Wanted to post this in the Days of Our Lives Thread, but I think this topic may apply to all of daytime. Would anyone say that the Marlena Possession storyline on daytime, did irreparable damage not just to DOOL, but to daytime TV in general? Someone pointed out in the Days thread, that because of the nature of the storyline, it got people who ordinarily were not daytime fans, including me jumping in and watching the show. In addition, the story took place during a time when soaps had to compete with the OJ Simpson trial, and preemptions because of it. Ratings were bleeding from other soaps, even ones with vastly superior story lines, while ratings for Days soared.

Did this storyline give the networks the idea that on daytime, hokey and over the top, meant ratings? Shortly afterwards, General Hospital, which, at the time, had been a much more realistic and deeper show, which dealt with AIDS, breast cancer, and organ donation, added the Cassadines, and the show eventually took a turn towards the silly and over the top. Guiding Light did a storyline about human cloning, and in addition, Another World ended up being canceled in favor of the infamous Passions.

Was the Days of Our Lives "possession," storyline responsible for this?

I think the Marlena Possession was an indicator of a larger problem, not the cause of the problem. It wasn't even the first time daytime had strayed into dubious waters. GH had Casey the Alien, and prior to that, a madman trying to freeze the world with a machine from a tropical island. I think the OJ trial did a lot of damage to soaps, but the bigger problem is that daytime drama has not found a consistent way to hold on to audiences, and often goes for the lowest common denominator in a changing world instead of maximizing its strengths. I thought the possession story had a trainwreck fascination - it just kept getting worse, and there was an ongoing sense of "are they really going to go there?" And then of course they did. But I do not think the current state of soaps can be laid at this storyline's door, especially since it was and remains something of a joke to a lot of people both in and out of the industry.

Agree, I think the catering to the lowest common denominator, and casting models who can't act, are also a significant factor.



Well, it just seemed that after the success of the over the top plotline on days, and the ratings it gave it, other shows followed suit.

But I do agree that a major problem is that in and out of the industry, daytime has become a joke. The writers don't try to write anything realistic, as stated above they cater to the lowest common denominator, and there seems to be an above it all attitude towards casual soap viewers.

I think the Marlena possession (which is why I stopped watching Days) was one of series of wrong turns the genre took. I would say the genre as a whole "jumped the shark" when Passions premiered.

The entire show was a joke (actors, dialogue, plot lines) and to me "Passions" signified a complete lack of respect and utlimate death knell for the format.

I think the whole disinigration of the soap format could be traced to its undisputed highlight: Luke and Laura. Once executives at the networks started believing that soaps could attract a larger viewership (i.e. audiences other than housewives), the entire format was changed in order to produce a 'supercouple' The trouble of course being that it's impossible to manufacture the lightning in a bottle. It's like every movie studio trying to make their own "Titanic"-- it just won't work.

Show producers started trying to outdo each other with attractive couples in impossible situations and that eventually led to the corruption of the genre.

For me, the entire genre jumped the shark when Passions first came on the air and its main heroine, Sheridan Crane, was introduced as recently deceased Diana, Princess of Wales' BFF. I don't think I've ever been more disgusted by anything or anyone else on daytime television. "In poor taste" really doesn't even begin to describe it. That storyline (which included such tasteful gems as having Sheridan chased through the streets of Paris in her car fearing that she might die "just like her friend, Diana") was the beginning of a trainwreck of a show which still stands as an embarrassment to the entire genre. The show has become a rape-fest, homophobically featuring nelly, prancing queens as its gay characters and racist, cartoonish villains. JERk has built an entire soap opera around catering to the lowest common denominator. I'm all for camp, but Passions' brand of camp is just horrible.

Marlena's possession storyline, while laughably jump-the-shark worthy, actually made a lot of logistical sense at the time. Marlena's soul had been opened to dark forces as a result of her nightly drug-induced rendevous with Stefano. If there was anyone in Salem who was susceptible to a possession by the devil, it was her. Also, it wasn't all possession, all the time. Several other classic storylines ran concurrent with the cheestasticness -- the return of Hope/Gina from the dead and her effect on Bo and Billie's relationship; the beginning of Lexie's discovery that she was actually a DiMera; and the Sami/Austin/Carrie triangle which had not been rehashed 8,000 times at that point. Producers knew they had to do something drastic if they wanted to keep viewers tuned in. And it worked.

I prefer to blame OJ Simpson personally, for the decline of the genre, not the possession storyline itself.

Re: Sheridan/Princess Diana.

I totally remember that story. They even said that Di was on her way to Sheridan's house when she got into the accident, and when Sheridan was in the hospital after the accident, she supposedly heard Diana's voice telling her to "go back" and "stay away from the light". I don't know WTF JERk was thinking with that one. I mean, even now something like that would be ridiculous and offensive, but a year or so after her death on a campy soap? What in the hell of all hell?

I'm torn between the Marlena Possession and the Burying Carly Alive storyline on Days. The Burying Carly story wasn't as completely cheesy as the Marlena Possession, but the "success" of that "shocker" plot is what gave JERk the ability to then write the assault against all sensibilities that was the Marlena Possession, so I can see a case that the Burying Carly story led to the Marlena Possession story. On the other hand, the Marlena Possession story may well have been the point of no return which makes it the most likely candidate for the "jump the shark" because with that "success" other shows began copying the cheese, audience hatred, and the expectation that the audience has the brain capacity of gnats which has slowly but surely been killing daytime.

And, of course the "success" JERk had with "Carly Burying" and "Marlena Posession" is what gave him the "clout" to perpetrate the travesty that was Passions on us all.

That Princess Di/Sheridan thing may be the worst possible storyline in the history of all TV. Really. Just awful, to suck emotional blood off the corpse of a dead woman.

Rather than a "moment," I think all of this is linked as a sort of "domino effect". Letting JERk continue to try topping his last insanely over-the-top story on DOOL (and getting those momentary, "rubbernecking" viewers tuning in temporarily) led to NBC's not-so-subtle suggestions to Another World, "Why can't you be more like that?". Their attempts caused AW to fall apart, and rather than learn from the error of their ways, they had JERk create more such nonsense on Passions.

But NBC can't be totally to blame. DOOL had started pushing against that envelope because of GH's action/adventure ratings of the early 1980's. Maybe Gloria Monty (praised as "the savior of GH") will also be known as the one who pushed down the first domino.

Other nominees for "Dominoes": JERK, of course; Jill Farren Phelps; Charlotte Savitz (the oft-overlooked EP who would have escorted AW to the grave); Megan McTavish; Brian Frons; Mickey Dwyer-Dobbin.....

That for me is when Daytime jumped the shark. When they pass over telling interesting character stories that keep you invested to do these ridiculous plot point stories that are over in two weeks or whatever it does nothing to keep the audience invested in the show. They're treating the daytime audience like it has A.D.D. and can't stay interested for more than two minutes at a time.

That and the lack of investment in real actual character development. GH in particular has no continuity from scene to scene much less show to show.

And the huge shark jumping moment is the hiring people who can't act but look good phenomenon. Dumping good actors for no talent pretty people is one of the major reasons daytime is dying.

I know this is kind of a wimpy answer but I agree with everything that has been posted. I'm not sure that there was ONE thing that brought about the decline in soaps (both in terms of quality and viewership) but a culmination of many different factors. I, for one, was not weaned off my soap addiction because of the OJ trial, although I was severely PISSED OFF by my shows being pre-empted for what felt like weeks on end.

For me, primarily, the "jumping the shark" moment occurred when soaps began telling their stories in terms of plot points, rather than character development. You may be able to draw me in with a very good "sweeps" plot line but you'll never keep me interested if I don't LIKE the characters or understand the motivation for doing what they do. On OLTL, the decades old Dorian/Viki feud is one of the few reasons I continue to watch because I understand where both of these women are coming from.

As to the "super couple" phenomenon, I totally get that perhaps Luke and Laura started a trend that all shows have tried to duplicate (it's hard to argue with 30 million viewers) but the problem is they try to "manufacture" super couples these days and shove them down our throats relentlessly, whether we want them or not. What they don't understand is that L&L had a completely, off the charts chemistry that can only happen organically - it can't be forced through the writing staff.

To sum up, I guess my main beef with soaps these days is that they have writers who either don't love or don't understand the genre. Soaps are different because they are on 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year - the people writing these days appear to be products of the "instant gratification" generation and that's NOT how you write something that people have been watching for 10, 20 or 30 plus years.

Unfortunately, daytime executives don't know their viewing audience and more importantly, don't want to because for whatever reason, those of us with actual buying power, don't seem to mean as much to them as the teenage market.

Glad to see I'm not the only one disgusted by the Sheridan/Princess Di connection.

I hate Passions in general--the godawful acting, storylines, rape-fest, pretty much everything already stated here.

When did soaps jump the shark?

For me, it was simply as I got older. When I was in junior high and high school, soaps just seemed like this magical fantasy world that still had hints of realism. But as I grew up (28 now) I slowly but surely realized that being married and divorced five times before you were 30, having a child that went from infancy to college age in a year, and coming back from the dead 3 or 4 times in between was simply ridiculous.

Too me daytime changed when Ryan's Hope was cancelled. Because it to me was always the soap that stood for actors instead of models and the show was always about the fact that your family was more important than your love interest.

For me, soaps weren't ruined by one or two bad stories. Hell, I lived through freezing the world, the underground world on OLTL, Casey the Alien, the old west on OLTL, prison break outs and identical twins burying one another alive on AMC--more nonsense than I can even remember right now. I stuck, watched for decades, taped all ABC soaps every single day to watch after work.

So why did I leave?

I just stopped caring about what would happen to the people on the shows. With OLTL (for example) it was the Rappaports. They were in every *()&"%(% scene, every $(*O&)( %story, all the &)P*")(*&" time. The characters I actually cared about were contorted into whatever positions needed to showcase the Rappaports. Hey, I understand bringing in new blood and new stories or families, but Jill Phelps' handling of the R's on OLTL is text-book "how not to introduce a new family on a soap." I still tried to watch, hung in there much longer than I should have (because it never did improve) and then stopped watching OLTL.

On GH? Hell, everyone knows what's wrong with that soap, everyone except Guza.

1. Daytime is not the medium for "Sopranos Light." Maurice is a fine actor who has a great comedic touch, wonderful emoting, and gets a bit too full of himself at times. He reminds me of Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. He cares, he is talented, but he cannot carry an entire show, at least not in this role. Together, Guza and Bernard chemically explode into a mess of hubris. If either had any self control, Sonny could still be one of the great soap characters.

2. They threw away the Q's. One of the greatest daytime families anywhere, and they tossed them out, except for one of the worst actresses to even be propped up by a blind producer/director/showrunner. The talentless Emily can not hold a candle to original Emily, and the writing to tell, not show, what a precious jewel new-Emily is? Just made it worse. The Q's had everything it took to be the stable force (ala the Newmans) on this show. Generations to work with, rich history, and even racial diversity, Justus anyone? This is the family that should have been the core, the thing that held the rest together, instead? We get the mob, and the Q's are tossed. Just dumb.

3. They bleed actors. They seem to hire the best, but can't hold on to them, (or they come and go too much) and the recasts have been lame. Brenda, Amber, Laura, Lucky, Emily, Lois, Duke, Anna, Robert, Marco, Felicia, Frisco, Lucy, (2) fine AJ's, Kevin, Heather Webber, Holly, Blackie, just to name a few of the big hits. True, some went on to bigger and better careers (Amber Tamblyn, Demi, etc.) but the show just doesn't have that feeling of "I know these people" any more. And for a show that is just brilliant at casting unknowns in new roles, they completely suck at re-casting roles. SUCK.

So, I stopped watching. One year of Nu-Emily was too much. When Sonny seduced her, I stopped watching completely. I had been joking about that for years, since Sonny got all the women, and then? It actually happened. Oh, ick. Remember the promo with Maurice and the teens? Oh dear.

So, two shows down, and AMC to go. What did it there? The stories actually held fairly well, I didn't even really mind Babe (I know, one of the few.) I guess Leo was the last really compelling actor for me on AMC. Then original flavor Dixie left again, Bianca left, and Erica is not enough to keep me there. I loved Anna Devane (because I love Anna Devane) and I watched her on AMC, but she didn't belong there. Around the time she left, so did I.

I stopped taping all 3 shows.

I guess it's that the beauty of soaps is long term character development. When the soaps shifted away from that, and to mostly plot-driven stuff, it just didn't work. They lost continuity, and re-wrote history a few times too many. The actors were doing things out of character. The foundations of history and family were gone, and they just (for me) collapsed in a heap of garbage that at some point wasn't worth digging through anymore. Yeah, I know, there were some sparkling gems hidden in the mess, but the smell was overwhelming, and I walked away.

I found a website a few months ago that I since can't remember, but it had incredibly detailed synopsis of the Marlena possession storyline (that lasted for several months), and from what I read, the build-up was very strong: There was a "Salem Desecrator" running around destroying things, and Marlena was having memory lapses and erratic behavior. It seemed to be actually pretty subtle and suspenseful until we got to levitating and glowing eyes.

I didn't watch the show very much, but from what I did see, I thought the GL cloning story was credible; they took a hot-button current event and made it into a complicated and reasonable story.

I don't follow the industry as much as I used to, but from what I gather, the industry is a lot like pro wrestling, where the powers that be don't learn from their mistakes, and the same writers get hired and float around from show to show (History-reversing Megan McTavish, I'm looking at you). Wasn't Y&R consistently good for so long because they had the same people working on it for decades? Wasn't Hogan Sheffer's reign on ATWT so successful because it was his first time at the rodeo, and so his ideas weren't typical cookie-cutter soap opera? It's not so much that soaps are jumping the shark as much as that they keep swimming in the same tired ocean.

Remember when soaps wrote spectacular "umbrella" stories?

Marty's rape in 1993 and Stone's AIDS crisis in 1995 involved virtually EVERYONE on their respective shows and yet none of the other cast members stories were forgotten.

Nowadays if there's a major storyline going on, the sole focus is the characters involved with only occasional snippets of everyone else.

I have to say I think the problems with Soaps are much more structural than anything else.

1. Women entering the workforce in large numbers, causing the population of viewers home at the time to decrease rapidly. If Tivo had been simultaneous with that economic phenomenon, then the soaps might have survived. Therefore, soaps had to rely on desperate measures to spike ratings.

2. Proliferation of cable channels (and FOX and CW) and independent films. More roles are available for quality actors, especially younger ones. Soaps were left with either the bottom of the barrell or once people showed talent they would be snatched up by primetime. The same thing goes for writers. Why write for DOOL when you can write for Nip/Tuck?

FYI, I really didn't think Luke and Laura were all that. I have no snarling outrage over "Rise". I watched it, but whatever... I don't think soap was destroyed because no other couple lived up to Luke and Laura. In fact, they've done nothing but hack at the couples. I can't imagine that TPTB even like writing couple's, much less super couples. Mostly they write triangles and to me that's what really been the death, if its about "couples" vs "non couples". I think we can credit that with TPTB's addiction to fan wars on the internet. I guess they're just as hooked on instant gratification as anyone else.

Per the subject, I'm not sure what that minute was when all of soap opera bit the shark, but I'm an ABC girl and I'll tell you when it lept out of that water and bit my fave soaps in the ass. It was the minute that Disney bought ABC Daytime from Capital Cities. Its been down hill ever since. Disney may or may not know how to run movie studios and such, but they don't seem to know diddly squat about daytime and it seems to me that they don't care to learn. They just want to do it cheap and if they can get that 13 year old demo on it, they're happy campers.

LOL, then again, maybe they think the 13 year old demo is truant so when they're knocked up at age 17 and jobless, they'll be loving their ABC soaps even more and be buying Pampers like crazy.

All this leads to an interesting consideration. The success of Marlena's possession on Days back in the mid-90's (which, as we've discussed, was done as a months-long stunt in order to boost ratings during the OJ trial, a time when all soaps saw significant drops in viewership and constant preemptions), and by "success" I mean higher ratings, seemed to allow writers on other soaps to attempt even crazier stunts and storylines that, for the most part, didn't work. It arguably allowed Port Charles to venture down the vampire path toward the end of its run. And it even paved the way for the shit-fest that is Passions. Could the success of Luke and Noah result in the standardization of gay romance on daytime? Will other shows follow the trend and greenlight those heretofore buried gay characters whose stories desperately need to be told to a new audience? It'll be interesting to see which way it goes.

I think TPTB would truly be idiots not to realize that Luke/Noah are ratings gold right now. I noticed they had shot up to the #3 three spot and I was fairly surprised considering the bulk of the rest of the show is utter crap. The Luke/Noah storyline is gripping and realistic (psychotic murderer military homophobic dad notwithstanding), anchored by two actors who seem to know how important their characters are to the larger social fabric. Hopefully, the producers take note and give them the "supercouple" status they fully deserve. Could Luke and Noah, almost singlehandedly, be responsible for jumping back over the shark and pulling the genre out of its millenial slump? Is there an expression for genre/show course correction?

I would wish so, but I've been burned more than once with AMC so I just don't trust soaps to get the right message out of successes.

I'm still pissed about the way AMC broke up Bianca/Lena. I had had the crazy idea that someone somewhere "got" that the way to write a gay romance was to write a romance. And Bianca/Lena had such potential for classic soap what with Lena being a "bad girl" out to hoodwink and seduce "good girl" Bianca only to actually fall for Bianca. At last! I thought, someone "got" that it didn't have to be a "message" story, it could be classic soapiness... then they promptly sidelined Lena, wrote her off the show and eventually hooked Bianca up with Barf because he was a woman trapped in a man's body except it was very much a man's body and Bianca didn't care. After that I sort of lost faith in ABC ,at least, to tell such a story properly.

I hope that the ATWT Luke/Noah stuff will convince writers/networks that the way to write a romance is to write a romance and pursue the story like a romance. But... as stated elsewhere in the thread, soaps seem fixated on triangles and quadrangles of doom, the mob and ubervillains. Are networks even capable of relearning that we tune in for 'love in the afternoon?'

Ah, it's one of my favorite topics.

I don't know if I have anything totally new to add to what has already been said, but if I had to sum up what is wrong with daytime (seen through the lens of my one and only soap, Days), it would be short-term thinking. The whole idea of a "world without end," which is how soaps were originally envisioned, depends on long-term thinking. How on earth could anyone think that short-term thinking is the best way to go?

Many things contribute to this phenomenon, which builds on itself as ratings slip ever lower. I think one factor is the passing of the PTB that actually started these soaps (and presumably, really wanted to create a good product), leaving the shows in lesser hands. I think the OJ trial was a factor, because it broke the habit of watching every day for many people. I think JER probably drove away many "core" viewers, the ones who will watch (almost) no matter what, with the Marlena possession story. (And other HW's who imitated him would have presumably done the same.) Fewer people at home during the day: if there were fewer people watching, there were also fewer people around to get hooked by the ones who WERE watching. That's how most of us start, after all, we're hooked by other people, not by ads or coverage in the entertainment press.

No one prefers to write for a soap, I presume, because it pegs you as a soap writer and if the genre is dying, who wants that?

Sadly, I don't see any reason to hope this trend will be reversed. Short term thinking means that stories aren't played out well, payoffs are skipped, and viewer faith is further eroded. There's less reason to stick out the valleys to get to the high points, because you're not sure they're coming. Network pressure to retain that .1 edge over the next rated soap probably means they're desperately changing and responding weekly to presumed fan response, and that's no way to build any kind of long term story. Fanbases of couples are catered to to a ridiculous degree (on Days, anyway, I hear it's different for other soaps). All of this negates a soap's strength, which is long term storytelling with a consistent group of actors and characters. Long love stories, slow introductions of new characters, family interactions, taking time to breathe and react to the plot points.

I think OJ played a factor, I think more people working out of the home plays a factor, but I also think there are no more real Irna Phillips', Doug Marland's, Bill Bell's, Agnes Nixon's or Gloria Monty's.

These were people who not only loved the genre, but had a vision of what daytime television could be, and realized that they also had a pretty savvy audience. The current stable of executives and writers don't have that vision, nor do they have the patience to write real storylines with a beginning, middle and end. Most importantly, they seem to fail to realize that the audience can not be trained (per Brian Frons), but rather need to be appreciated for their intelligence and loyalty to the various soaps.

Have soaps jumped the shark....not yet, but they are making their way to the ocean's edge.

I think you're right, bpeck, that the current soap EPs and daytime heads don't care about soaps. Say what you want about Gloria Monty's iron-fisted leadership (and by all accounts, she was one tough lady and didn't suffer fools), but she was passionate about soaps, and she made GH a worldwide phenomenon. Some of that was luck, of course—who'd've thought an actor who looked like Tony Geary would become a sex symbol?—but she knew talent when she saw it and adjusted the soap accordingly. And even in their heyday, Luke and Laura weren't on every. single. day. Monty and her writers understood storytelling and pacing. You certainly can't say the same for the GH team today, at least for the most part.

I do think it all kind of started with Luke and Laura and the Cassadines out to freeze the world. After that it seemed every show was out to create supercouples and over the top adventure storylines. And there were a lot of really great couples created, but the stories became increasingly out there. It all sort of culminated with the Marlena possession storyline. I mean really, where could you go from there? And what other couple could possibly top John battling Satan for Marlena's soul? It's all gotten so silly since then.

I long for the days of Agnes Nixon, Doug Marland, Henry Slesar, and Bill Bell. They knew how to write emotional, compelling stories without resorting to the scifi nonsense that soaps have resorted to over the past fifteen or so years.

Interesting tidbit about what was probably GH's most remembered and successful story. It was written by Leah Laiman and Thom Racina during the writers strike in 1980. She was hired by GH in 1981.

So does anyone have hope that as we are looking at another writers strike some intern somewhere will come up with an idea that will radically change soaps in the same way positive way that Luke and Laura did or will this be the strike that actually kills them all?

I don't actually think the supercouples are the problem. The truth is, in the age of supercouples, the ratings were at their zenith. And these days, where are the supercouples less than 40 years old? They gave up on creating supercouples fifteen years ago. These days it's all gummy bear mobsters, stolen sperm babies, never-ending vendettas, and triangles or quadrangles of doom where we're either we aren't sure who the rooting couples are or the Network designated supercouple is systematically shoved down out throats even though no one in the audience ever much liked them.

I'm not saying "resurrect the supercouple" because times change. But I don't know that the problem with soaps are the supercouples so much as the lack of anything compelling -- either couples or storylines.

I'll second the "models who act" nomination. Greg Vaughan is one of the prettiest actors on daytimes, and when I'm channel surfing, I may stop for a second and go "wow, he's pretty!" but my pause isn't going to last long enough to register with a Nielson rating once I realize that, pretty though he may be, he can't act his way out of a paper bag.

I'm not so hopeful, Another World was at it's best during the last writers' strike (when they somehow got Harding Lemay to return to the show he lead to the top of the ratings) and when the strike was over the show went back to being good-but-not-great.

Can they hire new blood during a writer's strike? Seems to me a lot could be solved by clearing the decks and hiring new people. Not connected people, but people who show somehow they can write.

It's the EPs and Head Writers that need replacing, from what I can tell. Oh, and Brian Frons.

Agreed on all counts, especially head writers. I think OLTL has definitely improved with a new head writer. Unfortunately, with Frons now adding running SoapNet to his work load, it appears he's not going anywhere.

We just did that over at Days and it's still circling the drain. In fact, it looks like it's about to get much worse for us, but hey. I can start weaning myself now.

The new (old) HW of Days is Dena Higley. In no way is that an improvement.

Without a doubt in my mind - Marlena's Possession.

It set up the idea that gimmicks and stunts will pull in viewers and producers and writers have been chasing that ever since - to the detriment of character driven, emotional stories.

And the Internet hasn't done daytime any favors either.

That is the biggest problem with daytime. They continue to simply move bad people from one show to the next. Higley has proven she's not head writer material, just as JFP has proven she's not EP material, but the network brass for some reason, doesn't go outside the box to get new blood and new ideas.

I wish I could be that optimistic. The problem is that when the writers go on strike, the networks simply get the producers and network execs to ghost-write everything. These people are already trying to impose their "ideas" on head writers (a major reason the good HW's are leaving daytime and never coming back). With the (paid) writers out of the way, they will have free rein to rip the show to shreds. And when the strike ends, they will be on the returning writer's back to undo all the damage!


What actually happened was even more disturbing. They indeed lured Lemay back and he began doing all his story projections. THEN the strike happened. As he left, he asked the ghost writers to basically "spin their wheels," to write light stuff that filled time but didn't drastically change the canvas, so that when he got back, he could quickly wrap up their stuff and pick up his story bible. What he didn't recognize was that one of the ghost-writers was a network executive who fancied herself a bit of a writer. She did such a good job with the ghost-writing (her "audition" as it were) that when Lemay did come back and had his first run-in with the network about a story he wanted to do, they basically fired him and hired their ghost-writer pal, Donna Swajeski to take over. This also proved in TIIC's minds that writing a soap wasn't brain surgery, and that if someone could just step in and write as well as Swajeski did (yes, she wrote a pretty good two years of AW, I have to admit) without any "big-time credentials" like Lemay had, then they had every right to micromanage. After all, the soaps had (supposedly) survived that awful spring and summer of 1988 without the Head Writers making things work.

I think All of Daytime jumped the shark, when the internet began spoiling the shows to such an extent that there's rarely a chance for a show to do anything surprising anymore, since the fans know about everything at least two weeks in advance and any surprise they may show is usually tempered by their previous knowledge and the end result is never as spectacular as whatever they've built up in their minds regarding what they were spoiled about.

What about the soapification of primetime? And, not in the Dynasty/Dallas era. In the 1990s, the introduction of the WB brought Charmed, Gillmore Girls, One Tree Hill, Dawson's Creek. NBC had the West Wing, Fox had 90210 and Melrose. HBO has Sopranos, Sex & the City, Six Feet Under. ABC's got Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and Ugly Betty (it was a telenovela, so this counts). Bigger budgets and better writing create a better project to fill the same niche as daytime.

Sitcoms are dead and procedurals and reality fill the rest of the airtime. Notice how many "soaplike" shows are new on the schedule this fall. Dirty Sexy Money, Cane, just to name a few.

If only TPTB daytime could figure out how to attract and retain new Tivo viewers.....

If we must pick 1 event, though, I vote for MarDevil.

I can't believe MarDevil is getting so many votes. I remember my friends being obsessed with that story and loving it. It's not the crazy interesting stuff, it's all the boring talk talk talk and the lack of respect the current crop of writers have for the genre.

I think shows from Dynasty to the Sopranos to Grey's Anatomy were smart to borrow the essential DNA of soaps. But, because these shows don't have the luxury of 5 days a week to tell stories, they need trimmer casts and they need a bigger budget so they can use visuals to tell more story in less time. A quick shot of Tony feeding the ducks is the kind of extra that daytime generally can't afford. But that's okay cause daytime has TIME. Daytime's huge mistake is in trying to compete directly with primetime (GH being the worst example). Only B&B (with its 1/2 hour clock and tons of production money) is capable of even beginning to directly compete with a primetime show. Daytime needs to emphasize what makes it different from primetime: long history, characters born on the show, huge canvas that allows for multiple viewpoints, the opportunity to explore social issues in-depth. Almost to a person, daytime writers seem to be frustrated hacks who wish they could be writing for nighttime instead. They don't love the genre, they don't even really understand it. Daytime execs should be looking to novelists in the Ira Levin/Judith Krantz/Sidney Sheldon school of writing. Daytime soaps should unfold like novel...it's pretty easy to teach a novelist/storyteller how to use final draft. It's nearly impossible to teach someone who studied screenwriting and grew up watching prime time shows how to spin a long epic story if they don't have that ability already.

Another vote for MarDevil. Days had always been about larger-than-life, slightly over the top characters and stories, but the Possession took that to an extreme by being all about the shock value and skipping the more real moments that ground the crazy stuff. The only other soap I watch these days is GH, and that's been for less than a year, but I notice the same thing there - lots of focus on the flashy, superficial stuff and no thought to those small moments that add depth.
Yes! It drives me crazy how people look down on daytime soaps, because almost all prime time fiction are basically soaps these days. They're all serialized, and the plots are totally soapy. The problem with soaps is that they don't use their biggest advantage - time. With soaps we get to see things unfold, we get to really know the characters and live their experiences. For some reason tptb insist on copying from prime time and refuse to show all the points between between A and Z.

I too think this is when soaps began spiralling, because in addition to the spoiling, you have eighty billion shippers screaming at you to FIX THINGS NOW for their favorites or they'll stop watching--it's just suck. I mean, who in the holy hell actually likes Shelle? Shippers do, and they make their voice heard.

Also, we've got to go back to writing and pacing as being so totally screwed now, and I'm not sure what to blame that on, other than OJ. It seems like that's when all the SL's on all the shows began to pick up this really insane pace and kept going for these short term stories that had quick fix resolutions. I just went back and re-read the transcripts of Roger and Holly's scenes back in 1993, when they were sort of slowly kind of finding their way back to each other, and that writing? Is solid. Shows let themselves take the time to tell the stories, even then. But after that trial in '94? Everything just went nuts.

I can totally appreciate taking time to tell a story, but must characters say the same thing 5 different ways to fill up the week? I loved Days and AW until I went on vacation for a week and realized I had missed absolutely nothing. (Those were the only soaps I watched until Passions came around. Please don't shoot me for that!)

Another thing I specifically remember is there seemed to be more time than usual spent on the teenage crowd on AW in the early 90s I believe. That in itself isn't bad or new but the writing became so much more superficial and I didn't understand people's motivations for persuing their twu wuv. That trend has persisted. I rather enjoyed watching Matt and Josie get together, and watching Eve do everything she could to break up Jennifer and Frankie. The couples and the individuals were fleshed out, and I could understand why there were certain obstacles in their relationship. I just feel like now there are more teenage actors to cater to the teenage crowd with storylines/ships that will last for 6 months then go to hell, which is probably good since most of these actors have no chemistry with each other whatsoever. This whole line of reasoning probably sticks with me b/c I started watching soaps as a pre-teen and I still would like to see the potential progression of younger characters into adulthood and see how their motivations were shaped by their upbringing. I now loathe any storyline with characters under the age of 30.

So for me 2 reasons soaps jumped the shark for me; an increased number of and amount of time spent on teenage characters with little regard to character development which continues into their adulthood, and the dragging storylines where 1 conversation takes up a whole week without any major developments or repursussions of said conversation.

I think the closest recent chance daytime had of "coming back" was on Days, when Marlena was revealed as the Salem Stalker -- you could argue the craziness of that storyline jumped the shark, but it was still an incredibly huge shock. Unfortunately, a whole week before the episode even aired, there was Marlena on the cover of Soap Opera Digest with "Stalker Revealed!" written in huge lettering, and the culmination all the previous months of a storyline in which several veterans were guresomely bumped off was ruined for all in the supermarket . While she isn't seen as the best writer and showrunner in show business, Shonda Rhimes of Grey's Anatomy has a staunch "no-spoiler" policy, and that's worked very well for the show.

I remember when I was watching Days in the 80's, there were times I would have killed to know what was going to happen. But the only way to find out was to watch the show. That "I gotta find out what happens" would pull me along when I was unhappy with the storylines, or things were dragging. I was afraid I'd miss something if I tuned out. Now I have to go out of my way to AVOID spoilers, and that's different.

I'm kinda anti-spoiler so I'm not the best one to comment. I know that spoiler speculation can be addictive, and maybe that's a good thing for the show, I don't know.

Writing to accomodate the actors rather than entertaining the audience is a big factor. When actors were lucky to get a paying job they stayed put, nowadays, they don't look at it that way. The leaving and returning causes a lot of the hokey stuff, back-from-the-dead being in the lead. Then when the writers/producers tire of that, they focus the show on those who aren't so good at acting, since they think those are the people who will stay.

GH got all mob oriented once the two actors had already tried leaving and found that the rest of the acting world was unimpressed. Now the show caters to them and tries to pretend they are great actors who could make it out of soaps by making the show not a soap, so they can have their fantasy that they are bigger than just soap actors while the actual facts proved they were not, or they wouldn't have come back.

Then the loud fanbases contribute to this - most of these shows would survive the loss of any set of actors, but somehow the brass are convinced the show will go belly up if this or that actor were to leave - once they become a fixture, their characters have to have stories written for them when some of the characters were played out long ago. For example ATWT, I feel that Carly and Jack and Holden and Lily will never leave, and yet there seems to the writers at least to be nothing to do with them except break up, fall in love with someone else, then realize they were meant to be together again, using the kids as a weapon to get the other back, etc., lather, rinse, repeat. And if they were so meant to be together they would not repeatedly break up in the first place.

Maybe the actors are greatness itself, but it is time for them to be written as living happily ever after, fading to the backburner, and just being parents of the adult children - same goes for Brooke of BB and Luke on GH. Go back to the ensemble and quit trying to make a show with so much time revolve around one person - it works for primetime but not for a show that is on every weekday.

Copying a rant I had on another thread. I'll also posit that one of the factors in the decline of soaps has been the increasing inverted morality of the shows.

Once upon a time, to become the hero a bad guy/girl had to actually be redeemed a little, show some remorse, change their ways just a little, do something good for a change. These days? Nope. Not necessary.

When did the soap universes turn upside down? Was it when Sonny Corinthos and the Gummy Bear Mob devoured General Hospital? Was it when Babe the baby napping multiple adulteress whore became the sunshine and light of Pine Valley? I watch soaps and consistently go "What the frakking HELL?!" Heroes are neanderthal pigs (I'm looking at AMC's Ryass Lavery, DOOL's ShawnDouglas Brady, GH's Sonny & Jason, etc.), unrepentant murderers are romantic leads (I'm looking at you AMC Jonathug, DOOL's BSC!EJ, GH's Sonny & Jason.) Women can screw themselves to redemption (paging AMC's Babe and Greenleach, and OLTL's Kelly - all 'redeemed' from baby napping by screwing men with great abs who didn't think they deserved any responsibility for their crimes).

Logic, sanity, and anything even vaguely resembling comprehensible justice or morality is as dead as the dodo bird on many soaps. And I'm not talking born-again religious moral hardline, just the kind comprehensible fictional universe where when a man deliberately tortures and/or murders someone they aren't squee-worthy romantic leads or heroes without their ever paying for the crimes in any way or often without even acknowledging "Dude! That was evil!" And every now and then I'd like some vague hope of someone other than a dayplayer actually paying for a crime. A fictional world where when someone kidnaps a child it's not treated as something that the child's mother isn't supposed to be traumatized by or where the mothers aren't fingered as being hard hearted bitches if they don't forgive the kidnapper instantly, proclaiming "Kidnapper is LOVE!" (Babe, Greenlee AMC). A fictional universe where women don't fall in love with men who threaten to kill their son or sister to force them to marry them (EJ, DOOL). And a place where it's actually recognized as squicky and perverse when a thirty-something man screws the identical twin of his autistic ex-wife who is a teenager (Jonathan, AMC)! A world where mobsters and hitmen are not constantly hailed as being "good men." Hell, they're hailed as heroes! They don't need to change or anything... just because they kill people for a living. And women need to understand their men and not complain or (gasp) ask them to reform if they kill for a living (Sonny & Jason GH), or dream of killing people just because they want the woman sooooo badly (EJ, DOOL).

And why is it currently the vogue for soap men to have as many children by as many different women as possible (Sonny on GH. Ryass on AMC.) And why are women supposed to be so desperate to have some man's child that they steal his sperm? (Greenlee AMC).

Soaps these days aren't morally complex and layered. They're written like cartoons on crack, and I don't enjoy fanwanking my way through stories trying to make sense of the godawful mess when I'm pretty darn certain that what the writers are putting on screen is the crap they really want me to swallow (even if it makes no sense whatsoever to anyone but the some soap writer who has been shuffled between half a dozen soaps because they've produced such drek in the past.)

I don't like Neanderthal he-men. I don't like glittery hoo-hahs who are princesses of the ball no matter how narcissistic their actions. I don't like too root for unrepentant murders to get what they want (or to live in the homes of the men they murdered {Jonathan, AMC} or to walk around with the kidneys of men they've arranged to be killed {Stephano, DOOL}). I don't like romances that aren't romantic and where women swoon over men who threaten to kill their husband, sister, and son {Sami, DOOL}, where men who fantasize about screwing women literally over the dead body of their husband {EJ, DOOL}, and I don't like redemptions accomplished not by redemption or any effort at reform (and forget about atonement) but by turning the victims into bigger assholes than the transgressor who started the shit in the first place but who the writers decide we should root for because they say so {Every story on AMC in the last three years, particularly if there's a convenient Chandler or Kane to be thrown under a bus}.


I grew up a soap fan and still enjoy the format (I've enjoyed the new show Dirty Sexy Money a great deal because it has many of the old soap elements from when soaps were fun). But the daytime soaps have slowly morphed into a world where I'm lectured to by soap writers to root for murdering, kidnapping, neanderthal-like assholes even when they haven't done a single, solitary redemptive thing anywhere on screen.

And I do think that this is at least one of the reasons why soaps have alienated a chunk of fans.

The moral universes on soaps turned upside down when:

• a character raped the young heroine of the show and later became the show's anti hero
• the same young heroine fell in love with her rapist

I know it happened over 25 years ago, but the fact that a rapist became an anti hero and the rape victim fell in love with her rapist had to have changed the landscape of writing for soaps, a moral universe was no longer needed, villains didn't need to be punished, crimes didn't have to be avenged, rape was not only easily forgiven but it was a cause for love.

Brava! laward

I also agree with alanr that much of what I would consider to be the downfall of soaps can be traced back to GH, and to the Luke/Laura storyline. Basically, I blame Tony Geary for the whole thing. Although he has never been my cup of tea, apparently he was just so damned good that audiences fell for Luke, and thus the whole rape storyline had to be redeemed into a love story. This, to me, is not by itself the problem, however. The problem is that horrible, schlocky soap writers to come would see that story only as "rape is LOVE" and give us Todd Manning and EJ Wells and other rapists as romantic leads for years to come. What they did not calculate was that Luke did redeem himself in many ways over the years, and that GH would continue to have that story have fallout 2 decades later. For that, GH deserves credit. For giving us Sonny Corinthos and his ilk - killers who just keep killing, even while being portrayed as romantic leads, they deserve much blame for the trends that laward described so brilliantly.

The other thing that GH brought to the soap world was the SciFi aspect, via the Cassadines and their schemes. Freezing the world? Why not? Soon we had Tom and Margo trapped in a booby trapped castle by Mr. Big on ATWT (Loved that story, BTW - but it was anything but typical soap). We had Eugene and his time machine on DOOL. We had an underground city on OLTL. Cloned Reva on GL. Melaswen and the roller coaster coffins on DOOL. Marlena possessed on DOOL. Again, like Luke/Laura, these stories can be done well, but in the hands of hacks (and let's face it, most soaps are in the hands of hacks most of the time), they are ticketed to disaster.

Finally, I have seen lots of references to Roger Thorpe and Holly in this thread, as examples of what is soap done right. I agree. I also agree with anadyr21 that I love to watch characters grow up, or live their lives, on a soap, and watch how their past experiences change them. Which is why I absolutely hate the fact that these days on most soaps, long-time classic characters are backburnered or dumped altogether in order to make room for characters we know nothing about, or SORASED teens who have no background to draw from at all, since their entire lives have been skipped. These days, Roger/Holly never would have played out, as most writers would consider them old and uninteresting, and would have focused the show around newborns suddenly SORASED to teenage status, becoming older than their older siblings in the process, or around hordes of characters from some otherwise unknown country, or characters with no connection to anyone. Oh wait, did I just describle modern day GL??

It is a juggling act. How do you keep long-time characters interesting without going through the breakup/reconcile waltz ad nauseum, and the more you feature those characters, the harder that gets over time. Which I guess brings it back to where I think soaps have their biggest problem, by and large. Most of the writing SUCKS. And in the process, history (the greatest asset and liability of soaps) gets trashed, characters get assassinated, and viewers get fed up.

This has nothing to do with what killed soaps, but Snarkian and alanr, I just wanted to say Yay! to your entire posts.

And Snarkian, thank you for bringing up Tom and Margo and Mr. Big! I remembering watching that as a kid and loving it! It was Justin Deas as Tom and Margaret Colin as Margo, right? And Mr. Big was a midget? That was some great, crazy stuff.