ALL: Storylines that took the biggest risks and got the biggest rewards?

[Paul Raven]

Days The Salem Strangler

This was really the first story of it's kind in daytime. Only Edge of Night came close, but they never did a serial killer story. They used it to kill off a major character (Mary Anderson) and hyped up the 'death' of Marlena as well as introducing a new 'supercouple' in Roman and Marlena and making the killer a major character (Jake).

[j swift]

AW - Who shot Jake? (1990-1991)

I've gone back and forth on whether the rewards were worth the risk on this one.  Certainly vilifying Jake, a well liked character, and making him a rapist was a risk.  My understanding is that production did not know if Tom Eplin would re-sign his contract, so they wrote Jake into a corner.  Jake was shot in October 1990 and did not reemerge from his coma until March of 1991, so it was a lengthy story.

However, from that drama we got the iconic scenes of Vicky pretending to Marley during the trial (which oddly occurred while Jake was still in a coma) which was a tour-de-force for Anne Heche.  We got the mysterious reintroduction of Kathleen McKinnon (and Joe Carlino).  Donna's false admission of guilt caused her to loose custody of her foster kid, and broke her up with Michael.   Finally, the shooting of Jake set up the denouement of Paulina's establishment as a Cory and tampered the rivalry between Paulina and Iris.

The aftermath gave us the pairing of Jake and Paulina which drove story for a couple of years.  The scenes between Marley and Jake where she confronted him as a rapist were much more satisfying than similar scenes on GL or GH.  And Vicky and Ryan's love story evolved from that mystery.  So, I think it is a case where the risk of writing Jake as a rapist and menace really paid off both for the character himself, as well as the suspects in story.

Also, it was one of the few times that Soap Opera Weekly had one of those iconic cover shots of the victim and the suspects and the actual shooter was in the photo, and not some obviously dispensable character who could be easily written out of the show.

Please register in order to view this content

Edited November 2, 2021 by j swift

[Dan]

This one could probably be in both threads, but I'll err on the side of all the good we got from it. Roger Thorpe got brought up in the previous page, but I want to specify how big of a risk it was to not only revisit the rape of Holly but also slowly drift the characters into each other's orbit romantically again. Sure 1994 basically took the wind out of the show's sails and maybe the payoff would have been better had Curlee had stayed, but the 3 years leading up to the reunion were wonderful storytelling. 

[Nicholas Blair]

How about the the whole idea of SORASing? I don't know what the first example was. As much as many of us do not care for SORAS, and as ridiculous as some of the consequences have been, this has proven to be a tool that writers have used throughout soap history.

[Paul Raven]

I think the first was Micheal Bauer on TGL. He was born in the early 50's a few years later was about 11 years of age. By the early 60's he was an adult.

[Dion]

And Robin Lang wasn't too far behind, having been born in 1953 and coming back from a Swiss boarding school in 1956.

[Nixor]

I watched this story on YouTube recently (I came to AMC during the second Kendall years so I missed it when it aired) and it blows my mind that the actresses couldn’t kiss at all. All of Bianca’s early loves scenes - Sarah and Frankie- were implied after the fact. We only saw hugs. Even so, they managed to convey so much AND were still really controversial. So much had changed by the end of the decade in terms of what tv was able and willing to show.  

[Lust4Life76]

I totally agree with you... I am watching the first season of "Bold and the Beautiful" right now, and it opens as you may or may not know with several stories depicting violence towards women with the character of Brooke Logan getting attacked, but then Caroline Spencer being raped. And though it's an earnest story, the work Michael Malone put out there depicting Marty's experience was something unparalleled by any show before or since. Poor Marty could not get a break, and it was months after her attack that she would even be believed without all the other characters basing their presumptions on her given a bad reputation that preceded her. My only issue with the storyline was Marty was a character that came out of the blue with no connection to anyone or any family on the canvas except for having lupus the same time fan favorite Megan Gordon Harrison did...

There was that same bone of contention I had with the revisiting of the DID storyline. The story was beyond compelling, but the fact it was done to our heroine Viki at the hand of a well-established, legacy character like Viki's father, Victor Lord? I could see it being a business associate or close family friend and that Victor's betrayal of Viki would have been to believe the associate/friend over his own daughter (but maybe that was too much like Erica's rape on "All My Children"?) 

I also felt though the teen-age homosexuality on "One Life" was an incredible story of outreach - I wish they would have kept it centric to the core Buchanan family, and that Joey, or even Kevin, had been the gay child. I wanted to see it impact Viki and Clint directly, though Clint as the homophobic parent never ever jived with me, or for that matter: the actor, or the audience! I would have rather seen Phil Carey's Asa show his bigotry which that character was more prone to do, than the more worldly Clint ever would have...

As for the character of Todd Manning... I just never cared for him from the privileged frat boy, to the anti-hero he became, at least no more than some cared for the conflicted Luke Spencer of yesteryear. But while Luke was redeemable, I thought Todd initiated so many gross inhumanities against characters, that I never felt comfortable having him around. There was no redemption found in him, even when he secretly was revealed to be a Lord heir, and there was no poetic justice like there had been with "One Life's" characters from the past (ex. Brad Vernon raped sister-in-law Karen Wolek, went to prison where off screen, but alluded to, Brad was raped by an inmate). Unless you count the Margaret Cochran story as Todd's retribution, but even that was somewhat campy, with emotional beats few and far between...

Edited November 4, 2021 by Lust4Life76
Grammar

[Lust4Life76]

 

For the most part yes...  but I always feel there was a storyline pre-Barnabas, that was instrumental in going that direction. There was the supernatural tale of Roger Collins' estranged wife Laura (aka 'The Phoenix'. Hers was an eerie story of reincarnation and I firmly believe, with the show closer to the axe, the writers gave it a try to see if the ratings would improve and if they could do something bolder in what was to follow, which was that in our friend Barnabas Collins. 

[Lust4Life76]

I feel like the risk of all risks, was the Corinth Serial Killer on LOVING killing off the entire Alden family... and then the LOVING's revamp to becoming THE CITY, a soap which exercised more diversity, innovation and always had a very Aaron Spelling vibe. It ended way too soon. 

[Fevuh]

I don't remember if it had ever been done before, but I remember one that was shocking for me that I hadn't seen...but I was a teenager at the time - mid 80's? So maybe someone had already done it.  But I believe the depth with incest that As the World Turns went with Angel Lang, and her abusive father, Henry - and her romance with Caleb Snyder...I believe being blamed for getting Angel pregnant, to find out that (she lost the baby??)...but she was pregnant by her own father, not Caleb.  

[applcin]

OLTL bringing back Michael Zaslow after he had been afflicted with ALS. He was in a wheelchair and could only speak by typing on a computer. The risks: would viewers want to see him, or anyone, in that condition on the show? How would it be perceived, how physically well would MZ handle the work, etc.? I think the rewards were: Michael had one final chance to work at something he loved around people he knew; he had friends there who cared for him; it tugged at the emotions of the viewers, especially those like myself who were viewers of either or both OLTL and GL. Of course, OLTL got some positive press as the show that hired him after GL had fired him. Bottom line, I think the decision to have him there was the right one, even if only for the happiness it must have given Michael.

 

Edited November 4, 2021 by applcin

[Vee]

It was one of few wholly great things JFP did. It gave Zaslow some final dignity as a performer.

On a side note: They never revisited David Renaldi's past or mined his spy background for story in future years though with the Cramer characters still on canvas, and I felt that was a mistake. There was plenty to work with, particularly if you brought back Brynn Thayer for a visit. (IIRC, Thayer knew they had intended to kill Jenny off to simplify the focus of the ALS storyline and had consented to it, with the caveat either explicit or implicit from the show that they could easily resurrect her in future.)

[Lust4Life76]

I feel like this was ATWT's head writer Douglas Marland's continuation of Lily's story from "LOVING", but we'll never know because ABC couldn't support it's new soap long enough for it to be successful. 

[titan1978]

I think the reintroduction of something so iconic as the Cassadines on GH was mostly a successful risk.  The Ice Princess was a campy, goofy story that did not fit the tone of GH at all anymore.

The camp was drained away, it gave Laura her best storyline in years, it set the foundation to break them up that the show clearly wanted to do (maybe not all the way, but clearly strained), introduced Nikolas and eventually Alexis, Nichols was superb as Stefan, and Towers a delight as Helena.  Alexis and Nikolas have continued to be a major players since arrival (even if not all of their stories were good ones).

Edited November 5, 2021 by titan1978