Back from the dead - The good, the bad, & the ugly

[j swift]

Upon reflection I prefer a BFTD plot over a facial reconstruction story everytime.  The soap plastic surgeons who able to provide a completely new face, (without any visible scars), and a new body, (although they often leave a tell-tale tattoo), for patients who often have no viable means of paying for their service are truly miracle workers.  Which is why one of my favorite scenes in soap history is when OLTL's Todd was BFTD, and Blair explains that Victor Jr told her he had surgery, to which he incredulously replies, "and you believed him?"  Ironically that was written by Ron C whom I criticized in my last post, but to quote Emerson "a foolish adherence to consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Edited January 30, 2023 by j swift

[Taoboi]

BFTD Stories That Stood Out:

 

Y&R

 

Victor and the Takeover. I remember that being such a big deal and well drawn out forever and day. And being annoyed every time Victor would be close to leaving and then...something would stall it. And the fallout was something else. 

 

B&B

 

Does Sheila dying and popping up in L.A. count?

 

DAYS

 

I agree with whoever said Will's 2017 return. Not only did he come back...but he had the hots for his boyfriend's first love? If that ain't soapy...

 

GH

 

Brenda Barrett. Cuz...BRENDA. lol. That first return was EVERYTHING and while not dead in her other returns...the same thing happens that happened in that first return...instantly heavily attached to the canvas like she never left.

 

Katherine Bell and the Parapet. Can I mention that? Because it seem like she was dead, dead, dead...until that soapy dramatic Friday cliffhanger when she came into the court the spinning image of her savior Helena. The looks. The fashion. The music. It was PERFECTION. She got a little TOO big for her breeches, but it was still in her character to be that way. 

 

OLTL

 

I liked the Tale of Two Todds. Though I did prefer Victor to Todd by the end. But crazy as it sounded and camp it had, I liked it then. Speaking of...

 

Marty's return in the form of Susan Haskell. The story might have been messy and I would probably feel different about it now if I rewatched it, but it was soap. And while the writing might have let me down, SH stayed fascinating to watch from story to story. And I liked that even though they wrote her wrong at the end, there was an attempt at least to course correct. 

 

 

[Chris B]

I mentioned this recently in The Doctors thread the Mike Powers back from the dead story is one of the worst I've ever seen. The funny thing is they had two BFTD stories at the same time and the other one was played out much better. Karen had "died" in a plane crash, but they had revealed in an episode shortly after her death that she was alive but lost her memory. They waited until they were ready to properly bring her back before really diving into the storyline and it was paced well.

With Mike, they revealed he was back, recast him and had his recast on the frontburner for EIGHT MONTHS in another country, before they revealed he was alive to his family. It was so insane that one recast didn't even make it to town to interact with the characters who knew him before he was replaced with another actor. For months he would have the most repetitive scenes with his love interest and I cannot imagine how difficult it was to watch in real time. 

When you have a character in a different location from the main action, you can only tell that story for so long without it getting boring. Either you need to have a good amount of characters for them to interact with, or you need to limit the amount of screentime it gets. 

[Vee]

I remember people ready to burn the GH writers in effigy when Brenda was hanging out in Rome or wherever for maybe a month or something with all-new characters when she first returned in 2010, showing us a window into her high profile life. I didn't think that was a terrible idea, but it was poorly plotted. This is way beyond that, lol.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Vee

[Darn]

At least Brenda is someone we know! That sounds like torture @Chris B

[Xanthe]

Have they ever combined BFTD with a Martin Guerre or Brat Farrar-style imposture story? The only case I can think of where the person back from the dead turned out not to be the person is Roman/John Black but that's not quite the same since as far as I know John believed he must be Roman.

[j swift]

Clay/Alex on Loving comes to mind.  Alex Masters impersonated Clay Alden, who was thought to have been killed in a plane accident.  And, eventually when Clay returned he figured out that everyone liked Alex more because Clay was such an a-hole

[Dion]

I think Loving did one with Alex Masters posing as Clay Alden, fully knowing he wasn't the real Clay? I'm not fully up on the details of that story.

Other soaps have done stories similar to Roman/John like Todd/Victor Jr on OLTL and Jason/Drew on GH where they genuinely believed they were the person they were presented as but with the added wrinkle that they were twins with plastic surgery.

[Vee]

I'd argue the Clay/Alex ploy seemed to mostly work for Loving, despite a succession of various Clays.

The Two Todds toyed with this idea early on, IMO - they had TSJ's "Todd" sharing a dark secret with the nefarious Agent Baker and access to a secret disc or microchip full of information, which IIRC was never actually explained. Nor did they tell us (AFAIK) what secret Victor/Todd and Baker were actually privy to. The implication in the beginning was that Victor knew he wasn't Todd and knew the real Todd was locked away, but this didn't pan out. Baker knew all about the Two Todds because he worked for Irene Manning, but in the end, months later, we were told Victor had no idea. So what else could Victor have known about?

[Planet Soap]

Worst
OLTL: Victor Lord Sr. (2003): For a charachter with so many post mortem rewrites and whose daughter sufferd an entire pysocological breaking over killing him, resurecting him was non sensical. 

Irene: I get that Irene was resurrected to facilitate Roger Howard's return, but it could've been explained in the less confusing matter. Did new Irene get any scenes with Tina?

GH: Jake Webber. I'm glad that Jake is alive but he shouldn't have bwen killed to begin with. I guess the writers are going for a cheap imitation of Maxi & BJ's heart transplant. The problem was that it undid the organ transplant with Josslyn, leading to a convoluted explanation about how her  kidney actually came from Nelle. 

BEST

DAYS: Roman/John/Marlena. I liked everything from John black to original Roman to Marlene's returns from the dead. All of those events were very concequential to DAYS for years. 

OLTL: Mitch Lawrence (2002). I loved the buildup with bringing Allison out of her coma and introducing Natalie, with the ultimate reveal that Mitch was Jessica's "father". It was a great use of history from the 80s. It was a risky RETCON to permanently make a legacy character like Jessica (who grew up on the show) the daughter of a psycho rapist. I'm glad they undid that in the series finale. Mitch's character went off the rails with a litany of puzzling plots like diamonds, Victor being alive, Flynn/Walker Lawrence? , and Alison switching Schyuler Joplin and Rex as babies too name a few.

Edited January 31, 2023 by ironlion

[Taoboi]

I agree. And the audience was in an uproar, too which I remembered and loved. It was one of the retcon that was TOTALLY possible off and ON screen so people had something to discuss and research and everything. And Jessica was a legacy character we watched grow up before our eyes. Totally got people in the feels.

[Vee]

To this day I think the Mitch/Jessica reveal was originally intended to be undone much sooner than it was. It was a great twist along with his return and the Natalie twin reveal, but the Mitch angle should've been revealed to be a lie within a year.

IIRC Irene did get a scene or two with Tina as part of large group reveal stuff with the ensemble cast, but I believe it was just very hollow plot material - 'yes, my daughter, I am alive' as Andrea goes bug-eyed, etc.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Vee

[j swift]

I like the Clay/Alex story on Loving because the audience was in on the con from the beginning.  I maintain a theory that part of the issue between Ron C and the audience is that he's always trying to trick or surprise the viewer, but actually people like being smarter that the characters on screen.  So, it helped that viewers knew that Alex was a con early on, and the whole issue of facial reconstruction was just a ruse.  It also was brilliantly heightened by the appearance of Rick.  Gwen was trying to hide his parentage, Rick was a bad guy, but Alex had to go along with it in order to avoid a DNA test that would prove he wasn't Clay.  Furthermore, it made Ava seem smart that she figured out the con before anyone else. 

[dragonflies]

Then SK dared to speak out about the writing for AJ and ReRon got his panties into a twist and punished SK with never ending fat jokes

[Planet Soap]

Sean's AJ and Laura's Carly had great chemistry and they would have worked as a toxic pairing. Billy Warlok's AJ and Sarah Brown's Carly had this new Alan & Monica angle going for them aswell, back when they were married. I've said this endlessly but a huge ball was dropped by the writers. That was the last genuinely interesting story line I could say Carly had aside from some Nelle material.