In every type of fiction, there’s things you just have to go along with if you are engaging in that genre. If you read a romance novel series, you have to go along with a family or friend group all conveniently finding true love. If you watch a slasher film, you have to go along with characters making poor decisions that lead to their doom. Since Beyond The Gates has brought people who are new to the genre, I thought it would be a good idea to go over things soap fans have to go along with if they want to watch a soap opera.
10. Law Enforcement Can’t Be Too Competent
Primetime television has competent cops and prosecutors. Olivia Benson is usually going to catch the culprit on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and the Assistant District Attorney will most likely get a conviction. It wouldn’t be a satisfying show if the bad guys got away with it most of the time. This level of competence is not possible on a soap opera.
The nature of soaps means characters are going to commit crimes and they have to get away with it for the show to go on. Most of the Dupree family on Beyond The Gates are accessories after the fact to murder. The Young and the Restless’ Adam would die in prison if he were convicted of the long list of crimes he’s committed including likely killing Richard Hightower. Most of the characters on General Hospital belong in federal prison and not the nice one for rich people who commit tax fraud.
This means law enforcement on soaps can’t be too competent. They can send unimportant characters to prison. Maybe a character that needs to be rested for a bit. Occasionally they’ll lock up a major character if they do something bad enough that they have to do prison time for it like Victor Newman when he had a Peruvian doppelganger of his enemy Jack rape Phyllis. Yet for the most part, they have to be ineffective dummies who can’t catch all these people who belong in prison.
9. Soaps Hiring Pretty Men With Shaky Acting Skills
The primary audience of daytime dramas are straight women. This demographic wants to see attractive men with great bodies. This doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate the acting prowess of actors who are more in the character actor category like Justin Deas or the late Michael Zaslow, but they also want to see man candy. This need for attractive men has resulted in shows hiring men who are very easy on the eyes, but with weak acting skills.
The best case scenario of this type of hire is they learn on the job. We’ve seen this happen fairly often with prominent examples being Shemar Moore, Joshua Morrow and Eric Martsolf. The worst case scenario is they never really improve and just last for years being pretty and untalented like Ronn Moss. If they fall into the unfortunate latter category, they have to have another factor to stay employed like chemistry with their co-stars or charisma.
Of course, it is best when soaps hire very attractive men who are also very good actors. Paul Telfer is hot and he just deservedly won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his work last year. Rory Gibson has used his romance novel hero good looks and acting skills to enchant GH fans. Even when Rory was given bupkis to work with when he was at Y&R, I could tell he was a decent actor and he stepped up his game for GH. Men like this prove you can have a talented actor who also inspires lust in fans, but since we can’t have that 100% of the time, we should go along with the men with spectacular pecs learning to act on the job.
8. There’s Always Going To Be a Notable Absence At a Funeral
When a major character dies, soap fans make a list of characters that absolutely have to be at the funeral. “Oh, Edna Mae who was Petunia Evergreen’s bestie in 1986 has to attend!” “It wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t see Petunia’s son Cornelious.” “I had better see Jebidiah, her Amish ex-husband who got her daughter Tawny pregnant. Speaking of Tawny, we need her as well. The last time we saw her she was hooking at that circus. Do y’all think Gina Tognoni would make a good Tawny?” It is exhausting.
You probably aren’t going to get every character you want at a funeral. The first factor is the budget. Even if they really decide to blow up the budget for those episodes, there’s still limits. The second factor is actor availability. Some actors have other commitments and others straight up don’t want to return. The third factor is screen time. There’s only so much room to show characters meaningfully mourning a character and in some cases also a real actor who passed away. Shows have to make decisions on who gets the focus and fans need to try to be understanding about that.
7. Not Every Episode Can Feel Like Sweeps
Soaps have to produce over 200 episodes a year. Not every episode can have someone being shot or a major secret being revealed or Little Timmy getting run over so half the cast can have Daytime Emmy reels. Some episodes have to be more on the filler episode side with no crying over how much Little Timmy liked strawberry jam and playing in traffic. Just because nothing huge happened in an episode on a soap doesn’t mean it has to be boring. The best of these types of episodes have heartfelt family moments and maybe some romance. The worst of these types of episodes are dream episodes. Those are lazy and definitely worth complaining about.
6. Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome
Soaps can’t wait eighteen years to write adult stories for the next generation. That’s why they use Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome AKA SORAS to age up those kids so they can either be teens or early twenty somethings depending on how far they want to take it. The median age for soaps deciding to implement SORAS is around seven years old. I think they do that because it is long enough that it doesn’t feel too weird and so they can try to have all the kids born in the ballpark of that time period in the same teen set. Some soaps prefer to do subtle SORAS with small jumps in age like with Kelly on B&B.
I can’t wait until we have the first birth of a child on Beyond The Gates. Will they wait seven years to implement SORAS on the kid or will it be small jumps in age? Will new soap fans freak out over a child becoming an adult overnight? The first time you see a child going from drinking apple juice and being annoying to suddenly being played by an adult who has paid taxes is a time honored tradition for soap fans.
5. The Timelines Surrounding SORAS Won’t Make Sense
On Y&R, Noah Newman was ten years old when his half-sister Summer was born. In the present day, they are the same age. Does that make a lick of sense? Nope. On Days, E.J. is older than Will and used to be his stepfather. The issue with that is Will was born before E.J. You also have Kristen and Brady being close in age and having a kid together when she held him as a baby. On GH, Molly was born after Cameron, but she’s older and he’s the same as Josslyn who was born five years after him. All of it is baffling to think about it.
The fact is that thinking about the timelines considering SORAS is only going to give you a headache. You have to accept that none of it makes sense and just go along with it. Don’t think about the ages of the parents of the characters that got SORASed have to be now that they are 35 years old. Don’t think about the timeline of events that happened in relation to all the SORAS. That way will only lead to madness. No criticism is going to fix it so you have to accept it. It is what it is.
4. Head Writers Are Going To Repeat Themselves
If I waved a wand and magically made you the head writer of your favorite soap opera indefinitely, you’d inevitably repeat a story you already told. Soaps are on five days a week, all year. Even if you tried your best to avoid it, you’d do it. It could be as simple as telling an affair story this year and another affair story the next year. Or it could be two kidnapping stories. Or perhaps you are a total hack and told identical return stories for past characters about getting their ex back and trying to take over a business.
This unavoidable reality doesn’t mean head writers are immune from criticism on this matter. Soap fans should give grace about common soap stories being repeated, but head writers have to make an effort so it doesn’t feel like it is copy and paste. They also have to make an effort that very distinct stories don’t happen too close together. If you tell a baby switch story, you can’t tell another baby switch story two years later. It isn’t like an affair story where you can tell one or two every year until the sun dies. A baby switch story should be told once a decade. Soap fans don’t want to constantly see women weeping about a baby that isn’t dead.
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3. Soap Operas Are Not Romance Novels
Most of my favorite soap couples have ended with one half of them dead. I was a huge fan of Ashlee and Coop on Guiding Light. Yet they broke up and he died after boinking a woman old enough to be his mother. Is it a bummer? Of course. Yet I know I’m watching a continuing television show and not reading a 300 page book where they get married at the end and have a bunch of kids and make an absurd amount of references to Taylor Swift.
Some soap fans do not realize they aren’t reading a romance novel. They talk about endgame and how their fave couple should just frolic in a field while telling each other how hot they are and any conflict they have is a personal attack on the fans. Endgame is only applicable on a soap opera under a few scenarios. Are they leaving the show together to sail off into the sunset? Is the show ending? Are they too old to break up so now they can be settled together? If the answer is yes, endgame can apply. If the answer is no, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed.
2. The Necessity of Recasts
On GH, 16 contract cast members are playing recasts. That means around half the cast is playing a role that used to be played by someone else. I tell you this to demonstrate why recasts are a necessity on soaps. If soaps didn’t recast roles, families would disappear. They’d have to constantly create new characters to replace the characters that leave and it would require a lot of time and effort. It would be a chaotic mess.
As much as some soap fans bitch about recasts, it is easier to establish a recast than try to make a new character popular. If Alexa Havins Bruening were playing a new character, they’d have to develop friendships and romantic relationships. Since she’s playing Lulu, she has an established family, friends and history they played on to get fans to accept her in the role and it worked. It is the same thing with Rory Gibson. He immediately got to work with all the major actors on the show and cemented himself as Michael. If he were playing a new character, fans would consider that too much and a desperate attempt to make the character happen.
Soap fans also have to accept that sometimes recasts will look very different from the last portrayer. Chad Duell and Rory Gibson are both white guys who look like they watch anime, but other than that, they look nothing alike. Tabyana Ali looks nothing like Sydney Mikayla and she’s been terrific as Trina. James Scott was very pretty as E.J. DiMera on Days, but Dan Feuerrigel is more ruggedly handsome and it doesn’t matter because he’s so good in the role. If the recast is good, most fans will accept it.
1. Not Every Character Can Be Likable All The Time
Brooke Logan getting impregnated by her son-in-law is one of the most famous B&B stories of all time. It was so nasty and vile and also so riveting to watch. It was also in character for Brooke. She is a human wrecking ball who will ruin even her own daughter’s life in pursuit of her own happiness. It is the perfect example of a character doing something so unlikable to deliver great television.
GH has been playing with unlikability with Drew and Willow. They realized fans didn’t like Cameron Mathison as Drew and no amount of effort was going to change that so they leaned into it. For the past year, Drew has been acting like the cartoonishly jerky victim in a Murder, She Wrote episode and didn’t even stop after getting shot. It has been very useful for drama. In Willow’s case, she’s the loon who won’t stop ruining her own life. Cameron is clearly having a blast and Katelyn MacMullen is doing the best work of her career.
I do think it is fair for fans to complain if a soap opera takes it too far and ruins a character. On Guiding Light, Holly kidnapping a bunch of kids was ridiculous and the character never fully recovered from it. It was like they said “Oh, she’s kinda old now? I guess she should be crazy! Old women are nuts!” It would have been kinder to just fire Maureen Garrett than just spitting on the years she devoted to the show.
So as long as it makes sense and it doesn’t ruin a viable character, I do think soaps should have characters being unlikable sometimes. If every character is likable all the time, that just means everyone is pleasant and that is boring. Let characters do shitty things as we curse at the television.
Dispatches From Soap Land
*I’m all for Jacob and Kat on Beyond The Gates becoming a couple. He needs a woman willing to have kids. She needs a man who doesn’t suck.
*Maggie and Sarah on Days being all shocked Pikachu that Xander did something bad made me roll my eyes.
*Tamara Braun and Roger Howarth being on Y&R feels short term. Like maybe six months at most.
