Soap fans complain all the time. We are a notoriously whiny bunch. I’m sure there are whole group chats of soap writers and producers calling us joyless little bitches who need to shut the fuck up, and I don’t entirely disagree with that sentiment. Yet it is our role to complain, and I’m going to be a joyful bitch as I lay out the top ten things these soaps need to stop doing immediately.
10. Stop firing a successful recast for a previous portrayer
People leave soaps all the time. Sometimes it is to join another soap. Other times the actor has dreams of primetime and film. Sometimes they want to live on a farm in a flyover state and never be heard from again as they stroll around in overalls and wear a wicker hat. The show then has to decide what to do with the character. If it is a beloved character and they recast, it is going to be an uphill battle because soap fans take recasts very personally. The vibe from fans can be very, “What is he doing here? That isn’t my Dirk Tugger! My Dirk Tugger was hot. This man has a potato face and looks like he has IBS. I’m not going to abide this insult to my eyeballs!”
If they are lucky, most fans come to love the recast. Yet every few years we have to deal with a soap making a rude decision: firing the recast for the previous actor who chose to leave. I loathe when this fuckery occurs. It isn’t fair to the fans who came to love this portrayer in the role. It certainly isn’t fair to the actor who took on the role and got bum-rushed out of there because the previous portrayer needed the money.
It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time it happens. I’m still bitter about Y&R firing Gina Tognoni in 2019 for Michelle Stafford, who had years before swore up and down that she would never return to the show. Gina carried many a storyline on her back for years as Phyllis and the thanks she got was getting unceremoniously booted. To add insult to injury, Phyllis went from leading lady to day player when Michelle resumed the role. What was the point? If you are going to enrage large swaths of your audience, there should at least be a big story that could have used flashbacks of Michelle’s original tenure. All we got was her arguing over a hotel with Abby like a nitwit.
I just want soaps to stop doing this. I don’t care how much I loved the original. If the recast is doing well, they should stay. If the original needs money that badly, they can get a real estate license or sell mittens on Etsy.
9. Stop having characters overpraise a character fans hate
This has been going on for years. The most infamous example is Bianca on All My Children proclaiming that “Babe is love” after that woman let her think her baby was dead for months. And it doesn’t actually work. It just annoys people. Having characters be like “You are walking and talking at the same time? That’s amazing! You are really something special, Tanya!” and “You are like Jesus, but better because you aren’t a dead virgin” isn’t going to endear me to the praised character. It just makes me think the writers and producers think we’re all stupid.
If you want us to like a character, go toward the root issue and fix that. Is the actor just bad? Are you writing to the actor’s strengths? Do you write the character as completely unlikable? Have they truly suffered for any crimes they’ve committed? Work on that instead of proclaiming that they are the best person who ever lived despite all evidence to the contrary.
8. Stop having excessive flashbacks
I understand that flashbacks can be a necessary evil to pad an episode that came out a little short, but there shouldn’t be flashbacks to something that happened in the same damn episode. I just saw that! You don’t need to show it to me again. I know technology has killed our attention spans, but not so much that I forgot what I watched ten minutes ago.
Flashbacks used to be more necessary when people didn’t have streaming services and DVRs, so a flashback really could be helpful to a fan that missed an episode. Now if I missed an episode of Days from last month, I can go on Peacock and watch it. Soaps are so accessible now that excessive flashbacks should be a thing of the past. Now if they want to show flashbacks to an older story, I’d encourage that if it is relevant to current events. But recent stuff? Keep it short.
7. Stop giving characters murder mystery writing if you aren’t going to have a murder mystery
If you write a story where most of the town has a motive to kill a person and multiple people talk about how much they want that person dead, you need to follow through with a murder. Do the damn thing! Have ten characters brandishing a gun while monologuing to themselves like, “This is the last time that Chester Sinclair hurts my family. God forgive me for what I’m about to do, but Chester has to die!”
GH has given multiple characters murder mystery writing and then wimped out on killing them off in a murder mystery. They killed a few of them off, but none got the classic soap murder mystery. I’m tired of it! If they think murder mysteries are cliche and too old school, that’s stupid. A well-crafted murder mystery can set a show on fire. When you are writing a five-day-a-week show, that matters.
As the World Turns fans will never forget the revelation that child Will had poisoned Rose’s mouthwash and killed her. It made total sense because of his mother Barbara’s hatred of his brother Paul marrying Rose. It was so twisted and soapy. Soaps can still have moments like that if they just write it and network executives let them do it.
6. Stop making every triangle have an obvious endgame
I understand for some triangles it makes story sense to make it obvious who is the true love and who is just there to be an obstacle. Example: Jonathan, Tammy, and Sandy on Guiding Light. Jonathan was the bad boy who seduced his cousin Tammy out of revenge against the mother who didn’t raise him. No one wanted them together. Sandy was just in the equation to give us the epic moment of Tammy being a runaway bride-to-be with her cousin-soulmate Jonathan. I loved it. Though, I don’t want all triangles to be like that. I also want triangles that have rooting value on both sides.
We don’t get many full-fledged triangles anymore, and it is sad. Triangles where you weren’t sure which side would win. Triangles that would have fans on message boards and social media acting like emotional terrorists to the other shippers who disagreed with them. When Sonny, Brenda, and Jax were the big triangle on GH, it wasn’t fait accompli who Brenda would end up with. She loved both of them. It was compelling, and people still talk about it to this day. Soaps need more of that.
5. Stop hiring people without a plan
If you are going to bring on a new character or bring back an old character, soaps should ask themselves a few questions. What is the story for this character? What is the function of this character on the canvas? Do any of the current characters also perform this function, and what makes the new hire different? Who could be a romantic interest for this character?
Y&R in particular is guilty of hiring people without a plan. Rory Gibson debuted as the new Noah in October of last year and hasn’t done shit since then. I do have some hope they’ll stop having him just sitting around looking cute, but he should have had a story from day one. You don’t know how long a young actor is going to stick around. Use them while you have them.
4. Stop using LGBTQ+ characters as props
Days is currently the only soap writing for gay characters. The Craig story is an abomination that never should have happened, but at least the show has gay and bi characters like Will, Sonny, Allie, and Chanel in story. I can’t say the same for the other soaps. GH just trots Terry out so they can proclaim they have a trans character and use her in tweets celebrating pride month and AAPI heritage month. One date with Chet doesn’t count as a story.
Y&R used Mariah as the incubator for the “We Are The World” baby, but can’t seem to give her a story that is about her and Tessa. It is nice that they are getting married, but more focus would be nice. They could have brought on Tessa’s trashy mom for an arc, but that would make too much sense and detract from them just talking about what kind of wedding they want. Thrilling!
B&B is the only soap to never have a gay or bi character on contract. I’m pretty sure Brad Bell avoids all things gay to cater to the foreign audience. He did have Maya come out as trans in 2015, but she was played by a cisgender actress and he erased her and the entire Avant family from the show so I don’t think he should get much credit for that.
It is 2022, and it is sad that gay characters had more representation on soaps in the 2000s than now. Bianca on All My Children got to have entire stories about her. Meanwhile, Mariah had to spend a few years being the Mrs. Kravitz of Genoa City. It is such bullshit.
3. Stop having everyone be an idiot for the sake of the plot
Plot induced stupidity can be a necessary evil of soaps. Cops can’t be too competent otherwise half the cast would be in prison. Some stories just have to function with one or two characters being stupid. It is what it is. Yet I take umbrage with writing most of the cast as absolute morons. Take the possession story on Days. Allie didn’t realize that her twin brother was acting differently?! I understand that Allie isn’t the smartest character on the show, but Johnny shared a womb with her. Not to mention the rest of his family not noticing. Susan was the only family member who noticed he was possessed, but she got mind whammied by Satan.
Another example is Esme framing Trina for releasing Josslyn and Cameron’s revenge porn tape. The burner phone placed in Trina’s bag would have Esme’s fingerprints. It would have the data of cellphone towers it pinged off of to track where it has been. You can find out where a burner phone was purchased and pull up a video of Esme in Best Buy buying her sex tape phone. And even a minimum security prison has cameras so they’d show Esme putting it in her bag. I understand soap cops can’t be too competent, but come on. They could have at least had Esme wearing gloves handling that phone.
2. Stop writing Black characters as props for stories for white characters
There’s been a lot of unfortunate writing for Black characters in the past year. There was Carter on B&B being used as the outsourced cock because Eric’s penis declined to perform for Quinn. That storyline was so offensive that my friend Chaz (who you can follow on Twitter: mrtubetalk) stopped watching a show he had been watching for decades. That’s how bad it was. He sat through Thomas kissing a mannequin, but how Carter was being used was his breaking point.
Y&R has Devon functioning as the villain to Abby and Chance over that baby who shouldn’t exist. Devon was a sperm donor, but he’s pushed for rights he had already signed away and even contemplated a custody battle. It makes Devon look like an asshole who is trying to take a baby. I’ve liked Devon ever since he debuted, but I dread watching his scenes now. I’m also not a fan of him merging Hamilton/Winters with Chancellor. Hamilton/Winters is his legacy. A company he built with his adoptive father. A merger is stupid.
There’s been a lot of discourse over the Trina on GH story. It is very soapy and the kind of drama I’ve been wanting for the younger set, but they could have been more mindful about the optics of a white woman weaponizing the police against a Black woman and Trina’s point of view and hurt from Esme’s machinations. I hope that will be addressed because I do appreciate that GH has been investing more in Black characters lately.
1. Stop having a penis be the center of a woman’s world
I have information that Brad Bell will find truly shocking: there is more to life than dick. I know that was painful for him to read, but it is true. People do other things than argue about which vagina should sheath a dick. They have careers and hobbies. Brooke Logan is a noted dick enthusiast, but she’s also a chemist and successful businesswoman who launched Brooke’s Bedroom and the BeLieF formula. She did that while loving cock with all her heart. Women contain multitudes.
There’s just so many stories B&B could be telling that don’t involve most of the cast having the same conversation everyday. There could be another power struggle at Forrester Creations. Brooke’s biological son Jack could show up for revenge. Sales at Forrester Creations could dip because people aren’t into the designs and they are flocking to a new fashion house. Let’s think of different things to do, Brad. Let’s stop pretending like Ridge and Liam’s dicks are Infinity Stones and the fate of the universe rests on who wields them. They could be ten inches and Coke-can thick and they wouldn’t be worth the trouble.
Dispatches From Soap Land
*Tabyana Ali is already doing great as the new Trina. I’m going to miss Sydney Mikayla, but I’m happy to see Trina is in good hands.
*Y&R has been more watchable lately. There’s still stupid shit like Billy podcasting about his man pain and the baby who I wish would crawl away, but I’m liking Ashland being revealed as a cancer faker and the Allie story. I’m trying not to get too excited because this show has burned me too many times.
*I’m intrigued by the casting of Michael Blake Kruse as a new cop. GH has a few cops, so I’m wondering what will be his function. He’s cute, so they must have a love interest in mind. I just hope there’s a plan.
God you are dumb, Alan.
Why???