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"As the World Turns" is Canceled!

Stefano Dimera should just guest star on every soap opera and kill off all the characters until he is the only one left standing.
 
Stefano Dimera should just guest star on every soap opera and kill off all the characters until he is the only one left standing.

Until James Stenbeck manipulated him into killing himself.

I've been watching ATWT since I was a teen, about 13, and had to stay home because I had cataracts. Oh and the last actress who played Ziyal, Melanie Smith, played Emily Stewart on ATWT.
 

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Actors like Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Reeve and Kate Mulgrew got their starts on soaps, so I don't understand the disparagement of soap actors.
 
^ It is a good genre for actors to get started in, at least to get some credits on your resume. However, it does seem the talent in soaps is generally lower than on primetime TV or movies (ymmv).
 
As the American soaps die off the spanish ones, called Novelas, are going strong. They have a key difference though - they last six to eight months and then end. Then a new one with different characters and story lines start (well different name characters and new locales on the story lines).
Yeah...I was just going to say this. I'm a telenovela fan. They are having their problems, too, though. Even their markets are fracturing; Univision has steadily lost ratings in the US.

In Mexico, Televisa is running around trying focus groups left and right to figure out why they are losing ratings. South American telenovelas have lost their luster in the last couple of years, as well.

People are looking back to the good old days of Cafe Con Aroma de Mujer, Yo Soy Bety la Fea, Xica and Corazón Salvaje. I like older novelas myself. They are formulaic, but have heart.
 
Actors like Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Reeve and Kate Mulgrew got their starts on soaps, so I don't understand the disparagement of soap actors.

Not to mention Nathan Fillion.

:techman:

If One Life to Live gets canceled, my wife will collapse in a sobbing heap on the floor. She's been watching that show since college.
 
I used to watch GENERAL HOSPITAL religiously. Back when it was about bad dudes trying to freeze the world, and terrorist trying to destroy Mount Rushmore. Now GH is nothing but a stupid mob show.

Robert Scorpio (I mean,where do you think I got this screen name?)
 
Actors like Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Reeve and Kate Mulgrew got their starts on soaps, so I don't understand the disparagement of soap actors.

A lot of soap actors are good, but a lot of them are not. And when you have to shoot an entire episode in one day, the really bad ones who were only hired for their looks really stick out. It also doesn't help that soaps are the most poorly-written dramas made with no sense of continuity or common sense, so the actor will suffer when they write his or her role completely different from episode to episode just to make the plot work (hey, it's like Heroes!).
 
Actors like Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Reeve and Kate Mulgrew got their starts on soaps, so I don't understand the disparagement of soap actors.

A lot of soap actors are good, but a lot of them are not. And when you have to shoot an entire episode in one day, the really bad ones who were only hired for their looks really stick out. It also doesn't help that soaps are the most poorly-written dramas made with no sense of continuity or common sense, so the actor will suffer when they write his or her role completely different from episode to episode just to make the plot work (hey, it's like Heroes!).

...and certain STAR TREK(s)
 
I was never crazy about daytime dramas. The only soap opera I ever really enjoyed was Days of Our Lives. I lucked out getting into in 1992 when it was just entering its over-the-top but highly addictive & entertaining phase.

I loved the Vivian-buries Carly-alive, possessed Marlena, Kristen's turn towards the dark side where she ultimately played 4 different characters, the Hope/Gina storylines but after 2000-2001 the show fell of the rails.

DooL had some really great actors and characters--Deidre Hall as Marlena Evans, Louise Sorel as Vivian Alamain, Kristian Alfonso as Hope Brady, Joseph Mascolo as Stefano DiMera who to this day is up there in my pantheon of favorite villians with Dallas' JR Ewing and Melrose Place's Dr. Kimberly Shaw & Amanda Woodward.

I don't know about other soaps but the various primetime ones like DALLAS & Melrose Place and then DooL were quite good. People talk about serialized storytelling a lot these days but it was here where it really began. Storylines would be developed fully for years, you had the daily cliffhanger to get you to tune in to the next installment, lots of twists & turns, large ensemble casts etc.
 
People who bash Soaps really have no idea what they are talking about. Its just fashionable to do so, so they do. And star trek fans that point out continuity issues with a soap, considering TREK's own soap operish story telling and funked up continuity, really take the cake.

Soaps are what they are, like anything else. Either you like them or you dont. I have lived long enough to know that only one thing absolutely sucks; Star Trek Nemesis. Other than that, life is so full of variety, we are not all going to agree on everything.

Rob
 
People who bash Soaps really have no idea what they are talking about. Its just fashionable to do so, so they do. And star trek fans that point out continuity issues with a soap, considering TREK's own soap operish story telling and funked up continuity, really take the cake.
Yes, soaps do have a tendency to screw with continuity but I find that only happening when you have different writers taking over and wanting to not adhere to what the previous regime had done. Otherwise, most of the time when the staff is guided by the same head writer for the life of a storyline the continuity is quite solid.
 
Another thing that we have to consider? Soaps, like GH or As the World turns, put out twenty-hours of programing, some times 25 hours (episodes) a month. Do the math. That show, As the World Turns, and even GH, have been on since the 60s. So 200+ episodes for 40 years? Star trek, even with five shows and 11 movies, couldn't touch that volume, and still mucks up stuff too.

Soaps are what they are. And for the most part, I think, for the fans of the various shows, they like them and that is all that really matters.

Rob
 
In other news, Superman: The Movie director Richard Donner is in talks to develop a sci-fi reboot called As the World Turns Backwards. :D

:guffaw: :guffaw: I might actually watch that one.

Soap opera on Gallifrey: "Like sands through the TARDISglass...so are the days of our regenerations."
 
I've never really watched Soap Operas, aside from Dark Shadows, but watching shows that have been around for many decades being canceled makes me sad. Not just for the sake of their many fans, who are losing something they enjoy, but just because it's another reminder that the world I knew is slipping farther and farther into the past.

The thing that bugs me most about soaps is that the characters are all evil. Since when did we actually see a genuinely good, upstanding, honest, decent, moral character on a soap? They couldn't allow that, of course, since soaps are all about pain. Lots of tragedy, downers, plots, schemes. Everyone is nasty. Everyone stabs everyone else in the back. No one is good. That's what really pisses me off. :(
If that were true, they'd be much more popular, since that's the in thing these days. :rommie:
 
I watch GH, Alot of night time dramas play like soaps now.
 
DooL had some really great actors and characters--Deidre Hall as Marlena Evans, Louise Sorel as Vivian Alamain, Kristian Alfonso as Hope Brady, Joseph Mascolo as Stefano DiMera who to this day is up there in my pantheon of favorite villians with Dallas' JR Ewing and Melrose Place's Dr. Kimberly Shaw & Amanda Woodward.

What? No love for Dr. Drake Ramoray?:angel:
 
They need to take a cue from the latino and asian communities and transition to the short subject mini series that only last for a season or less. I think it'll be difficult though since networks would find it nearly impossible not to continue hit mini-series the following season, turning them back in to on-going series.
 
Actors like Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Reeve and Kate Mulgrew got their starts on soaps, so I don't understand the disparagement of soap actors.

Not to mention Nathan Fillion.

:techman:

If One Life to Live gets canceled, my wife will collapse in a sobbing heap on the floor. She's been watching that show since college.
Are we married to the same woman? :shifty:

One thing about East Coast Soaps is that the actors often work in live theatre on and off Broadway. Plus when you're doing five hour long shows a week and close to 52 weeks a year you either develop your craft fast or you're shown the door.
 
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