The current decline of the soap opera is a tragedy. For me, soaps are bonding with my sister over long summers of Another World. Soaps are sick days spent bundled up on the couch with my mom, watching General Hospital. Soaps are evenings of dedicated YouTube searching, looking for the clip that shows John Paul and Craig finally, finally getting their sunset ending on Hollyoaks.
Soaps give me an almost giddy sense of nostalgia. You wouldn't expect them to give a lot of attention to continuity; characterization, motivation, and emotional arcs veer wildly from extreme to extreme, and aging is always subject to the whims of casting, so why would story continuity matter? But when I tune in to the weekly repeats of General Hospital on Sundays, I see call-backs to storylines and characters I remember from when my roommate used to watch the show thirteen years ago ... sometimes even from when my mom used to watch it twenty-five years ago. I can't even tell you how hard I smile when Robin Scorpio is on the screen, still played by the same actress I used to see when she and I were both eight years old.
I've also derived a lot of joy over the years from seeing actors from soaps go on to wider success. Every time I see Amber Tamblin in something, I think of Emily Quartermain, drunken teenager. At the height of her fame, I never admired Anne Heche more for any role than I did for her turn as good and evil twins Vicky and Marley. James Franco, Sarah Michelle Geller, Nathan Fillion ... so many successful actors started out on soaps.
Every time another soap gets cancelled, I feel a stab of disappointment. I can't help but hope that the soaps that are left keep going for many, many years. I want to see the absurd drama and sweet romances, I want to watch tomorrow's stars before they're stars, and I want to be able to look back and 'remember when.' Sure, they're melodramatic and unrealistic and over-the-top. But so are 'reality' shows.
Al
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