Which death of a character was totally unnecessary and damaging?

[MinnaH]

That is fair. And certainly TPTB wouldn’t have dared to recast. Still, with KSJ having passed and Olivia nowhere in sight there is a large hole in the Winters family I wish Dru were there to fill.

[FrenchBug82]

My argument would be that since KSJ has sadly passed, they should instead invest in slowly building up a new core African-American family that can a pillar of the show rather than aggregate random new individuals around Devon over and over and then drop them and rinse and repeat.

[DemetriKane]

Probably both LOL. I was never a fan of either the character or the actor. I just never got his appeal or his pairing with Natalie, who would choose him over Dimitri?  No one! I did think Haley worked best in his orbit and with his children though.

[FrenchBug82]

I would take Trevor in a heartbeat over Dimitri, both as a character and in a shallow physical manner.
I never saw what everyone saw in Dimitri, even when he was Dex on Dynasty. To each his own.

[titan1978]

I felt the same way, although I didn’t start watching until the very end of Natalie’s time on the show, so I didn’t see formative Trevor.  I agree about his relationship with Hayley as well, I could enjoy him there.  I just wasn’t a huge fan of Trevor.  Or Laurel or domesticated Janet for that matter.

 

But I also felt the same way about Jackson and people love him dearly.  That’s  why soaps in the old days were better- you might dislike a character here or there, but usually the show was full of characters you did like.  My mom couldn’t stand Lesley on GH.  But GH was her favorite show and for almost a decade Lesley was a lead character that drove tones of story.  Now they put almost all their eggs in one basket, and if you hate that basket then why watch?

[Vee]

I only thought to put this in the Y&R classic thread, but it def holds true here:

 

 

I have been rewatching some early 90s AMC lately, including stuff before I came in in '91 and '92 (I started around '93) and James Kiberd is sexier than I remember. He had that edge on LOV as well. I'm glad he's had success both in art and theater in recent years. And Michael Nader and John Callahan were incredibly hot as well as strong, dashing male presences. They were when I grew up watching too, but seeing the earlier material drives it home as well.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Vee

[DemetriKane]

Grasp! That’s a first I heard someone say that. Dimitri checked all the boxes for me, yes to each their own.

 

I agreed with everything you said about Jerry Douglas. He was amazing and understated as John Abbott I miss that character so much.

 

I been rewatching early 90s AMC too. That was a good time to be watching but I see so many missed storyline opportunities. I’m sad how things ended for Dimitri and Edmund, the Wildwind brothers should have been leading story way into the show’s final years. We’re approaching the 30th anniversary of the Natalie in the well storyline and Dimitri’s introduction by the way.

 

Yea if they kept him as Hayley’s sole male figure instead of attaching her to Adam I would have found him more endearing. Natalie was such a special character to me, and very complex. I don’t think you could pair her with just anybody, her great love to me was Ross Chandler before he raped her.

 

I like not love Jackson(AMC) I enjoyed him as a secondary character, he’s definitely not a lead. That is a reason i love soaps it’s so many people on the canvas it doesn’t matter which ones I don’t like. It’s something for everybody! 

[Vee]

I always found Walt Willey's voice so sexy and him so dashing and lovely even when the character was being a wet blanket. I think the stories failed and disrespected Jack, but I always loved Willey.

[ccroom50]

All My Children(AMC

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Silver Kane, Leo Du Pre

 

As The World Turns(ATWT): Bryant Montgomery, Rose DeAngelo

 

The Bold and The Beautiful(B&BAnn Douglas

 

Days Of Our Lives(Days): Dr. Laura Spencer Horton

 

The Young and the Restless(Y&R Ricky Williams

Edited February 24, 2021 by ccroom50

[FrenchBug82]

 

I agree with your other names but I feel about Leo the same I feel about Y&R's Drucilla as mentioned above.
Josh Duhamel wanted to leave and was always extremely unlikely to return full-time as he was always pegged as "one to watch" in primetime or movies. And this is not a role that could be recast. Having him just go would have done a disservice to what was a great love story with Greenlee - couldn't simply end it like that and leave; it needed to be dramatic - and having him be just out there would have sabotaged any future relationship Greenlee may have on the show before it even began. Killing him off was probably the best option but even if one disagrees with that, it wasn't gratuituous. It made sense from the show's POV.
Most of your other picks are good because there was zero reason to choose to kill them off rather than simply write them off so it was really a waste.

[j swift]

I agree, one of the great unknowns in soaps is which characters who were one part of a supercouple could survive on their own.  For example, in my opinion, DAYS Hope really suffered as a character without a resolution regarding Bo, whereas GH's Felicia went on to a number of successful pairings after Frisco left town. 

[Vee]

They never found a man to match Kristian outside of Bo, because KA came back very hard and tough in her energy. No one cut it and they never really tried IMO.

 

Greenlee, the answer was obvious - David. It was a pairing both actors repeatedly lobbied for over the years until they all too briefly got it. I understood going back to the thing with her and Ryan initially for a triangle with Kendall, but painting Ryan and Greenlee as true love's course didn't work and never would.

[carolineg]

 

It's weird Hope suffered so much without Bo, but she was basically tied to Bo her entire run.  I thought her and Aiden were good until that was ruined.  I do think out of DAYS big supercouples Marlena, Steve, Kayla, Bo, and Shane could stand on their own.  John and Kim not so much.

Even with GH's big supercouples, Laura and Luke stood okay without each other.  Anna, Robert, Holly, Sonny, Brenda were fine on their own.  Duke and Frisco never wowed me that much on their own though, but they never really ventured out much of their original pairings.

[FrenchBug82]

Yeah I will never understand why they decided to go that route with Aiden. It was already a miracle they had found a character that most people were OK having Hope paired with. Why ruin it? 
But fundamentally j swift IDs part of the problem: leaving Bo out there was leaving a huge Damocles sword over whatever pairing they could try for her. They should have unplugged that cord a lot sooner.
 

[Vee]

 

Because they worship Galen Gering BTS and banked on those two being gangbusters.