ALL--Large Families, helping or hurting soaps?

[Winchester91]

I admit not every case is as extreme as B&B, where practically every one has slept with someone "related-adjacent", but I saw the DAYS double wedding, with Claire being related to 3 out of the 4 people getting married. It comes across as frankly ridiculous. The soaps in England, while maintaining large casts, tend to avoid everyone being related to each other in some way. I don't think it's an accident that their ratings are much more robust . I think that's about the only thing GH excels in keeping relations not as tightly wounds as in the other 3 of the American soaps left. 

[All My Shadows]

The UK soaps' ratings have less to do with their content and more to do with the fact that they've been staples of peak-viewing hours for decades (and for all but three, their entire runs).

I think the problem with large families on US soaps is two-fold. Viewers aren't readily accepting new families - and it's because the soaps aren't introducing them effectively.

[Dr Neil Curtis]

I think not keeping them a viable part of the show hurts. The Hortons had 5 children and 10 grands and a slew of Great Grands, that could make stop on the show here and there to reintroduce them and have them on a recurring basis. Tommy has be completely forgotten about, along with Sandy. David was recently killed and he could have been used in a triangle with Val and Abe, getting to know his new son, etc. 

 

On another hand some don’t know what to do with large families. Example Another World with that big ole Matthews family!

[cassadine1991]

I agree that many people have a hard time accepting new families, also because the writers like to prop them to high heaven.

 

Any writer could find a way to use a large family well 

 

There are times they could introduce extensions of an existing/disappearing family like the Quartermaines. Like Herbert and more importantly Quentin's branch of the family. Who's to say that there aren't any more of them. Don't forget the Wards. 

Doesn't John Abbott have a brother out there same for Victor and Paul 

[Faulkner]

Today when there are shrinking budgets and shrinking casts, it can be detrimental to have families too big. Gone are the days when ATWT can have a thousand Snyders and Hughes and still have budgets for a bunch of random floaters to mix things up. At a certain point you start limiting characters' romantic options. 

[titan1978]

Most traditional soaps are built around core families.  GH was built around the hospital and that foundation of a non traditional family stayed through today.

 

Depending on the era, the family of the show came from the hospital, the police station/WSB, or the mafia.

 

We had major families, the Hardy’s, Weber’s, Spencer’s, Quartermaine’s with many members and Generations.  But it didn’t ever feel as tangled as DAYS does with those twisted family trees.

[cassadine1991]

Well, the Hardys was blended with the Webbers same for the Scorpio and Jones families 

[NothinButAttitude]

 

 

I think it is this more than anything. Fans are open to new families when they are blended into the canvas well; however, we refuse to accept new families when writers feel that they must be force fed to us and they draw attention from the core families.

 

I'd use the Snyders as a perfect way to introduce a new family to the canvas. Marland took his time and intertwined them into the canvas, but he didn't take away from the Hughes or Stewarts at the time as they drove story too. 

 

Nowadays, a new family will be tossed onto the canvas, given all the airtime, and be propped by everyone on the canvas. 

[Paul Raven]

The problem with large families is that over time, with actors leaving and other characters on the frontburner, more often than not, its impossible to have all members around at any one time.

 

I think they are made large in the first place is so that as the years roll by,newer members can come on to boost the ranks.

 

The Reardons, Snyders, Hortons all went years when members of these supposedly tightknit clans were absent or completely ignored for all those marriages, deaths, illnesses etc which undermined the core of these families' 'essence'.

[Winchester91]

I just don't like the primacy of "last name" advantage, which severely limits pairing potentials and relationships. If it weren't for people like Maggie, Nicole, or Marlena (DAYS) or Nora, Max, or Marty (OLTL) or Zach/Greenlee (AMC), their respective shows would have been claustrophobic to no end. Not everyone has to be a Brady or a Kiriakis or a Spencer or a Newman or a Quartermaine or a Forrester. It's boring when everyone is related and knows each other. 

[Dr Neil Curtis]

Who is Herbert and Quentin? The Quartermaines always interest me. 

[Sapounopera]

I love the idea of a large soap family. It is great around holidays, for weddings, funerals etc. Plus bringing back a legacy character never hurt a show, what could be better than having from several family members to pick.

The real problem begins when every Horton, Forrester or Newman has a baby with a Brady, Logan or an Abbott. After a while the stories feel claustrophobic and weird. The real problem are not large families but TPTB 's obsession with these people having multiple babies with each other and sorasing them way too soon. When they are SORASed after five or six years, they are all related to each other. And they are all almost the same age after a while.

 

Example: Billy & Victoria's marriage and kids ruined the show's structure and the family dynamics. Same goes with Lucas and Sami. Or the Forrester mess on B&B, where Brad Bell had to make Ridge a Marrone at one point.  

 

[cassadine1991]

Herbert is Edward's cousin. Quentin is his son and father of Celia Quartermaine. They were on the canvas from 1983-1988

[amybrickwallace]

Wasn't Quentin played by Alex Sheafe?

[cassadine1991]

i think so