Of the four soaps currently on the air, The Bold and the Beautiful is the most dependent on romance. The other three have aspects they can lean on if the current crop of couples aren’t up to snuff, like business stories, family mess and camp. B&B is set up in such a way that couples are the focus and the source of drama. If a character isn’t a pairing, they’ll be talking about a couple. This means if there are a few flop couples, it impacts the whole show. And B&B currently only has one good couple.
Until Something Better Comes Along
Stopgap pairings are normal on soaps. They don’t want characters to be single for too long so two characters get thrown together without it being intended to be long term. Just a little something to keep them busy! A lot of the time this type of pairing can be jarring and chemistry-less, but there are gems – like when Sam and Patrick were together on GH. Unfortunately, Hope and Carter are in the former category.
Hope is the most prominent character Carter has ever been paired with in his 11 year tenure. If this were an actual good pairing, it could have elevated his status. It isn’t a good pairing. Hope and Carter getting together is random as hell! It doesn’t help that they trotted out revisionist history by saying Carter was longing for Hope last year in Rome. The real thing we saw in Rome was Carter propping Ridge and Brooke’s 607th reunion. We also didn’t forget that Carter’s last relationship was with Hope’s aunt, Katie.
Annika Noelle and Lawrence Saint-Victor are really trying to sell it, but they need to pull the plug on this sooner rather than later. They can just recast Thomas and get Thope back on track, since that was a couple that was actually popular. They could create a new character for Carter to date. He deserves to be in a pairing that fans like and this slapdash mess isn’t it.
Unbreak Her Heart With Your Dong
It was revealed that Taylor has broken heart syndrome because Brad Bell is about as subtle as a woman going through a breakup getting bangs. A love triangle with one of the characters having an illness is classic soap. It is designed to pull Character A in the direction of the ill character while Character B looks on as they get closer. The problem is we know the Brooke/Ridge/Taylor playbook. We know it will end with Taylor getting left at the altar like her last two weddings with Ridge.
Brad’s preference for Brooke and Ridge as endgame is known. It doesn’t matter that Katherine Kelly Lang and Thorsten Kaye have the chemistry of your aunt and uncle who hate each other, but stay together because they can’t afford to divorce. It doesn’t matter that fans have been screaming about that for over a decade. Brooke and Ridge are destiny, whether we like it or not, and Taylor is just an obstacle.
The show only needing Taylor as a roadblock to Ridge and Brooke does make it hard to accept Rebecca Budig as Taylor. Why should I get attached to Rebecca as Taylor when she’ll get fired when the story is done? They discarded Krista Allen when they were done with the last go-around. Taylor could easily exist without that triangle, but that would require Brad letting go of his view of her just being a plot device. I don’t see that happening.
A Man Who Actually Wants His Mother To Be Happy
I am delighted that Will doesn’t want his mother Katie to get back together with Bill. I am so used to characters trying to pull a Parent Trap on this show that it is refreshing that Will knows his father treated his mother like shit and wants better for her. I worried that when Will was recast, he was going to be laying out lube and lighting candles like Steffy did when she literally prepared a room for her parents to bang in. Thankfully, we got a man who loves his mother and doesn’t want her to be in a toxic relationship. Steffy will be 80 one day and she’ll be trying to get her parents’ ghosts back together!
On the romantic front for Will, they introduced a new Forrester for him named Electra. Given how the recent writing for young couples has been, I don’t have high hopes for this pairing. Crew Morrow is a good hire and Laneya Grace seems lovely, but I don’t trust this show to set them up for success. They botched RJ and Luna to the point that Luna was retconned into being a murderous loon who drugged herself to bang his cousin. Maybe they’ll learn from that mistake, but I’m not holding my breath.
The Foot Fetishists
I am so tired of complaining about Sheila and Deacon. I don’t want to think about him kissing her toes or them getting married by a homeless man played by Clint Howard. All I’m going to say is this is a waste of Sean Kanan’s talent. He’s a really great actor and deserves better than to be serving pasta while his character is married to a psycho masquerading as a Hallmark heroine.
Let’s Have Some Conflict
Steffy and Finn are the best couple on B&B right now. Tanner Novlan and Jacqueline MacInnes Wood have always had excellent chemistry and the Sinn fanbase is dedicated. I just think it is time for Steffy and Finn to have a new conflict. Something that isn’t Sheila related. Not Hope humping his leg because he was nice to her. They need a new obstacle.
They have been together since 2020. Four years together on a soap is a long time and they only had one real instance of cheating early on when Steffy drunkenly banged Liam. If B&B had more good couples, I’d say they were due for a break up. It would be foolish to break them up right now, but that doesn’t mean they should be 100% happy.
There are a lot of different conflicts they could try with Steffy and Finn. They could introduce an ex-girlfriend of Finn’s who had his baby, which is very in Brad’s wheelhouse to write. They could have Steffy relapse on her two week pill addiction. They could even tell a Hand That Rocks The Cradle story with a nanny who becomes obsessed with Finn and the kids. Anything that stops Steffy from pondering whether or not to kill Hope For The Future for the 80th time.
Invest In Romance
One of the big problems with romance on B&B is the couples are often paper thin. You can get invested in a pairing like Hope and Thomas, but then the rug gets pulled out from under you and you have Hope acting pathetic with a married man. If romance is going to be your bread and butter, you need well-developed couples and the trust of the audience that they’ll get a bit of time with a good one before they break up.
I do think it would help if Brad would slow it down with couples. He has a tendency to go for insta-love in his writing. Two characters can shake hands and fall in love and be getting married a few months later. And they can be broken up just as easily. If he slowed it down and allowed a build up to all the major milestones, maybe fans could have multiple couples they like. A soap opera with only one good couple is just untenable.
Dispatches From Soap Land
*I had a feeling it wouldn’t take Ron Carlivati long to get another job. I think him being a breakdown writer on Beyond The Gates will rejuvenate him. This is the first time since Bush was president that he’s working on a soap and not as the head writer. I hope this goes well and the entire writing staff hits it out of the park.
*Having Sam and Dante getting engaged right before she dies is really cruel. They already set up this exit to be Sam going as Lulu returns, but I think this was really unnecessary on GH’s part.
*Days needs to stop trying Clyde like Hillbilly Stefano. He’s not a great villain, and he should have died years ago.
