I feel this way about any pairing ended due to racism, but the two that stand out to me since I watched these stories are John and Mamie and Victoria and Neil, both from Y&R. Mamie was John's true love and the story had endless potential. First of all Jerry Douglas and Veronica Redd had SMOKING chemistry and the tension from the already contentious relationship with Jill and Mamie only made it better. Had they married it would've been a nice way to strengthen the Barber family by permanently tying them to the Abbott's. I hated how in the later years they seemed to forget that Dru and Olivia were pretty vital to that family.

 

With Victoria and Neil, I found them to be one of each others stronger pairings. Neil does better with strong women and he mellowed her. I just wanted to see where that could've gone. They dated during a dark period in her life when she was pregnant with another mans baby, then she lost that baby. I'd like to see them revisit it now, but it wouldn't be the same without Heather Tom. On the other hand, I do think Kristoff is one of the only people Amelia has chemistry with, I'm just not sure I wanna risk him being tied down by her long term.

15 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Also,the ageism of either dropping over 50 characters, putting them on the back burner or ptops for the young characters.

 

Previously the older people had a point of view and substance,even if they were in support.

 

It's funny how the tide has turned, soaps went from being overly populated with useless underdeveloped young people to now only have characters over 50 with any purpose or definition because they were long established before soaps went to the shitter.

10 hours ago, DeeeDee said:

 

or AN ENTIRE INTERRACIAL FAMILY because ONE actor threw a tantrum.

Would this be Bergman?

8 hours ago, Chris B said:

I feel this way about any pairing ended due to racism, but the two that stand out to me since I watched these stories are John and Mamie and Victoria and Neil, both from Y&R. Mamie was John's true love and the story had endless potential. First of all Jerry Douglas and Veronica Redd had SMOKING chemistry and the tension from the already contentious relationship with Jill and Mamie only made it better. Had they married it would've been a nice way to strengthen the Barber family by permanently tying them to the Abbott's. I hated how in the later years they seemed to forget that Dru and Olivia were pretty vital to that family.

 

With Victoria and Neil, I found them to be one of each others stronger pairings. Neil does better with strong women and he mellowed her. I just wanted to see where that could've gone. They dated during a dark period in her life when she was pregnant with another mans baby, then she lost that baby. I'd like to see them revisit it now, but it wouldn't be the same without Heather Tom. On the other hand, I do think Kristoff is one of the only people Amelia has chemistry with, I'm just not sure I wanna risk him being tied down by her long term.

Both of those pairings should have been allowed to play out.  Think about the fireworks from Drucilla and HT's Victoria.  And if Victoria had become a force at Newman, or even tried to do something her father didn't approve of in business, as Neil was very loyal to Victor back then.

5 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Would this be Bergman?

Both of those pairings should have been allowed to play out.  Think about the fireworks from Drucilla and HT's Victoria.  And if Victoria had become a force at Newman, or even tried to do something her father didn't approve of in business, as Neil was very loyal to Victor back then.

 

I do recall Drucilla made mention of how much of a hypocrite Neil was...stating that he didnt like that Drucilla had a career..yet was dating Victoria..who basically was Victors heir apparent back then.  

 

Then as quickly as the coupling started, it ended.

 

Days of our lives

 

Eve/JJ affair...it was going on..Jennifer found out and there was an awesome confrontation scene...then the affair was over...and Eve's daughter found out some time later..and it was so anti climatic.. There was no long term fall out over it. Unlike the dorian/joey affair in OLTL.

I remember on DAYS under TomSell after the fallout of the affair, Eve was looking into Laura's mental history and wanted Jennifer to turn crazy, but it was dropped when Josh and Dena took over and they killed off Paige before her and Eve can reconcile

Edited March 9, 20178 yr by cassadine1991

GL: The relationship between Gilly and Alan-Michael. They were obviously headed for romance but the show veered away. They even wen't so far as to edit out scene in unaired episodes. Gilly and AM had a fight where she mentioned things he'd said to her but the referenced scenes never saw the light of day. That's actually the reason I quit the show.

19 minutes ago, marceline said:

GL: The relationship between Gilly and Alan-Michael. They were obviously headed for romance but the show veered away. They even wen't so far as to edit out scene in unaired episodes. Gilly and AM had a fight where she mentioned things he'd said to her but the referenced scenes never saw the light of day. That's actually the reason I quit the show.

Totally agree. And for that awful, show-eating Lucy Cooper with that nails-on-a-chalkboard baby voice. It was totally disrespectful, and I never felt the same about GL after that. It was that big of a shark-jumping moment for me. Too bad Black Twitter didn't exist back then.

On 3/8/2017 at 2:22 AM, edgeofnik said:

DAYS and the wretched MALESWEN. Except for Marlena and Caroline, all those characters could've stayed dead. The original serial killer storyline was a ratings winner and was gaining a lot of attention in MSM.

 

True, the show received a lot of attention in the MSM, but from what I personally saw, most of it was derisive. The show was referred to as "the laughingstock of the industry" and worse by critics who did not take kindly to low-brow, campy dreck. Like the Ice Princess nonsense on GH, I think the temporary ratings spike during DAYS' possession story came from fly-by-night viewers who wanted to tune and and laugh at the stupidity, but who would not ever become durable, long-running viewers; the type of longterm viewers any soap needs to survive.

 

If it had really been the end game to kill off characters like Alice Horton (!!!) for such cheap sensationalism, then TPTB who okayed the original plot had lost their minds, and had no understanding whatsoever of either the soap opera genre or its core audience. It was therefor essential to reverse the stupidity as much as possible and bring the show's beloved characters back to life.

 

Imagine James Reilly taking over STAR TREK and having Kirk turning into a serial-killing cannibal who murdered and ate Bones, Uhura, Scotty, and the Enterprise crew in various sick, repulsive scenarios. Saving Spock for last, Kirk cuts off his Vulcan ears and pins them on a tribble, and then uses the animal as rifle target practice while cackling like a hyena and masturbating to transvestite porn. The MSM would be all over itself reporting the story, and lots of non-TREK fans might tune in to laugh at the cretinous idiocy displayed on-screen, but STAR TREK would be finished, destroyed forever.

 

It may be harder to tell intelligent, gripping, interpersonal-relationship storylines focused on beloved char characters, but that is what the soaps have to do to attract the type of durable audience base they want, and to survive.

On 3/8/2017 at 8:49 AM, SoapDope said:

What I have read and heard that Days didn't pursue David and Valerie back in the 70's after viewer backlash.

 

Writer Pat Falken Smith once said that she was building that relationship and storyline very slowly, making sure to portray Valerie in a sympathetic light first, before being too explicit with the interracial romance. She knew there would be a backlash from a certain segment of viewers. Soap magazines at the time printed letters from audience members criticizing the Valerie-David pairing. I remember one which said that a black family did not fit in with "such a beautiful and polished cast." Several letter-writers vowed to quit watching the show if the black characters and particularly the interracial romance were not dropped.

 

On the day of Doug and Julie's first wedding, the director made the choice to have David and Valerie kiss. The bigots in the audience went berserk and bombarded the show with hate mail. Falken Smith said she was furious, because the kiss was not in the script and she KNEW the audience was not ready to accept it yet. TPTB ordered the storyline aborted and Valerie was written out. 

 

Later, to her credit, writer Ann Marcus briefly brought Valerie back (now being played by another, much less interesting actress), and played a bit more of the romance, having a desolate Valerie wishing that she, and not the character of Trish Clayton, could have David's baby. But that was as far as Marcus was allowed to go, and Valerie was shipped out of Salem once again.

 

DAYS was very touchy about audience displeasure back then. The character of Susan Martin was dropped from contract status (and later disappeared completely, without even getting a write-out scene)  when viewers complained about her seeing a psychiatrist for feelings of sexual inadequacy and repression.

 

The audience embraced stories of rape and potential incest in the Horton clan, but drew the line at interracial love affairs or women striving for healthy sexuality, LOL.

 

On 3/8/2017 at 7:23 PM, DRW50 said:

 

There was a woman on the show named JoAnn Curtis. Her husband Jack (Anthony Herrera) cheated on her with Peggy Brooks. She was obese. She went to live with Katherine and lost a lot of weight. They became very close. I think they may have kissed, and planned a vacation together. Brock was concerned about their relationship because he felt it was another of his mother's unhealthy fixations. I'm not sure how far the story would have gone, but there was a noticeable ratings drop and Bill Bell bowed to the audience's wishes. Brock convinced his mother that she was making a mistake, and JoAnn was packed off somewhere. 

 

 

Katherine and Joann never actually kissed. Weeks of scenes showing them getting closer culminated in one episode in which the women were talking intimately about their problems, and Joann unexpectedly leaned in as if to kiss Katherine. Suddenly horrified at her own impulsed, she pulled back, exclaimed, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" and ran from the room, leaving a confused Katherine behind.

 

CBS and the show received an immediate backlash from homophobic viewers, and pretty soon Joann was dropped from the canvas.

 

William J. Bell was later asked about this storyline, and he claimed that he had NEVER intended for anything sexual to happen between the characters; that he was only exploring a friendship between two lonely women; a friendship the audience misunderstand and leapt to the wrong conclusions about. I have my doubts about the veracity of those comments, because they clearly contradicted what we had seen for ourselves on screen.

Edited March 10, 20178 yr by vetsoapfan

32 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

True, the show received a lot of attention in the MSM, but from what I personally saw, most of it was derisive. The show was referred to as "the laughingstock of the industry" and worse by critics who did not take kindly to low-brow, campy dreck. Like the Ice Princess nonsense on GH, I think the temporary ratings spike during DAYS' possession story came from fly-by-night viewers who wanted to tune and and laugh at the stupidity, but who would not ever become durable, long-running viewers; the type of longterm viewers any soap needs to survive.

 

If it had really been the end game to kill off characters like Alice Horton (!!!) for such cheap sensationalism, then TPTB who okayed the original plot had lost their minds, and had no understanding whatsoever of either the soap opera genre or its core audience. It was therefor essential to reverse the stupidity as much as possible and bring the show's beloved characters back to life.

Alice and Doug weren't supposed to be killed during the original story. By that time there were already rewrites. Celeste was supposed to be the next victim after Tony.

22 hours ago, SoapDope said:

Speaking of the Y&R story about Katherine and Joann Curtis. Around that same time they did the storyline where Lorie Brooks fell in love with Dr. Mark Henderson. She later discovered he was her half brother because Jennifer Brooks had an affair with his father. Lorie was so in love with Mark that she did not care and told him that she still wanted to be with him. Bill Bell and Jaime Lyn Bauer got hate mail for that. I wonder if Bell was going to pursue that and backed off because of viewer outcry ?

 

I was watching the show religiously during those days, and yes, half siblings Lorie and Mark fell deeply in love with each other. The actors had great chemistry, and I'm sure the audience would have rooted for Lorie and Mark as a couple, had the truth not been revealed that they shared the same father.

 

After finding out the truth, Lorie confronted Mark at the clinic where he worked and told him she wanted to continue their romantic relationship, but he staunchly refused and sent her away. She went and sat down on a bench in the hall, where she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed forever. The camera remained on her for a long time before slowly fading to black. I think this is the moment many viewers started to feel a glimmer of sympathy for Lorie, whom they had previously despised for her atrocious treatment of her sister, Leslie.

 

I doubt Bill Bell seriously considered keeping the characters as a romantic couple, however. He had done a similar story on DAYS, with an unwitting brother and sister falling in love with each other, but who ended their relationship when they discovered they were related. I'm sure Bell knew that certain things would simply never get approved by either TPTB or the audience.

Edited March 10, 20178 yr by vetsoapfan

28 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

Katherine and Joann never actually kissed. Weeks of scenes showing them getting closer culminated in one episode in which the women were talking intimately about their problems, and Joann unexpectedly leaned in as if to kiss Katherine. Suddenly horrified at her own impulsed, she pulled back, exclaimed, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" and ran from the room, leaving a confused Katherine behind.

 

CBS and the show received an immediate backlash from homophobic viewers, and pretty soon Joann was dropped from the canvas.

 

William J. Bell was later asked about this storyline, and he claimed that he had NEVER intended for anything sexual to happen between the characters; that he was only exploring a friendship between two lonely women; a friendship the audience misunderstand and leapt to the wrong conclusions about. I have my doubts about the veracity of those comments, because they clearly contradicted what we had seen for ourselves on screen.

 

Thanks. I was iffy about the kiss as I can't imagine that actually airing at that point. 

 

What was JoAnn's exit? 

 

The DuVal story with Julie - that was one that was supposedly always short-term, right? 

3 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

 

Thanks. I was iffy about the kiss as I can't imagine that actually airing at that point. 

 

What was JoAnn's exit? 

 

The DuVal story with Julie - that was one that was supposedly always short-term, right? 

 

Right, even broaching the subject was "scandalous" at the time. Trying to get a kiss past the censors would have been impossible.

 

I do remember the first time I ever heard the word "bitch" said on TV, however, and that was on Y&R the year before. After Lorie had orchestrated the destruction of Brad and Leslie's romance, Leslie had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. She eventually figured out how treacherous Lorie had been and confronted her, screaming to her sister, "BITCH!!!!!" at the very end of the scene when it was fading to black. I was shocked that the show had been allowed to go there.

 

Joann didn't really have much of an exit. She was through with her husband and through with Katherine, and simply left town, never to be seen or referred to again.

 

And yes, according to Ann Marcus, the DAYS story about Sharon Duvall falling in love with Julie was always meant to be short term. It had been difficult to get approved at all.

10 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

Right, even broaching the subject was "scandalous" at the time. Trying to get a kiss past the censors would have been impossible.

 

I do remember the first time I ever heard the word "bitch" said on TV, however, and that was on Y&R the year before. After Lorie had orchestrated the destruction of Brad and Leslie's romance, Leslie had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. She eventually figured out how treacherous Lorie had been and confronted her, screaming to her sister, "BITCH!!!!!" at the very end of the scene when it was fading to black. I was shocked that the show had been allowed to go there.

 

Joann didn't really have much of an exit. She was through with her husband and through with Katherine, and simply left town, never to be seen or referred to again.

 

And yes, according to Ann Marcus, the DAYS story about Sharon Duvall falling in love with Julie was always meant to be short term. It had been difficult to get approved at all.

wow....I didn't know they used the word "Bitch" that early on the show. I always thought most soaps avoided that type of profanity till at least the late 80's.....I can't imagine early AMC/OLTL certainly using it....

Katherine never really used that word with Jill till much later didn't she? (and vice versa) Katherine always seemed to refer to Jill as a "Tramp" which was her favorite insult over the years, haha.

Edited March 10, 20178 yr by YRfan23

1 minute ago, YRfan23 said:

wow....I didn't know they used the word "Bitch" that early on the show. I always thought most soaps avoided that type of profanity till at least the late 80's.....I can't imagine early AMC/OLTL certainly using it....

Katherine never really used that word with Jill till much later didn't she? (and vice versa) Katherine always seemed to refer to Jill as a "Tramp" which was her favorite insult over the years, haha.

 

At the time (1975), I wondered if Leslie only screamed the word as the scene was fading to black so that the show could easily edit it out at the last minute if the censors got cold feet, LOL.

 

Yes, Katherine always called Jill a "tramp," and Phoebe Tyler used to call Donna Beck a "trollop" on AMC. They had to be creative with language before they could use the word "bitch."

 

(Of course, Phoebe's worst insults were always reserved for Mona Kane, her husband's secretary, whom she referred to with the upmost contempt and venom as, "THAT KANE WOMAN!"

 

Ahh, I miss the good old days of soaps.