Unpopular opinions: cancelled soaps edition

[Frank2803]

Guiding Light's Edmund never worked for me as a supervillain 

I think making Phillip Spaulding into the supervillain of the show was interesting but it was ultimately a dud 

[mphs19952003]

I would love to find these podcasts if anything to chuckle along.  As for #3, I've seen multiple exit interviews and think, "Bulls****".

[MichaelGL]

Yep he did use Meta quite well, and it was the never heard again Lighthouse Gala was first mentioned. He seemed to tease a pairing between Alan and Claire too. 

[Mitch]

DAM was a good, but they needed to cut their losses on Eddie..too many times to San Crud. Phillip goes to hell was interesting...and I wish that he had come out of it a bit more dark, but big bads are only good short term. I do think that the end result of his death was that Alan dies,  and Phillip is suddenly the patriarch with Amanda and AM coming back for the funeral and Alex making occasional appearances to referee and make snide comments to one and all. Rick should have dumped his MOL really thinks he is funny but he is not schtick and been the Bauer patriarch and Phillips good angel, Beth matured and able to go to battle with Phillip when needed..etc.

 

I forgot about the gala..must have been getting ready for the anniversary but then Taggert came in...and yes, Claire disappeared with Taggert and right when Ed came back.  A bit of an edge of Claire being F Buddys with Alan giving both Ed and boring Chelle the fits would have been fun.

[FrenchBug82]

(Deleted)

Edited September 28, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[Frank2803]

To add on about Phillip as the villain. It was interesting because you rarely see the hero of the show becoming the villain. It's usually the villains who are getting redeemed.

[AMCOLTLLover]

John and Marlena are the most boring couple of Days of our Lives! Always have been.

Josh Taylor ain't a good recast and i don't get the love for his Roman.

Y&R is one of the most overrated Soap Operas tbh.

[will81]

I have no idea if this is an unpopular opinion but

 

I don't think a single soap that was still on the air in the 90's was consistently good past 1994. Maybe they had a good year here and there, but none had long runs of good quality again. 

[koos]

I find this to actually be a popular choice for last good soap year. Hell, I was 9 years old in 1995 and I could tell they were becoming incredibly difficult to watch compared to the previous year.

[Mitch]

Plus, for once, it was played by a good actor who was also physically threatening..not by what he did, but just his size. The lost a good op to bring him back and make him a bit darker..he would still have a relationship with Rick, Harley, etc but it would be constantly strained. And your right, it would be interesting to see someone in a soap's inner circle be a bit off the path..usually its someone, easily shunted aside not one from a core family.

[FrenchBug82]

1994-1995 is a generally accepted year where something changed.
The myth however is that it was the OJ Simpson trial. Real fans know that soaps had started to have creative problems before that.

[Planet Soap]

I feel that. 2003-2005 definately was the cut off point for the genre as a whole.

Somewhat unpopular opinion: Cricket had some good material on Y&R in the 90s and early 00s. (The 80s were iffy).

[pdm1974]

I liked both the OLTL and AMC reboots. They were just a tad ahead of their time. I think if they had appeared streaming 2 to 3 years later it would have worked out better.

I really enjoyed Jack and Nikki's first marriage in the 90s. I thought they had great chemistry. Victor is quite abusive, and I've never seen the appeal.

I often thought a great retcon would be that Jack and Nikki's child survived the miscarriage, but Victor arranged for it to be taken away.

[Planet Soap]

Speaking as someone whose favorite soap is Y&R, I have no idea how the show remained number one in the 2000s and 2010s storyline wise. I think OLTL and GH delivered far more thrilling plots (despite their issues) during that time.

Why Y&R is so highly reguarded though is their lavish production value, awesome directing and great classical scores in the 80s and 90s. I haven't seen any other daytime show top them presentation wise, with B&B being a close second.

Edited September 29, 2021 by ironlion

[FrenchBug82]

I will ride Y&R through and through because it is the OG for me and all. And the potential is still there. But it has been by far (for me at least) the worst soap of the four-soap era (the 2010s) overall. There have been moments of awfulness with the others but Y&R has consistently been mediocre to awful throughout whereas there have been great fun moments on the others to balance the bad ones.
Y&R benefits from an undeniable nostalgia because it really went as high as a soap can get quality-wise, from an older more loyal audience and favorable timeslots. But yeah it has coasted on that and is consistently the least enjoyable soap in recent times.