Saving Soaps

I can’t decide if this is a blog or a big ‘ole thank you/love note to Ken Corday, Marlene Clark Poulter, Darrell Ray Thomas, Jr, Frank Valentini and Ron Carlivati but either way here I go.

I’ve grown up watching soaps; Mama & Granny watched the first episode of Days of Our Lives & my older cousin was so completely swept up in the romance & adventure of Luke & Laura that she just knew I was going to grow up to look just like Genie Francis (FYI: I didn’t). One by one I watched as my soaps like The Doctors, Another World & Santa Barbara were cancelled, but I never thought I see the day when soaps were in danger of being a thing of the past. When I heard that All My Children and One Life To Live were being cancelled, I was in shock. I never watch them but I knew how the fans felt and as a fan of the genre my heart broke.

I shouldn’t have been surprised though. I can't speak to AMC or OLTL, but both of the soaps I watch had become so predictable. The dialog was stale and the storylines had become boring enough that I’d fast forward through chunks of it. The heroes barely caught my eye and only true villains like Stefano & Helena kept my attention. There are certain actors I love and no matter what the storyline, I’m going to stop what I’m doing and watch. I’d unhappily settled into the realization that Days & GH had become background noise to have on while I was getting ready for work or eating lunch.

I’d pretty much decided to give up on GH. With less than 20 yrs., I didn’t have as much time invested. There were characters/actors I’d miss but I was getting fed up; too much mob & not enough of…well, anything else. It seemed everything & everyone had a mob connection. Yes, I know the mob has been a factor in Port Charles for a long time but it was “A” factor not “THE” factor. Then there was the whole James Franco thing. It was intriguing at first, thing sent me right over the edge. There was a rumor of a new Cassadine story…they even laid the groundwork with Helena’s conversations with Nicholas and Luke rescuing her, but pushed it aside in favor of the Franco “story”. The show was on a slow painful decent into Hell.

Even though I had all but given up on GH, as a 3rd generation fan, I never imagined I'd be willing to let go of Days...until it happened. What was the final straw? The death of Francis Reid and the character she’d played for more than 40 years Alice Horton. It was treated as merely another way to move from one plot to another. At least I felt that way. Where were the flashbacks? The beautiful memory filled funeral? The former cast members coming back to pay their respects like when Mickey died? There was some but not nearly what I – and other fans – felt due. After a lifetime of watching Days of Our Lives, I was seriously considering giving up.

I don’t know if it was low ratings, fan complaints, the cancellation of two of most beloved & recognized soaps in history or a combination of the three, but something shook the networks. New producers and writers were brought on board to Days & GH and boy did they make changes!! Both took a Back to the Future approach. They brought back fan favorites -- something that had been done before and wasted (the blatant misuse of Louise Sorrell on Days still sickens me) but this time it felt like the new teams were serious about saving their respective soaps. The writing is strong. The constant repeating of dialog to fill time…I mean…to catch people up…was gone. Plot twists and cliffhangers…real cliffhangers …were back. I kid you not, even a few daily cliffhangers! More than once in the last few months I’ve caught myself happily saying “I didn’t see that coming!”

Some characters were eliminated and new characters were brought on that actually moved the story. There are some characters & actors that I’ll miss, Nathan Parsons & Bren Foster come to mind. There was a lot of potential (can you just imagine the sparks between Bren Foster & Lisa Rinna) but the way their exit was written they can be brought back & hopefully will be. Kimberly McCullough wanted to leave but in true soap fashion, even though we all sat and sobbed through the funeral, the door is open.

The new writers & producers are respecting and using the history of the shows instead of ignoring it. Instead of changing characters (sometimes not even that) and recycling a recent story, they're telling fresh ones, and they're not dragging them out. A storyline that even last year would have ran at best 6 or 8 months is being played out in half that time! All of that being said, I’m still reserving judgment; we’ve seen changes & updates before but after a few months they fall back into the same craptastic patterns so I’m not going to get crazy excited. But as a fan of these two soaps and the genre in general, I really hope these changes “take”. As silly as it may sound to some, I can’t, and don’t want to, imagine life without soaps.