Classic Soaps Arc / Era Recommendations

[Carrie Fairchild]

Due to availability and the gargantuan number of episodes produced, I’m never going to watch some daytime soaps in their entirety. I am however interested in sampling periods of a show, to get a taste of what it was like at its best.

For example, I picked up The Edge of Night from the beginning of the Mansion of the Damned arc, which ran for a number of months in late 1979 and I’ll eventually continue into the next arc when I’ve time. Similarly, I’ve recently started The Bold and the Beautiful from the very beginning, as I’ve read that those first few years were the show’s imperial phase.

What era/s of a daytime soap would you recommend watching, if someone (me) wanted to see a show during a period when it was really on fire storyline wise? Is there a certain year or storyline arc of say, Guiding Light or Another World, that was a really good watch and would serve as a good taster for a viewer that wants to experience what the show was like? Or a certain storyline where a particular character like Erica Kane or Alexandra Spaulding really shone?

 

[Daniel Avery]

Obviously your main roadblock will be finding entire blocs of episodes for some of these eras. It's easy to say "I loved the Carrie Marler Split Personality story on Guiding Light in 1980-82" (and yes, it was brilliant) but unless you want to do very deep dives, you can only find about a third of it online in (unsatisfying) bits and pieces. If you are willing to "get the gist" of a story (by having 75% of the episodes as opposed to every.single.minute like some people online seem to require), it opens up a lot of possibilities.

Anything past 1980 on The Edge of Night is available thanks to one very devoted collector/fan on YT, so in addition to the "Mansion of the Damned" You could just watch the entire, final four years if you wanted (I've done it twice!). As for notable arcs, look for the Rexford Clinic story, which involves Nancy stumbling upon a shady clinic that specializes in giving plastic surgery to wealthy fugitives, allowing them to "disappear". Nancy ends up being held hostage; the doctor falls in love with her; and his nurse wife plots to disfigure Nancy out of jealousy. Also very "watchable" is the ISIS building/Louis Van Dine storyline, an homage to the book 1984 (though it aired in 1983). A megalomaniac plots to take over Monticello and uses a myriad of tricks and technology (and occasional murders) to put the whole town on edge (ahem). it's a great "umbrella story" that involves the entire cast in one way or another, with a Thanksgiving "raid" on Van Dine's secret headquarters atop a skyscraper.

Not sure of the availability, but if you're in the mood for Another World, I'd recommend virtually anything in the period of 1987-1991 because of one person: Anne Heche, playing the ever-lovin' hell out of a dual role--twins Marley and Vicky Hudson. The best of the best has to be the 1991 story where Jake raped Marley, his ex-wife. He's found with a gunshot wound and lapses into a coma. Marley thinks Vicky did it; Vicky thinks Marley did it. The police think Marley did it so she goes on trial...where she is forced to testify about Jake raping her but the DA accuses her of making it up. Things get more complicated when Marley later runs away and it's up to Vicky to impersonate her sister in court while the family searches for Marley. Anne Heche is a master at making you forget she's playing both sisters.

On General Hospital starting around 2013, they introduced Dr. Silas Clay as a love interest for Samantha Morgan. Silas came with a lot of baggage. Not only did he have a comatose wife offscreen, he also had a love child with Ava Jerome and an insane twin brother (Stephen) who was a vampire on the cancelled Port Charles. The writers eventually revived the wife (Nina), who went on an insane revenge tour because she'd lost twenty years of her life as well as the baby she'd miscarried when she went into the coma. Her evil mother Madeline (played to the hilt by The Donna Mills) drugged Nina twenty years ago in an effort to make her miscarry the baby, since Nina's father planned to make Nina and the baby sole heirs to his fortune. She tried to have Nina committed (to steal Nina's inheritance) but failed, and in the end Madeline stabbed Silas in the back (literally) trying to frame Nina for the murder. Michael Easton (as Silas) sort of got lost in all the capital-p Performing of Michelle Stafford, Donna Mills, and Kathleen Gati, but his arrival and his departure sort of sets the boundaries of a very watchable era of the show.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

It's easy to say "I loved the Carrie Marler Split Personality story on Guiding Light in 1980-82" (and yes, it was brilliant) but unless you want to do very deep dives, you can only find about a third of it online in (unsatisfying) bits and pieces

I’ve seen a few clips recently of Reva vs Annie (late 90’s I think). Kim Zimmer is so watchable, so I’m going to seek out some Reva-centric arcs to watch.

As for notable arcs, look for the Rexford Clinic story, which involves Nancy stumbling upon a shady clinic that specializes in giving plastic surgery to wealthy fugitives, allowing them to "disappear"

Also very "watchable" is the ISIS building/Louis Van Dine storyline, an homage to the book 1984 (though it aired in 1983). A megalomaniac plots to take over Monticello and uses a myriad of tricks and technology (and occasional murders) to put the whole town on edge (ahem).

Storylines like these are why I love EON. I was actually thinking of going back to pre-Mansion of the Damned episodes as there’s an arc that I missed where one of the female characters ends up involved in gun running for a terrorist organisation.

Michael Easton (as Silas) sort of got lost in all the capital-p Performing of Michelle Stafford, Donna Mills, and Kathleen Gati, but his arrival and his departure sort of sets the boundaries of a very watchable era of the show

Of all of the US soaps, General Hospital is probably the one that I know least about (bar the basics) and have seen very little of. I do remember Donna Mills being announced as joining the cast and I’m a Knots fan, so I’ll definitely check this out.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I do remember Donna Mills being announced as joining the cast and I’m a Knots fan, so I’ll definitely check this out.

Ron Carlivati (Head Writer of GH during this era) dreamed the character up with Donna Mills in mind (or so he claims) from the get-go. The breakneck pace of filming was such that RC wrote Madeline in and out of the show (using various storyline excuses) to give Mills an easier time of it. He said many times that if Mills had been able, he could have written for her forever. As it was, Madeline would arrive to cause trouble, leave again (sometimes in handcuffs), come back months later and leave again...so if you want to limit the viewing to times when Mills is onscreen (earning that Guest Performance Emmy), that would cut the time somewhat.

Storylines like these are why I love EON.

The half-hour format allows the show to focus almost entirely on a main plot like the ones we've mentioned. In hour-long shows like GH, GL, AW and others, they always have several stories going at once. If you want to see a particular story there will also be a lot of non-related stories mixed in. Some fans will do edits of their episodes to cut out the stories they're not interested in, but I'm not a fan of those kinds of "clip shows". Your mileage may vary though.

EON also did a good job of transitioning from one main plot into the next one with tie-ins that felt like one plot was building on another rather than a feeling of "Here's our new storyline". "Mansion of the Damned" transitioned to the Margo Dorn Murder Mystery, which then transitioned to the Fugitive rip-off with amnesiac Draper. Draper was no sooner back than we had the Clown Puppet Murders (seriously!) and the Rexford Clinic, Jefferson Brown, etc. Never a dull moment.