Soaps You Could Never Get Into (It's Not You, It's Me)

[mikelyons]

Which soaps did you try to watch multiple times, but you could never get into them?

For me, it was GUIDING LIGHT (although I find the 60s episodes quite engaging) and CORONATION STREET. I know but shows are institutions, but halfway through an episode, I would get restless and turn them off. I'm still trying to watch CORONATION STREET, but it's never connected with me and I don't know why. It's well-written, well-acted, and perfectly produced, but it never sticks.

I've tried to watch DAYS, but it never, ever stuck. I'm always think, "I must have missed A LOT!"

What about you?

[Faulkner]

Even though I’ve enjoyed all these soaps, I’ve traditionally had more trouble connecting with daytime soaps set in California: Santa Barbara, B&B, Sunset Beach. They just don’t have the grounded, richly textured community feel that I’ve gotten from the Midwest/Northeast-set soaps.

I don’t have the same issues with CA-set primetime soaps, but my expectations are different. I’m not looking for the same immersive experience.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Faulkner

[Cat]

 

Weirdly, I had the opposite experience when I first got into soaps as a kid -- the California-set soaps (or even the ones filmed in LA) were the bright and glossy ones that drew me in quickly. I could not get into AMC, OLTL, AW or GL at first, because they seemed to be dark and shadowy, with so much layered history that I did not know and could not penetrate. ATWT was an exception --for some reason, Julianne Moore as Frannie and Sabrina drew me in. 

 

It was only as I got older, and became really interested in the soap genre as a whole, that I dipped into these other shows and realized that my initial view of them as impenetrable was completely wrong! In fact, the beauty of a great many soap operas was that you could literally tune in one day, cold, in the middle of some big climatic SL, not understanding what led up to this moment, but something indefinable draws you in. It could be an actress, an actor, or the set-up of the SL, or the drama itself, the sense of place and people, and suddenly... you are hooked. This soap you have just discovered has you intrigued and it is all you can think about for a while. 

 

YouTube and other sites in more recent years allowed me to discover eras on these shows that I had foolishly missed. I did not discover the glory of Another World until after its cancellation! I could kick myself for that.

[beebs]

I've tried since I was a kid, but always struggled to connect with ATWT. PROBABLY because just as I started to get into soaps as a kid was right after Marland's death, so the show was in such flux that it just didn't click with me like many of the others, but I do intend to go back and watch the Marland era soon to see if it sticks now that I'm older.

 

Other than B&B, which I have intermittently gotten into, I feel pretty much the same.

[Gray Bunny]

 

Gasp! 

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For me, in terms of the long-running shows, it was General Hospital. It just never drew me in, at least never in their mobster era which has been the majority of its last 25+ years.  

 

Other notable mentions of my time: Passions and Sunset Beach.  They were never anything I could see myself really caring about and watching long-term. Admittedly, I found myself more interested in Port Charles when they started the Tainted Love vampire story arc, as some of their couplings became more intriguing, but again, their momentum (if they had any) would've burned themselves out quickly and I never watched full-time. 

[Fevuh]

All of the ABC soaps, I just wasn't in to all the crazy storylines and OLTL - Vicki going to heaven in a spaceship, Eterna...GH and its stolen artifact of the month or Weather Machines or whatever.  I most likely could have liked AMC but I didn't try really hard because it was partially up against World Turns and I was a huge World Turns fan.  I was a kid too so you'd think all of the crazy supernatural stuff would have appealed to me but even then I thought it was dumb.  Santa Barbara and Days, same thing - just never got into them.  

[Khan]

 

Same.  PASSIONS was just terrible from day one; and SuBe WANTED to be like SANTA BARBARA, but it lacked the latter show's literate scriptwriting. 

[Soapsuds]

Santa Barbara- what a terrible soap.

Sunset Beach

Generations

Another World

Loving

Port Charles

Ryan's Hope

Capitol

[Fevuh]

Sorry if it's a double post but thanks for this.  Who is the critic who always ranks Santa Barbara as the best soap of all time?  And it lasted like 8 years.  Meanwhile on his list Guiding Light and As the World Turns are missing.  LOLLLLL.  One lasted 75 years and World Turns was #1 for 20+ years.  But Santa Barbara is the best to him but no one watched.  

 

Edited February 25, 2021 by Fevuh

[Soapsuds]

SOD is the one that would praise it. It even won SOD and Emmys imo to keep it on the air. I could never take SB seriously.

[Faulkner]

Santa Barbara seemed like a total mess, and I can’t say that I’ve watched a lot of it. But I’ve watched some 1986-87 episodes, and it had the pop and fizz of great screwball comedy in a self-referential way. Such smart writing (not surprisingly, as the Dobsons’ GL was pretty erudite as well). What a cast of soap all-stars too. Louise Sorel and Nancy Lee Grahn in one scene. Robin Mattson and Justin Deas in another. Marcy Walker, Robin Wright, Lane Davies, Jed Allan... it’s really an embarrassment of riches. I can see why people loved it, even though it wasn’t originally my cup of tea.

[Darn]

I could never get into Days. I just thought every character sounded and acted like an idiot. Still do.

[Cruising Soaps]

Any soap that was not on CBS.

[soapfan770]

Never got too much into the main ABC soaps of AMC, OLTL, and GH. I really appreciate the shows and have read about them and watched various clips out of interest however when I tried to get into them they came off as just so romcom/dramedy to me. I think I enjoyed Loving the most when I watched it at the time the most probably because of the 30 minute timeslot. Didn’t bother with PC(not to mention it always aired late at night where I lived). I watched Ryan’s Hope on SoapNet the early years were amazing but I felt the show lost steam as it went on. 
 

 

I would have stuck with just the CBS soaps really had it not been for Days. Days, at least in the 90s and 00’s always felt like me a P&G soap from another planet.

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As for AW when I first watched it seemed like a fun little show as the main story at the time was Cristy Carson having a body count but I never grew any real affection for it until after cancellation. 

[lucaslesann23]

The british soaps. I hear how good they are on twitter but i just can't get into them