I asked about starting this thread here, and was given a tentative okay by Sars, so hopefully it's all kosher. Innyway...
So what's the consensus on the ultimate worst show - DAYS or GH? Best -- AMC or GL? Or AtWT?
And the thing I've been looking for answers on -- which show is historically best at keeping the focus on its core families, with little risk of unconnected newbies becoming headliners? (JT and Brittany, I'm looking at you. Yeah. Go away.)

I love this idea!

For me, James E. Reilly writes the worst ever. His original idea for Passions was good...camp up daytime, throw cold water on it, liven it up a bit. But it's no longer a satire of the genre; it's a mockery of the genre, and where one is in good fun, the other is mean-spirited. I really think he writes soaps as an ego thing, and doesn't care about the genre. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't really care if they continue or not.

DOOL and Passions are the worst, IMO, for the following reasons, the biggest of which is the waste of time it is to watch them. You watch a conversation, only to be told a minute later that it was someone's fantasy. I don't have time to watch fake crap. You have a scene ending and someone says, "I know exactly what you are talking about," and the naive viewer might think that a secret is about to be revealed, but upon return from commercial, all that is said is "You are talking about how you forget to get the groceries today!" And the person gets a moronic expression on their face, gulps, and admits that, yes, all the drama was about the ketchup. Supremely insulting to the intelligence of viewers.

I think the ABC soaps are the best, although of course GH is problematic because of the emphasis on pushing to the forefront actors who cannot act, and making the show all about them. GH can be offensive on a fairly routine basis, but it's for the most part still entertaining. The CBS shows are all kind of boring to me, but I can tell, especially with Y & R that they are quality, just not my cup of tea.

Have to disagree about GH being entertaining. It's boring, IMO, because the same characters are on every day, doing the same shit, with the same outcomes. Plus, the writing is horrendous. It does have some actors who can cover for it, but mostly TIIC choose to put actors in the forefront who make it worse.

I don't know about DOOL, but based on what others have said, I get the feeling that choosing whether GH or DOOL is worse is kind of like deciding whether you want to die by drowning or fire. Different people have different preferences, but at the end of the day, the result's the same.

OLTL, IMO, hasn't sucked for as long, but is almost to GH/DOOL depths. I don't hate every character on the show and there are a couple of couples I like, but those lists are ever dwindling. I still tape it every day, but can't remember the last time I watched before deleting.

I don't watch them because I don't have the time to get into them, but whenever I catch a glimpse of a CBS soap, they just seem so much better than the ABC ones. I watched Y&R for a bit a couple of years ago and, while it had its problems, it was much better than anything airing on ABC. I think the same is true for ATWT. Better production values, fewer weak cast members (which is not to say NO weak cast members), but mostly they just seem more like soaps in terms of pacing, storylines, etc., and I mean that in a good way. I've been tempted to take up ATWT, which is more than I can say for any of the ABC soaps these days.

But I don't need new soaps because the best soaps, IMO, are reruns shown on SoapNet. Ryan's Hope, Another World, Dallas. That's where to get good soap because it seems to me to be a lost art form. Now if they'd only start re-airing GH from 1977, we'd be getting somewhere.

FWIW, the best soaps I ever watched were Another World in the late 70s with Iris-Mac-Rachel and General Hospital 1979-83 (the Luke and Laura years). They were huge ratings successes for a reason. But I think the 70s, early 80s were the apex of daytime, regardless of show. Soaps had lots of money then, enough freedom to do new things with storylines, and some innovative talent working in the industry as a result (Harding Lemay, Gloria Monty, Agnes Nixon, Douglas Marland).

I only watch ABC soaps, it's a family thing. I've never watched the CBS soaps, but I've heard good things about them. I have only occassionally ventured to the NBC soaps. The fantasy/magic/demon stuff really doesn't appeal to me.

My love of ABC soaps is a cyclical thing. There are periods when I just can't miss GH. At one point in high school, I couldn't get enough of the show. It was during the time JJ was still Lucky, before they pretended to kill him and then brought him back with a new actor. My first year in college I scheduled my classes so that I wouldn't miss GH, now I hardly tune in. There was period when I really liked OLTL but these days I couldn't tell you who most of the characters are, with the recasting and addition of new characters. Right now my ABC soap love goes to AMC, but they are losing me with the focus on making Babe good. However, I still think it's the best of the ABC bunch, though how it compared with the stuff on other networks, I don't know.

I'm a GL girl. It was a terrible show only a year ago, but a new head-writer and a cast that is kicking ass has made this show great again.

I also watch DOOL and Passions, but I don't quite know why. They are terrible, terrible, terrible! They are insulting to the viewer, they spend a whole entire week for TWO PEOPLE to be involved in the same conversation (repeating the same words over and over again), and they are just terrible. Yet, I can't turn away, so JERk must be doing something right.

I've don't currently watch ABC soaps, so I can't really comment. (Well there was a time years ago that I would watch OLTL, but that only lasted for a year or so.) I watched the final three months of Port Charles, and it was silly. All My Children I watched during the Kim Delaney days, but I stupidly gave that up for Dool.

For me the worst soap is GH just because I remember so vividly how good it used to be (BJ's heart - what story was better?), and now when I see it I actually get angry.

Best overall? Probably the CBS soaps. ATWT has done well with remembering its core families and giving them something to do (Susan vs. the Hughes for the Chris-Allie wedding comes to mind), but has done terribly in casting (NuWill notwithstanding) in the past year and a half. Y & R actually brings in its older cast members for real stories and delves into the back stories of the characters, but can be a little boring. GL looks great, but I've never gotten that into it. B & B really could be put out to pasture and I wouldn't miss it.

Worst overall? ABC just simply from plummeting from quality (as with GH) to absolute mediocrity. Also, shoves heroines down our throats by telling us how great they are without building on stories that would show us how great they are (see Babe GH, Jessica OLTL, Emily GH). OLTL also is painful to watch now, and it used to be so darned good. I think it tends to rely on the same actors (Todd, Blair, McBain, Boring.Natalie, Antonio, Jessica, Nora) but can't bring fresh stories that work while ignoring wonderful characters like RJ, Lindsay and Fiesty!Natalie.

NBC gets a meh from me, because it seems like they are just supposed to be bad and not gounded in any sort of reality. They are neither here or there to me. I could do without hearing the words slut or whore on Passions, but then half the cast wouold have nothing to say.

Well I always watched NBC soaps, started with Another World, then it was Days, Sunset Beach and of course the worst of all Passions. I hate Days and yet, I'm still watching for some reason that I'm trying hard to figure out. The show has declined the past 10 years, it's not even good anymore and James Reilley ruined it. I could care less about the young adult scene, they're all drab (except for Jan), the same person always gets kicked in the teeth (Sami), by bitch (Kate) and the rest of Salem. So much hate for this show.

Passions...I stopped watching. I grab a 15 mins here and there, but aside from that what I see or read on it makes me ultra pissed because JERk thinks that the viewers are idiots. Why the show is even on the air is beyond me. Running Campbell soup and Mark makeup ads in the characters' dialogue is ridiculous. Out of the pack there's only maybe 4-5 actors who can act. The good characters have been crapped on so often that they are completely unrecognizable and that I don't even remember why I liked them in the first place.

Now, I'm just really back to my soap "roots" with GH and As The World Turns, though the writting is just like a roller coaster. And I enjoy them more because I happen to watch Days before those two shows. Sometimes I feel like I just stepped into another zone because the acting is so much better and the actors have a way to make the worst scenes look breezy and smell like roses. But that's really just me.

I like that YR doesn't lock their veterans in the closet and that their black characters are absolutely kick ass and aren't stuck in those steryotypes and cliches. Their teen scene is by far the best because the actors they have can pull it off and it's a classy soap. But it tends to get boring a lot of times for me.

And yet, here I am, still watching.

This is certainly not a problem limited to James E Reilly. In fact, I would go so far to say that the problem with soaps nowadays and the reason why the ratings are dwindling is that as a whole the industry employs too many people with disdain for the genre, like Reilly who unfortunately is responsible for NBC's entire lineup (and so I might also put daytime vice-prez Sheridan Kolouria here too) or Guza and Pratt, who are running General Hospital into the ground; and Brian Frons, who may not have an open disdain for the genre but certainly does for the audience. And then, those who may respect the genre are too inept to carry it through on a consistant basis, like AMC's Megan McTavish, who started out good and has been faltering for months now (ever since Babe found out about the babies) because it seems that sometimes she literally doesn't know how to tell the story she wants to. It's amazing how quickly Dena Higley turned OLTL from a pretty entertaining soap into an irritating, unwatchable, DOOL-esque mess. (No offense to Days watchers, but I never could stand that "talking to myself" schtick. It's just lazy writing.)

So, barring the CBS's because I just can't get into them, right now--even with the problems--I'd have to put AMC at the top of the heap.

I love this idea, too!



I agree that these two are the worst on daytime. And it's no coincidence tht JErK is involved with both of them. I recently gave up Days (after 20+ years of watching), but not before suffering through the whole Shawn locked in Jan's cage crapola SL. What I hate the most about DOOL is the constant repitition. If you watch an entire episode, you get two people having the same exact conversation for 60 minutes. It goes something like this:

Shawn: So, do you still love me?
Belle: I'm married, this is inappropriate.
Shawn: So you DO still love me.
Belle: <runs away>
:Commercial break:
Shawn: Belle, you must still love me
Belle: But I'm married to Phillip
Shawn: But you still love me
Belle:<runs away>
:Commercial break"
Shawn: Belle, be honest - you love me
Belle: No, I love....
Shawn: You paused, it means you still love me
Belle: <runs away>
Previews for tomorrow:
Shawn: You still love me, Belle, just say it
Belle: But I'm married now!

Wash, rinse, repeat.....it takes forever for any of the sl's to move forward - and then you add the fake pronouncements of death, transparent cliffhangers, and countless, "I know exactly what's going on here" declarations (only to be mislead for the 95th time), and you have the worst soap on television. Of course, DOOL used to be much better. Always far fetched, but much better.

I prefer CBS soaps by a longshot. ATWT and Y&R seem to have more depth - and they also seem to move the plots along more proficiently. Whoever said the teen scene on Y&R was the best hit the nail right on the head. ATWT isn't too shabby in that department, either.

Me too, not because I think it's particularly any better right now but because I am excited to see how certain stories turn out. Now whether I actually will like them when they turn a corner, I don't know, but I'm interested.

This is a fascinating thread - at least to me.

My late mom was a CBS soap watcher back in the 60's - I remember her watching AWTW and GL. Once I went to college, AMC started me on the ABC soaps with the Phil/Tara/Chuck triangle, and for many years, I've been an ABC-only watcher.

I'm not sure how long that's going to last. And that's because of the BAD=GOOD writing. GH is by far the worst of the group in this respect. Men who kill or have people killed are good. Men who abuse women are good. Women who praise the abusers are good. Men who criticize the killers/abusers are bad; women who criticize the killers/abusers are neurotic. People who bicker are bad and should not have children in their care; all the criminals are good parents. Parents of teens are always wrong when they want their kids to do something responsible like actually go to school instead of running away and ending up in a foreign jail. The police are all corrupt and/or stupid.

The other two ABC soaps are not quite as bad yet, but with the fluffing of the baby snatchers and Verbally Abusive Ryan, they're getting there.

Don't get me wrong - I'm as amused as anybody by characters that are not "goody-goodies" - for example, the classic Soap Diva/Bitch. To this day, I adore watching Erica Kane in action. But even Erica has been taken down in the past when she went too far such as when she lost custody of Bianca and when she went to jail. Those incidents were satisfying not only because that particular character was in need of a comeuppance, but in general we knew that in Pine Valley (in those days) there were consequences. When and how they were going to come about brought the tension that is essential to any drama, not just soaps.

But now, where's the suspense? We're supposed to believe that certain characters are GOOD because we're told they are (Sonny, Courtney, Babe, Jamie, Kelly - yup that's all the ABC soaps) and those characters do not suffer the consequences they have earned. The worst that happens is that somebody yells at them, and we're supposed to be happy that they've "gotten what they deserved."

Two things a soap should not be: offensive and predictable. On those two counts, I saw GH as the worst and that's why I quit watching. AMC and OLTL may not be far behind. Any hope for me on the other networks?

I think this thread is a great idea, since this kind of discussion keeps breaking through on other threads.

I think NBC soaps are so bad that they are almost a sub-genre in themselves. I can't seriously critique them in comparison with ABC or CBS soaps because they are so - for lack of a better word - silly. I started watching AW during its last few years, and I watched DOOL back in the early to mid-80s, so I know this wasn't always the case. But now? I can't watch either DOOL or Passions for more than 10 minutes without having to switch channels.

I started watching Y&R with my Mom when I was a kid, but discovered ABC in high school. GH was my favorite soap for many years, beginning in 1979, right when Luke and Laura were first taking off. I hung in there for a long time, but recently had to stop watching, it's just gotten so bad that it's painful. However, unlike DOOL, I think GH could be saved with some severe pruning and new headwriters - with DOOL, I don't know if it could be done.

Of the ABC soaps, I think AMC is in the best shape right now, which is kind of odd, since one of the things most of us watch soaps for is romance, and they don't have any really strong love stories right now, IMO. OLTL, which used to be so good, has been unwatchable for quite a while now.

CBS is in the best shape, but - I was discussing this elsewhere on TWoP recently - for some reason, I can never fully embrace a CBS soap. I follow B&B - it's not hard, it moves at a snail's pace - mainly because I love Susan Flannery and I find the Brooke/Stephanie dynamic entertaining. The men on Bell soaps drive me nuts, but I like their women. I used to watch GL back when Sherry Stringfield was Blake and hung on for a few years after she left, but it got boring and I went back to GH. I hear it's good again, but I haven't had the energy to start again. ATWT seems to be good, I'm always reading about how good it is, but I never quite get sucked in. It's a mystery.

This is the perfect thread to ask a question that has been plaguing me for weeks:
Which soap moves the fastest?

The real question is, what soap moves the slowest? Meaning, what about slow storylines? I've been watching OLTL for some time, and they have the tendency to drag out storylines. What is the best soap to watch out there? In terms of CBS, ABC, and NBC...I think that CBS has the better soaps out of the three networks.

GH, by a mile. I think you can get pregnant, marry, and then miscarry all in a week.

GH. Hands down. They may be on a hamster wheel, but they truck along on it as fast as they can.

I think there should be a happy medium in terms of pacing. Soaps shouldn't have twelve days a year, but the "greased lightening" form of "story""telling" really does a disservice to character development and doesn't take advantage of the long form drama.

I agree, GH is the fastest. Slowest? Probably DOOL, though Y&R gives it a run for its money. It's probably the only thing the two shows have in common.

But Y&R drags stories out more effectively, IMO. DOOL just rinses, lathers and repeats scenes endlessly.

A friend of mine used to say that a soap is the only place where it takes a woman 12 months to have a premature baby. Not anymore. Now on GH, it takes 15 minutes to get from upstate NY to Bolivia or Italy.

The slowest is hands down Passions. We counted 76 days in real time for one night to pass on Passions. The actors got changed a total of 3 times and one of the characters wore the same clothes for the whole duration of that period.

But then again, that show is screwed up as much as JERk is.

I do seem to remember a Fourth of July (?!?) prom that ended on like Halloween or Thanksgiving back when I used to watch Passions.

Totally agree. I think soaps today are written by people who almost have a parody-level understanding of what they're doing. They don't seem to get that soap is merely a format for storytelling. Instead, they either play up the camp or try to make it something else.

I've seen very little of AMC since the rape so I'm not the best person to discuss this, but I think the main thing that show has going for it is that it seems to at least be putting forth a lot of vets and mixing them in with talented younger actors. What little I've seen indicates to me the writing sucks, but at least it has interaction between characters that the audience cares about (Erica, Adam, Bianca, Kendall) and who are played by decent-to-terrific actors. I think if GH and OLTL were even halfway decent, the bad writing at AMC would be more obvious, but since GH and OLTL are every bit as badly written, if not worse, and they also focus on characters so many of us hate who are played by mediocre-to-bad actors, AMC starts to look fucking brilliant.

Just putting Susan Lucci, David Canary, and Anna Stuart in a room makes AMC smarter than any other ABC soap. Put performers like that together often enough and great things are going to happen no matter how shitty the writing or, at the very least, one of them will be entertaining. If GH and OLTL had any brains, they'd do the same thing with the talented members of their cast. In that sense, Susan Lucci is such a blessing because network hacks, *cough* Frons *cough*, may feel free to dis Slezak and others, but no way is he going to go against Lucci.

The frustrating thing about GH is that the asshats in charge seem to understand this, because when GH gets desperate around sweeps, usually when rumors of firings are flying, it trots out its tried and true vets. Witness the AJ-a-thon last week when suddenly Stuart Damon, Leslie Charleson, and Jane Eliot are all let out to play. Why they don't regularly mix in those and other vet actors with the more talented younger ones, I have no idea. Oh, wait, I do, they're moronic hacks.

I'm scared to watch CBS soaps. Everyone says they're the best and I'm afraid I won't be able to randomly quit them and go cold turkey like I had to do with OLTL last month.
I was afraid everyone would say that GH was the fastest. I want to watch a sped up soap, but I can't go back to GH right now, it's too soon.

Although I think that the CBS soaps are the best, they do seem to be grounded more in reality and so they have less cliffhanger stories that make you have to set your VCR. So they'd be easier to quit cold turkey, IMO.

bdb, I think your assessment of why AMC works better than OLTL or GH is dead on. No matter how much of a mess the current show is, we still get moments such as Erica's statement to Tad, "I don't need DNA, I have K-A-N-E!" Or the great sequence between Erica and Adam when she told him that Bess was Miranda and DC played it so beautifully. You're right, the writing is generally bad, and the Babe-fluffing has reached such heights that I've stopped watching again, but there is a greater mixture of characters played by good actors interacting. With each other.

GH? Well, we all know - there are only 6 characters TIIC really care about - well, maybe 7: Sonny, Jason, Carly, Courtney, Nik, Emily and now Sam. But really, I think Sam is like Jax - the second either character breaks up with their Central Six partner, they'll be off the frontburner. Alexis and Ric get play because of their ties to Sonny.

OLTL, I stopped watching a long time ago. And it's sad, because Dorian Lord is, IMO, one of the greatest characters on daytime, and RS rules.

Watch B&B, it can be quality at times but it's also fast paced and very easy to give up on. And it's half an hour so no big commitment.

Hi All, Cool thread. I have watched every soap on the air at one time or another except for Passions and AMC. Currently I only do CBS (minus BnB at the moment). I had a long love affair like many with GH, but now am very very bitter as its gone down the drain so very far. It saddens me as I still love some of the old characters and they have some great actors (Hearst, NLG, Herbst, RC) - but I had to save my sanity and jump ship.

As far as pacing ATWT, did some modernizing experiments this time last year where everything was massively sped up, I liked it alot but they have slowed it down alot since then.
My fav soap is GL. I agree last year at this time I was about as fed up with it as I am with GH, but what a turnaround a year can make! My alltime fave is Santa Barbara during its late 80's golden era.

I am always hearing good things about AMC but it's that one elusive soap I havent been able to get into despite trying.

Word about B&B -can be great fun but they rehash the same SL themes over and over so you can tune in and out on a whim. Its superficial and campy enough so as to not get too emotionally invested.

I grew up on CBS soaps, and until a little over a year ago they were all I watched, so I can say without a doubt that I think CBS is the best soap network. I've had my ups and downs with each (I gave up B&B during Ridget and right when I came back to it a few months ago they started up again, so I stopped recording again), but for the most part I love them.

GL used to be my favorite soap. I started watching when I was about 11, and was hardly ever disappointed. Then a little over a year ago I gave it up. It was hard, but I had to. The show had turned into complete and utter crap. Mary Anne Carothers, the destruction of GusH (although they are almost better than ever these days), the loss of Aubrey Dollar, and countless other things drove me away. Sadly for me I turned to GH to fill my 2 o'clock slot, and now I'm can't not watch GH. It sucks, and I know it, but the masochist in me won't let me fully go back to GL.

Since I've watched GH, I can say that CBS does have the best soaps. I think CBS has better casts, and by better I don't just mean better actors I also mean more well rounded as far as age, race, etc. They have better sets (with walls that don't shake...I'm looking at you GH), better production values (looking at you again GH...remember the CGI PC Hotel during the Great Fire?), better pacing, and overall better look. CBS soaps have this aesthetic quality that the other networks lack. I can't quite describe it. If that makes any sense.

I wouldn't touch a NBC soap with a 10ft pole. They look completely ridiculous. When I tell people I watch and love soap operas it's because of NBC soaps that I get crazy looks. NBC should just run Starting Over from 11 to 3, and call it a day. It's their best soap anyways.

The only soap I still watch is ATWT. I’ve watched all of them at some time or another except Passions. I can’t seem to watch more than five minutes of that one. The problem is that I tend to like/dislike the opposite things that most people do.

Y&R and B&B are the top rated soaps but I can’t stand either one of them due to the slow pace and bad acting from Ronn Moss and Eric Braeden. I’ve watched GL and ATWT since birth (1961) but had to give up GL a few years ago after one too many bizarre storylines. I like soaps to be somewhat grounded in reality. I find the family relationships to be the most interesting. Soaps are at their best when they are drawing their characters and stories from the history of the shows.

I was a huge DOOL fan back in the 1980’s but gave it up when Deirdre Hall came back and the show turned back into the Marlena Evans show.

I’ve watched all of the ABC soaps at some point or another. I watched GH in the 1970s but gave it up over Luke and Laura and the rape debacle. I told you I liked the opposite of what is popular. OLTL is my least favourite but I watched off and on strictly for Erica Slezak. I watch AMC most of the 1980s and gave it up when Edmund dumped Brooke for Maria. I love Julia Barr and think she is very underrated. I couldn’t stand Susan Lucci’s overacting.

Given GH's ratings in the 1980s, almost everyone from that era tuned in at least for a little while. I still say that CBS or NBC is missing a big opportunity by not developing a soap with former GH actors, there are a lot of good ones floating around, and scheduling it opposite GH.

Even though me and GL have been through rough times this last year or so I think I would have a long hard cry if GL was replaced. It might be sitting next to Passions in the ratings, but it's a good show that's making it's way back to greatness.

Except that somewhere over the past six months, Passions actually, miraculously somehow got a lot of its ducks in a row, and now, while it's not super-speedy, compared to DAYS it's like the Daytona 500. I watch them both and you know it's bad when I now catch myself thinking, "Oh, thank God, Passions. Things actually happen there!"

Sadly in this day and age of dwindling viewership I think the days of newtworks, even CBS who seems to treat their daytime lineup with respect, creating new soaps are over.
I would just Love though to have some of the GH cast hijaked over to CBS. To have Rick H back on GL as Alan Michael and Becky Herbst on ATWT or YnR. not to mention HeatherT back on YnR as Victoria. Stick the underused Kristina Wagner on BnB and taunt me with Frisco&Felicia Version 2 and I'm happy.

I've never watched OLTL or GH so I can't comment on those fairly. AMC I've watched off and on since it began. I don't currently watch but keep up with character comings and goings via the boards and soap sites.

I rarely watch Days because of its pacing and lack of characters I like. I check in about once or twice a month when I remember, but it's up against ATWT and I'm not missing that. I'm new to Passions and find it ridiculous, but it's funny to me because its so bad. I tell myself the actors know how bad it is but I am afraid some of them may not know.

I've always watched CBS soaps. When I was a kid it was because my sister wanted to watch only ABC ones and I was evil. Heh. But I got hooked and have been pretty loyal. For years GL was my favorite but then they ruined the core families and I can't watch it any more. Hence my switch to Passions lately.

ATWT is, to me, the best of the best. For the most part the casting is excellent and the acting skills of the players supreme. The show's been through many changes, and even had a Days/Passionesque feel back in the 80s when Justin Deas and Margaret Colin were Tom and Margo Hughes during the Jabberwocky sl. Later the Frannie/Kim/Doug Cummings sl was also over the top but the acting was so good I didn't care that the story was kind of outrageous for a soap.

B&B and Y&R are fluff. They're soap lite to me but the people are pretty and I don't have to concentrate much to follow them. And each show has a few dynamite actors that are a pleasure to watch no matter how bad their sls.

I just like the genre. Soaps are a way to keep part of my brain occupied while I do boring household or work stuff that I don't have to think about much. I love seeing the actors branch out to prime time shows or film and following their careers later on. Just thinking about the folks I used to see on ATWT years ago - Julianne Moore, Parker Posey, Meg Ryan, and so many more. Larry Bryggman, no longer with the show, is a highly respected stage and film actor. Never without a gig for long is he.

And the thing I love most about soaps, especially ATWT, is when I'm surprised and touched by a sl. I don't expect it usually so when it happens its very nice.

I generally find this to be true as well.


I grew up on ABC and NBC.... I was a channel surfing queen and set up the VCR in my room and the living room so that I wouldn't miss ABC's line up or Days and AW. Then, when I got older and sick of Days and ABC was boring me, I discovered CBS... Y&R and B&B are great soaps. They know their history, but they also suffer from amnesia as well. They also use their vets to tell strong stories.... AMC does this as well, which is why they are- head and shoulders- better than their sister soaps.

GH is just HORRIBLY wrong and OLTL.... so sad to see what has become of them. This is the soap that has Victoria Lord-Riley-Buchanan-Carpenter-Davidson (I may be missing some names) and Dorian Cramer-LORD!!!! Those two women are in the same league as Erica "Fucking" Kane! (Yes, Dorian "I will kick your ass diva-style!!" Lord and Victoria "I think that is who I am today, but I am a soap diva!" Lord). Don't get me started on Laura Webber-Baldwin-Spencer or Monica Quartermaine (I don't know all of her history) on GH and why they don't use them!

Of all the women on these two soaps they seem to think the pretty, but weak, women can carry the show while assasinating their characters or rewritting them into shells of themselves (let's NOT get me started on JESSICA BUCHANAN!!!).

And the MEN..... Antonio, Sonny, Jason... they all WISH they were good enough to shine DC's Adam Chandler's shoes!!!

(Can you tell how frustrated I am?)

It is starting to seem, to me, that Soaps are suffering from the Hollywood Syndrome: that younger equals better. In some cases, it may be true, but not if they 1) can't act (I have seen school plays that have been better) and 2) if the long-time viewers don't connect to them. Soaps are not like movies or even primetime tv where you can recast or upgrade the cast. NO! Soaps are on-going dramas about the lives of fictional people. We witness their lives, families, tragedies, triumph and we connect to them. We get to know them and their place within the show. You cannot come and rewrite history that was 35-20 years in the making!!! People remember that shit. Soaps are a genre and breed unto itself and it deserves respect. Hell, soaps and its stars fan bases are more loyal and vast than Hollywood, IMO (look at the events!). People take this "seriously" and expect the people who work on these shows to give the same respect and love to the show and its viewers.

Soaps are not to compete with primetime or the movies... it is in a class by itself. It still pisses me off to hear how soap actors are regarded as "not real acting". Do you know how much goes into these shows? But the current idiots are only lending credit to that myth and making a mockery of a dying, but fabulous medium.

JMO

If I had to rate network executives, I guess CBS has the best, with NBC & ABC both in distant second place. Nothing on CBS is bad or unwatchable or cheap looking.

GL is experiencing a revival -- but the show has been so bad for so long that it's going to take a long time to rebuild its audience. ATWT is wildy uneven -- great individual scenes, great dialogue but HORRIBLE at doing what soaps do best -- showing the the impact of events on the whole town via ripple effect and illustrating familial bonds. And the show made a big mistake in recasting the actor who played Hal, the town mensch. Certain roles should not be recast. That's one of them. B&B is fun and bitchy but I'm just not a fan of the central epic romance -- Brooke & Ridge -- and never became addicted to any of the storylines.

DOOL & Passions are great if you want to laugh and laugh some more. But it's impossible to care about the characters. I like to cry! I like a really well done sad storyline. DOOL & Passions are incapable of providing angsty soap.

GH is a travesty. Ugh! I would rather watch Passions. OLTL has flashes of brilliance (entirely due to a really great cast) but the writing is just dreadful. A new writer (who actually knows how to write) would make all the difference.

IMO, the best two soaps on the air right now are Y&R and AMC. Talented and pretty casts, great use of vets, use of history, strong family relationships and friendships. Right now, I am watching AMC instead of Y&R but they're both really good. I just find that AMC is a bit more addictive at the moment -- perhaps because the show has focused on fewer characters so I'm more hooked into the storylines. Also AMC moves a tad faster than Y&R and I think I have ADD.

I cry when I watch Days all the time. Does it count if you scream "This suuuuucks! I want my life back!!!" while you cry? I can't stop watching, because I exist on the belief that it will get better. Now, that's sad. I think the last great tear jerker was when Lucas was battling for Will's custody. However, his portrayer was going through a similar situation IRL. It wasn't that much of a stretch. Ooh, it made me weepy.

Aaaand....lather, rinse, repeat. And that's why I hate GH.

But comparatively speaking, the thing that stands out for me most now that I only very rarely catch a soap that isn't GH or AMC is that both NBC and particularly CBS have better production values. Especially ATWT and GL. The lighting is better, the costuming is better, the sets are better. And I've heard such good things about GL lately that I am seriously considering dropping GH for it.

I gave up OLTL about...a year and a half ago, maybe. It was becoming a two man show like GH, and OLTL was way easier to drop than GH because there are far fewer characters that I care about there. So, when their stories all tanked, I said goodbye. But with GH, there's a lot of nostalgia for me, so for whatever reason, about once every two weeks, I can force myself to watch a tape. It's bad, though.

The NBC soaps? Don't even register for me anymore. There was a time when Days was campy enough and just weird enough that it was interesting, but that time came and went long ago. Now it's boring. Worst thing for a TV show, IMO. GH has that problem in spades, too.

I used to be almost slavishly devoted to the ABC lineup. I pretty much dropped AMC around the time Binks came out. It wasn't the storyline itself, though I did find it slightly trite, but the fact that it was more a ruse to let Susan Lucci chaw down on the scenery even more and win an Emmy. I've tried to get into it again, but it gets a little tiring, watching them bring in new people constantly instead of exploring any real character development with people they already have.

OLTL fell by the wayside when they brought in Natalie to give Victoria Lord Gordon Riley Burke Riley Buchanan Buchanan Buchanan Carpenter Davidson (yes, I had to look it up) something to do and Erin Torpey (the good Jessica) left. I also got a little tired of the higher-ups insisting on shoving the unclean-looking Vega brothers in my face and telling me how sexy they are. Because yuck. And boring.

I never really got wholeheartedly into GH. I watched less frequently after Sarah Brown's departure, and then Nicholas lost his memory and they started focusing more on the boring teens that live in Port Charles, and I had to go.

NBC soaps don't register for me either. Scary bad production values. All I watch now is ATWT. Better lighting and Roger Howarth. That's all I need.

That's so true. All three networks have different, clearly defined aesthetics, but the only one that I think has a positive aesthetic is CBS. ABC soaps just look cheap, and there's something about the overly lush look of NBC soaps that puts me off as much as the bad acting and campy writing.


I think that is about when I gave up on OLTL for good. I hear good things about the actress who plays Natalie, but it was just one retcon too many in Vicki's history for me to take. Plus the new Jessica is so incredibly bad. I almost went back when David came back, but every time I turned it on, I had to deal with Jennifer or Jessica and I can't stand either of them - plus the destruction of Antonio's character, the disregard for history, turning Blair and Todd into a shadow of their former selves - I could go on, but why?

I have been considering a return to GL. I just need to catch up on who everyone is and what they're doing now. I hear such good things about Gina Tognoni as Dina, and I always liked her on OLTL.

This is what I don't understand. The first thing that anyone does when they start watching or rewatching a soap is to catch up on the characters history. I'm relatively new to ATWT but I learned enough about the characters' histories to know when a character that I've only seen once or twice is behaving out of character in order to move a plot driven storyline forward.

History is important! and it's easily accessible, especially on the internet.

I can't understand why writers, especially on ABC <I'm looking at you GH> continuously disregard their characters' history. It's especially maddening when they ignore recent history and it happens waaaay to often.

Oracle42:



That's what makes GH's decline so maddening. Fronspruza have taken the show's bible/history book and used it as toilet paper for Num and the Craptastic Four. Also, their shameful treatment of veteran actors (Anna Lee, John Ingle, Genie Francis) and characters is infuriating.

I love that show to death, but that is probably their #1 problem. I was shocked when Craig showed up at Katie's wedding yesterday--he hasn't had a scene with his sister since she got back to town two months ago. Sisters Carly and Rosanna haven't shared a scene in weeks and I doubt Carly knows what's going on between her sister and her best friend, Emily. Lucinda's daughter Lily is going through a nasty separation slash soon-to-be divorce, and they haven't had one scene addressing this. They have some great storylines, but each story is safely encased in a bubble and storylines rarely intersect. But no matter my gripes it's still the best soap on tv. You'd have to pry my remote out of my cold, dead hands before I'd give up ATWT.

And that's what made me abandon GH. I know the history of every character on all the ABC soaps since almost forever, and if I'm fuzzy, I'll look it up. I grew up on ABC. When a character does something wrong, I KNOW it's wrong. You can't fool me there. That's what pisses me off. I understand that once in awhile a character's backstory needs to be changed a bit for their current story, so I try to overlook it. But only once in a blue moon should this be happening! At GH, if they don't like a character's history, they either rewrite it or ignore it and it's a huge slap in the face of a fan, because it's like saying, "Fuck you. We got your history right here." That is so not how a soap should be.

I grew up on CBS soaps in the late '80s/early '90s. My babysitter would tune the TV to CBS to see her "stories" at 12:30 and give me the option of doing the whole nap time thing or staying quiet in the living room and watching them with her. Stupid kid that I was, I chose to ignore nap time (which I miss so much heh). That's how I got into Y&R and B&B, which I personally think were just AMAZING around that time (the Sheila crossover will always, I think, be the best soap moment ever for me).

Anyway, fast forward to now. I'm still into Y&R and B&B to some degree, but have found both to be very cyclical: a year of crap and then a year of great storytelling. For me, they're both in the crap phase right now. I will say this about Y&R: I love love love their sets. I think they look the most natural. You don't "notice" them, but I think that's how sets should be.

With ATWT, there is usually at least one good storyline going on that I can latch onto. I also think the show has gone downhill in the past year (bad recasts, bad casting decisions as a whole), but seems to be on its way up. Maybe Hogan's break will give him some good ideas.

CBS has always been really great to its vets, as far as I can tell. Sure, you definitely get storylines with the younger characters, but you certainly get a balance. Hell, ATWT still has Nancy popping up into stories (not terribly often, but geez, she's approaching 90) and she's one of the original cast members from 1956! My mom remembers Dr. Bob from when SHE was a kid watching soaps with her mom and he's still around. She still gets a kick every time she sees Dr. Bob (and it's one of the reasons she's still watching - pay attention, ABC).

Being a one-TV household with two other roommates means that I sometimes end up watching Days and Passions. I can sometimes watch a whole episode of Passions, but usually I'm just snarking on it with the roomies. The worst of the worst for me is Days. I actually have to leave the room for that mess. I can't STAND the teen scene on that show.

I did defect to ABC about a year ago to watch AMC, mainly because I was bored with Y&R and B&B. I enjoy it to some extent, but am not devoted to it by any means. I think the acting on it, with some exceptions, is more than functional. They seem to be doing a pretty good job of integrating various characters into a storyline and showing the ripple effects, something that ATWT USED to be good at (I think one of the soap mags even gave them some superlative title for this a couple years ago). I like seeing a highly integrated community.

I've never seen an episode of GH, OLTL, or GL. The first two I plan on keeping it that way, given all the junk I've heard about them. However, GL is apparently being reborn or something, so I am tempted to check it out, I just honestly don't think I have enough time!

Word. I grew up on ABC soaps too, and I've seen blatant disregard for history from all three of their major soaps. It's like their entire writing crew has ADD sometimes. It's becoming obvious that they don't give a crap about the people who have been watching the shows for years and years. They're just interested in getting the teeny-boppers. Almost all of the storylines focus on bad teen actors that just got into town last week, and their old-school crew can just suck it. They're relegated to primarily supporting roles.

In a related gripe, the casting/recasting gets worse and worse at ABC all the time. They bring in new people, and replace fairly decent people constantly. They're generally easy on the eyes, but they couldn't act their way out of a paper bag. That's wet. And has the bottom missing. It makes me wanna cry.

I think it's interesting that as reviled as GH is by its fans, it has the longest/most active thread on this forum. The CBS soaps, while they have more consistent quality, have relatively quiet threads. (AMC is different -- not quite sucking yet having many pages -- cause there's so much subtext to deal with.)
So, do we think the genre will be dead in 5 years? 10? Soaps just don't seem cool in this century of reality fucking television, which I loathe with the fire of blah blah blah.

Lots of bitter snark. Lots.

It's the sci-fi/fantasy show of soap operas. Friends had a lot more viewers than Buffy but you would certainly find a lot more people talking about it on the net

The CBS soaps also skew older, so I think they have less of an internet fanbase generally. Which outside of TWoP and a few other select sites, I have to think is a blessing.



I think they will definitely change, but I also think - in some form - they will continue. The current shows? Who knows. People love soap operas, that's what most reality shows are. That's what Lacie Peterson was. The problem is that instead of figuring out how to adapt soaps and gain viewers, the networks are simply circling the wagons, taking fewer chances, trying to hold on to the past, only it's a bastardized, colorless version of the past. Eventually, someone with vision - probably from outside the daytime industry - will either take over an established show or create a new one (maybe on cable, maybe late night). My guess is that if it's an established show, it will be a network making a last ditch effort to save it. That's when they give up creative control, when they're desperate. That's why ABC has more hit series this season than the others - they were desperate to take chances. I think the declining ratings, in that sense, could be a good thing.

The CBS soap threads here at TWoP seem to indicate a pretty young demographic. Many declarations of love for GL, for example, by under 30s in the last few weeks alone so I'm beginning to think that it's a fallacy that CBS soaps skew older. It may have been true during the 90s, but I think that good storytelling and decent actors will attract followers of all ages. Also, having an older demo is not a bad thing despite what TPTB think as they're more likely to have disposable incomes to spend on stuff.

One thing that drives me nuts is that people often belittle soaps and their viewers. Soap viewers are savvier than they are given credit for most of the time. These boards are a prime example of that.

My big question now is how the heck do we get TIIC to read this thread and the ones relevant to their shows?

I don't know about all the other threads but I'm pretty sure the GH thread would give TIIC multiple heart attacks.

I wish TIIC would read the GH thread and answer a few pertinent questions that pop up there pretty consistently. Are there historic sore spots on other soaps? I mean, there's so much bitterness over how Rick Webber and Laura Spencer were written off, or how Courtney shot a cop and has never paid for that in any way. The only corollaries I can think of are Dru sleeping with Malcolm under the influence of cough medicine (WTF?) or Chris being raped (semi-raped? is that possible) by her husband on Y&R. And of course I'm sure DOOL fans will be furious for years that the serial murder SL was ultimately "resolved" in such a silly, gutless fashion.