What was the fatal blow to your show?

[Soapsuds]

ATWT: Douglas Marland death

B&B: Darlene Conley's death

The show's never really recovered. The war between Spectra and Forrester is sorely missed.

[Khan]

GUIDING LIGHT: MADD hires John Conboy - who, in turn, hires Ellen Weston. Between Ben Reade's death, the Maryanne Caruthers "mystery," and all those vets leaving or being dropped to recurring/off-contract status, I feel as if they chased away the majority of fans for good.

AMC: Chuck Pratt, Jr. As bad as Megan McTavish was for the show, it was much easier to fix her mistakes than it was to fix his.

[Cheap21]

The Spectra war was over long before Darlene died. She wasnt even with the show when she passed away. If I recall correctly, Sally closed down Spectra and started working at Forrester for a bit before she was written out due to DC's health.

[MichaelGL]

GL: Ellen Wheeler and David Kreizman's decision to make the show "Cooper-centric" I thought within their first few months they had rejuvenated the show, but soon their agenda started to show in their writing, propping Gus and Harley endlessly, ignoring Holly and quickly writing off Sebastian, it was apparent that their tenure on the show had gone off the rails.

To add to this, letting DK write as sole HW, even though you briefly had Lorraine Broderick on their writing team. When she left, DK was pretty much free to do what he wanted to do with no input from any writer familiar with the history of the show.

[shadow]

For me;

AMC-Julia Barr leaving AMC!

[marceline]

AMC jackhammering Greenlee to the canvas by making her Jackson's daughter. It was their way of making sure we'd never be rid of her. Now she's still here taking up all of his attention while Lily and Reggie, the two children he chose to bring into his life are an afterthought.

[wingwalker]

I agree with ending the Spectra/Forrester war and Darlene's eventual death. Show just hasn't been the same since. Jackie M and Nick, I'm sorry but I've never liked them and ironically always felt like a cheap knock-off of the Spectras.

Y&R: William Bell's death. The show, while had had moments of brilliance since then, has mostly been on a steady decline. I don't really know the politics that goes on behind the scenes, but it seems like Bell, since he was the creator was able to write the show how he wanted and able to keep CBS & Sony mostly hands off, since he died, seems like such a power vacuum with Sony trying to show it's influence, Barbara Bloom trying to stick her nose in when she was at CBS, then you have MAB & Bell family trying to keep control. Seems like too many cooks in the kitchen & nobody can control all the interests like Bell was able to and it's effected the show greatly IMO.

[DeeeDee]

Y&R Jack Smith becomes Head Writer. Kay Alden was a worthy successor to Bill (if never as good). Since she left it's been all downhill.

ATWT Scott Holroyd's firing.

B&B The destruction of the Spectra's & introduction of the Marones.

OLTL The RappaDavidsons

AMC Bianca/Babe's Baby switch

GH The introduction of Sonny

PC Rafe & Caleb

RH Kate Mulgrew leaving

Passions Everything

[Mr. Vixen]

WOW, I just noticed that there are three e's in the first "deee" of your username

[Soapsuds]

:lol:

[DeeeDee]

The real blow to Passions (other than its debut) was Josh Ryan Evans death.

Between his actual death & the way Passions handled the aftermath the show was never the same.

[LoyaltoAMC]

FUSION

[Max]

With most soaps, it really is a string of bad decisions and bad luck that led to their demise. Really, most of the things above can be better described as "jump the shark" moments as opposed to fatal blows. (In fact, I always feel that a lot of such "jump the shark" moments--like the deaths of Maureen Bauer and Frankie Frame--have been really overhyped in regards to them being blamed for an entire soap's demise.)

When I think "fatal blow," I think of one event that literally brought a soap to its knees. In my opinion, the only such occurrence I can think of is when SFT moved from CBS to NBC: virtually overnight, that soap lost half its viewers (and was at the very bottom of the ratings heap for the next four-plus years).

A fatal blow almost happened to AW, when the massively popular character of Iris was spun-off to her own soap (Texas). As a result, two-million viewers left the show (just one year eariler, another million left AW as a result of the expansion to 90 minutes), and AW was no longer NBC's top rated soap. (Given that the entire NBC Daytime line-up was in dire straigts in 1980, the fact that AW dipped below DOOL in the ratings put AW in the very bottom tier of soaps.) However, the fact that AW was (amazingly) not cancelled in 1982 (when it was only leading Texas and The Doctors in the ratings)--and then managed to make a ratings comeback in 1983-84--means that the establishment of Texas cannot be considered a fatal blow.

[aMLCproduction]

Passions: After Timmy Died. The show really changed. It was never the same again. it became stupid.

Days: Letting Tom Lagan write the show which lead to the teen invasion. Also bringin on EJ who only yells and scream these Days, I should also add the hiring of Hogan Sheffer

AW: ( I've only watched since 93 to the end.) But knowing what I know, the expansion to 90 minutes, All the spin offs. If any one who has watched AW longer should know more than me.

SuBu: When Depriest took over HW duties.

Y&R: The hiring of Hogan Sheffer and MAB, the firing of Kay Alden and Ed Scott

B&B: Letting Bell write the show so long with no fresh or new co HW's

EON: The time slot change

Dynasty: The after math of the Moldavian masacre

[Cheap21]

that and I think Passions refusal to actually end a storyline and move forward killed it. Things dragged on for waayyyy too long. The Gwen/Ethan/Theresa mess lasted the entirety of the series. The tabloid truth took 7-8 years of active story to come out. Passions had potential but its pacing was incredibly horrible and people tuned out when they werent getting the payoffs that the show was setting up. You can only postpone things for so long before people lose interest and move on.