No, I consider them the intellectual equivalent of eating a big Mac and I’d rather go through my tax documents than watch them.
The only exception to this was last year after I’d come out of hospital after having a breakdown and I wasn’t mentally up to anything more challenging/stimulating. As soon as I regained the ability to create handle thought again I stopped.
I used to watch Another World and Days of Our Lives in the late 1980s/early 1990s. The storytelling – especially on AW – was quite often funny, touching, exciting, didn’t take itself too seriously but wasn’t dumbed down or over-the-top. They didn’t talk down to their audience. Also, addictive. To me, those are the requirements I have for serialized fiction. The multi-year DOOL story of Jack Deveraux’s long fought battle against his own self-loathing, self-destructive, overly entitled, bitter, insecure nature (eventually developing into a still-neurotic, still flawed antihero in a semi-stable relationship with Jennifer and reclaimed family) was one of the best-played character arcs I’ve seen on any TV show, daytime or nighttime. The only “reformed rapist” storyline I’ve ever been able to swallow, mainly because it took years and Jack (as played by Matthew Ashford) never forgot his past.
Then, in the mid '90s, DOOL gave free rein to Head “Writer” James Reilly, and with him came the downfall of soap operas. He’s the evil super genius who gave us Satan-possessing-Marlena, which alas turned the genre into a never-ending oneupsmanship of “let’s see how outrageous we can get!” crapfests. So in addition to Satan, soaps started in with clones, vampires, aliens, incest, witches, and other absurd garbage. Of course, daytime had sometimes dabbled in this sort of thing before – some soaps, like Dark Shadows, were even focused on the supernatural. I never had a problem with Dark Shadows, actually; the supernatural was its bedrock, and you knew what you were gonna get when watching it. But when this started to take over series that were supposed to take place in “real life” (albeit melodramatic version thereof), I think the shows destroyed what little respect or groundedness they ever had.
I returned to DOOl briefly when they brought Jack/Matt Ashford back in 2002, but unfortunately they rehired Reilly soon after – and Reilly, who never “got” or liked the multidimensional character, “killed” Jack no less than three times in some of the absolute worst gimmick writing I’ve ever seen. (A sentence that probably is self-evident.) Reilly’s the Serial Killer.
Soap execs still blame the O.J. trial for the loss of their audience, but the truth is, they started pandering to what they thought was the ideal demographic: teens with ADD. Overreliance on sex and violence, and a total lack of respect for character continuity or development; these are the hallmarks of what soaps have become. They lost their loyal audience and never gained the teen demo they so lusted after. That soaps are dying now, rather than following the lead of new serialized dramas on primetime, is a sad but somewhat deserved ending to a long tradition.
Nighttime serials do what they used to much better. People who sniff at the thought of watching a soap rush home to their Tivos of Lost, ER, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Buffy, Battlestar Galactica… There’s really no reason daytime can’t emulate any of these shows. It’s the execs who are holding soaps back. The audience would follow if they returned to what they used to do best: heightened drama based on characters we know inside and out.
Now I write my own web-based serial and follow other internet soaps. The good stuff is now online, y’all.
I’m 38 and watched Coronation Street from 1997-2005 on CBC, Sunday morning omnibus edition which was a few hours long. The attraction over American soaps was feeling like the Corrie characters lived similar to me, there in Detroit as I was. Also it’s far more realistic, no possessions or UFO abductions, etc. I miss Coronation Street now that I’m down here in GA; can’t even catch it on BBC America as it’s an ITV show. 
Coronation street is probably the best soap on British TV in that it represents something resembling normal life for most people. Sure they have their sensational stories but they’re once in a while as they would be for most people, rather than every week like in most other soaps.
When I was in grad school, I watched two soaps. I was hooked on Twin Peaks, a nighttime soap with some supernatural and horror elements. It only lasted two seasons. Then our PBS station started carrying Eastenders, which lagged behind current UK episodes by 8 months or so. I watched Eastenders until I moved. For those who know Eastenders, this was during the time when Phil and Grant Mitchell were on the show. My understanding is that Coronation Street and Eastenders are the two popular soaps in the UK. I thought that the writing in Eastenders was great. Plus it was a chance for this American to experience, to a limited degree, the day-to-day lives of people in the East End. I know that some elements were sensationalized but not to the extent of American daytime soaps.
When I lived in Germany, I had a weird work schedule and would be home in the afternoons. There was nothing on, and AFN had just one channel and would show General Hospital. I remember the first time I watched - stupid show. Then the next day I thought, “How can people watch this crap?”. Needless to say, by week six I was hoping Felicia was indeed an Incan Princess and that Sean would save the day.
OK - so even today I have them on the DVR. However, we watch an entire episode in less than ten minutes…fast forwarding like crazy saying, “Don’t care about her; he is stupid; dumb story line there…” and we still get the gist of the story.
Having met many people who worked on soaps, I can tell you it is the hardest acting job out there! Those actor have pages and pages of script to remember every day, scripts are changed at the last minute, they are slapped together with other actors they have never met and they rarely do more than two takes of a scene and the directors get really, really pissed if they have to do a third take…talk about pressure! Getting three pages of a script to memorize for tomorrow, plus the blocking, plus trying to remain in character and then try to make your crappy dialogue sound real…those poor schmucks who work on those shows earn every nickel.
Corrie’s great that way - storylines usually stay within the families, so if I see one family member I don’t care about pop up on the screen I can skip that bit entirely. All Gail’s problems will be dealt with around Audrey, SarahLu and David’s problems as well. Perfect time to load the dishwasher! But if a MacDonald or Barlow comes on, I’m glued to the couch.
I watched Dark Shadows for a while in my misspent youth. I vaguely remember a story arc about time travel, but not much more than that. I enjoyed it, but other things elbowed it out and I never got back into it.
People at work used to tape Twin Peaks and we would watch it over lunch. I only lasted about half a season - it was being strange for its own sake, and I realized I wasn’t enjoying myself and stopped.
My wife used to watch Falconcrest (I think it was called) - I think it was about a winery. I’d rather read, so I did.
Carol Burnett did a spoof miniseries about a family that made raisins or something, that was sporadically funny even if you did not know the soap opera conventions. Can’t remember the name, but we watched the whole thing.
But even when I was in the hospital and on drugs I couldn’t get into the daytime soaps. My grandmother watched Love of Life, and even though I loved my grandma, I could not stand to watch it with her.
Regards,
Shodan
I watched “One Life to Live” almost daily for two extended periods - first in the late 80s, then in the early-mid 90s. In both instances, I was working night-time jobs and had my days free. Occasionally, I watched the lead-in show “All My Children as well.”
The first time around, I remember that the storyline was dealing primarily with fallout from the recently-wrapped up “Niki Smith” saga: Clint’s ex-girlfriend Maria (who was still obsessed with him) convinced him that Viki had become Niki Smith again and kidnapped their own infant daughter. Viki couldn’t rightly defend herself because she had amnesia and couldn’t remember who Clint even was, let alone that Maria had aided the real kidnapper. Amnesiac Viki was also enamored of Tom, who was the twin brother of her late, first husband Joe. Then Viki underwent a brain operation to remove an aneurysm (that was causing her amnesia) and had an out-of-body experience in which she was reunited with all her deceased relatives (and a dozen or so past characters were brought back for the two weeks Viki was in “heaven.”)
Meanwhile, Viki’s trampy sister Tina was presumed dead after plunging over an Argentinian waterfall. Her not-so-bereaved ‘widowed’ husband Cord promptly asked a woman named Kate (played by Marcia Cross!) to marry him. Just as Cord & Kate were exchanging vows, Tina burst into the chapel, very much alive, carrying a baby she claimed was hers & Cord’s (It wasn’t; it was really Max & Gabrielle’s baby, and, and…)
In hindsight, it was all colossally stupid. But I do remember getting so sucked up into that I really did get excited to find out “what’s going to happen next.” From the brief snippets I see of soaps every so often, they don’t seem to have that same over the top reckless plotting that made them fun to watch in the first place.
I watched the Sci-Fi channel reruns of “Dark Shadows” during a period of extended unemployment from '01-'02.
I had completely forgotten about that!
Which reminds me of another great story - I was a kid at grandma’s house and she was watching one of her soap operas. Back then, they used to air them live on television - no taping of the shows. One of the main actors was having an argument with another actor and accidentally fell over a small footstool in front of a chair and did a perfect pratfall.
The other actor was supposed to be angry at that actor but burst into laughter and my grandmother also started to laugh hysterically. I can imagine watching the shows live back then would have been a lot more fun.
Fresno. I watched that one and enjoyed it.
I watched All My Children for a bit when my son was a newborn. There were several days when he needed to be fed about the time the show was on, and by then I was interested in it so I kept watching. It was probably three or four months and then I got tired of the storylines with people having affairs and sleeping around.
I did watch Ryan’s Hope for a little while a couple of different times over several years. I got tired of it, but I also couldn’t get past the fact that the little girl (Ryan somebody?) was born about the same time as my son, but she started school while he was a toddler and when he was 7 she was 19. I caught that part when she was crying about her marriage or engagement going bad. Magical TV aging of kids always bugs me. That and the magical disappearing baby, who’s born and then never seen again, unless he’s needed for a plot point.
This is such a common thing that it’s been given a name–Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome (aka SORAS).
Sometimes SORASing happens almost overnight–one week the kid is eight years old and the next he/she is the new Jr. Executive at Daddy’s Major Company!
so glad I found this thread cause I also got sucked into watching Soaps as a kid with my babysitter. and I have to admit that this summer I am back to Young and the Restless- I have to say the drama gets me every time. I used to think I wouldn’t be able to catch up on the story lines but after a few minutes I was all over the Newman Family DRAMA! Correct me if I am wrong but Sabrina is his 6th wife. I guess this promo clip sums up all that I find wonderful about soaps- the IV bag = priceless!