when Kay found out she was Jill's mother in 2003, though I think the show jumped when Bill Bell left in 1998. Some things I didn't like were Diane and Nikki fighting over Victor's sperm and Ashley being the one who got pregnant, even Eileen said before it was revealed she didn't think Ashley would do it, I didn't either. The Diane recast, the teen invasion, the rehash with Billy and Jill ala Phillip III and Jill (though Bell rehashed stories, it was usually with different characters) since MAB though the show is a shell of its former self.

For those three shows though the teen invasion was a big reason I stopped watching (and I was in my early 20's at the time) None of the young characters interested me at all.

It would be interesting to hear from people who began watching soaps in the 50's, 60's and 70's as I am sure they may have much earlier JTS moments for a lot of these shows.

I will look through my SOD mags, there was a series called Critics Corner in the very early 80's (maybe 1983) where a columnist would talk about the decline or rise of a particular soap. I will post some of what was said for each soap.

[Cheap21]

12 years later the show is STILL doing the Brooke/Ridge/Taylor storyline exept the roles have been reversed and Taylor is the one that keeps getting more and more pathetic

[Soapsuds]

A big +1

I still recall finding out. I was at my local store picking up the latest SOW and read the heartbreaking news. The show lost part of itself with Taylor's firing. The show was missing that special something. It would have been great to see Taylor return for the finale.

Batten was such a shitty actress. She sucked on OLTL and f ucked up ATWT. I never saw the appeal in her. What a way to waste such a great character. Douglas was spinning in his grave during that period.

[R Sinclair]

Sonny Corinthos meets Jason Morgan.

[Bright Eyes]

George Michael narrates.

[Soapsuds]

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[Titus Andronicus]

For me on Days, it was Possession, though I admit I actually enjoy that storyline now.

I used to could say without blinking an eye that Garden of Eden was the worst thing they ever had on the show, but they've been giving it some real competition. For some reason, the other there stuff doesn't bother me as much as contrived storylines. Santo and Colleen bothered me more than just about anything I've seen. It's like a cutting a puzzle piece to make it fit when it naturally won't.

[evermore]

GH: a drug-pushing pimp gets his hooks into Karen Wexler, falls for her, and becomes the moral center of the show. GH never has, and never will, recover from that.

Close second: Bobbie Spencer's long-lost daughter comes to town for revenge, wrecks Bobbie's marriage, gets pregnant by a Quartermaine and lies about it; the show decides to make Carly the OTHER moral center of the show.

Close third: TIE: Bob Guza is named headwriter/ABC hires Brian Frons

[Southofnowhere]

AMC: Josh Madden.

[juppiter]

GL: Conboy/Weston for sure. The year Taggart was head writer was spectacular and it was a shame seeing everything she built up shat on.

DAYS: Tom Langan as HW and the teen invasion. DAYS was an amazing, unique soap in the 90s. It is the last soap to have actually gained viewers/ratings as it daringly went where no soap had gone before. Langan ruined all of this progress and dumbed the show down to attract 12 year olds to watch.

Y&R: 75% of the black cast gets fired. Around the same time the show lost 1.0 in ratings.

ATWT: See Y&R.

B&B: The show drops the Return of Sheila plot in 2002 and brings back Taylor. This was back when B&B still had 1 month AMAZING, 3 months terrible, 1 month INCREDIBLE, 3 months god-awful. After this, it was more like 1 episode GREAT 300 episodes unwatchable...