I agree with everyone that the past years have been the worst in soap opera history (ratings prove that much) I once remember asking myself if Y&R could lose viewers if ever they did bad story telling, and I suppose the answer is yes.

I started watching soaps in 1994, especially AMC, but now I can barely sit through 5 mins of any soap without flipping stations...

here are my pet peeves in no perticular order

- Executives and writers who bring past favorite characters to give them no material
*I am looking at you AMC with your ruined chances when bringing Julia back

-Executives and writers cutting costs where they shouldn't
*I am looking at you DOOL for firing Martha Madison and Brandon Beemer!!! one of the dumbest moves you ever did
*Also, GL (used to be my favorite soap from 1997-2006) when you changed the camera format to make it look as if an unstable drunk person was peeping at people's lives...
*AMC killing off Dixie (in the dumbest way) and Brooke

-Writers rewriting History, in a bad way, leave a good thing be a good thing
*Y&R Jill and Katherine enemies, not mother and daughter, if this wasn't force fed to us I don't know what was
*Erica's abortion on AMC

-If a formula has lost steam, don't infuse the same formula
*Hey GH we are tired of all the guns and stunts, your ratings are slipping, don't get new mob bosses, get more romance and storylines going

- If you want controversy to get viewers to tune in, don't do it halfway through, stick to it
*DOOL was fascinating when it killed many of its cast members...only to have them come back? say what!?

-Don't take your viewers for brainless people
*Thank you Mr Carlivati for penning a smart show with great dialogue and intrigue, going back to the SOAP staples of romance, unbrella storytelling and top notch acting

-EMMY's YOU ARE RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!
*How is it that Y&R was on everyone's list of worst soap of the year and managed to garner the most nominations!? Sure the cast is great, but when OLTL is being hailed as the best soap and only gets one acting nomination there is a problem there...don't you think!?

AMC
* Thank you for introducing more cultural diversity to your once almost all white canvas, YAYA is a great find of an actress, loved her on ANTM.
* that said, stop hiring bad actors, and start hiring actors who don't all look the same, is it just me or does anyone have a hard time telling who is who from who and who in Pine Valley
* You need to bring Brooke and Opal back ASAP!!!
You've been handind La Lucci material for 20+ years, certainly you can get these two grand dames of daytime something to do!!!

ATWT
* PLEASE go back to the days when Hogan Sheffer made the show a joy to watch day after day, sure your show is good 2 out of 5 days for the most times but Hogan's was good 5 out of 5, that said you are still the second best daytime show on tv

B&B
* Brooke is not an idiot, make the woman choose one person!!! Stop making her flip flop for Ridge, it is just getting annoying and darn right insulting
* Stop with the incest storylines, LA is huge, surely as the most watched Soap in the world, you must have a budget that can accomodate to hiring some new actors for new roles...
* Stop hiring amazing actors and giving them nothing to do, Lesli Kay deserves so much better
* Stop rushing storylines, I get that these people love each other, but people don't meet one day and at the end of the month it is wedding time...

DOOL
* The reasons you don't get much Emmy appreciation is because when writing stories with amazing Emmy Bait...you don't showcase it!!
Theo's autism could have easily garnered Renee Jones an Emmy nomination but you didn't showcase the doctors telling her her son was autistic... Money shot down the drain!

GH
*Stop the mob storylines, it is really 1990's it isn't inovative anymore, and the show should revolve around romance again

GL
*Oh my beloved GL how I miss you!!! I would take Reva's clone storyline again if it just meant that these stupid hand held cameras could go away...
* You lost two of your fan faves...perhaps focus on why that is...
* Go back to great storytelling

OLTL
* Perfect in every sense of the word

Y&R
* Good you are going back to what your show was about, LML's helm screwed it over in total, but perhaps get rid of Sabrina and stop recasting Colleen every 4 months...

PASSIONS
* All in all the most ridiculous thing to hit tv ever, you were fun to watch the first year, but when a viewer stops watching you for 4 years and tunes in one afternoon and sees no storylines have evolved, I think it is a sign...

I hate when two characters who share a long, huge, complicated history are in the same scene and either don't have lines with one another or aren't even shown in the same story! i'm looking at YOU GH with Bobbie and Jerry... do you really believe that Bobbie would allow Jerry to be in town for over a year without going to see him and SCREAM at him for the way their relationship ended? SERIOUSLY?

Great post! I agree with most of your peeves.

AMC - A little bit better, but enough with everyone in love with Ryan. He is nice to look at, but is no prize. A little less Fusion Girls. Sex and the City did it better.

OLTL - Not much to complain now (although don't care for the no chemistry Starr/Cole romance).

GH - I can't take the mob domination. Even the Sopranos (who did it much better and realistic) is off the air now. Do we actually believe Sonny is out of the mob for good. You can have some mob presence, but tone it down. One reason GH loses out on acting nominations, is that only a very select group of actors (i.e. Sonny, Jason, Carly) get all the meaty material. How about spreading it around.

GL - I can't get into this "new" way of filming the show. It just doesn't work. It compromises the actors.

Y&R - They are the biggest offenders of the bad emmy voting process. I hate to pick on them only (there are other offenders), but with biggest cast, it is wrong for them to be able to vote for undeserving people on their show. I know there are many good actors on Y&R, but there are also a fair amount of bad actors.

ATWT - Also no chemistry couples dominate here. Just can't get into Todd, I mean, Paul and Meg. The Meg character is just dull.

B&B - How come characters not named Forrester and Logan don't survive on this show (alright, Nick is an exception)? Ashley is being wasted.

-Daytime community - Shame on you (you know who you are) for not taking the time to view all the submissions to make a fair assessment of who is the best when selecting emmy nominees/winners. I know everyone is busy and can't devote the time to looking at the submissions. I don't entirely buy that as you should make time to devote to your acting community. But, if you can't look at the submissions, don't vote for your co-star, friend, etc just for the sake of voting. Or better yet, re-vamp the process entirely.

Lack of character interaction - GH, that's you. How about as Boidiva02 mentioned, letting characters who share a past actually have a scene once in awhile.

Passions - Don't like to see another soap cancelled, as that lessens a daytime drama presence, but if any show deserved cancellation, it is Passions. I tuned in from time to time, just to see how it was evolving and all I saw was bad acting, writing and nothing happening. I could tune out for 4 months, then tune in again, and the same stuff is going on. There were a handful of good actors (Ben Masters, Andrea Evans, Juliet Mills, Lindsay Korman) but, buy and large, my high school drama club put on better performances.

Oh you have great points about AMC, I never did like Fusion it was so contrived

but with that in mind you got me thinking of another thing

**Why is it no one ever needs a resume in daytime, or has to go to school to become a doctor? It seems you can have any job one day and without training have a new job the next...I wish I lived in that world!!

quote:

Originally posted by buggy20:


**Why is it no one ever needs a resume in daytime, or has to go to school to become a doctor? It seems you can have any job one day and without training have a new job the next...I wish I lived in that world!!

I totally agree... Like on GH how one day Elizabeth was an art school drop-out and the next day she was a nurse and how Emily became a nuroseurgone like overnight.

And I know soaps are an escape but I mean when there is a murder, wouldn't it be great to see the person get punished for it, sure it may happen to a favorite character, but in real life the person would go to jail... just saying, keep it plausible... also

I know children are a staple for much of the drama on soaps, but enough with all the babies, if the writers have no idea what to do with them after the birth, they shouldn't have started the storyline to begin with...

i hate when soaps start a story and than drop it without any explination.

or when the children drink the age-ing potion but the other children who are older than some don't...it just adds up to not making any sense

Noah being aged...ok...but he just left for summer camp, so how will this be explained? "Hey mom they loved me so much over there as a kid, they made me camp councelor and I grew up an extra 10 years++"???