I’ve been an avid (70 columns and counting) follower of “The Bold and the Beautiful” since it premiered in 1987. I’m still proud that I wrote the very first story on the show. The headline in Soap Opera Weekly correctly predicted the soap’s future: “B&B Is a Camp Classic.”
Well, the ’80s were a long time ago. Today, being comfortably fun and over the top isn’t enough to keep a soap on the air. As our late beloved Doug Marland used to ask of soap plotlines he found lacking, “Where’s the love?”
Headwriters should be original and imaginative. But with soaps desperate for ratings in this era, they too often fall back on time-worn clichés. And as much as I respect the legacy of the late “B&B” founders, William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, what the current headwriter, their son Bradley, devised for this summer was a “Who’s the Daddy?” story that was not much more than average. Maybe a B- on a good day.
The storyline chronicled the wiles of a gorgeous but devious young woman named Luna Nozawa (played by Lisa Yamada). She had been led by her mother (played by Romy Park) and her Aunt Li (played by Naomi Matsuda) to believe that she was the biological daughter of industrial scion Bill Spencer (played by Don Diamont). An insecure young lady, she plunged into a romance with Brooke and Ridge’s son, R.J. (played by Joshua Hoffman), and also bedded Zende (played by Delon de Metz).
Indeed, Bell did give us some initial fun with the hackneyed “Who’s the Daddy?” plot. Character actor Clint Howard entertainingly played a weird possible baby daddy named Tom Starr. Unfortunately, he was shot in bizarro fashion (mid-performance at Deacon’s club, Il Guiardino) before he got to know his supposed daughter. Another loser who was a contender for the honor of fatherhood was a meek wannabe named Paul Hollister (briefly played by Hollis W. Chambers), who was also shot and killed.
Then the plot grew downright kinky. Luna actually kissed her supposed father Bill—twice on the lips—and began to demonstrate that her great physical beauty didn’t hide her damaged psyche. Because she thought Steffy Forrester (played by Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) was getting in her way, she decided to lock the unfortunate woman in a cage.
Oh, the old “locked in a cage” soap trick! On “The Young and the Restless,” Victor, not long ago, locked Michael in a cage. On “Santa Barbara,” Quinn locked his twin brother Robert in a cage, too. (Oh, how we still miss the late actor Roscoe Born, such an expert villain!)
But Marlena personally finds locking any woman in a cage incredibly sexist. Finally, Steffy’s husband, Finn (played by Tanner Novlan), rescued Steffy when Luna’s Aunt Li broke the lock. Their romantic reunion was climatically nice, but Marlena couldn’t help thinking, so what?
I found the other major occurrence on “B&B” this summer questionable as well. The central role of the brilliant and gorgeous Dr. Taylor Hayes (played by Hunter Tylo and then Krista Allen) was recast with Rebecca Budig, who for many years put in solid performances as Greenlee Smythe on “All My Children.”
As we “B&B” fans know, Taylor has come between Ridge and Brooke Forrester many (literally countless) times. Will Budig’s Taylor be credibly irresistible enough to spark yet another go-around of “B&B’s” most renowned triangle? Or could “B&B” possibly be planning something new? Here’s hoping.
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