Which death of a character was totally unnecessary and damaging?

[KMan101]

 

They seemed to limit a lot of her options, weirdly. Was it Fulton too? I love her to death but I feel like she wanted Lisa to remain youthful and childless, LOL

[AmandainNC28655]

Definitely Maureen Bauer on Guiding Light.  Maureen and Ed should have been the matriarch and patriarch to end the show.  

 

On, GH I definitely think killing off Alan, Emily and AJ Quartermaine was wrong, as well as Georgie and Rick Webber's death. Rick would be an integral part of Laura's current storyline today.

[titan1978]

That Rick GH story is just like the murders and Melaswen on DAYS to me- I am dying to have someone confirm what was really going to happen before bts stuff happened.

 

Was Rick going to be revealed as having molested Laura?  And how long was the original story supposed to play out?  Because they set him up with the hospital syndicate and the story with Laura and it felt at the time like it was going to be more involved that it eventually was, but we all know Genie quit.  And on the one hand, I hate what they did with Rick.  But if Genie had stayed and Rick molested her, she would have bee given an incredible story.

 

Same thing with DAYS-  was Reilly planning to bring any of those people back? And if not, what was his plan for Marlena?  Because I find it shocking to think he would have killed them all off and also Marlena.

[mikelyons]

According to fans of BBC 4's THE ARCHERS, the death of Nigel Pargetter as unnecessary and people are still furious about it. 

 

"...the audience has still not quite forgiven its former editor of 22 years’ standing, Vanessa Whitburn, for having Nigel Pargetter plunge to his death from the roof of his stately home a decade ago, as a 60th-anniversary plot shocker. (She received death threats. “Even now, if I give a talk at a Women’s Institute, people ask why I killed him off,” she told me.) "

 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/dec/15/the-archers-weird-genius-peculiarly-english-epic

[Paul Raven]

ATWT

Dan and Paul Stewart. Paul in particular was killed off for no reason. It would have been perfectly reasonable at the time for Paul to want to leave town.

Dan and Kim were happily married and the writers must have wanted to shake it up but maybe Dan could have not died but rather left town due to his illness. Have him reported dead and leave it open for him to return. Maybe Ellen or David know he is alive but kept the secret.

 

[ccroom50]

Port Charles(PC): Dr. Jake Marshak, Dr. Karen Wexler

[DramatistDreamer]

Unless a character is beyond redemption, I don't see the point of killing off most of these characters. Unfortunately, killing characters off on soaps has become a lazy fallback to try to wrong some drama from what is essentially a vacuum of imagination. Yes, you get your pound of drama, and if the writers are truly committed, Emmy bait, but down the road, it can be damaging to future storyline prospects.

 

There's not much to add because so many have already mentioned characters and storylines. The only aspect that I want to mention is that reading these posts have illustrated how foolish soaps have become over the past couple decades in needlessly killing off their legacy and matriarchal characters in particular. If that's not a sure-fire way to cripple a show's prospects, I don't know what is.

[soapfan770]

Lol I believe there is some truth to that. It came back to haunt her though in the late 80s when Tom & Margo had their miscarriage there was viewer backlash to her alleged no grandchildren clause and later on when her story dried up in 1998.

[titan1978]

Everyone involved has said repeatedly that clause was not in effect by that point.

 

That miscarriage might be the single most controversial thing Douglas Marland did on ATWT.  After my summer of classic soap viewing, I can see why.  HBS and GM are so good together.

Edited December 19, 2020 by titan1978

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Did you see the reunion livestream with HBS, GM and SB? HBS discussed the miscarriage story as being the result of the difficulties associated with having infants on set (usually having to deal with twin infant actors). She later mentioned that when "Margo" finally got pregnant again, it was after HBS just had a baby and was able to bring her baby to work with her as her character's onscreen child. The affair between  Hal and Margo was seen as a way to fill in the storyline gap left by GM's exit. HBS explained that since no one (including Marland) believed that Margo would truly cheat on Tom, since Margo was so "crazy in love" with Tom, Marland wrote the beginning of the affair as initially being a result of Margo being drunk (I don't remember this, but I was a child at the time this storyline originally aired and unfortunately, like most of the juiciest ATWT episodes, it's not on YT) because Margo could not have been sober and cheated on Tom. I am convinced that had GM elected to stay or even return, there would be no drunken romp and resulting affair between Margo and Hal, because the chemistry was so strong between HBS and GM. You have to remember that GM had already left the show when the affair began.

 

I believe that GM had made it clear that he intended to leave the show by that time, it was a question of Marland writing a way for the character to exit the canvas for a lengthy period of time.

What I would've liked to know was whether Marland had ever considered not reuniting Tom and Margo after GM left the show, and put Margo and Hal together for the long haul. I suspect that he may have considered it but perhaps decided against it, seeing that a newly cast SH had enough chemistry with HBS to carry on with the pairing. Also, Tom and Margo had survived a previous recast of both characters, so there was no reason not to think they couldn't be successful again with another recast. SH was certainly no GM but the new pairing worked well enough, I guess.

Edited December 20, 2020 by DramatistDreamer

[DaytimeFan]

Y&R: Rex, John, Colleen, Brad, Dru, Hilary, and Diane.

 

B&B: Macy

 

GH: Alan and AJ

[Marquise]

B&B : Macy - no reason to bring her back and kill her off in 1 year?

Darla - she was nice, why kill her and then bring her back as ghost?!?!?

Phoebe and Aly - two stupid deaths

[Antoyne]

Perfect list.

[Skin]

 

This is the reason I opened the thread. Those deaths hurt so much, were so cruelly done and felt so purposeless. It felt like they just wanted to gut GH's heart, and I don't see the purpose as to why. Emily was killed for Nikolas' manpain, but Georgie is a head scratcher. It felt like they just wanted to make the serial killer storyline important. These deaths would be the equivalent of AMC killing Bianca off, or One Life To Live killing off Jessica or Natalie.

 

Why gut a historic family for no reason?  

[carolineg]

In both the case of Georgie and Emily, the show killed off the most rootable heroine in their age ranges and left a big hole in both age groups.  And it's not like Georgie or Emily had no place to go story wise. They could have drove story for years.  Plus killing off all Monica's kids and husband in a span of a few years is excessive.