When was your favorite soap broken?

[Sapounopera]

The problems with B&B started when Stephanie became Stefano Dimera and when Brooke slept with Deacon. Early Stephanie and Brooke were fascinating before theu became jokes. 

Y&R lost its identity when Jill became Neil Fenmore's daughter, when Phillip III showed up alive and gay and all the evil doppelgangercame to town. 

Days was no longer Days when Alice died and there was nobody there to fill the void. The show no longer has a heart. 

 

None of today's soaps have a moral center. Everybody is capable of doing anything.

[Roman]

Days Lost me during JER's first writing stint. period. he was allowed to ruin that show.

Y&R loses me when it just gets outright boring. and these writers coming and going...but it lost it's heart when Jack and Kay left. that's when it was in it's heyday (taking away when Jill became Kay's daughter).

[Cat]

Reading all those assessments, especially pertaining to B&B, Y&R, GH, I cannot help but agree with all the points made here.

 

More generally, I feel like there came a point in the early 2000s where soap writers and producers openly disparaged me as a viewer, as a female, as a thinking human. It was especially noticeable on GH where Guza seemed desperate to write for The Sopranos. The fact that he was stuck on a Daytime soap no less, writing for sissy women, seemed to irk him no end, and that irk came out loud and clear in his writing.

 

(I call this era the CSI-isation of Daytime soaps, inspired by a wonderfully excoriating article by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason on Les Moonves's rein of terror at CBS when he replaced all shows with exciting female leads with CSI spinoffs featuring dead hookers of the week).

 

Guza was aided and abetted by a misogynistic ABCD head honcho and EP who perceived viewers as mouth-breathing neanderthals who must be forcibly 're-educated' to engage with the current mediocrity like compliant little robots.

 

It's funny thinking back to that time because in recent times I have felt excessively manipulated/treated like an idiot by Trump/Boris Johnson/their powerful media enablers. It's all very dystopian and, weirdly, takes me right back to the way I felt powerless and mocked during the Guza/JFP/Frons 'glory days' !

 

With Y&R, it was a slow decline, partially overshadowed by the almighty dreck on other soaps. Needless to say, spermgate/Jill is Kay's daughter opened the door to clickbait plots. LML and MAB accelerated that process with some truly hokey outlandish crap, and when the Bells fully gave up their stake in the show and JFP came on board, the process to transform Y&R into an ABC Daytime show of the Fronsian era was pretty much complete.

 

B&B's disintegration began earlier, basically when Bradley Bell took over the reins. He once allegedly said that an enraged audience was an engaged audience. His M.O. is basically to roll out a series of 'shock' plot points to fill the gaping void where character development should be. A potted plant could (and probably should) play Ridge at this point. 

[Fevuh]

LOL The Bold and Brooke's Vagina.  I stopped watching because of the constant cycling of Liam/Hope/Steffy/Wyatt and a great little actress that plays Sally getting squat.  And I haven't seen Y&R in a few months but I see people saying it's improved but I likely won't go back...I watch The Real now.  My family was calling it the Adam and the Rest of them.  

[Khan]

 

ICAM!  Yes, the ratings soared; but, I ask, at what cost?

[Roman]

the show never recovered from what he did. it was a family drama with great SLs and action stories on location that were second to none....until he came on board and turned the show into some sorry crap where SLs never ended, all the "good guys" were dumb as hell, and this repeating scenes....having flashbacks of episodes of shows from the day before....and people having conversations with themselves. then there's Marlena the devil....New Salem....Creature Feature....it was all garbage.

[Khan]

 

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[titan1978]

I will always have a soft spot for Marlena’s possession.  But that was the end of the line for me there.  And in hindsight, the show should have walked back by that point too.  Maybe never even done it.

 

His first two years there were good soap.  Kate/Billie/Austin/Lucas and Curtis, Marlena’s affair with John, Sami kidnapping Belle and hating her mother, Sami’s rape and later infatuation with Austin, Laura being released from the asylum and being a major character again, the initial mystery of Hope/Gina (no princess crap).

 

I could take a flight of fancy like Carly buried alive (still his best stunt as far as I am concerned), Maison Blanche, the devil. The rest of the show was pretty traditional soap around those things.

 

Post possession the show turned into repetitive nonsense and 100% plot over any character all the time.  The characters talking out loud to themselves, the triangles that would not end, etc.  Every man was an idiot, caught between a good girl and a bitch.  They even made Billie’s recast more of a vixen type to fit this model.  And I liked her at the time, but I see the long term damage.

So much yes.

 

It was already showing up in Guza’s writing  before JFP, but clearly Wendy Riche kept him in line somewhat.  But even back then, when I loved his writing (first stint and maybe half way through his second), I remembered thinking what happened to all the great female friendships/relationships?  Why are they all suddenly supporting players to the men in their lives?  And if the story is theirs (Laura and the Cassadines), why does she have to be so weak?  Labine didn’t write her to be a basket case.  Guza did that.  I’m not saying she shouldn’t have been emotional and tormented by what happened.  But she was often a basket case.

 

Ugh.  These shows and characters deserved better!

[Gray Bunny]

 

Post-possession, I would have to say the whole Aremid arc (despite its endless fakeout fantasies, particularly when Hope was "dead" post-avalanche being nursed back to health by Jude St. Clair) was one of the best and most entertaining storylines I've ever enjoyed on a soap. The one sore spot was losing Missy Reeves at that point for reasons we know why...

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[Chris B]

For Y&R, they lost their way when they decided Bill Bell's vision had to go. I feel like they started trying to recreate primetime shows and ABC soaps and it has never recovered. They've had decent periods, but can never sustain it. The last decent year I'd say was 2006. I think Lynn Latham is an excellent writer. I LOVED her work on Knots Landing and Homefront, but once she was allowed to completely take over the show she tanked. When she still had Kay Alden and Jack Smith to help with the cohesiveness I think the show was still very good. It was refreshed and I love that she used minority actors. Ji Min was a great character and The Winters family were clearly her muses. Had the collaboration continued I think there would've been another golden age for Y&R.

 

After Latham, then we had Maria Arena Bell. I appreciated that she knew the history of the show and tried to revisit it. I also liked that she brought many characters back, but she just wasn't a good writer. I wonder if maybe she would've worked better as just EP. Since then it's just been more of the "meh" quality and in 2020 the show feels nothing like Y&R to me. This is AMC on it's last legs.

[Cat]

 

I honestly would not have minded a SL focusing on Laura struggling with mental health issues linked to her youth and the rape -- and showing her working her way through it.

 

But the whole SL felt set up to humiliate Genie Francis. The focus was 'Laura sucks because she's so weak and needy and has held Luke back from truly being himself all these years!' It was about giving TG yet another Emmy reel while jettisoning GF, because Frons finds any female over the age of 30 distasteful, and JFP was all about Geary/Benard/Burton and wanted to be the sole Alpha chick on set.

 

Having Crazy Laura being played by a pumpkin in a wig was a final F U. Not just to Genie, but to all us saddos who didn't 'appreciate' how 'exciting' GH was without her bringing the show down. 

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I love Knots Landing too, but I think LML on Y&R fell foul of trying to write over-hyped 'events' for Sweeps in particular which were meant to bring in lapsed or new viewers. IA Jimin was a great, sexy character with so much potential, but LML quickly killed him off for the sake of some lame murder mystery featuring Vincent Irizarry. There was also the hard-on for Brad the Nazi Hunter who killed one baddie with the strength of his manly thighs! And that Clearwater week where assorted GC denizens got caught in the rubble of some underground tunnel....and survived.

 

I also remember the wonderful Adrienne Leon being fired unceremoniously for 'gaining weight.'  And Drucilla falling off a cliff! 

 

IA LML benefited from the stable support of Alden & Smith, but she had them fired, and her friend Barbara Bloom at CBS acquiesced. That same week, she fired a lot of the long-time producers, directors and crew who had been with Y&R decades and replaced them with newbies and a bunch of former ABC peeps. Losing that brain trust was a real turning point and set Y&R on a rapid slippery slope downwards. (To Bradley Bell's credit, he picked up some of that ex-Y&R crew for B&B).

 

MAB reminds me a lot of Bradley Bill. Write a series of 'shock' plot twists in place of actual character development. Like LML, it was all about producing events CBS could advertise as "The Day Everything CHANGES FOREVER!"

[Markjeh]

For me As the World Turns truly went to the pits of hell in 2005. The storylines were so bad. The whole donor story with Keith was.... a bust. Carly discovering she had a never seen or heard before half sister was ... contrived. The BJ Green storyline with Katie was.... something.

 

On top of that there were a lot of casting changes with some great characters that I liked being written out... Julia Larrabee (Sarah Brown just mesmerized me even in a shitty role like this), Craig Montgomery, Rosanna Cabot, Lucy Montgomery, Sierra Esteban, Aaron Snyder, Alison Stewart, Ben Harris. Am I missing any?

 

I do feel it picked itself up again a little bit in 2006 with the whole Emily/Paul storyline which kind of had me hooked again for months. Although in hindsight Emily must've been written extremely out of character.

[Planet Soap]

Great topic! (When these shows fell off IMO):

 

GH: 2001 foward, when Wendy Riche left and JFP/Bob Guza took over, worse after 2002 with the stupid Rick Webber story line, and the mob consumed the show. The only thing I will give Guza/Phelps is that their sweeps events such as the PC Hotel fire, train wreck and especially the Metro Court hostage crisis were worth watching! 

 

OLTL: 1995 forward after Michael Malone left the fist time, the show had a dull period. It picked back up when Gary Tomlin took over but got worse after 2003 with the whole 'storm of change' regime of writers including Malone. It had bad story lines such as Al's spirit & Victor Lord being alive

 

Y&R: started to go bad in 2003 with Kay & Jill being mother and daughter, and worse yet after 2006 when Lynn Marie Latham took over.

 

B&B: 2003 forward. The last decent story lines where Sheila & Mary, and Brook sleeping with Deacon (debatable)

 

All My Children: somewhere after 1997 onwards when Lorraine Brodrick left, ATWT: declined post 2005.

 

Guiding Light: decline in quality around 1998-99 with new Annie and Reva's clone storylines.

 

Dallas: I think to undo Bobby's death they could have just written that someone helped Katherine fake his death, or  (like Jessie on AMC, or Taylor on B&B 2002), but to retcon an entire television season as a dream could have easily been avoided given the retcons we've seen on daytime television. 

 

 

[StepBack]

Yes, things took a turn when Jill became Katherine's daughter. There has been moments, since then, but the cohesiveness of the show fell apart. Also, losing Heather Tom was a major blow. Once Y&R lost their supporting characters, the show lost its mark IMO.