Best US Soap Scenes

[DRW50]

 

Up to Tomlin, I think there was a certain level of respect for the alter process. Even Rauch, as many times as he overused the Niki returns, was more judicious in how Niki was treated. I thought Malone's treatment of the character was grotesque and he influenced all the worst to come, but I don't think he intended her to be seen as such a sick joke - it's just what happened. Tomlin, sadly, just saw her as grotesque camp, and she returned solely for cheap soap opera conflict that had no reason to exist. I don't even know if "Cartini" were quite as wretched with how they used the character, although that may be because they were too busy putting glasses on Bree Williamson and pretending that meant she could act.

[DRW50]

The scene Alice and Rachel have together after Rachel wakes up from her near-death experience at the Cory anniversary party. It's beautifully done, with so much tenderness from Victoria Wyndham and Jacquie Courtney. 

 

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[Vee]

The famous Alexis scene was from just after Guza came back and firmly shoved JFP out of anything involving story. He came back very strong, but things went south quickly.

[Planet Soap]

Great scene (but no actual clip) Y&R Sheila kidnaps Lauren and takes her to the farmhouse (May 1992). The awesome dark scenes played out over 5 days in which Sheila finally tells Lauren about the baby switch a year prior. To me Sheila's best character developments came on the Bold & the Beautiful but her most solid and dark story lines played out on Y&R (the baby switch and the 2005 return as "Brenda" the author). Flashback from B&B 1995:

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Glad the woman of the year speech was the first clip here. Lucci's alpha moment! Maybe this was posted already, All My Children from about 1978: Tom finds out Erica is on birth control despite claiming she wants a baby:

Phelps/Guza era General Hospital (2009) Sonny EXPOSES Claudia at the her own birthday party for shooting Michael in an attempt to kill Sonny. Crazy music cue, plus Sonny calls her a "psychotic piece of trash" ROFL!

 

[Khan]

A visibly pregnant Susan Lucci, as Erica Kane, who's dancing as fast as she can around the accusation that she's been taking birth control pills behind her husband's back.  If that isn't irony...., lol.

 

"Disco deceit": Two words that sound unintentionally funny, now and forever.

[Faulkner]

Drucilla and Lillie Belle’s confrontation on Y&R. (Not on YouTube, but worth posting here)

 

 

[Bright Eyes]

Was Mamie from Dru/Olivia's mom or dad side of the family?

[Darn]

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[beebs]

Mamie was Lillie Belle's sister.

[carolineg]

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I thought Guza was good that entire year.  Brenda's return in the beginning was really solid. The Amazing Grace montage is absolutely awesome. Once 2003 rolled around VM left, Kelly Monaco was hired and we got stupid crap like Dobson from NLG.

[Vee]

Guza's 2002 also gave us Laura's botched exit story, which started well and ended awful. And the slow ruination of Zander, and the beginning of Jason and Courtney. There's some good stuff but it had plenty of issues, including how they kneecapped Jax for good.

[titan1978]

The show had been such a mess that when Guza came back (with Pratt) I was excited.  And the Laura story did start out well, even if I was terrified that Rick was going to be revealed to have molested her.  The hospital takeover was a good idea, and you could see where that story went off the rails when JFP and Genie came to blows over her wanting to take the same vacation Tony was taking that summer.

 

I hate what they did to Rick.  But I also think Genie and Tony excel at that emotional material that cuts into deep issues, so I wish she hadn’t left and we could have seen whatever the original story was play out.

 

Guza was really on fire when Brenda came back, then it was good but messy soap until we got to the contagion/Scrubs/Metro Court era for me.  I ate that era up.  After the fallout of Alan dying though, the good writing was overshadowed by the destruction of the core of the show, and I slowly stopped watching.

[Planet Soap]

Decent material to come out of 2003 was the Rick locking Tamera Braun's Carly in the panic room storyline.The Metro Court crisis was undoubtebly GH's most compelling disaster plot...however the fallout was terrible, killing off Alan and effectively rendering the Quartermaines irrelevant. If they could raise Jake Webber from the dead, hell, Alan and could have been back ages ago and AJ could STAY alive.

 

[Vee]

I thought the panic room story was vile and at times comical with some of the contrivances. But I was also gripped by some of it.

[carolineg]

 

How do you figure they kneecapped Jax?  Yeah he looked like a dick for leaving Skye immediately for Brenda to literally say "no" at the altar, but I thought he was still viable until they hooked him up with Courtney.  Actually until Courtney cheated on him with Nik, but I still enjoy some early Carjax and think it was his best pairing outside of Brenda.

 

I thought the show was great when Brenda returned.  The entire return story was botched in the end and they built way too much around VM only for her to leave, but it was must see tv for me.  In 2010 when VM returned (and I started back up with GH) it was painful to watch.  I think I only enjoyed S&B's wedding...