Short Term, Big Impact

[carolineg]

I feel like Isabella on Days may own this.  I think she was only on for 3 years (maybe 4), but she was relevant for at least a decade after her death.   While someone like Carly who ate the show for her 3 years in the same time period was barely spoken about 6 months later (until they brought CC back).

[watson71]

Janice Frame, played by Christine Jones, was only on Another World from November 1978 to March 1980.  Her breaking up of Mac and Rachel’s marriage, her lover Mitch Blake, her marriage and poisoning of Mac, Rachel killing her, and Rachel sleeping with Mitch that resulted in her giving birth to Matthew would continue to have storyline ramifications into the early 1990s.

[Melroser]

AW: Fax Newman for the death of Frankie Frame. 

[AMCOLTLLover]

The Costellos on Hollyoaks.

they were introduced in 2010 and were all gone by December 2011 besides Riley (the son) who left in October 2012. Yet their impact lasts til this day because of Bobby (Riley’s son with Mercedes) !

And the grandfather Silas was a serial killer who had such impact too until 2022

[titan1978]

Could not agree more, I loved her!

Cheryl Stansbury on GH- she was only on the show for 4 or 5 years (and I think she had a significant break during that time), birth mother of Lucas Jones.  Lucas drove a lot of story as a kid because of this, and he has been a major player off and on over the years (though clearly missing now).

[Planet Soap]

Phillip, the best example. 2 years living produced over 40 years of posthumus story. 

Victor Lord was OLTL for a relatively short time, yet his postmortem impact lasted the show's entire run.

Claudia GH: Claudia's year long stint on GH set in motion Michael's coma, SOARSING, imprisonment and rape, it also helped set in place the feud between Johnny and Sonny. 

[kalbir]

Caroline was one of B&B's best original characters as written by Bill Bell but I don't think she had much of an impact in the years following her death. Bill Bell essentially replaced Caroline with Taylor.

I think Bill Bell realized that over on Y&R he rushed into recasting Ashley and that may have lead to his decision to kill off Caroline instead of going the recast route.

Caroline's death was probably B&B's saddest death, even if her final scenes were a dust off of Jennifer Brooks's death on Y&R 13 years earlier and the storyline so far removed from the realities of a cancer patient (see also Jessica Blair's AIDS patient storyline on Y&R and her death 8 months earlier).

Edited January 6, 2023 by kalbir

[All My Shadows]

Kim Delaney was AMC's Jenny for three years but that character, and obviously the pairing with Greg, remained at the forefront of the show's identity all the way to the end.

[j swift]

I nominate Karen Wexler

She brought us Brenda.  She was the first of Scotty's insta-kids.  And, the entire spin-off of Port Charles was built around her.  Too bad they couldn't get the casting nor the characterization correct