Alan’s Soap Box: Top 10 Things Soaps Need To Stop Doing

Everyone has complaints about soaps. Some make sense and some are more in the vein of “Why isn’t my fave on five days a week? Why can’t my fave couple just kiss and skip around town with zero drama?” This month, I’m going to list the top ten things I think soaps should stop doing. You can decide for yourselves if they are reasonable complaints or not.

10. Stop Putting Elderly Characters Into Love Triangles

You might consider this ageist, but I am of the belief that characters age out of certain stories and that’s okay. If a character is old enough to get brochures from funeral homes in the mail, I don’t want to see them torn between two lovers! A love triangle just plays better with a 25 year old than a 60 year old. You can understand a younger character being confused about who they want to be with. A 60 year old who has divided feelings is just an asshole.

Let’s take Y&R for example. Earlier this year, they decided that having Phyllis and Christine competing for Danny was a good idea. This was bad, and not just because of the age of all three parties. Phylis was obsessed with Danny in the ’90s and she baby-trapped him with a kid that wasn’t even biologically his child. Danny getting even a whisper of an erection for Phyllis was insipid. The age factor just upped the ridiculousness of the story.

With Taylor back at B&B, it is likely we’re going to get another round of the never ending triangle of Brooke, Taylor and Ridge. Rebecca Budig is 51 years old, but Taylor is in her 60’s. It is only a matter of time before Brooke eats all of Ridge’s Funyuns, and he’ll go running to Taylor, proclaiming that she’s the love of his life. Only, Thomas ate the Funyuns and framed Brooke for it. Then we’ll get another interrupted wedding as fans roll our eyes at seeing this for the 200th time.

9. Stop Letting Actors Dictate Stories

An actor intervening when it comes to storytelling on a TV show should be a rare event. It needs to be something so terrible to justify it. Like when Y&R was going to have Nick and Mariah have a fantasy kiss and Joshua Morrow and Camryn Grimes allegedly refused to film it. Given that Mariah was the twin of Nick’s deceased adopted daughter and Joshua has known Camryn since she was a little girl, that refusal was more than justified.

However, not all actors dictating the story go in that bucket. Sometimes you have actors allegedly getting co-stars fired because they don’t like them. Or refusing to reunite their most popular pairing because they want new pairings, despite all of them flopping. Or they never want their character to lose. At a certain point, it hurts the show, and the executive producer needs to tell them to shut up and stop being a diva.

8. Stop Undervaluing Family Connections

Y&R’s Abby should be a big deal. She’s a Newman and an Abbott, which are the two main families of the show. She should be a lead. Yet she’s a C character who doesn’t have much to do with either of her families. Another show might send her away for a bit and recast as a way to reset the character. Y&R refuses to do that. They want to keep Melissa Ordway despite the ambivalence they have for the character of Abby.

This is a problem on Days as well. Marlena has had more scenes this year with walking red flag Leo than her grandson Johnny. A new viewer would be forgiven for thinking Johnny was just a DiMera. Scenes with Marlena interacting with her family matter more to Days fans than her watching RuPaul’s Drag Race with Leo.

GH is making strides on this front. Lucky is back and the new Lulu is forthcoming, so Laura will have two of her children on the canvas. This also means Aiden will finally have his father on the canvas so perhaps he can come out as gay to Lucky. We’ve also been getting good content with the Davis and Ashford families. Although, I haven’t forgotten that Trina went months without being in scenes with her mother Portia this year.

7. Stop Useless Stunt Casting

No one in 2024 was excited to see Perez Hilton on GH. It could be considered as alienating to the audience given his past antics. The content of Kristina and Blaze’s interview with Perez made it even worse. It was offensive to portray homophobic Natalia as a victim in a scene with a man who used to out people.

B&B is now the king of useless stunt casting. Brad Bell will shove some celebrity you forgot was still alive in scenes so pointless that you get mad that your time was wasted. At least Clint Howard’s turn as a homeless man turned corpse had relevance to the plot for a change.

Days currently has a stunt casting situation with AnnaLynn McCord as “Abigail.” She signed a year contract so it isn’t some cheap cameo. The thing that makes it ill-advised is trolling the fans with a supposed resurrection of a popular character. Unless the real Abigail follows shortly afterwards or she does turn out to be Abigail, this just seems destined to piss fans off and waste money.

6. Stop Redeeming Villains So Often

It is bonkers that soaps have to be told that redemption arcs for classic soap villains like Sheila Carter and Heather Webber are a totally idiotic idea. It is bizarre to turn on B&B and see Sheila being treated like she’s the heroine of an older woman Hallmark film. It is equally bizarre to turn on GH and see Heather being treated like she’s a kooky auntie and not a lunatic who has been killing people since 2004.

This whole phenomenon is based on shows desperately wanting to keep a character. It certainly isn’t new. In the past, they’d make a villain staying on the canvas palatable, but still keep the edge that made them interesting like Todd Manning on One Life to Live. Now they just want to declare sociopaths as woobies and we are expected to just accept it. It is too much to ask for. Soaps are meant to have villains and not all of them are meant to stick around town indefinitely.

5. Stop Having Every New Character Related To An Established Character

I understand we only have ourselves to blame for this one. Soap fans react so churlishly to new characters that executive producers and head writers feel they have to connect them to the canvas. It just makes the introduction of a new character feel like a waiting game for the reveal that they are the long lost child of Stuart Periwinkle and Susanna Stillwater. It is fine for someone to just move to town and share no DNA with any past or present characters. If they are a good character, fans will accept them.

4. Stop Using False History

Most soap fans have a decent handle on the history of a show. That’s why it annoys the everliving fuck out of us when soaps trot out false history. Days fans don’t like it when the show pretends John and Steve were always besties. B&B cried foul when they tried to falsely assert that Brooke had cheated on Ridge with Thorne and Eric. GH fans were very upset when characters were suddenly shocked and appalled that Sonny was a mobster.

I understand that there are agendas at play and sometimes they want to tweak stuff for a story, but it undermines a soap to present false history. The appeal of soaps is that they are a continuing story and generations have enjoyed them. Trying to pull a “Your eyes were lying to you, baby!” on us just doesn’t fly.

3. Stop With The Palpable Disdain For Fans

Soap fans are annoying. No one is disputing that. However, shows need us for everyone who works on those shows to continue to be employed. That makes it unwise to basically spit in our faces. From B&B having Deacon kiss Sheila’s toes as a way to mock fans, to the bizarre, agenda-driven writing transition earlier this year on GH, there’s an unfortunate pattern.

Soaps don’t have to listen to fans on everything. Sometimes they should just ignore fans, like when shippers want no drama for a couple. They just shouldn’t make it feel like they have a seething hatred for the people who make it possible for them to be able to afford food, plastic surgery and jorts. Just make fun of us in a group text. We’ll all feel better that way.

2. Stop Favoring Men Over Women

This has been going on for decades. GH fans remember when Laura had to be played by a stand-in with a wig for almost a decade because Jill Farren Phelps wouldn’t give Genie Francis the same goodies like vacation time, like she did Tony Geary. Men tend to get favored over women in a genre that is supposed to be for women.

The latest example is the firing of Kelly Monaco. It would have been one thing if they had fired her for phoning it in a few years ago or just decided the character of Sam had run her course. Kelly was allegedly fired for budgetary reasons and the character of Sam is reportedly going to die. When you consider that GH has rehired two expensive men this year, the optics on this are terrible. Fans are pissed and I don’t blame them.

1. Stop Hiring The Same People To Be Head Writer

I understand that being a head writer is one of the toughest jobs in show business. They have to come up with stories for 30 plus characters for five days a week all year. Add in notes from the network and fans who are always pissed at them, it is a pretty thankless job. It makes sense that networks and executive producers would want people who have done the job before. Yet recycling head writers has left the genre stale for a number of years.

GH literally fired Chris Van Ettern earlier this year and rehired him for the same position. A primetime show is unlikely to fire a showrunner and rehire them six months later. There’s really only two reasons someone would do that. Either no one else wanted the job or they wanted a certain status quo. Usually it takes a few years for a soap to rehire a head writer so it is laughable for it to happen in the same year.

I do believe there is fresh talent out there who would take a writing position on a soap. They might need to be paired with a soap writing vet to learn the ropes like Michael Malone was with Josh Griffith in the ’90s when he was hired at One Life to Live. They need to freshen up the talent pool if soaps are going to continue. Otherwise, we are just going to have writers hopping from soap to soap to tell the same stories they did on other soaps.

Dispatches From Soap Land

*B&B’s Steffy being held captive should teach her to stop running whenever there’s a problem in her marriage. She’s in a cage and everyone thinks she’s off pouting. Perhaps the next time that Finn eats the last ice cream sandwich or farts in bed, she’ll just stay put.

*Y&R is at 2.8 million viewers. Time for a regime change!

*I am grateful that GH has been watchable lately. I’ll enjoy it for however long that lasts. Probably about two months. Three, if we get really lucky.