We all know many of those big, iconic soap moments. The lucky ones got to see them when they aired, and the buildup. Now thanks to YouTube we can view many of them (before they get pulled down), but it’s often not the same as watching it build daily for months, or even years. Sometimes you see those big moments and they are kind of lackluster without the anticipation.

What is your favorite big soap moment that you saw the whole story as it was airing?

What is a big soap moment you saw years later on YouTube or somewhere else that was still able to thrill?

What was a big soap moment that you saw after it aired and were kind of meh about, one that didn’t hold up?

My favorite when it was airing has to be clink/boom. I didn’t know anything was coming until the slow motion started, I was deeply invested in Brenda/Sonny as a teenager, and it was a really great way to keep that separation going.

Favorite from YouTube has to be Beverlee McKinsey’s Alexandra Spaulding confronting Roger Thorpe at the Towers. It was so great I spent months watching as much of the Curlee era as I could find. I didn’t really watch GL and those few years have become some of my favorite soap.

One that didn’t hold up was Hello, Barbara on ATWT. I think you just had to be there. And it’s not like Marland couldn’t grab me, I also saw the Douglas Cummins reveal after the fact and it was gripping and very creepy.

Great topic, @titan1978! I talked about it a a week-and-a-half ago, but watching the reveal that Lucy Coe wasn't actually a spinster in context was surprisingly eye-opening. As an individual scene, it's iconic and fun to watch, which is probably why it remains popular all these years later. It helps that Lucy's technically the only one in the scene, so it can be watched on its own. In the context of Laurelton and the episode it aired in 1986, though, the scene is another attempt at teasing, even when it's fairly obvious who Lucy is meeting.

3 hours ago, titan1978 said:

What is your favorite big soap moment that you saw the whole story as it was airing?

The reveal when Iris admits to Mac that she was “The Chief” of Bennett Publishing that was trying to take over Cory Publishing. What made this all the more shocking was Douglass Watson’s real life death a few weeks later. The AW writers played it as Mac having a heart attack because of Iris’ betrayal. The father and daughter never reconciled before Mac’s death.

41 minutes ago, Franko said:

Great topic, @titan1978! I talked about it a a week-and-a-half ago, but watching the reveal that Lucy Coe wasn't actually a spinster in context was surprisingly eye-opening. As an individual scene, it's iconic and fun to watch, which is probably why it remains popular all these years later

You almost don’t need the whole story for that one, but I think knowing Lucy makes it stand out more in hindsight!

I was looking on eBay for a couple of those soap mags that listed the best stories or best moments from soaps, and I remembered back then how I wish I could have seen things like Heather Webber/Diana Taylor and the original LSD moment, or Hello, Barbara, or the Loving Murders. Now I have! The one that I haven’t seen yet that I know exists fully in the vault is the accident with Katherine and Philllip Chancellor. My dream would be Carla Grey’s reveal on OLTL, or Laura killing David Hamilton.

3 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

You almost don’t need the whole story for that one, but I think knowing Lucy makes it stand out more in hindsight!

I was looking on eBay for a couple of those soap mags that listed the best stories or best moments from soaps, and I remembered back then how I wish I could have seen things like Heather Webber/Diana Taylor and the original LSD moment, or Hello, Barbara, or the Loving Murders. Now I have! The one that I haven’t seen yet that I know exists fully in the vault is the accident with Katherine and Philllip Chancellor. My dream would be Carla Grey’s reveal on OLTL, or Laura killing David Hamilton.

I keep holding out hope for Alan & Monica's wedding in 1978.

9 minutes ago, watson71 said:

The AW writers played it as Mac having a heart attack because of Iris’ betrayal. The father and daughter never reconciled before Mac’s death.

That must have been powerful for longtime fans. You have the history of the issues between them from Beverlee McKinsey’s era, and then also the reality of his death and missing Douglass Watson.

I know probably everyone thinks the cliched answer is Karen Wolek testifying on the witness stand on OLTL and revealing to everyone she was a prostitute--and it is an AMAZING scene--but there's another big moment during that trial that beats it by a hair.

The trial was about the murder of Marco Dane (Gerald Anthony). So we all saw the dead body. But this is a soap opera, right?

The reveal they did here was absolutely brilliant. They just showed the courtroom, they weren't really focusing on anyone in particular, when a man walks in and simply takes a seat.

My sister and I were watching this together. We looked at each other, because the guy looked familiar but we couldn't place him.

See, Marco Dane had a beard and dressed kind of like a punk. This guy was clean-shaven and was wearing a suit.

Little by little, it dawned on us who it was, even though he was just sitting in the courtroom as if he was an anonymous spectator.

We started screaming at the TV and each other, "It's Gerald Anthony, it's Gerald Anthony!"

Of course, at THIS point, they explained this was Marco's twin, Mario Dane, and for quite some time the audience accepted it--until there was ANOTHER great iconic scene. Karen had been raped by her brother-in-law Brad Vernon, "Mario" figured it out, and he harangued Karen until she admitted it. Then she--and the audience--realizes he's not Mario, he's actually MARCO.

The thing that's so great about all of this is you could NEVER get away with these kinds of reveals today because of the internet.

From beginning to end, what a great storyline. Sigh. Miss those days a lot.

The reveal of Jake as The Salem Strangler on Days. Mary Anderson struggled as he strangled her, and she pulled off his mask to reveal it was Jake.

But now only the audience knew and for weeks we waited for the final reveal.

Days was a great watch at that time. Pat Falken Smith revitalized the show without major changes. The new characters were intereting and plenty of established characters were front and center. A pity she left so soon.

I'll stick to just those I saw live. There are any number of others I saw of course, but these are some I still remember offhand.

8 hours ago, titan1978 said:

What is your favorite big soap moment that you saw the whole story as it was airing?

• DAYS 1994-95: Gina/Hope, Bo/Billie, Aremid and the Possession.

• GH 1993: Luke and Laura's grand return and the introduction of Lucky.

• GH 1994: Bobbie traps Damian Smith in the tunnels/sewers/whatever they were.

• OLTL 1994: The hospital rapist storyline with Powell Lord. Still very creepy. (I came in just after the Spring Fling rape of Marty in '93, so I didn't see much of the trial.)

• OLTL 1995: The abuse reveal, with Viki splitting into her alters, calling Dorian a "stupid, ugly bitch" and hurling her down the stairs. I've talked about this a lot. I was home watching live as a young teenager, had no idea Viki had ever been mentally ill and was terrified.

• LOV 1995: The Loving Murders. 'Nuff said.

• GH 1995: Coming home from school to watch Alan Quartermaine tell Robin Scorpio she's HIV positive. She was maybe 2-3 years older than me.

• Christmas 2000, AMC: Bianca strips down and tells her mother she's gay. I sobbed and sobbed.

• OLTL 2002: Live Week. A wonderful achievement and the greatest performance in Kassie DePaiva's career, even though she was admittedly terrified BTS the whole time.

• OLTL 2002: The other shoe finally drops in the long baby switch storyline when Viki confronts Allison Perkins in a padded cell and she answers her questions with "Ask Mitch." The look in Barbara Garrick's eyes says it all as to why they kept bringing her back right to the very end in 2013. I suspected Mitch had to be alive and sure enough, at the end of the episode there he was.

• OLTL 2007: Asa's death. Bob Woods gave one of his very best performances, maybe the best of his career, as a drunken Bo became unhinged in the Buchanan stables over his dysfunctional relationship with his father. Woods rarely was a showy actor and was often deceptively understated, so to watch him come unglued was jarring and very, very powerful.

• OLTL 2008: Dorian seizes Buchanan Enterprises and exposes Jared and Natalie, leading to Nash Brennan's violent death while the family looks on at the hospital.

• AMC 2008: Angie chases the train and reunites with Jesse. Debbi Morgan's screams still rip my heart out.

• OLTL 2009: Kyle and Oliver have sex, the first gay love scene I can recall on American daytime and not a chaste one.

• GH 2011: Sonny finds out about Brenda and Dante's relationship at the altar, but chooses to marry her anyway and gives a wonderful speech about how her father lied to her about being worthless. One of Sonny's last great moments as well as some of the last great works from the longtime dialogue team, and oddly enough one of the first times I was legitimately able to appreciate Sonny and Brenda (I had not been a huge Brenda fan as a kid and preferred Robin/Carly) and began to revisit their past.

• GH 2012: The water crisis. Hokey and silly in many places but genuinely exciting and affecting, and it probably saved the show from cancellation.

• GH 2013: Robin returns and crashes Patrick and Sabrina's wedding. Again, drawn out and hokey for weeks and months prior, but Ron Carlivati had very deliberately set up to imitate the structure of Laura's clandestine weeks-long return in 1983 as well as of Anna and Robin's Asian Quarter reunion in the '80s (echoed with Robin and Emma in the church), and he delivered on both in those key scenes.

Edited 55 minutes ago55 min by Vee