Soap Opera Pet Peeves

[GSGfan2017]

Marlena was raped in the early '80s, was she not?

[SoapDope]

It seems like 1979 was a big year for rape storylines on daytime TV. Here are a few off the top of my head. I am sure I have forgotten some.

 

GH: Laura

The Doctors: Carolee

OLTL: Karen

GL: Holly

Y&R: Nick Reeds attempted rape of his daughter Nikki.

 

 

 

 

 

[robbwolff]

 

Wasn't Maggie Horton raped during that period too?

[Bright Eyes]

 

All the brainwashing sex that happened, I would count as well. There's stuff like Billie/Sami taking advantage of Bo/Austin when they thought they were someone else.

 

Throughout the years you also had Laura, Trish, Julie, Marlena, Maggie, the iconic Molly Brinker

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, and possibly more I'm forgetting. I've been meaning to make a full list at some point, actually.

[frequentsoapfan]

Rape and/or abuse as character development/a way to instantly warm viewers up to unlikable characters.

 

When they try to pretend the rich kids are like normal suburban kids and have them working low paying  jobs you know damn well they'd never work like a coffee shop or a diner.

[SFK]

 

This flashed me back to childhood memories of watching Natalie on AMC.

[SoapDope]

 

Like Christine/Cricket on Y&R. That's why they have her raped/attempted to be raped repeatedly over the decades. 

[SteelCity]

Wasn't every character on Santa Barbara raped?

[RavenWhitney]

I think pet peeves about fans should be included:

Fans who loudly clamor for the return of aged soap stars, and the writers who write stories, who are botox-ed to the hilt and are no longer appropriate on screen (Carlivati/Sorel).  And soap producers who hire former stars (Meng hiring Fairchild).  Sometimes they get it right.  Marla Adams return and Dina is the single highlight from Sally's dreadful ten months.  

 

Writing 25 scenes for a 37 minute air show especially during the climax of a story.  What happened to longer scenes?   It's so uninspired to cut away from the action sometimes.  Case in point were the scenes on Days when Tripp held Kayla hostage.  To increase the drama, they could have lengthened the scenes and played more emotional beats since we knew the outcome would be Kayla safety and Tripp apologizing and getting away with it.  Remember when Marland wrote those wonderful Kelly/Nola/Morgan scenes.  Or when Pam Long climaxed a story, the characters would get emotionally weighty monologues.  Days is the worst offender, followed by  GH.  

 

To Days credit crawl, for not giving the breakdown writers individual credit for their episodes each week, when they do so for the script writer. Makes no sense.  I want to know which outlines were penned by Broderick etc.  

 

Overdoing the musical tags.  Sometimes silence is golden.

 

Fans making up names for their fav couples: Chabby, Jarlena...TIRED

 

Producers letting recurring actors who were formerly fierce contract players languish in the background.  If you're going to have them on, give them purpose.  Days is generally good about effectively using Julie, Lucas, Adrienne etc.  

 

Using recurring non-actors to fill up air time.  Yes, that's you GH and Nurse Amy, all the minor kids, etc.

 

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

I have two, sort of similarly related pet peeves (for now):

 

• When soap writers clearly have no idea how to end a story, so they end it on some vague, opaque note with no conceivable resolution and you're left wondering "Is it over?  Is that all there is...really?!" (e.g. Y&R Music Box story)
• The fact that most characters cannot be normal strivers who make mistakes along the way, in order to get any piece of a story written for them most characters now have to be an uber-villain or one step away from an insane asylum. A character who is occasionally spiteful or petty and maybe just maybe lives to regret it, seems more interesting to me than a nasty piece of work who continues to mess with people just for the hell of it with little to no consequences.

[GSGfan2017]

Are you thinking about both male and female SB characters, SteelCity?

 

I can't say that excessive use of licensed pop songs isn't a pet peeve when it comes to soaps.

[jcar03]

The same character being in constant danger within months.  How many times has Gabi on DAYS been in some sort of peril this year?

[SFK]

Wow, I am so out of the loop, had no idea Morgan was on DOOL.

[SteelCity]

I was referring to the females.

[kalbir]

 

Bill Bell wrote a good number of rape storylines over three shows: Laura Horton (I think), Chris Brooks, Peggy Brooks, Caroline Spencer, Cricket Blair.