When I was
in graduate school, people were always picking up hobbies—cooking, gardening,
even knitting. Me? I picked up…soap operas. I didn’t just stumble upon soap operas like
Darwin found the Galapagos Islands; I have a long history with them. When I was a kid, I don’t remember ever
hearing of daycare, and preschool didn’t arrive in these parts until I entered
first grade. During the daytime, non-school
hours, you napped, played, and watched soaps with your babysitter. I watched nearly all of them at one point or
another, and was lucky enough to see them before budget cutting, interfering
networks, and myopic producers gutted and ruined and murdered them. In fact, I’m pretty sure the opening credits
of Guiding Light inspired my lifelong fascination with lighthouses.
But as a
kid, my favorites were “The Young and the Restless”—it was so interesting and
well-paced that you could miss an entire year and pick right back up where you’d
left off; “The Bold and the Beautiful”, with its larger-than-life characters
and bizarrely named brothers, Ridge and Thorne (!?); and “Days of our Lives”,
for its rich history, family ties, and byzantine, arresting drama. It’s sad that you can no longer channel surf
and see what’s happening in the other networks; you have four options on your
daytime dial that you can either take or leave.
And I loved
these credits—Edward and Lila! Luke and Laura!
Bobbie and Tony! Felicia! Mac! Lucy’s eyebrow! Fantastic.
I was
partially drawn back into daytime when those idiots savagely murdered “Guiding
Light”, which by that time had become a sad shell of its former grand, opulent
self. But I also had a coworker and
friend who became my soap sounding board and reminded me of the greatness of
Steve and Kayla. Seriously, Steve wore
an eye patch—is there anything cooler than that?
This was
great, too.
I spent
quite a few months reliving Steve and Kayla’s two-year or so heyday, from their
first kiss to Steve’s two previously-unknown siblings showing up and all of the
resulting obstacles, to Kayla’s marriage to Steve’s brother and finally her
poisoning and deafness. Anyone who knows
my taste in television knows of my love for “Dallas” and the characters of Ray
and Donna who had their own storyline featuring sign language. Suffice it to say that things went downhill
soon after Steve and Kayla wed, but their yacht wedding was one of my favorites
in daytime history.
Over the
past few years of unemployment, loneliness, empty days, and more unemployment,
the soaps have been my steady companions.
Sometimes it is painful to watch them, and I have recently had to dump
two of the remaining four from my viewing schedule. If “The Young and the Restless” doesn’t clean
up its act, it may be next. “General
Hospital” provides me with the most consistent enjoyment these days, even if it
is, at times, uneven. But the hour
invariably features a decent mix of veteran characters, romance, intrigue, and
children who are actually connected to the canvas in a real way. I only hope it will continue to be as good
for as long as I’m a viewer, or at least as long as networks still believe in
this uniquely-American form of storytelling.
There aren’t many multi-generational, family-centered programs left
these days—nor are there many you can remember from childhood.
To answer your question, there is definitely not anything cooler than Steve in an eyepatch with that amazing mullet. ;) I love reading your thoughts and watching the openings--I can't get enough of soaps themes, either. And, I, like you, love mulch-generational, family story-telling and wish that the quality of those that are left was what it once was. Sadly, those days are over, but maybe... someday?
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