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

[DaytimeFan]

OLTL, ATWT and GL are the soaps that come to mind for me. Although I have appreciated specific performances in each of them, I never connected to the shows as a whole and never developed any sense of attachment to their communities. 

[oakdalelover]

I grew up watching all CBS soaps. I did watch some of GH ad DAYS but could not get in to them like CBS. I prefer NYC based soaps. Many of their actors were Broadway actors too and they seemed better. I would like to see a return of the NYC soap - specifically ATWT, GL or EON.

Also, there are no writers that can compare to Irna Phillips, Bill Bell, Henry Slesar and Agnes Nixon in the business any more!

[victoria foxton]

I could never get into Loving. Never found it as strong as it's sister soaps.  Santa Barbara was a mess. When i started dipping in 1990.  I could never get into Y&R or BB either.

Edited February 26 by victoria foxton

[Broderick]

I'm sure every TV show has had its dumb moments.   But I remember trying to watch an episode of "General Hospital" one day in the early 1980s.   There was a scene with Demi Moore's Jackie Templeton character, awaiting an important phone call, standing alone in the room, staring at the phone and saying, "Ring, dammit, ring!"  I laughed like a hyena.  Who in the world stares at a phone and says out loud, "Ring, dammit, ring!"   The whole episode had some of the worst writing imaginable, but that poor girl's soliloquy to the telephone was horrendous.   

[wingwalker]

Guiding Light and All My Children I never tried watching, so General Hospital would fit the bill for me. I've tried multiple times to get into it and the only time I was interested was when Ron C first took over and brought on some OLTL characters. I was a big OLTL fan.

Once they lost the rights to the OLTL characters, I lost interest. 

 

For Non-American soaps, Hollyoaks. Every time I hear high praise for it, I check it out, but I never last. I just don't get it. I find just about every character on that show unlikable. 

 

 

[titan1978]

Bold and the Beautiful.  I’ve tried to get into it several times since the early 1990’s when Sheila arrived.

 

I found a lot of hammy acting, bad acting, and it just wasn’t my thing.  Susan Flannery could be excellent, Darlene as well.  But McCook and Ronn Moss have no appeal for me, and KKL, especially back then, has the most flat line readings compared to her co-stars.  Once Brad took total control it was even harder to get into.

[YRfan23]

I have to go with the ABC soaps! I truly appreciate and have a lot of respect that they molded daytime to what it is, and got the most publicly out of the three networks. (Mainly because of Susan Lucci, and Luke and Laura etc..) but for as many times I’ve sampled episodes here and there I just can’t get into them like anything on CBS or even Days. I still respect how groundbreaking they were though! 

[Cat]

The Agnes Nixon shows were hard for me to get into, although Loving was bite-size and easy to dip in and out of. I imagine it was like a mini-AMC in its early days.

[LondonScribe]

When I was much younger, I couldn’t get into any of the ABC soaps or into Emmerdale. The ABC soaps because I was raised on Y&R and tonally, production, writing, and sound-wise, they were just so different.

 

Emmerdale because it looked so different to anything I was familiar with, as a London council estate kid, and I found it quite dreary. 
 

I’d like to think I’m a bit more aware of what I should have been paying attention to and what I note now.

[All My Shadows]

General Hospital has never ever been "my" soap, and I've never gone through a period of fascination and obsession with watching old episodes, reading synopses, etc. I think I'd like the 60s/70s era of it, but when I tell you that I have nooooo interest whatsoever in its 80s heyday, I cannot express it enough. The Labine years, maybe, but I'm so turned off by the characters because I associate them with the stupid 80s sht, that I don't even care enough to watch them.

[vetsoapfan]

Actually, throughout my life, I was able to get into almost all of the soaps at one period or another, depending on the writers and characters featured at the time.

 

I just never tried to watch soaps that I was certain from the get-go would be stupid or not to my taste, like PASSIONS.

 

If the soaps had been focusing on dumb science-fiction/fantasy sh*t, I NEVER would have gotten into any of them, but during their sophisticated, adult heyday, even DAYS, TGL, OLTL and GH were must-see TV for me.

[Darn]

19 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

Actually, throughout my life, I was able to get into almost all of the soaps at one period or another, depending on the writers and characters featured at the time.

 

I just never tried to watch soaps that I was certain from the get-go would be stupid or not to my taste, like PASSIONS.

 

If the soaps had been focusing on dumb science-fiction/fantasy sh*t, I NEVER would have gotten into any of them, but during their sophisticated, adult heyday, even DAYS, TGL, OLTL and GH were must-see TV for me.

 

First, I find every comment you make interesting and informative. Please never leave. Secondly, did ever you watch Dark Shadows?

[vetsoapfan]

1 hour ago, Darn said:

 

First, I find every comment you make interesting and informative. Please never leave. Secondly, did ever you watch Dark Shadows?

 

First, I just fell in love with you, LOL. 

 

Thank you for the kind words. 

 

Yes, I did indeed watch and love Dark Shadows. The reason it was THE notable exception to my no-fantasy rule is because DS was created and designed to be a gothic/supernatural  saga, yet it also did not scrimp on characterization. The scripts in the first few years were often very good. (I love slow-moving, subtle, internalized drama, with a lot going on under the surface which would escape the notice and understanding of casual viewers.) Dark Shadows was MEANT to be what it was; the gothic/supernatural elements were part of its essential DNA. This is a marked contrast from all the traditional soaps like DAYS, GH, OLTL, TGL, which were designed to be naturalistic stories about ordinary people next door; people who could be our family, friends and neighbors. After appreciating their fine, literate, adult qualities for years (or even decades), watching these shows devolve into low-brow camp trash was extraordinarily painful. A vampire in Collinsport felt natural. A vampire in Port Charles? Um...not so much. A clone in THE X FILES? Sure. In Springfield? No freaking way. Brain implants and mind-melds? On The Enterprise, okay. In Salem? Give me a break.

 

There are many science-fiction and fantasy films and movies I appreciate and enjoy greatly. But The Great Gazoo descending onto Downtown Abbey and turning Violet Crawley into a Cyborg would just piss me off, you know?

 

If people want to tell these sorts of stories, create NEW shows to showcase them. Don't butcher and bastardize series which will be forever destroyed by grafting this excrement onto them artificially.

Edited March 1 by vetsoapfan

[Soaplovers]

For me, most of the CBS soaps with the exception of GL.

 

 

[ironlion]

I cant get into Days of Our Lives. The storylines from what I've seen are too wacky like Susan Banks, Marlena's possessions and New Salem. To this day I still can't. It's also hard because clips on YouTube aren't broken down by storylines (like the ABC soaps) which would have made things easier to follow instead of watching entire episodes.

 

I couldn't get into AMC or Guiding Light becuase I remember them being sub par growing up in the 2000s. But once I had access to 90s clips I really enjoyed AMC and Guiding Light. The 80s and 2000s though I still can't get into where GL is concerned.

Edited March 2 by ironlion