The last show of One Life to Live was broadcast two months ago today. I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. But I miss what it was at its best.
Now that OLTL is gone, no daytime soaps are filmed in New York. For years, a group of actors balanced work in soaps, Broadway shows and other TV shows filmed in NYC (such as Law & Order.) No more. That is a shame.
I've written about soaps before as a guilty pleasure.
To borrow a cliche, truth is stranger than fiction. I can think of many bizarre things that really happened to people I know that rival some soap stories. I think the problem with soaps is that these bizarre things happen to the same people. (Robert Woods joked about this in a Soapnet promo--he said something like things happen to the same 15 people while everyone in the background stands around eating pound cake.) Almost all of the main characters have had secret children. For example, Viki--the main character on OLTL--has given birth to not one, but two daughters she knew nothing about. One forgotten daughter was attributed to Viki's dissociative identity disorder (DID.) I didn't watch in the Viki's DID heyday, but apparently Erika Slezak was incredible. Unfortunately, when I watched later iterations of her alter Niki, they were over-the-top caricatures.
And that is another problem with daytime soaps. Most soaps run for one hour daily, five days a week with very few reruns. It's hard to fill up so much time, so writers repeat stories. That problem is exacerbated because of the soap industry habit of exchanging failed writers.
Imagine a writer who could avoid the temptation of another who's the daddy story. In the olden days before DNA testing, there would be some obscure genetic anomaly to prove fatherhood. If I remember correctly--the Bombay phenotype determined that Alan and not Rick was the father of Monica's baby on General Hospital. Today's DNA testing would seem to determine paternity, but somehow those damn DNA labs have no security; everyone and his brother can alter paternity results.
Other problems:
Hiring actors, especially young actors on their looks--ignoring acting ability. I have seen incredible acting on soaps and some actors can grow on the job, but at a bare minimum, don't drop limited actors in the middle of an intense story.
SORASing--Soap Opera Rapidly Aging Syndrome: Too many soap fans accept this as a necessity. Most soap children exist to be babies of uncertain parentage or victims of obscure diseases or kidnapping. I know there are employment issues with young actors. But SORASing makes the writers look lazy. It creates a problem when the children are too old to match with their parents. The most egregious example is Duke on OLTL.
Death--In recent years, death has lost all meaning on soaps because anybody could return from the dead. (In the final days of the other canceled ABC soap, All My Children, almost everyone did.)
Despite my litany of soap opera problems why did I watch?
Incredible acting--My OLTL favorite was Kassie DePaiva with Robin Strasser a close second; they were brilliant. Eddie Alderson started off slow but grew into the best teen actor on the show.
Familiarity--Spending five hours a week with these characters have made them a part of my life. Sometimes I spent more time with OLTL characters than my own family.
Time to tell a story--Five hours a week provided time to delve into stories. In most one hour TV shows, all kinds of traumas are resolved in approximately 42 minutes.
By listing that last strength of soaps, I think I found one of the major reasons for their downfall. Soaps had the time to tell long-term stories but chose to try the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am style of storytelling. Another OLTL example: Matthew's story of being crippled in a car accident and suing for emancipation when his parents would not consent to a risky surgery, could have led to a long term story of estrangement from his parents. Instead the drama potential was lost by having Matthew quickly forgive them when the surgery was successful.
In the ideal OLTL, Dorian would be back in town; Todd would be cleared of killing his brother Victor and would be back with Blair, raising Sam and straightening out Jack. Kyle and Oliver would return, married and raising Sierra with Roxy as main babysitter. Jessie would discover that her son Ryder was Brody's son and they would reunite. All the characters played by bad actors would have left town. We would never have a who's the daddy story or rape-is-love storyline again.
If only. Then soaps would be better.
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