Soaps Blandest Marginally Acceptable Leading Men

[Darn]

Thanks @amybrickwallace and @FrenchBug82 for the thread idea.

 

Liam Spencer, B&B: He exists merely as a penis for Hope and Steffy to fight over. He has no hobbies or interests or aspirations or ideas beyond what is currently right in front of his face. He never says anything compelling or worthwhile. He's got zero agency in his own like. He's played by a decent to good actor but the role could be played by a blow up doll (and it will be soon) and get as much traction.

 

Ray Rosales, Y&R: He...is a cop.

 

Mac Scorpio, GH: Throwing it back...listen, I love Mac. John J. York is such a warm presence to me buuuut he was Robin's glorified babysitter for much of the 90s and seems to exist now because Maxie and Robin sort of treat him like father figure and the guy is nice to look at. But he's got no umph. He's just there.

 

And here are just some random thoughts

 

• All of the men who started out interesting but years of stupid storylines and focus on whatever couple they were apart of removed any edge they once had (see Tad, AMC).
• Any man who fell for the "I'm wearing a belly to fake a pregnancy" trick with someone they were cohabiting with.
• Basically every male lead on Days (they're all blandly handsome in an inoffensive way).

 

Please add more!

Edited July 24, 2020 by Darn

[amybrickwallace]

Sure. I agree about Mac, but he was on GH.

[Fevuh]

Yikes.  Liam is on B&B.  At least Jordi/Rey on Y&R is hot.  

[Darn]

 

 

I swear I know which shows these people are on lol

[Fevuh]

That's fine, but you just edited your post to say Liam is on BB.  Your post said Liam on Y&R.  You edited your post.  

[Darn]

 

Yes, that's why we're able to edit things. And then I acknowledged both of your corrections.

[Fevuh]

Paul Williams - hasn't done anything in like 25 years.  Won't be a popular opinion.  Eric Braeden - nearly 80 years old and has 30 year old girls chasing him.  

[amybrickwallace]

Holden sure became one in the last decade or so on ATWT. How about Frank on GL?

[P.J.]

God, Frank on GL owns this thread.  Frank Dicopolous---hell of a nice guy, but was only briefly a leading man because he hit the lottery and Melina Kanakaredes was cast as Eleni. Otherwise, he would've forever been a footnote as Harley's brother.

 

John McCook

 

I'm wracking my brain for more, but it's really hard to separate poor acting leading men (like Josh Morrow, Steve Burton, Shawn Christian)  from the  merely bland. 

 

[Franko]

I feel like Ryan Lavery owns this thread (sorry Cam!).

[carolineg]

GH has a lot of these leading men:  Chase, Griffin, Nathan.  They were/are all fine, they just are kind of the same character.

 

Days has Rafe, GV's Eric, Shawn, Austin etc who are all pretty bland, but perfectly acceptable.

 

Even though Days John fell for the pillow baby thing I don't agree he's bland.  His character is pretty interesting.  He was just exceptionally dumb in the mid-90's.

[Vee]

I have been watching ATWT '86 on YouTube. Holden Snyder in the '80s was hot as hell, volatile and swaggering. Holden Snyder in the last decade of ATWT, maybe longer, looked like a tired suburban dad who wanted to kill himself.

 

GH's hunky white dudes under FV are all interchangeable and pointless. Including Chase.  Leave poor Uncle Mac alone though, he hasn't been a leading man for at least 20 years!

 

Galen Gering is who you hire when you want a vaguely ethnic cutout with no personality but [!@#$%^&*]. But Frank and Rick on GL absolutely take the top spots IMO, with a side spot for Suicide Clown Tad of the last decade or so of AMC.

[Paul Raven]

Y&R

Cole Howard

Joshua Landers

Steven Lassiter

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by Paul Raven

[j swift]

My Nominees:

 

Brick Wallace - Santa Barbara- the son of Lionel and Sophia, raised in a circus, saved a baby from a royal kidnapping, and still a total bore of a character.  Brick was so forgettable that years later when Lionel and Sophia would gather their respective children to reminisce,  they would never even mention his name (sorry @amybrickwallace for defaming your namesake).

 

Tom Cudahy - AMC - the man was a football player who owned a disco, women from Erica to Brooke to Skye, Barbara, and Livia threw themselves at him, and yet, he had the personality of dead fish.  His defining qualities were that he was very persnickety about lying, he hated abortion, and he had a more interesting brother. 

 

Kelly McGrath - EON - despite hints of a troubled backstory, his main interest was puppetry. Others may have used his marionettes for nefarious misdeeds, but when Jody found out how dull he was, he packed up his puppets and left town.  Proving the old soap adage, "a perm is not a personality trait."

 

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by j swift

[Vee]

Michael McBain on OLTL. Yeah, I said it! Only created because the cast and (some) fans liked Nate Marston so much despite his troubles. He was recast with a superior actor, Chris Stack, after Marston got into a brawl with a traffic cone, but Stack could not undo the fact that Michael was the goat boy story-wise created to do nothing but be Marcie's piece.