When was your favorite soap broken?

[Mitch]

I have extremely bad taste as I loved it...Holly was the only woman who was freed from Rauch's bad pastel biz suits in wearing her leather jacket and she was at least a smart stalker, and she didn't do anything irredeemable. Though kidnapping all those brats was just not Holly's style...(she would call a babysitter...)I just wish they had let her incorporate some of that look and bad girl ness into her persona going forward. Instead, she is stuck dating...BUZZ????

 

[Cruising Soaps]

After this event the show changed and, it has never gotten back.

 

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[Khan]

At the very least, if Y&R hadn't killed off Cassie, they wouldn't have needed to retcon the events surrounding her birth to make Mariah, a long-lost, never-heard-of-before identical twin, possible.  Moreover, you can't tell me that what they've written thus far for Mariah, they couldn't have written for Cassie, too.  IMO, Mariah is just Cassie with a different name (and an even more convoluted backstory).

 

 

Well, I certainly loved seeing Roger Newman on the show again as Ken Norris, since I wasn't alive when he'd been on before.  But, the beautiful thing about GL was how you COULD bring back long-lost, long-forgotten characters with only minimal effort.  That's how integral history was to a show like GL.

 

I just wish they had taken the opportunity to bring back Holly's other brother, Andy, as well as Ken's daughter, Emily.

[soapfan770]

 

It's sad and funny, that was the last big story GL did that involved pretty much all of the regular GL mainstays of the '80's and the '90's. Even though 1998 for GL was outrageous all the way around, at least the characters we knew and loved lead the way; After the Nursing Rhyme Stalker story, San Cristobel and the Santoses took over and ate the show alive. 

[will81]

Y&R - The Sperm Caper Story (I have gone on about this a lot, lol) three great characters thrown under the bus while propping another. In fact I would say this was the true beginning of the Great Victor Newman eating up the show, one of the big issues this show has had for some time now. Alden was so smitten with Victor that she made some poor decisions as a result.......

 

Ashley - She had an abortion in 1986 partly because she didn't want to raise her child with them not knowing who their father was, this as a result of her own paternity mishap the year before. Now she was going out of her way to get pregnant and keep the paternity a secret? Despite everything that happened between Victor and Ashley, they maintained an absolute respect for one another, this was so out of character, it actually makes my head hurt, haha. Even Eileen said prior to the reveal she was sure Ashley wasn't the one to steal Victor's sperm, it would be out of character. I wonder how Eileen felt when she found out.

 

Diane - She spent two years trying to reclaim her dignity after Victor dumped her for Nikki. She was right, what Victor did was a matter of respect and principal. Then she decides she just has to have his baby so badly she is willing to do anything to make it happen, when she does get pregnant and Victor still rejects her, she degrades herself by clinging to him like a bad stench and manages to wittle away any self respect the character once had. 

 

Nikki - Brawling with Diane over sperm, I mean think about it. Two grown women fighting over sperm. Nikki had her trashy days but had put it all behind her, now she was going psycho over sperm. When Lorie Brooks returned a couple years after this and made a quip about Nikki's stripper days Nikki told her to move on, she had put those trashier days behind her. Really Nikki? You were fighting over some old dudes semen!!!!!!

 

In 2000 around the time this story was playing out, Y&R's ratings dropped by a whole ratings point. This then began the endless stream of co-headwriters Kay Alden was paired with, I have absolute confidence that if this story hadn't happened Y&R's ratings would have only dropped marginally that year, like all the other soaps and Jack Smith would have never been brought on as a THIRD head writer for the show and thus the whole Jill is Kay's daughter story would never have happened. In fact Alden may have held on to the show much longer, LML and MAB would probably have never gotten their hands on the show and we might have had a very different Y&R today.

[DRW50]

@will81 that's a great rundown. I have never understood this story. I had mostly phased out of watching around this time as I was irritated by various other things, but this just seemed so incredibly crass. I remember Ashley was, for years, called "sperm pig" by some fans, which, when you consider that Ashley of all characters, for many years, represented so much of Bill Bell's signature restraint and elegance in writing for women, was pretty damn sad. I know by this point he was already becoming ill but I can't imagine how he felt about the plot.

[Khan]

Am I wrong, or didn't Ashley keep Victor's sperm inside her freezer for a period of time?

[will81]

Not too sure. I know Diane bought a freezer and held onto it. I thought Ashley went under the radar for most of the story. She took off for a cruise and returned pregnant and unwilling to say who the father was (just some random guy she met on her vacation). 

 

So true. Bell was so protective of Ashley, I think he would have hated it. I do believe he was not well even by 99/00. I don't think he would have ever stepped down from Y&R unless he had no other choice. Y&R was his baby, he protected it at all costs and I think he stepped down to save the show and no other reason. That's why Alden was made head writer and not Jack Smith. He even said at one point he couldn't tell the difference between a script he wrote and one Alden had written. 

 

In his emmy legends interview, the once reserved and calm Bell (at least in interviews I had seen him do before) seemed restless and agitated at times. This is usually a good sign of that illness taking over.

 

I think someone once said any writer or producer who doesn't know how to write/treat Ashley, doesn't know how to write Y&R and will never last. It has mostly been true. 

[DRW50]

 

Do you think  any post-Bell have known how to write her? 

[will81]

Nope. Even the Ashley/Cole/Victoria story wasn't quite right. Eileen I think had brought back a bit of Kristen with her in 1999, she seemed different, angrier. The scene in Embers when she slaps (and I mean really slaps) Victoria and rips into her and pretty much threatens her was also out of character. Think about how she handled Nikki and Victor in 1992. She just wanted to move on, she made her feelings known to both and didn't hold back, but saw the writing on the wall. She couldn't stay with a man that she felt was in love with someone else. 

 

In 1986 she tried hard to avoid a confrontation with Nikki, feeling that fighting over Victor was beneath them both. Casey was the one to convince her to see Nikki in the hopes of simply trying to sort the whole mess out. Yeah things got heated and Ashley when pushed was a fighter, but the way Eileen played her back then, you could feel she was almost trembling. Eileen had this mix of anger and fear mixed in her voice, because she really didn't want to be fighting with Nikki and as soon as Victoria came down and told her she was the witch that was stealing her father, Ashley took off in tears and broke it off with Victor. She may have made some mistakes, but she always tried to be a good person. Bell wrote her as a heroine but a complicated one who wasn't perfect.

 

This part of her was lost when Bell left. The character is a difficult one to write and play. On the surface of things you might think there isn't much there to explore, but when you really delve into it, there is so much richness in the character. You just have to know which angles to explore. If Ashley has been great the last 20 years, it has probably been mostly because of Eileen and not the writing.

 

In 1984 Bell had Ashley and Lorie Brooks meet at Nikki and Victor's wedding. Why? Just for fun? Maybe. My opinion, it was a passing of the torch. I think he had the same affection for both characters and I think both represented Y&R. As you said elegance, restraint and I would add intelligence.

 

In terms of other writers post Bell - Almost as soon as Alden was gone, so too was Ashley, which pretty much tells you what LML felt about the character. MAB didn't know how to write anyone in my opinion and I have never watched any of Josh Griffiths Y&R.

[DRW50]

 

I struggled quite a bit with Eileen when she came back as I was so used to Brenda's portrayal of the character. Looking back that probably wasn't fair of me, but I do agree with you that she still had some Kristen in her (based on her Housewives persona I think she is a little closer to Kristen [minus the psycho part] than she may necessarily want to be). I think similar to the lousy returns for Julia and Lorie in the early '00s, there are some characters only Bill Bell could understand. And I do agree that Ashley and Lorie moment was probably passing the torch. 

 

One of the only times I saw any praise in recent years for the Ashley writing was, maybe, her brief stint on B&B, or the story a year or two ago where she conned Jack about his paternity.

[will81]

And I think I was always unfair to Brenda's portrayal, seeing her as weak, when she had a stoic strength, not so obvious, but there. I liked that she played the field with Blade and Brad and the way she stood up for herself with Traci when they were fighting in the 90's. I also liked that Ashley never betrayed Victoria when it came to Ryan, even though she knew lying to Victor wasn't right, that is the complicated part of her Bell knew so well. She went against her respect for Victor, but only to protect Victoria, in fact I don't think she ever confessed she knew about Victoria and Ryan. 

 

Eileen seems to have an intense personality, I think she seems so lovely but intimidating because she is so strong minded and straight forward. I honestly think this is why Eileen and Eric were paired. They were such a good match, neither of them could own a scene over the other.

 

I also think Eileen was able to bring Terry's Jack down a peg or two as well, which I loved.   

 

But I guess we should move this conversation to the Y&R thread, haha.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Writers on today's Y&R don't seem to be able to write this type of woman anymore. I've never thought about this but could this be the reason why Eileen had so little to do in the last few years?

[will81]

I'd say so, they have no idea how to write complexity anymore. I have been watching 70's eps of OLTL, GL and AW. Karen Wolek, Rita Bauer, Rachel Cory, just to mention a few. These women were endlessly fascinating.You wanted to know everything about them. They were multi dimensional and complicated and so interesting. These women just don't exist on soaps anymore. 

 

Ashley is not an easy character to write and I think even Kay Alden didn't understand her the way Bell did. Her breakdown in 2003 or 2004 after her miscarriage was not a favourite story of mine at all, hated it in fact. 

 

Also just want to add this quote found on wiki about the Adam Newman abortion/miscarriage, because it makes me sad if Eileen is right "I think the character really suffered after she stole Victor’s sperm from Diane [...] After that, the viewers lost a lot of respect for Ashley. People wanted Ashley to pay for it. My opinion? Although last summer’s gaslighting storyline was used to propel a lot of other stories, it was also about making Ashley pay. Now we can close that entire chapter because Ashley paid. It was Ashley’s redemption". Sorry but this just solidifies my arguement that the sperm caper story was the beginning of the end of Ashley and Y&R.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

I can see your point with this. Ashley had been known as a heroine up to that point. Most soap fans tend to see personality traits as a set thing, especially once a character reaches adulthood. It takes a lot to shift a character to a different personality, it can be done but not through shock storylines, it has to be a trait that was always there underneath the surface, lurking until the proper set of circumstances reveals it. And it generally takes more than one storyline.

 

I don't know if you've ever watched As The World Turns but this was done successfully with a character, Barbara Ryan, who shifted from from a put upon heroine to a vixen. Her shift made sense after a broken engagement, being stepped on and put through the mill by a villainous ex-husband, losing her first real love (who was assumed to have died, although the body was never found, he never returned), losing a man to another woman. It was a stretch but a logical one. And Barbara always paid after her misdeeds were uncovered, which they always were.

 

Speaking of ATWT and women today's soap writers likely wouldn't be able to write, I don't think a Lucinda Walsh would exist on any of today's remaining soaps, not the Lucinda in her prime. A woman who had a voracious appetite in the boardroom and the bedroom. Lucinda was a shark but she usually flopped with her personal relationships due to her need to control everything and everyone around her.  I just don't see any of today's writers giving a woman in her 50s (or any age) that degree of autonomy.