Well Plotted Soap Stories

[Faulkner]

I’ll tell you when I’m done with Marland-era ATWT, but every detail feels very purposeful, intertwined with other stories, and going somewhere. Just how the Lucinda/Lily/Iva/Craig/Sierra/Tonio stories converge and deepen over time (and even throwing in Betsy/Steve), and how Lucinda serves as a nexus for so many different characters.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Faulkner

[Aback]

Please don't ban me but I thought these were extremely well plotted:

- Spermgate, Y&R

- Bridget falls for Ridge, B&B

- Nursery Rhyme Stalker, GL

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[Fevuh]

So many people forget the Angel Laing / Daddy Laing incest story also, with Caleb being accused for years of Angel getting pregnant, and it turning out he had blamed Caleb all of those years to get the heat off of himself - it was his (Daddy's) baby -- then with his suicide but to make Caleb look guilty,  and Caleb's innocence.  You're right. You can pretty much name most stories from Doug Marland and As the World Turns during those years.  Almost no clunker of a story.  And like you said, even that - was interwoven with a Holden/Angel/Caleb triangle and wound around a ton of other things going on.

 

 

Guiding Light - the whole triangle of Frank/Eleni/Alan Michael...Alan Michael's ultimate play to have Eleni deported rather than her end up with Frank.  Blake, Ross.  Blake and Phillip - what a hoot it was when she (as played by Sherri Stringfield) had Phillip committed - because she knew Beth was alive and she convinced everyone he was crazy.  The scene of Phillip comin up outta that bed after her was so fabulous...with Blake's appearance at the Country Club at Phillip and Beth's wedding - from the top of the stairs with a Champagne glass, "Yeah - let's hear it for BETH!".  I think Nancy Curlee was headwriting with her husband at the time, and also like or hate Reva - but the Reva/Josh/Annie story culminated with them hitting #2 or #3 that Summer....even people who didn't watch GL watched that Summer.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Fevuh

[Contessa Donatella]

I can just imagine James Harmon Brown & Barbara Esensten (RIP) are celebrating having a fan! I don't mean to offend but I just full.stop.thud. and I think about what Maureen has had to say about it & shake a raised fist at the sky.

[Soaplovers]

Back when 1987 and 1988 were on AW...when Jason first came on, he had scenes with Nicole where he was hinting about knowing her mom and looked at her with interest.  It wasn't sexual/romantic..but it was creepy.  However, with Depriest leaving and the writers strike..that was abandoned.  So when she killed him in 1989, it seemed full circle their interactions.

I'm not sure who plotted it.  It was shortly after Lemay's brief return as head writer so it might have been in his plans.  If so, Swajeski did a good job implementing it.

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by Soaplovers

[Contessa Donatella]

Jason was one creepy dude. I had trouble reconciling his AW role & his GH role.

Lemay/Swajeski would've been topnotch.

[~bl~]

The issue with the Roger return story on GL was The whole time he was on that island wearing the mask. That part of the story was weak, like Blake or anyone else never saw even a photo of Roger like Fletcher the reporter, oh please, and Alex is not that dumb, and it only got really good once everyone was in Springfield. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Okay, thank you. Of course, that's what they didn't like. What a crazy premise to get him back into town. Sure.

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[Maxim]

BOLD - 1989-1994

BOLD - 2005 - Stephanie fakes a heart attack. I loved it.

BOLD - 2010 - In a trashy disgusting way - Brooke and Oliver.

[Planet Soap]

I wanted to say spermgate. In rewatching some of 1998, seeds were planted (no pun intended ) as early as '98 with Victor's vasectomy. In fact all of sperm gate and Kyle's birth are direct resuls of Veronica shooting Nikki. 3 years of story 1998-2001! Soaps cannot write like this today.

In rewatching I saw the exact date April 6, 1998, when Jack told Diane that vasectomies could be reversed while the pair had assumed Nikki had died from her gunshot wounds. To think that revelation still drives story today.

 

[j swift]

I thought it was cannon that Jason had an affair with Mrs. Love?

I put it in and then took it out because I was uncertain, but did Mac find out that Iris was The Chief at the trial (I know Rachel knew, but I am unclear how Mac found out)?  If so, that is serendipitous brilliance, because it allowed the audience to see Mac's reaction before Douglass Watson died.

Edited May 11, 2022 by j swift

[j swift]

Also, noted Henry Sleasar's amazing multi-year weaving of plots for Edge of Night.

The film version of Mansion of Damned was destroyed due to it's con artist producer.  Leaving aging leading lady Nola Madison open to the conniving ways of Elliott Dorn, who then left her for Margo Huntington, who was scheming to keep her long lost daughter April in town which caused friction in her relationship with her son-in-law Draper, who was then convicted of her murder, (which Nola secretly committed). When Draper's prison transport crashed he was left with amnesia and taken in by Emily and her mother, Emily fell for Draper, but he recovered, was exonerated, and returned to April.  Emily had an affair with an orderly at Keith Bryson's clinic in order to entrap Draper with a baby, but Draper's law practice partner's wife, Nancy went undercover at the clinic and found that Dr Bryson was giving plastic surgery to criminals in order to allow them cover for a new life, one of the those criminals was Jefferson Brown, who got surgery to look like Geraldine's Whitney's nephew Sky,.

Meanwhile, Raven having been rejected by Geraldine due to her affair with Elliot, left her son Jamey (see my username), with April and Draper and went to England.  Only to return for Draper's trial and try to regain custody of Jamey to get an inheritance from her mother.  However, her mother and Elliot wound up being murdered by a puppet held by Emily's mother; of all people.  Leaving Raven susceptible to the charms of faux-Sky, but he was shot trying kill Raven in the Alps, paving the way for the return of the real Sky Whitney who later became Raven's one true love and adoptive father of Jamey.

That was four years of plot, strung from one idea to the next, hardly leaving anytime for the audience to breath from each astonishing cliffhanger.  In an age when a female character responsible for multiple misdeeds mistakenly shoots her son that she's only known for six months and it is called a twist that has never been seen before, we are reminded that Slesar was thinking three steps ahead of the audience at all times.

Edited May 11, 2022 by j swift

[Khan]

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: the Jenny/Katrina baby switch on OLTL was probably the best soap story ever told.

[Darn]

The fallout SUCKED but I've always thought the Bianca baby switch was well-plotted. The fact that they could do the crossovers with OLTL and keep them fairly seamless was a technical accomplishment. I also think the beats they played up until Bianca actually found out were well executed. It's just a shame that they had to force Babe's perfection down our throats, if they had allowed her and Krystal to remain morally dubious instead of always acting morally superior I would've enjoyed both of them a lot more because Bobbie Eakes and Alexa Havins were great.

Didn't AMC reach #2 the week Bianca got Miranda back? It's a shame the show couldn't keep that momentum. This is the problem you run into with these all encompassing umbrella stories, there's nothing to hold onto once they're done.

[MichaelGL]

No mention of the Loving Murders?