Marlena’s been a little blue lately. Whenever trouble strikes, I tend to turn to my two favorite pastimes, soaps and journalism. So how did the CW network know something was up with me? I adore their new Monday night nostalgia show “TV We Love” which featured in its first two weeks “I Love Lucy” and “Happy Days.” This week--how did they know—CW … [Read more...]
Remembering “Santa Barbara,” a Quirky Soap of the 80s
October 26, 2025 by 8 Comments
Marlena says: “Santa Barbara” debuted in 1984, a smartly written – some would say wacky --and engagingly cast product of its time, that flourishing era when soap operas were awash in money and brave ideas. Compared to established soap fare, it had a different sense of itself. Proudly sophisticated and droll, it chronicled the complex interactions … [Read more...]
A Q&A with Soap Opera Expert John K. Read
July 4, 2025 by 11 Comments
Marlena says: Welcome to Marlena’s Soap Opera Hall of Fame, our new occasional series of profiles and Q&A interviews with celebrated soap opera professionals. Our first honoree is veteran soap reporter/critic John K. Read, a.k.a. John Kelly Genovese. In the glory years of soap opera magazines, his weekly insider reports and thoughtful … [Read more...]
“The View”: Present at the Creation
June 20, 2025 by 2 Comments
The name Barbara Walters is synonymous in public memory with Serious Big Time Television Journalism. She conducted a wealth of probing, thoughtful interviews with presidents and kings, world leaders, scientists, movie stars and their consorts. The Reputable and the Disreputable. It’s not an exaggeration to say she interviewed just about every major … [Read more...]
Meet Organist Lance Jackson, Conservator of Historic Soap Opera Theme Music
June 6, 2025 by 16 Comments
Marlena has always said that soap fans make the best and most fascinating friends. Recently, via my Facebook page “Marlena’s Current and Classic Soaps,” it was a pleasure to meet Lance Jackson, a longtime soap fan and church organist who collects vintage soap opera organ themes the way many of us collect classic magazine covers and other … [Read more...]
Return to the Early Days of Soaps in Alina Adams’ New Novel
April 28, 2025 by 3 Comments
Marlena says: I’m pleased to welcome a new guest contributor, my friend and colleague Alina Adams. To soap fans she needs no introduction. She’s written for and about soaps for more than 20 years, always exploring innovative ways to give soaps new life. An interest in historical fiction inspired two New York Times best-sellers, “The Nesting Dolls” … [Read more...]
Tom Lisanti’s “Texas”: An Oral History of Daytime TV’s Answer to “Dallas”
March 23, 2025 by 4 Comments
No nook or cranny of America’s rich pop culture is too obscure to escape the enthusiastic attention of award-winning author Tom Lisanti, whose 11 books tempt fellow aficionados with titles like Dueling Harlows, Talking Sixties Drive-in Movies and Hollywood Beach and Surf Movies. Now comes Texas, an exhaustively researched and super detailed … [Read more...]
Looking Back on a “Capitol” Idea That Did Not Survive
February 18, 2025 by 11 Comments
Marlena says: The eagerly awaited new CBS soap, Beyond the Gates, premiering Feb. 24, isn’t the first to be set in the world of Washington, D.C. political intrigue. Four decades ago, CBS offered Capitol, set in the fictitious suburb of Jeffersonia, home to three moneyed and sometimes feuding families. With a cast that included Constance Towers, … [Read more...]
Pat Falken Smith: “Most people I know are living soap operas'”
December 25, 2024 by 2 Comments
Pat Falken Smith: The Drama and the Lawsuits By: Michael Poirier “If ever I knew a litigious person, it was Pat, who went to court as often as some people go out for a frozen yogurt,” said Ann Marcus, former headwriter of Days of Our Lives and other soaps, about her hard-charging contemporary Pat Falken Smith.1 Falken Smith’s colorful … [Read more...]
Days of Our Lives’s Doug and Julie: The Look of Love
December 12, 2024 by 6 Comments
I first started watching soaps as a lonely teenager while I was waiting for my parents to come home from work, circa the late ’60s and early ’70s. Soap characters became my ersatz family. One of the first shows I fell in love with was “Days of Our Lives,” which was written by Bill Bell. (This was before he created “The Young and the Restless.”) … [Read more...]
