Romance is the bread and butter of soaps. Though, not all of that bread is fresh and sometimes the butter is an unchurned globby mess. Here are the Top 10 Worst Couples that I consider to be the most unappealing and rancid in soaps right now.
10. Tripp & Wendy, Days
Do you know damn boring you have to be that being kidnapped isn’t even interesting? Wendy and Tripp’s lives are in danger and I feel nothing. They could live and that would be fine with me. They could die and it would be fine. They could reenact Jennifer Connelly’s famous scene at the end of Requiem For a Dream and it would still be met with indifference.
Being indifferent to a couple is almost worse than actively despising them. At least when I hate a pairing, I can find joy in mocking them. Tripp and Wendy don’t even inspire arguments on social media. If a pairing doesn’t inspire an office manager from Ohio to call a teacher in Texas a dumb bitch with no taste, that pairing is a flop.
9. Diane & Robert, General Hospital
Soaps can have random pairings. It is the nature of the genre to move characters around like a child playing with her dolls. One day, Barbie could be dating Ken, and the next she’s left him for Batman because the child got bored and decided to change the storyline. Robert and Diane are more random than that. This would be like a child deciding her teddy bear and her iPad are a couple now. The iPad doesn’t need a boyfriend! The iPad is just there to serve a need. And we liked the teddy bear’s past pairings, but we aren’t interested in seeing him romancing the iPad. The teddy bear could frankly do better.
8. Billy & Chelsea, The Young and the Restless
What’s the point of putting a man with the woman who conceived a child through raping him if you aren’t going to use it for drama? If Y&R would have had Johnny find out his biological mother raped his father because his adoptive grandfather sicced her on him, that would be a soap opera story! Instead we get Billy and Chelsea gushing over each other like they are a normal couple. It is insulting and against the tenets of the genre.
Even if Josh Griffith didn’t want to upset the applecart by bringing up what we know Chelsea did, there are still ways they could have made this pairing interesting. They could have had Jill scheming to break them up. Or they could have had Chelsea using Billy to get a position at Jabot. Both of those options would have made this unfortunate pairing slightly more watchable. Alas, they decided to keep this rapemance boring.
7. Carly & Drew, General Hospital
You can tell a show knows a couple is bad when they are chem testing one half of the pairing with every middle-aged white man that walks into Bobbie’s. If they were confident in Carly and Drew, they would not be doing that. Chem testing only happens when a show is willing to break a couple up and they are looking for the best option.
The other sign the end is nigh for Carly and Drew is Jason’s return. Drew has always functioned as a Jason replacement for Carly. She couldn’t have the real thing after he was buried under rubble so she settled for his twin. Once she can have the real thing, even only platonically, Drew is getting dropped. His usefulness to Carly is over.
6. Brooke & Ridge, The Bold and the BeautifulÂ
Thorsten Kaye has been playing Ridge for a decade and yet the show still wants to pretend that Ridge and Brooke still work as a couple. The commitment to this level of delusion would almost be impressive if it didn’t seriously hamper Brooke’s character. I think fans would be more willing to accept the chemistry-less version of this couple if Brooke were written like herself. Brooke is not Nikki Newman. She has a degree in chemistry and contributed greatly to Forrester Creations. She should not just exist to cradle Ridge’s balls.
5. Curtis & Portia, General Hospital
Curtis and Portia are a weird case of a couple that stopped having chemistry after they had sex. That is very unusual on a soap opera. Chemistry can dissipate on a soap after many years or if the actors date in real life and then break up, but that isn’t the case in this situation. GH still had Curtis and Portia get married, despite the chemistry leaving the building.
I do think it is beyond time to separate them. Portia could have an affair with TJ. GH used to have affairs happen at the hospital. The most famous example being Monica’s affair with Rick Webber. TJ is going to be a father soon. The stress could push him towards his older married boss. Portia having an affair with TJ would infuriate TJ’s mother Jordan who also happens to be Curtis’ ex-wife. It is the kind of mess GH needs.
4. Adam & Sally, The Young and the Restless
Speaking of actors that dated in real life, broke up, and now there’s no chemistry, we have Adam and Sally. This is why you shouldn’t want actors in a pairing to date. Mark Grossman and Courtney Hope dated and are no longer together and whatever chemistry was there evaporated like cotton candy in the rain. It doesn’t help that Adam and Sally had the same conversation for a year where he begged for her back. Now that they are back together, it is a chore to watch them.
3. Elizabeth & Finn, General Hospital
What did we do to deserve GH continuing to push this wretched pairing? I know soap fans are bitches, but this is going too far. Even if we deserve to be punished, Rebecca Herbst certainly doesn’t. She should have a decent pairing where she can shine. Not a pairing where she has to prop up an actor’s third character in the executive producer’s project to keep him employed.
This is the worst pairing Elizabeth has ever had and one of them literally tried to kill her in the hospital. Fans would take any of her exes over Finn. They could announce Lucky returning tomorrow and fans would be doing cartwheels, and half of her fanbase hates him. Patrick Mulcahey and Elizabeth Korte need to do something because keeping this pairing is untenable.
2. Tucker & Audra, The Young and the Restless
What exactly does Audra see in Tucker? Tucker is 70 years old, an asshole, not as rich as he used to be and in love with a woman with split personalities. She’s been with young heirs like Noah Newman and Kyle Abbott, but now she’s stuck as Tucker’s plaything. I don’t want to watch them having sex five days a week. The vibe between them is gross and off-putting.
I do think this pairing has ruined Audra’s character. She entered the show so promising as a fiery vixen who wanted power and dick in that order. Now she’s just there to have sex with Tucker and placate him. You can tell this show is written by a straight man in his 60’s and that is not a good thing.
1. RJ & Luna, The Bold and the Beautiful
Last year, RJ and Luna would have been in the same category as Tripp and Wendy on Days. The boring couple that was taking up airtime, but not as actively awful as other couples. That changed in the past month with Brad Bell going back to the rape and dubious consent playbook he’s drawn on before. Luna took one of her mother’s mints laced with an unknown drug and had sex with a drunk Zende.
We know where this is going. RJ will be the victim whose girlfriend was taken advantage of by meanie Zende, the only Black Forrester. Zende being thrown under the bus in this manner is outrageous. Black characters don’t have to be saints. They can do shady things and be human, but the optics of this story stink. CBS needs to intervene because Brad Bell has a huge racial blindspot. This is the same man that wrote Eric ordering his Black employee Carter to bang his wife. Changes need to be made.
Dispatches From Soap Land
*It is great that CBS renewed Y&R for four years. Though I hope Josh Griffith isn’t running the show for those four years. Do you think it is time for me to write a column making the case for his dismissal?
*We all know Sheila on B&B isn’t dead. They can announce Kimberlin Brown is gone all they want. We’re not dumb.
*We are entering the writing transition on GH and it is already awkward since you have Chris and Dan’s material mixed with edits. It should be smoother once Chris and Dan are completely out of the credits.
I know you weren’t a fan, but Franco was Elizabeth’s best romantic chemistry in the last decade. I’m still not over how GH killed Franco and destroyed the Friz family. Becky was in a popular couple and GH took it away from her again. Now she’s stuck in this awful pairing. So frustrating.
Robert and Diane don’t need to be in a pairing. With anyone. Both can be single.
I blame Curtis. He’s boring and monotonous.