A Soap Miracle At Last!

After decades of watching and writing about daytime soap operas, even this most fervent advocate must confess to a bit of ennui lately. But all is not lost. Now comes the best soap opera news in more years than I care to remember!

Just when it looked as if the television networks were losing interest in soaps, CBS, with the support of the NAACP, has announced the launch of the first new soap opera in decades. Called The Gates, it will explore life in an affluent gated black community. It follows in the path of Generations, which ran from 1989-91 and was the first soap opera to feature a core African American family from its beginning.

How exciting, especially because the headwriter is the very talented Michele Val Jean, who worked on Generations, as well as Santa Barbara, General Hospital and, lately, The Bold and the Beautiful.

Meanwhile, our existing soap operas aren’t without their good points.

For example, Colleen Zenk’s outrageously fiery Jordan on The Young and the Restless is a daily treat. Jordan is a clearly psychotic character who loves to torture the once alcoholic Nikki Newman (played by Melody Thomas Scott). Last week, Jordan murdered Nikki’s AA sponsor Seth Morgan (played by Brian Gaskill). Her next target: Nikki’s husband Victor Newman (played by Eric Braeden). But has anyone in the show’s long history ever bested Victor?

Robin Mattson was certainly a national treasure as villainess Heather Webber back in the day, 1980-83, on General Hospital. (Mattson reprised the role in 2004 and 2012-16.) But Alley Mills’s outlandish interpretation of the now nearly psychotic Heather is a hoot as Heather flamboyantly fights on in name of her grandson Ace. (Marlena has always loved over-the-top characters.) And the return of Jason Quartermaine (played by Steve Burton) as a mysterious hitman (in the first plotline written by the new writing team of Elizabeth Korte and Josh Patrick Mulcahey) has been exciting.

So, don’t believe the naysayers who have declared soaps dead. With the addition of The Gates, soaps are showing some distinct signs of life. Marlena says hooray! I can’t wait to watch it and review it.