Support characters

[bpatrick]

It's always been my belief that a soap should have one character or couple who's above it all and to whom the other characters can go when they're in trouble. Examples would be Bob and Kim Hughes (ATWT), Tom and Alice Horton (DAYS), Joe and Ruth Martin (AMC), Dr. Steve Hardy (GH), and Maureen Bauer (GL).

In light of that, I think it's time Ridge and Brooke (B& became such a couple. I don't know how old the guy who's playing Ridge now is, but Ronn Moss (bring him back!) is past 60 and Katherine Kelly Lang is in her mid-50s; it's time for them to settle down and let the younger characters get in trouble.

By the same token, why wasn't Ed Bauer (GL) ever allowed to be such a character? You may recall that it was the discovery of Ed's fling with Lillian that caused Maureen to storm out in a huff and get herself into a fatal automobile accident--a storyline that some fans think was the beginning of the end of that show. Or was Ed having a midlife crisis? At any rate he should have been allowed to settle down and maybe the writers wouldn't have had to concoct that storyline.

[DRW50]

That was likely the plan for Ed, but Peter Simon left and the show had no real interest in recasting, sans a few appearances in 1997.

I think supporting characters were once integral for soaps - Nancy and Mike Karr must be among the best of any soap - but soaps today are so empty, they have less and less relevance. They also don't know how to write supporting characters in ways that do not have blatant writing agendas (like Maggie on DAYS).

A Y&R with any future would have sidelined worthless old Jack and Victor to those roles a decade ago.

[Michael]

On Days, Maggie served this function beautifully from 2009-2010. She took in Melanie and Mia, the Hortons rallied around her when Alice passed, she coped with Mickey's death, and she even got the surprising little romance with Victor. Then it generally went to hell when they made her Daniel's mother.

Caroline Brady is functioning pretty effectively in this role. I still think having her switch Parker's paternity test was OTT, and the motivation they gave onscreen was really weird, but other than that, she's generally a talk-to who has an interesting POV on life, such as when she advised Will on how to save a marriage after infidelity.

[titan1978]

I think it depends on the character. Edward Quartermaine worked best for me when he was in the thick of shady business. Katherine Chancellor was too strong a character to be just a supporting talk to. I don't want John Dixon to not be himself. The risk is forcing the older characters into nothing roles. Peter Simon quit because they didn't have anything for Ed anymore.

I think the older characters can still be in story and have a piece of the story, I just don't enjoy them only being used to propel the current cast of twenty something's. Plus we saw Alice and Tom on Days a lot! We saw Steve Hardy! We saw Myrtle and Joe on AMC and Kim and Bob. Until we didn't, and all the shows suffered. One of the best things ATWT did was have Katie and Nancy bond.

When I was 16 years old, I was just as invested in the Marlena/John affair as I was in Carrie/Austin/Sami/Lucas. I loved how invested Alice was in Hope and Bo's relationship. I knew on GH when Steve Hardy was there no matter how bad the news he was going to deliver, he was going to do it with so much empathy and respect. Just like I loved that Edward was a bastard!

It's hard to fit that talk to/stable core of a show, and not have it seem like it's a pair of older actors and you just don't want to write for them anymore.

[All My Shadows]

I think the concept of the older tent pole characters who are wealth of insight for the young guns (because they'd already been there and done that) went out with the concept of each soap having a large community of different types of characters. Now, the scope in each show is just so narrow that no proper time would be spent on character-based scenes like that. It's always plot-plot-plot, and there seems to be no one willing to slow things down to get the most out of a wide canvas.

[marceline]

Thanks for posting this so I didn't have to.