Partially OT: Supernatural Soap Passions Cancelled

[Raineypark]

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone.  Soap Operas move like glaciers in this digital world we live in now.  How can the genre possibly attract new viewers away from content made available in faster mediums? I watch General Hospital....but I don't watch it live.....I fast forward more bits than I watch.

I mean really.....how many times can one watch Sonny marry Carly?...

[David]

According to www.soapcentral.com, NBC wants to keep Passions alive and has yet to set an actual end date.
They are already in negotiations with Soapnet about keeping the show going in a 30 minute format, which would bring production costs WAY down.

We shall see........

I still think soaps have a bigger audience than people realize. Soapnet is a sucessful network.
The problem, I think, is AC Neilsen's absurd, outdated system that does not include VCR, Tivo, online or Soapnet viewers into a show's overall rating.

I think more folks are still watching than the networks realize.

David

[Brandon Collins]

The problem with soaps is this:

They run for so long that they inevitably repeat the same storylines over and over again. I mean, there's only so many people who can have a drug addiction, become a stripper, have a miscarriage, have an abortion, be gay, cheat on their husband, murder someone, etc etc. It gets tiring after a whiile. I mean, sure, you could say that soaps run on these same storylines but that the characters are different and their reactions are different. But pretty soon, those become predictable too.

Look at GH currently. Like RaineyPark said, how many times can we watch Sonny marry Carly? I'm GLAD they're apart, and I WANT them to stay THAT WAY. It's quite tiring watching all that. Right now my favorite parts of the show are Sam, Lucky/Liz/Maxie, and sometimes Dillon/Georgie/Lulu, but even that's getting a little tired. I'm also liking this whole Nikolas' kid getting kidnapped.

But I suppose in 20 years, if the show is still on and I'm still watching it, I'll grow tired of seeing these same storylines, and having seen them probably 2 or 3 times by then.

[Charles_Ellis]

Well, Brandon, after 28 years I am seriously considering quitting GH over the immiment firing of Stuart Damon.  The show has gone downhill with the current producing-writing regime which lionizes mobsters and ridicules law enforcement and the medical profession.  Back in the mid-90s, GH had a wonderful period with Wendy Riche producing and Claire Labine as head writer.  How such morally bankrupt character like Sonny, Carly and Jason can be promoted as the show's 'heroes' is beyond me.  John Beradino & Emily McLaughlin (the beloved Dr. Steve Hardy and Nurse jessie Brewer) must be rolling over in their graves.  If I ran the show, the show's moral compass would be reset with more doctors, no mobsters, and yes, a full-time return of Luke & Laura!  Sorry for the tangent, folks, but the soap world has become less friendly in recent years.....

[Willie]

The news that Soapnet is going to be showing Santa Barbara is fantastic!  I loved that show and really look forward to seeing it again.

As far as Passions, it's about time.  The amateurish acting, writing out of a ninth grade non-creative writing class, and the fact that none of the storylines ever went anywhere at all made that show nothing but a huge groan inducing monstrosity.

The only soap I watch (other than DS of course) is As The World Turns, and it's getting pretty darned boring as well.  They put these bad characters on the show with these big schemes, and in order to make the schemes work they have to make all the other characters into complete morons.  It really makes me lose all respect for the characters I used to like, and I also can't stand the bad characters.  They have the ocassional fun storyline, like a while ago there was slasher loose at the summer camp killing teens, that was pretty good stuff.  But the day to day stuff is just sooooo old.  Will Jack and Carly get back together?  Will Will and Gwen ever be happy?  Good lord, I couldn't care less.  At least now Paul can apparently see into the future, so there's some possibility of that turning into something interesting.

[adamsgirl]

I thought one of the more well-written soaps was Ryan's Hope. However, even that got ridiculous when they had some gorilla kidnap Delia Reid Ryan and hold her captive in a castle in Central Park! I mean, shades of King Kong.

As for soaps in general, Nancy's right. The business is dying. More and more, they're cutting costs to keep themselves alive, which is why they're fiing people such as Stuart Damon and Julia Barr (a two-time Emmy winner!). I think it's just a question of time.

[Gothick]

My roommate recently taped an episode of The Young & the Restless because former Beastmaster star Daniel Goddard had a bit role as a hustler in a bar.  I watched Goddard's scenes and after we had finished the tape suggested that the soap should be re-titled The Hung and the Listless.

I do have to say that the use of hairproducts and cosmetics, on both the female and the male principals, was impressive...

G.

[David]

You folks make good points.

I watched Y & R from '73-'81, but gave up when the show
REFUSED to resolve the Jill/Kay feud, which I believe
continues to this day!!!!!

In the late 70s, there was a gay porn film called The Hung
and the Breastles!!

David 

[MsCriseyde]

I watched Y & R from '73-'81, but gave up when the show
REFUSED to resolve the Jill/Kay feud, which I believe
continues to this day!!!!!

Jill turned out to be Katherine's daughter, and they're living under the same roof. The latest bunch of garbage is that Katherine has suddenly remembered via dreams/nightmares that she may have given away Jill's son Phillip when he was a baby, meaning that the child Jill raised who ultimately died wasn't really her son.

[David]

Oh, brother.....
That,  and the AMC twist about Erica's baby do sound
awful..........

David

[Brandon Collins]

Charles Ellis.....ITAWU!!! I can't stand the Sonny/Carly/Jason thing anymore! BOO! And Ric trying to bring down Sonny everytime they need a new storyline. It's getting about as old as Barnabas seeing Josette in every girl that walks in front of him (except Julia, of course).

And I recently read somewhere that GH is ripping off Grey's Anatomy with their new focus on the hospital, and I'll have to agree. I don't know why they infuse those one shot characters and their stories, getting the regular characters involved. Personally, I don't care because I don't care about those characters. BOO.

Maybe they should take a lesson from DCP and realize that the same thing over and over are no good. It's getting really rediculous that they keep doing the same things every two or three years.

[Charles_Ellis]

Another reason why I'm watching daytime soaps less and less- preposterous plots that insult the intelligence of the viewer, and worse, rewrite the show's history!  The whole 'Jill Foster Abbot as Kay Chancellor's kid' story is a true Jump The Shark moment, alongside with AMC's abducted fetus (yecch!) storyline and practically everything on OLTL in the past decade, demostrate how bad things can get when writers change accepted canon after many years.  DS was lucky in that the major rewriting was early in the show's run with Barnabas' arrival and changing the original Jeremiah-Josette saga to fit the character, and with the 1795 storyline came the final ingredient to the widely accepted version of the triangle: Angelique!  

I remember following roughly 4 to 5 soaps at one point in the 80s.  Now I just tape GH and the reruns of "Another World" on SoapNet (which is currently showing stuff from 1991, and it's a million times better than what passes for a daytime soap today).  I've started buying DVDs of primetime serial dramas that I've missed over the years, like "The O.C.", "Footballer Wives", and "One Tree Hill".  Also, I've been watching VHS  tapes of probably the first (and best!) primetime soap, "Peyton Place", as supplied by a confidential source (when is THIS TV classic coming to DVD, anyway?).

[BuzzH]

Another reason why I'm watching daytime soaps less and less-preposterous plots that insult the intelligence of the viewer

Charles I couldn't agree w/you more!  I was RABID about GH and Guiding Light when I was a kid, started watching GL in '76 right through to the late 80's early 90's I guess.  Would switch between GH and GL back then, no VCR''s waaahh!  I also was really into ATWT for a while in high school and AMC, OLTL, RH, Loving/The City and Capitol too.

But like you, I got tired of basically being talked down to w/the more and more ridiculous plots and straying from established canon!  On GL for example, they decided in the early 80's that the character of Mike Bauer was a former fighter pilot since the actor portraying him, Don Stewart, had been himself.  'Mike Bauer' never served ONE DAY in the military if you look over the show's history!  If they wanted to have the character fly a plane for dramatics and the actor was willing and able to fly said plane, then have the character take flying lessons for god's sake!  Sheesh!  Don't say he's an ex military guy when clearly he wasn't.  

Anyway, I'm straying too far off topic so I'll come back to DS, LOL!  Yes, DS is over the top, far-fetched, preposterous (sp?), campy at times and strays from established canon too (pre-1795 story to 1795 and post-1795 story), but it's *DS*!  We KNOW the very concept of the show is a little silly and unbelievable.  I like what Jonathan said in one interview (Casting Shadows I think it was) where he said there was a time when he had to say a line about going back in time, I think to save Vickie, and he was trying to figure out how, as an actor, he was going to 'sell' to the audience this preposterous idea of not only going back through time, but how VITAL it was that he/Barnabas do it.  He decided to put into his mind how hard it was in Barnabas' time to travel say to the Far East and how dangerous and long a trip would be.  He sort of compared the two so that he, in his mind, could make it believable for us. 

One more stray OT, I have become ADDICTED to YouTube and have watched many wonderful scenes from the 70's and 80's of GL and other soaps.  I highly reccommend cousins checking out YouTube for your favorite old soaps.  There's lots of DS stuff on there too, like most, if not all, of the DS Addicts wonderful music videos!    And of course, my FAVE DS-themed video "Brokeback Shadows"!  

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Anyway, I'm straying too far off topic so I'll come back to DS, LOL!

Thank you. 

This isn't directed to anyone specifically, but discussing the general state of soaps as it relates to Passions' cancellation is already enough OT without also lamenting specific storylines on the other current soaps, which is going way OT. 

[adamsgirl]

Another reason why I'm watching daytime soaps less and less- preposterous plots that insult the intelligence of the viewer, and worse, rewrite the show's history!

OLTL, once a fine soap, just went nuts with the Viki/Niki thing. Worse, they even continued it with Viki's daughter! I mean, it isn't as if dissasociative personalities are genetic!