Overused Plots

[KMan101]

I think this would have been the better choice.

[vetsoapfan]

There are so many overused plot devices, most of which should never be used again, but the one that I simply can no longer tolerate, because it completely decimates the effectiveness of prior stories, is the back-from-the-dead nonsense. So many characters have returned from the dead, some multiple times, that death no longer has any real impact on the soaps (unless we know that the actor has died in real life, and his character will not be turning up alive a few months or years down the road).

 

The idiotic evil-twin stories have also got to go.

[theherowithin]

^^

I agree about the back from the dead character returns,  it needs to stop.   It just destroys the history of the soap.  

 

 

[Scrapple]

The first time James Stenbeck came back from the dead on ATWT, it was one of the most shocking moments on soaps. By the tenth time he came back, it was a joke.

[frequentsoapfan]

One of the worst back from the dead/evil twin ocmbos I've seen on soaps was Cane on Y&R. The way Cane died made him seem noble. The way they brought him back made him an unredeemable !@#$%^&*]. And it left a mess of questions that coudln't be answered. If the twin was such a rat bastard than why would he put himself in the line of fire for Lily and the kids who he didn't even know? How was Cane pretending to be a ghost with Lily yet she saw him siting next to her at the funeral(but no one else did)? And so he pretended to be dead  yet gaslit her to the point where she checked herself into the psych ward and we were supposed to root for that reunion. 

[NothinButAttitude]

I agree. Especially, when it is a twin story retcon--when the original character, who didn't have a sibling gained a psycho twin to give them something to do. 

 

I don't mind if we have a good twin (Marley or Stuart) and a twin with bad judgment or behavior (Vicky or Adam). I don't mind that. I do hate when one twin is good and the other is psycho maniac. That's cliche. Derek/Ben (of Sunset Beach) or Jeremy/Gilbert (of Loving) immediately come to mind.