The Bold and the Beautiful: Matrimonium Interruptus

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman Getting married is easy unless you’re on a soap. In real life, there’s a ceremony in a church or back yard or judge’s chambers, followed by a reception, followed by a honeymoon, followed by living happily ever after (in the beginning, at least, that’s the plan). But in the Soap … [Read more...]

Do You Root For or Against Them?

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman Soap roles can conform strictly to type: heroes and heroines we root for and villains and villainesses we root against.  Happily, however, most soap casts are big enough to include characters who do not conform to type. These off-beat characters have personalities drawn in various shades … [Read more...]

Character Actors Add Much Needed Character To Soaps

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman Soap stories, most of which are about romance and love triangles, do tend to get repetitive.  Adding variety and spice to this formula are character roles, which do a lot to make soaps more interesting.  These characters often provide comic relief and serve as “talk tos” for the main … [Read more...]

Daytime’s Most Famous “Love to Hate” Characters

By Marlena Delacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman For any soap opera, a “love to hate” character is money in the bank.  Fascinated by their endless power to manipulate other characters and instigate interesting plots, these diabolical characters are adored by audiences who avidly follow all that they do.  “Love to hate” characters … [Read more...]

The Young and the Restless and General Hospital: Unanswered Questions

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman Soaps are often very logical, with storyline happenings and conclusions ironed out well in advance. Even so, for many veteran soap watchers it’s hard not to second guess the logic of soap writers. For example, we can see exactly why The Young and the Restless recently decided to make … [Read more...]

Should Children and Babies Be Killed off on Soap Operas?

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman Back in the day … way back, actually … it was unheard of to kill off children, especially babies, on soaps. The traditional audience was, after all, stay at home moms who watched or listened to their soaps while rolling out pie crust or ironing the family laundry. Today, the taboo has … [Read more...]

This Week in Soaps: A Terrible Tragedy and a Stunning Debut

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman          The Bold and the Beautiful just finished two weeks of exciting drama centered around the soap’s on-location trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi for Brooke and Bill’s aborted wedding.  The sequences featured great scenery and exciting action footage. As you know, Bill planned a memorable … [Read more...]

Exciting GH or Humdrum Y&R: Which is Your Choice?

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman This week General Hospital was very exciting as it was revealed that the  “Luke” walking around as a criminal in Port Charles is a fake, with the fake visiting the real Luke who is drugged and out of it in the Miscavage asylum.  Also, Ava announced she was pregnant with Sonny’s baby when he … [Read more...]

General Hospital: Plots Progress at the 2014 Nurses Ball

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman   The 2014 Nurses Ball on General Hospital, marking the twentieth anniversary of the celebrated soap opera event, is now in the history books.  It did not disappoint. There was the usual male strip tease, and young people singing and dancing to pop tunes. But what really worked was the way … [Read more...]

Soaps: Where Intelligent Women Still Rule

By Marlena De Lacroix a.k.a. Connie Passalacqua Hayman Women are still the core of soap opera.  They are what the plots are about and they make the stories go.  An overwhelming number of women on soap operas are very intelligent, assertive and masters of their own fates.  Here’s a round-up of the most intelligent and sometimes devious women … [Read more...]