By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman
Kimberly Matula: Her Hope stands on her own these days.
With only four daytime soaps left, it seems fruitless to name a Best Soap. It’s all a matter of personal preference anyway. If you like your soaps slow and full of character, you like The Young and the Restless. If you like your plots fast and full of surprises, General Hospital is the soap for you. Days of Our Lives is traditional soap, full of great twists and turns.
But there is one soap now that is undoubtedly the most consistently excellent — that’s The Bold and the Beautiful. Ever since Rick settled down with Caroline, there hasn’t been a bum storyline. Sure, the show is only a half hour and it features only two main storylines. But both are quite good and full of suspense and interest.
B&B is very fortunate that their “young” storyline works. Step-brothers Liam and Wyatt’s contest for the love of young Hope (Kimberly Matula) is one that seems to change every single day. Liam is a bit full of himself and Wyatt is full of charm. But Hope is remarkably mature, and is making a great show of the fact that she can stand on her own these days. After all, she has a great career as head of the “Hope for the Future” line at Forrester Fashions. All three characters in this triangle are strong and attractive. Hope can most likely keep on bouncing between Liam and Wyatt in a storyline without end. And most likely she will!
The Brooke-Bill-Katie triangle has been a real winner for the show since it was established last year. Forbidden (now ex) lovers Brooke and Bill are very sexy together and of course Katie (Brooke’s sister and Bill’s wife) suffers better than anyone on daytime television. But it’s the latest addition to the triangle, Brooke’s long absentee husband Ridge, which promises great excitement in the new year.
We’ve already noted that Thorsten Kaye is terrific in the role of Ridge. What was unexpected was how much potential his genuine acting ability has added to the show and the storyline he is in. He’s brought out a new tenderness in Katherine Kelly Lang’s Brooke, and is just brilliant with multiple Emmy winner Heather Tom’s Katie. It’s just been inferred in the storyline that Ridge may be interested in Katie. What a complex, complicated, not to mention superbly-acted four-way (Brooke-Bill-Katie-Ridge) story that is going to make!
So, what’s your pick for best of the four. Is it B&B or another?
What makes a soap opera entertaining and engaging is subjective. I don’t think BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL is that great. But it’s watchable. I groan at the sight of Hope and her romantic travails and when she and Liam are on, I grab the remote, hit mute and read some of a novel I keep nearby. But I do like Wyatt. He is charismatic and likable. I’m intrigued by Wyatt’s mother, Quinn. I think she’s a lunatic in the making and I want to see what damage she manages to wreak.
I also like Thorsten Kaye as nuRidge. As you said, the man can act. And unlike Ronn Moss, Kaye doesn’t look bored with the material. I do find B&B one-note and sometimes vulgar and disrespectful about morality and boundaries. Most of the stories are about siblings in love triangles. Brooke had sex with Katie’s husband, Bill and it seems that Katie is going in that direction with Ridge, the love of Brooke’s life. While across town, estranged brothers, Liam and Wyatt are panting after the same woman.
I find it a bit distasteful. Conversely, I do like the idea of Katie giving Brooke an overflowing teaspoon of her own medicine. When/if Katie and Ridge make love, can’t you see Brooke eyeballing Katie tearfully and accusing her of sleeping with Ridge to spite her for what happened with Bill. I guess I’m willing to put up with a few nasty moments to see Brooke’s baby sister get up close and personal with her beloved Ridge.
To me, the best soap is AS THE WORLD TURNS circa 1980 which can be found on WE LOVE SOAPS. Lately, they’ve been offering back-to-back abbreviated versions of the show featuring the highly entertaining, Joyce Hughes played by the magnificent Barbara Rodell.
I wish the nets would add a few new daytime soaps to their lineup. I would love it had that revamped ALL MY CHILDREN found a spot on network TV. It could have followed DAYS on NBC. I enjoyed what I saw and wanted to see what happened next with Miranda, AJ and JR using steroids. And who could forget Cara hiding David’s child from him and Jesse spiraling out of control because a Russian mafioso essentially emasculated him, making it so he couldn’t protect his own daughter from sex traffickers and humiliating him in front of the police department. And Billy Clyde bought Cortlandt Manor. What would Opal and Pete have said about that? The show had potential galore and was chock full of story doing it’s brief time back in production. But alas, it’s gone again.
It’s repetitive, uncreative and boring and is by far the worse soap on the air!!!
You’ve lost me! There is no way this is the best soap, and in fact, everytime I see a poll on one of the many soap sites, it is ALWAYS last! The only reason I’ve kept watching is because of Thorsten. I FF almost every scene he’s not in. (Although “Quinn” is interesting.)
So what is best? Depends on the day of the week. These days it’s between GH and DOOL. They’ve had some great storylines lately. Of course not all of them worked, but at least they have multiple S/L’s…not just two! If you don’t like something, wait a couple minutes and it will change.
Y&R, even though it IS #1, does NOT deserve to be. It has the potential to be great, and I’d love for that to happen, but until all the “behind the scenes” BS is straightened out (and JFP is fired) I don’t see that happening.
As I said in a pervious, what makes a soap exciting is subjective. Some people love GENERAL HOSPITAL, which I think is a stupid show. I watch it a few times a week just to have something to watch. Seemingly every week, Sonny pulls a gun on somebody and threatens to take them out, but at the last minute, he always decides to let them live for some lame reason.
When Sabrina and Patrick went their separate ways, we knew she would get pregnant. And speaking of pregnant, during the current writing regime, notice how every woman is separated from her child. Some nefarious figure stole the child and is secreting it in plain sight.
And I find it so awkward to see Star, McBain and Todd playing different people. The show stinks and it’s predictable and I get so sick of hearing people say how good it is. Two years from now, it will probably be cancelled.
“Days of Our Lives” isn’t the most traditional soap at all.
If anything it’s the soap opera most like “The Jerry Springer Show.”
GH is the best soap in my opinion!
What helps make “The Bold and the Beautiful” stand out, and not only survive by thrive, is that it didn’t turn its back on what made daytime soaps captivate audiences in the first place.
I’m referring to romance and the rollercoaster rides en route to whether a suitable couple gets their act together.
Other serials bought into the philosophy that they had to modernize and bring in action and adventure, crime stories (like serial killers), and ultimately test the viewers’ patience by making them question, “Why do I watch any soaps, let alone this one, any longer? It’s become something I don’t recognize.”
It is true that “The Bold and the Beautiful,” which turns 27 in March, was shallow for its first few years. But over time, it found its place and, lo and behold, won three consecutive Emmys for outstanding drama series in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Which is something no one foresaw in the late-1980s or early-1990s, a period in which Susan Flannery couldn’t get robbed let alone an Emmy nomination. (Now in retirement, Flannery won three of her four career Emmys in 2000, 2002, and 2003 for “B&B.” They came more than 10 years after the CBS soap’s debut.) How time helps!
With only four daytime soaps remaining—the others are ABC’s “General Hospital,” CBS’ “The Young and the Restless,” and NBC’s “Days of Our Lives”—it’s not difficult to make an argument for any of them being the best for a current period (or end-of-the-year review).