Which cancelled popular soap opera would you reboot?

Santa Barbara!

The only soap I ever cared about: AMC!!

OLTL!!! I would focus on the love/hate dynamic between blonde good girl with a secret Jessica and fiery red head Natalie. (Recasts of course). Mother Vicki could make appearances.

Loving or Ryan's Hope. A good, solid half hour show.

edge of night

Second that Santa Barbara nomination and throw Another World into the ring.

I'd have to go with Guiding Light; but I'd want either Pam Long or the Dobsons write it; or Doug Marland risen from the dead back at his typewriter.

I honestly fear for GH with Jean and Shelly at the helm. Who in their right mind thinks they're the answer??

Where The Heart Is!

One with me in it.

Agree with r7 re Guiding Light; same goes for As the World Turns, but, again, only if Marland can rise from the dead.

the funniest thing I ever read in a soap mag was Diva Von Dish trashing Felicia Gallant for being a fashion maven; it went something like 'wearing living room drapes and furs that look like the deaths of entire species is not fashion; your hats are three sizes too big for your head; my dear, there is something called "less is more""

DVD also slammed Miss Ellie for wearing a housecoat to Pam and Bobby's wedding.

Passions or Edge of Night

Santa Barbara for me.

As the World Turns, Edge of Night, Dark Shadows!

I would definitely re-boot The Edge of Night... man what a show. Excellent characters, at least one murder a year which remained central to all of the other silly plots. Many years ago there was a great Edge of Night website, but it fell into dis-use. It didn't even come up on a google search I did.

It had a great page which listed the character who died, who was accused of the murder, who actually was the murderer, the weapon used. Loved it!

Forget rebooting. Why aren't the old soaps showing up on netflix or hulu or some random roku channel? While there probably wouldn't be huge profits, why not try to monetize them in some way, as opposed to gathering dust in some warehouse vault somewhere?

I know they don't have super old stuff since they were either live or recorded over, but everything from the 80s and 90s should still be around.

Peyton Place

Dark Shadows

Love is a Many Splendored Thing

Secret Storm

Another vote for Dark Shadows.

The Doctors

KNOTS LANDING, BITCHES!

DOOL

As The World Turns. Seriously.

Guiding Light

(1) As The World Turns, (2) Guiding Light and (3) Edge Of Night.

One Life. No question.

All My Children, One Life to Live, Loving, Ryan's Hope.

I loved GL, AW and ATWT the most.

But I think that in terms of ideas that translate to today, a reboot of The Edge of Night could really work, especially if it showed a city's night court, dealt with crime again, had some great mysteries. etc.

But it would HAVE to have this theme song again.

[quote] Why aren't the old soaps showing up on netflix or hulu or some random roku channel?

The Doctors IS on Retro TV, one of those digital subchannels, but that's only on in certain cities.

The problem with most of the Procter & Gamble soaps (AW, ATWT, GL, Edge of Night, etc.) is that they erased earlier tapes of the show, and most episodes are 1979 or later.

The other problem is that the use of popular music was frequent in those days, and that's made licensing complicated. If they could sell the shows for a low price I bet P&G would do it, but the costs of re-licensing those songs would cost more than they'd ever make from the deal.

OLTL so I can beat off to Andrew Triscuitt boy again. But really they should bring them ALL back. Daytime TV is a fucking cesspool these days.

I liked the Edge of Night when it had the moody lyrics theme. Edge of Night was unique in that it had as many male viewers as female viewers. Larking Malloy was such a hot creep.

I don't know. I'm cismale.

I would love to buy the rights to Edge and Shadows and turn them into CW shows. I even wrote a bible and a treatment for an Edge reboot. Maybe I need to dust that off.

I want Knots, Dynasty, Falcon Crest and Dallas on Netflix.

Joel Crothers was also on EDGE OF NIGHT after he was on DARK SHADOWS.

And EON had Lois Kibbee, too! Years ago I bought the last broadcast week of EON on video......quite entertaining. Joel was getting married to someone....hot!!!

Joel Crothers was on Shadows, Secret Storm, Somerset, Edge of Night, and Santa Barbara. He was quite the playboy. Velekka Gray was his beard.

The City. Dark Shadows.

Sunset Beach

As the World Turns but with a resurrected Reid Oliver. Guiding Light without Reva and Josh

As The World Turns and Dark Shadows. Forever!!!

The Secret Storm.

It was a real pot-boiler.

I'm sure that if it had staye on the air, it would have been the first soap to have a gay storyline of any depth.

It really shouldn't have been cancelled by CBS, and the producer, American Home Products, had lined up some 140 stations to take it to syndication immediately following it's network end date, but they kept get thwarted.

One of the best soap bitches ever was Secret Storm's Belle Clemens, played by the great Marla Adams.

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing might be another interesting choice, mainly because it was set in San Francisco. It's actually the soap where producer, John Conboy, originated the look of the modern soap opera that people talk about when they refer to his subsequent work on The Young & the Restless.

I miss Lucinda more than Reva. I would bring back ATWT and sell off B&B to Telemundo.

Edge of Night would have the best chance of success.

Edge of NIGHT

R34 I was six-years old when I first saw Joel Crothers playing Lieutenant Nathan Forbes in the show's first foray into time-travel. He was dressed in those cock-hugging military pants from the 18th century. I was totally smitten by this stud, and that's when I knew I was gay. Yeah, I'm that old, but I was born with great gaydar .. lol!

Soap? How old are you bitches? Just kidding- I vote for AMC and if anyone remembers the Valley of the Dolls tv soap? It was syndicated and came on late night. It was soo raunchy. It could totally work now.

I agree with others that Edge of Night would probably have the best chance of surviving. It's anthology format could be adapted to be similar to prime time serial dramas where you have core characters, who then get involved in stories with guest actors. In this case, your guests could be daytime actors from cancelled soaps who come on for 6-9 months. EON was very adaptable and could easily be made fresh.

Ma Perkins

Portia Faces Life

The Romance of Helen Trent

Young Doctor Malone

R47 What about "Road of Life", "Big Sister", or "The Right to Happiness"?

As the World Turns

Life is nothing without Victoria Sleestak. Therefore OLTL needs to come back. Continue right where Prospect Park left off.

Never watched a daytime soap in my life

Southwest General!

Fraternity Row

As the World Turns. I grew up watching Lily and Holden and vividly remember the scene where Lily walked up on Diego at the hospital while he was speaking to Pilar. She learned that he was really Umberto and had killed Damian.

I know all you bitches have XYZ memory from the past (as I do) but what soap could be well done if revived NOW?

What would you put the focus on? Who would you put the focus on?

As I recall, on Edge of Night, the character Joel Crothers was marrying was a mid-twenties virgin. The light in his eyes at this prospect was amazing. I guess he could really act. He was hot on all of his shows (sigh). Then there was Derek Parker on Edge of Night, who had that busy career as a straight and gay porn actor. Busy fellow.

r55, I think it depends on what you mean by revival. If you are just talking about using a name or concept, it could be any of them.

If you are talking about actual returning characters and fan investment, it would only be the most recent ones - OLTL/AMC, maybe ATWT.

One Life To Live.

Another Edge of Night fan here. That was the only soap I ever watched (unless you count Mary Hartman). What I loved about EON was that characters would be killed left and right, sometimes in horrible ways.

[quote]Then there was Derek Parker on Edge of Night, who had that busy career as a straight and gay porn actor. Busy fellow.

Derek Mallory was the character he played on Edge. His stage name was Dennis Parker. His porn name was Wade Nichols. And I think I read somewhere his real name was Dennis Posa.

Whatever he called himself, he was pretty hot.

As the World Turns, focused on the Hughes'/Dixons/Walshes. John and Lucinda married again, Andy brought back more dysfunctional than ever, Tom moving into the patriarch role. First big story would be about Andy's biracial daughter getting pulled over for DWB and being subject to police brutality.

I'd meld the Worlds. Andy Dixon would be the eminence grise of his gay AA group, and the third leg of a triangle with Luke and Reid. Since someone always feels left out in a triangle, Andy would do a lot of bitching with his sponsor Felicia.

Anne Heche would return as Vicky, and she and Jake would be BC's reigning power couple, though Jake never really got over his nose-pressed-against-the-glass complex.

And Steven Frame is gay.

Worst ATWT era ever, r54.

R47/48, my friend, Rosemary Rice who played Jill on "Young Doctor Malone," was on the final episode, November 25, 1960, That day CBS also cancelled "Right of Happiness," "Ma Perkins," and "Second Mrs. Burton." Other radio soaps mentioned here left the air in 1959.

OK all of you Edge fans, here's a site that will make you happy. I think it's a re-boot of a previous fan site.

Checking "Memoriam" at R64 link, Joel Crothers death is supposedly Lympathic Cancer. Dennis Parker's was AIDS related.

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

The Edge of Wetness

Hawkins Falls

Wow, no love for Passions? My ex and I used to get so stoned and watch it in college.

Santa Barbara could work as a telenovela focused around Adriana Castillo, her brother Chip and cousin Samantha.

In the early days of AIDS when the hysteria was great and the stigma was enormous, many different reasons for death were announced.

Dark Shadows was before my time, but two years ago I found a site where you could stream every single episode and I got to watch about 700 of them - until the site was forced to delete the episodes. The show had an oddly soothing effect on me and I didn't mind the cardboard cutout sets and slipups.

ATWT, and bring back Marland and Caso.

R 69, Passions was a popular soap in the early 00's the problem was that they drew out the storylines too much.

I'd be happy if "Fabulous High" were to come back. I need to find out if Tony (the high school teacher) is going to allow himself to be seduced again by Jesse, the papi he hooked up with not knowing he was going to be a student in his class. Or is Jesse planning to do something else to try to win his man?

[quote] ATWT, and bring back Marland and Caso.

Doug's dead.

Laurie Caso was OK, but he was basically a network suit that ran interference for Marland. He didn't really have much to contribute on his own. Bob Calhoun really helped set the stage for Marland, and he, too, is dead.

Dennis Parker did the porn before he got the part on Edge of Night. He mostly did straight movies, but a few gay movies and pictorials also. He was totally gay in his private life but was able to get hard enough to have sex with women. But the main reason he did straight more was he was a good actor and back then the straight side put out a lot of dialog heavy movies with some storyline. He was very well liked because he was professional and tried helping out with the productions in any way he could.

He was his porn past was outed by the porn magazines and tabloids fairly early on in his run on the show. Luckily he got to keep his job because he was well liked by the other actors, people behind the scenes and by the viewing audience. He missed the last few months of the show by being too ill with AIDS to continue.

RE: Passions everyone sucked, especially Teresita.

The main pieces for a good soap were still in place with ATWT and GL. They could easily be resurrected by someone of the Phillips/Nixon/Bell/Lemay/Marland school (if there is such a creature left).

Unfortunately, my favorite gone soap could not be resurrected: Search for Tomorrow.

I was in 6th grade. I used to rush home for Draper Scott and then the $10,000 pyramid.

[quote] Unfortunately, my favorite gone soap could not be resurrected: Search for Tomorrow.

MARY!

There should have been a survey at the beginning, dammit!

See, everybody, I've grown. I admit that I would have never allowed these kinds of threads only a few years ago.

But, baking soda, lemon, and some vinegar can really make a girl happier!

Never watched Passions. It took over Another World's timeslot which made it immediately unwatchable to me.

As the Stomach Turns

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Old habits die hard.

The Sun Also Sets

I vote for Somerset. But that's because I actually live there.

My mother had a Buick Somerset back in the 80s. Every time I went near it I caught an earworm of the theme music in its various incarnations.

Yes 38!!

I heart you, r83.

Is this even a question? Put One Life to Live on Netflix with most of the cast from the last reboot (especially Kelley Missal, Robert Gorrie, Florencia Lozano, and a real actress for Destiny) and it would dominate. End of story.

Too bad Sleestak is probably retired for good, and Roger Howarth and KDP are tied up on other shows.

I think Edge of Night could do well as a late night soap, airing in the 11 p.m. or 11:30 p.m. time slot. Yes, it would have to be low budget. But the show we saw in the 70s and 80s didn't exactly have a super-high budget. If the stories are compelling, they'll overlook the sets.

It would be easy enough to have Sky and Raven Whitney anchor the show. As for the main characters, there's Raven's son Jamie (by Logan Swift) and Sky and Raven's daughter Charlotte. Plus there's Adam Drake, Jr. (who was raised by Miles after both his parents were murdered). And who knows what children Jody Travis and Laurie Ann Karr might have had. so, plenty of characters to tie the show to the past but be the next generation.

I'm surprised Santa Barbara hasnt been mentioned more - it would strike me as a DL fave. And 92 DL posts and not one single mention of Linda Dano, come on!

r71 When I met Joel Crothers at The Eagle, at first he denied who he was, until mentioned that we'd met a year before at friend's house party. Procter & Gamble had a morals clause. Being in a gay bar could've gotten him in trouble with them.

LOVING

I miss Ava, Gwenyth, Tricia, Curtis & Trucker!

I would relaunch Guiding Light with a few of the middle age folks as the tentpoles, and some interesting younger characters.

I would make Natalia the new Bert/Mo.

r93 You always miss something when you get to the party late. Or in this case, when you don't read the entire thread.

See r1, r6, r13, r70

For Linda Dano, see r9

Santa Barbara

I wonder if the legal issues between ABC and Prospect Park have been resolved. Until then, ABC won't do anything with One Life to Live or its characters. There's no way we'll see any OLTL characters show up on GH, I'm afraid. To resurrect Ryan Hope's Delia (and Ryan's Bar) was sweet but that's going way back. I miss my OLTL characters every day.

I've always been confused about the origins of Loving. Was it a spinoff of AMC or just a sister soap like OLTL?

Loving had a pretty interesting story. It's origins are best summarized on Wiki. The Loving serial killer was one of the best soap stories ever. It's interesting how General Hospital actually used it in one of their stories. The only reason Loving stayed on as long as it did was because it was a huge money maker in Europe. Trisha and Tucker became pretty big stars in Europe. Too bad they were both to dumb to do anything about it.

I preferred soaps from the 70s before all the spies and save the world nonsense. I liked when Ada would stop by Mary's house and have cake and talk about their feuding daughters. The villains were the girl or the boy next door, not some all knowing, all powerful international crime boss. If you're going to bring a soap back, that's not Edge of Night or Dark Shadows, bring one back that is about relatable human emotion.

Loving was originally supposed to be a collaboration between Agnes Nixon and Douglas Marland. But Aggie ended up pushing Marland out of the way.

Agnes was a cutthroat cunt who didn't play. She may be lauded as a great lady, but she learned how to cunt, and how to slay everyone with your cuntiness, at the feet of Irna Phillips, one of the biggest cunts who ever lived.

Me too, R102. GH went downhill fast when it turned into a cheap plastic imitation of The Avengers and Geary got placated with constant adventure stories.

I get that in 2015, you can't always have coffee pouring and have it go over well. We are not in 1965, where mothers are at home and sitting quietly watching one of three channels.

But there's ways to do it where it feels contemporary but still classic.

The odd thing with Loving, and it worked, a lot of times whenever a popular character on another soap was written out Loving would snatch them up. It was a refuge for Ryan's Hope and AMC stars who had nowhere to go. Thus they had a pretty strong core of actors. Hell even Tracy Quartermaine did exile in Corinth for a while. If the character couldn't transfer then they'd snatch the actor and write a new one.

Shit. Now that I think of it even HRH Genie Francis did a stint on Loving when no one else wanted her.

Agnes was mean to Doug Marland. This is why I wish they would publish Doug's memoirs, he supposedly goes into great length about the collaboration from hell with Agnes.

I'd like to read the chapter of Marland's memoirs about John Wesley Shipp's feet!

"Backstage Dark Shadows" would be a great serial drama.

Louis Edmonds and his longtime lover, Bryce Holman, would host weekend getaways for the boys of Dark Shadows out at their Long Island retreat called "The Rookery." The guest book notes conjure up many imaginings.

Joan Bennett was also a frequent dinner party guest.

We could also see how the scene went down where Louis, thinking he was done, had already left the set and was in the middle of undressing when he was called back for one last scene and had to perform it wearing only his underpants below the waist.

Sunset Beach, bitches! It was so bad that it was good - plus, it had a bit of a cult following over here in the UK on Channel 5 (the continuity announcers on that show had a field day with it - I distinctly remember them calling Meg *hiss* Smeg, for example). It was deliciously trashy and OTT. Does anyone else remember that Vanessa girl with the "skin disease" (that the continuity girl called - viciously - "rice krispy face"?)

PS - Channel 5 continuity girl. Gurl could be *vicious*. Especially regarding Miss Rice Krispy Face and Smeg. ...

What killed soaps for me was the sudden need to have stories wrap up so soon and move onto another one. It's been discussed on other soap threads but one of the best soap stories was the Heather Webber/Diana Taylor murder plot. That story took about two years to play out. About 5 if you counting the setting up of the story by Heather selling her baby then befriending Diana to steal him back. It was fucking masterful.

Speaking of Sunset Beach - I fucking loved the hilariously awful "love triangle" that developed between Smeg, that forgettable English prick and the forgettable English prick's Evil Twin. It was so bad...oy. Not to mention the hilariously overly long Rice Krispy Face drama. My sister and I *liked* that one, even though it involved "Voodoo". (snort)

The Edge of Night and As the World Turns were the last "live" soap operas. They were broadcast as performed for the eastern and central time zones and recorded as broadcast for delay in the pacific and mountain time zones. I'd like to see a couple of 30 minute live soaps return to TV.

R112 I totally agree. That's what really caused the death of ATWT too. In Spring 2008, SoapKiller Goutman gave his infamous interview in Soap Opera Digest where he decreed that soap viewers had the attention span of gnats and that he was going to be implementing his short "movie-of-the-month" type story arcs. By Fall 2008, his "strategy" had infected the entire show. Viewers hated it and began exiting. The show's cancellation was announced just over a year later in December 2009. His job was done.

In comparison, one of Y&R's most famous storylines began when Jack Abbott had sex with his step-mother, Jill Foster Abbott, when they were snow-bound in a cabin. Bill Bell milked every juicy beat out of that storyline for well over two years before Jack's father, John, discovered that his son was the man in the photographs having sex with his wife. Then, that discovery led to a second wave of storyline that extended John and Jill's bitter divorce and led to her becoming a force to be reckoned with at Jabot Cosmetics.

Dark Shadows, OLTL, GH before the mob came to town.

The Diana Taylor reveal never gets old. "AND I TRIED AND I TRIED AND I TRIED"

No one had the slightest clue it was Alice.

Fifteen. Now that's a soap that coube revived

Was it called Swan's Crossing, the one that first foisted that Geller chick onto the world? It was a pedophile's dream, as I recall. But the opening title dance was hilarious. You could tell there that Sarah Michelle was already the special snowflake brat who worked hardest to get the steps down while the boys floundered.

yikes. almost a parody of the time.

[quote]No one had the slightest clue it was Alice.

My mother did. I remember her saying it was Alice after it happened because they didn't show Heather committing the murder, just writing the name "Anne" with Diana's finger. My sisters and I (we ranged from 12-16 at the time) all thought she was crazy, but she kept saying it was Alice, and then she was proven right. To this day, I'm not sure whether she really thought it was Alice, or she just liked to say it to get a rise out of her kids, but she stuck by it the whole time.

I never saw the point of the SoapNet channel when it didn't rebroadcast older soaps from the beginning.

I loved SoapNet when they showed Another World and Ryan's Hope.

One Life to Live, absolutely.

R122 First, the tapes for many soaps "from the beginning" aren't always available. Second, SoapNet tried hosting reruns of Another World, but as I recall, the ratings were so abysmal that they said viewers in some markets couldn't even be measured. If that attempt had proven popular, they probably would have tried other old soap operas. Eventually, SoapNet shifted its strategy, and like everyone else, began trying to attract the younger 18-49W demo.

AOL tried an online-only, internet soap channel of old P&G soaps in 2006. Among the initial offerings were Edge of Night, Texas, Search for Tomorrow, and Another World. I believe AOL originally stated that, if it proved successful, then they would expand it to include some of the other P&G soaps. But again, it was a bust. I remember some soaps were only getting a very measly average of 700 views per episode. I used to watch EON there. As I recall, it was the most popular, usually pulling in something like 4000 views or so. The whole channel was eventually shuttered in early 2009.

Unfortunately, the audience for old soaps is limited.

[quote] I'd like to read the chapter of Marland's memoirs about John Wesley Shipp's feet!

Size 13, wide. Wearin' my hightops now!

I loved Swans Crossing but then again Inwas part of the targeted demographic. It made me a fan of SMG and I was so excited when she joined AMC.

R91 Sleestak isn't retired. She was complaining about going on auditions and not being able get any acting work in a interview from last year.

[quote]Too bad Sleestak is probably retired for good, and Roger Howarth and KDP are tied up on other shows.

Howarth and KDP (and TSJ) are exactly the ones who would need to stay far, far away. Them and their looney tunes fandom.

PaPa NO!

Tom Eplin sold us our car 2 years ago. He's very funny and still sexy.

How fat, r132?

Not bad fat, r133.

Where, r132?

My heart aches for my lost OLTL.

I miss OLTL every day. I've spent most of my life with the people in Llanview and ABC took them away from me.

ABC took them away and replaced them with pure shit. To add insult to injury. Bring the damn soaps back!

You all should write letters to ABC every day! Or Tweet that fat Vicki Dummer who is head of daytime now.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Capitol yet. I remember liking it as a kid - was it really terrible?

R80 Tony Craig (Draper) now lives in Pittsburgh and works as a vendor in the baseball stadium there.

Here's the link for Draper/Tony

City of Commerce, r135.

Capitol is a good choice. It has a theme.

I vote for Loving/the City

I preferred Gillian Spencer as Victoria Lord and Nancy Pinkerton as Dorian Cramer. Slezak's too stagey and Strasser's too camp.

Seriously does anyone really care about watching soap operas? WTF!?

R147 It's either soap operas or porn, sometimes both at the same time.

Bring back Andrew Triscuitt! The hottest kid ever on daytime! Or nighttime for that matter.

How to Survive a Marriage!

Texas!

MTV's trashy, campy "Spyder Games" deserved another season.

Anyone remember Ivan's fantasies?

If they bring any soaps back, I hope they would limit them to 1/2 hour format. I think the hour-long format is what killed soaps. The writing staffs and casts became too large.

I would like to see a rebooted "Guiding Light" series. Start again with the Bauer family. Let the show revolve around them only in a modern time

Guiding Light, even though it was an older show, had more key players that were younger than ATWT; they could build a new GL around Rick, Michelle, Danny...I'd bring Ed and Holly back...and Phillip, Beth and their kids...Lizzie (her husband Bill), James and Phillip's other kids Zach and Emma with Harley and Olivia.

Another nod for EDGE OF NIGHT with its moody lyrics theme (one of my favorite soap themes ever) before it became the Raven and Schuyler Adventure Show (Luke & Laura redux) and the new horrific opening credits montage and theme were introduced. I started watching soaps as a child and EoN became my favorite because of the murder/mystery format and it aired late in my market so I was able to catch the entire 30 min ep after school.

DARK SHADOWS was way before my time, yet it’s one I’d like to see retooled because of the subject matter. TRIBES was a teen soap that lasted all of one minute and that I liked because it was my demographic. I’d like to see it, and GENERATIONS, get another chance.

Edge of Night for sho'. Also Port Charles. Those wacky supernatural storylines were so entertaining. The best of them was the Michael Clay/Caleb/Father Michael Vampire arc. Libby was Caleb's reincarnated Vampire bride and Ian Buchanan played his band manager/hip caretaker. Great chemistry between Michael Easton and Kelly Monaco. PC was cancelled shortly before the obsession with all things Vampyre became a thing.

I hope somebody feels OLTL has some dollar business value to it and they can salvage it out of the whole Prospect Park ABC lawsuit bankruptcy mess.

My loins still ache over the loss of Passions and gay Ethan

My favorite characters on Passions were the martini-drinking dwarf doll and the shadow of Sheridan Crane's soul, Princess Diana.

Still miss my OLTL. I honestly think the Hulu reboot could have done very well if fostered properly. I think most fans could get right back into it.

DS and OLTL.

Are there any videos of Dennis Parker sucking cock in the gay movies he did? I'd love to see those.

Dark Shadows

[quote]Are there any videos of Dennis Parker sucking cock in the gay movies he did? I'd love to see those.

Of course there is.

Parker only did two gay movies and one loop. All the rest were straight. He was gay in his personal life but preferred doing straight porn because they were much better produced back then in general and he got to act in them (after all he was a 'real' actor). His sex scenes were pretty bad though, he could barely stay half erect with women. In one scene in "Raw Footage" when he pulled out for the cumshot, he was basically limp! His scene with C.J. Laing in "Barbara Broadcast" was pretty hot though.

Here's a simulated gay photoshoot he did. He doesn't suck the guy, but holds his dick.

Another vote for Edge of Night. ATWT and GL are my favorites but they are we're very slow and meticulously plotted soaps. Not modern. OLTL is a very distant second for me.

*were not we're

Dark Shadows

I would reboot and merge Dark Shadows with ATWT. Barnabas would turn Luke into a vampire and there would be lots of man on man action with Willie Loomis, Chris Hughes, Dusty Donovan, Joe Haskell, Adam and Dr. Reid Oliver (yeah, he's not dead.....this is a soap opera!). Roger would host the parties. Carly and Angelique would fight it out to become the biggest (b)witch with Lucinda refereeing. Dr. Julia Hoffman would be busy taking blood samples so she could find the "cure."

It wasn't very popular but Sunset Beach was amazing.

Search For Tomorrow. Bring back Morgan Fairchild as bitchy Jennifer!

The thing about soaps is that a lot of them are really interchangeable. For example, if the Snyders and their stories had been written into Guiding Light instead of As The World Turns, it could be pulled off. Some soaps had distinct "voices" to them - Dark Shadows being the most obvious. Edge of Night was darker than most, and usually focused on a murder. The Doctors and early General Hospital typically focused on hospital/medical stories and the doctors and nurses of that world. (Boy, has that changed.) . Capitol focused more on political stories/politicians, and Ryan's Hope was mostly about the one family and their bar - also unique that their settings were non-fictional (DC and NYC). I guess you could say Santa Barbara and Passions were more kooky/comical than the rest.

There may be others, but for the most part you could call One Life to Live "Search for Tomorrow", or Another World "All My Children" and it wouldn't make a difference. I never got a strong difference in style from most soaps. (Conversely, you couldn't swap the titles for, say, Dark Shadows and Ryan's Hope.) Certainly some shows may have skewed older or younger, depending on the writers and producers in charge. But you had the generic town name, the hero/heroine, the villain/villainess, the working class family, the rich family, etc. and mostly generic storylines that could be used on any other soap.

I'd be curious if others have a different take on this.

As the World Turns and Guiding Light were somewhat similar and the fact that P&G moved writers and actors back and forth between them gave them a somewhat similar appearance. At their hearts they were family dramas. But ATWT had strong continuity, with half the cast of characters having roots in the show back to the beginning. GL had really transitioned most all of the pre-1980 show out. At the end, who was the longest, continually running actor? Frank Dicopoulos? If I could revive one, it would have to be ATWT.

Another World started as a classically-structured Irna show, but Harding Lemay made it into something theatrical. But again, by 1990 it was just a generic soap.

Search for Tomorrow was a different animal all together. It was about Jo. The show floundered whenever it forgot that. Love of Life was more like Search, except it was about two sisters. Again, whenever it forgot that, it lost its identity.

The problem with today's show is that they are interchangeable, generic soaps. They don't structure around families or strong single characters. They have no idea what a tentpole character is or how to use them. Nancy Hughes rarely had anything like a story of her own, but she had a vital purpose. When the shows killed Maureen Bauer and Frankie Frame they demonstrated that they no longer understood the value of the tentpole character to be the moral compass and go-to voice of reason.

You could revive ATWT or GL but who could write it and who would you cast? Who out there knows how to write like Irna, or Agnes, or Bill? Who are the actors the networks will let you cast who are stage-trained actors who can really act, but aren't conventionally good-looking? Or where are you going to find a new Mary Stuart for a revival of SFT?

Patti Tate could be the matriarch of a new SFT. Please don't use Jackie Schultz who was 10 years too young to play Patti. Go from there.

A re-boot of Ryan's Hope could work too.

I'd love to see Dark Shadows 2017 with a 60ish David Collins at the helm, his children and grandchildren, a 10 year old David Collins the 3rd being every bit the brat the original David was would be fun...with a chained coffin in the Mausoleum again.

That's a good word for what I was trying to describe, R173, which is "generic". And I was focusing more on the titles than anything else. It was just something that hit me as I read through the thread. If someone wanted to see a reboot of Dark Shadows, I know what they're generally looking for. If someone wants a reboot of All My Children, I'm not so sure. Do they want Erica Kane back on their screens? Or is it the Martin's or the Cortland's or the Chandler's? What is it about All My Children that makes you want the reboot?

And I'm not trying to put down AMC. It was one of my favorites in the 80s, with Jenny, Greg, Opal, Jesse, Angie, Liza, Erica, Kent, Silver, Mark (RIP), Ellen, Brooke, Phoebe, etc.

As the World Turns with Luke/Reid (he did not really die) in the leads along with Carly, Jack, Holden, Lily and some new young generation members. Margo and Tom could be the new Nancy/Chris, LOL! Also would love to see a more modern day Edge of Night.

It's been years since I've seen a soap opera. Was just looking at the ratings: if Top-ranked Y&R pulled their current 3.2 rating 35 years ago (1981-1982 season) it would rank 15th out of 15 soaps. My, how things change.

You had me until Carly, R176.

Since Maura West is at General Hospital now, you don't have to worry about Carly...in this hypothetical game.

I think it would be very easy to structure ATWT around Tom & Margo and their kids and Holden & Lily and their kids or GL around Philip's family and Rick's family. But I just don't trust anyone to know how to write or cast.

Ah, Sunset Beach, definitely. It was so gloriously tacky and it was a must-watch for students when Channel 5 started in the UK (to the point where the continuity announcers would crack up and openly slate the show. And yes, we all called Meg "Smeg"...)

One Life - but in a 30 minute format, Dark Shadows and Ryan’s Hope. How about Edge of Night?

[quote]it would be very easy to structure ATWT around Tom & Margo and their kids

Bring back Casey Roerig.

What about The Doctors? Since the re-runs are now airing and Hubbard's still around, Althea could oversee Hope Memorial and undo Penny's death and get Julia Duffy involved. I think Mike Powers could be a new patriarch even though my favorite Mikes, Peter Burnell and John Shearin are dead. Hell it could be a primetime series.

I would watch, R183.

Was The Edge of Night written well-enough that it could be re-booted and shot within the original time period? Start the show all over in the 1950s with the same plots and dialogue? Film it b&w perhaps? Just a thought.

Edge was one soap men watched. It used to come on late afternoon and was popular in bars, restaurants and barber shops. Seriously. A young Larry Hagman was on it during the late 50's. Yes - it could come back. There was a young Adam Drake who would be around 45ish now. You could start right there...

The Edge of Night and Dark Shadows, yes. But do people really remember TEON? It never really had a long tail due to reruns or a cult following like DS that has survived the years. DS even had the (poorly received) movie which exposed the characters to younger audiences, so I can see why someone would reboot it as the IP is well-known.

Just please don't re-boot anything with Kim Zimmer in it.

OLTL as long as they didn't hire any of the EPs or HWs who turned it into a cartoon. I'd love OLTL from the earliest days or from the early 90s - around the first half of 1998. Nothing in between or after.

I would also love Edge of Night back if it had the same quality of writing and acting.

Santa Barbara

Guiding Light. I know exactly how I'd do it, too.

Oh, and add me to the list for EON. I never watched it that much, but of all the existing shows, it's the one that conceptually would be very easy to revisit, especially with the focus on crime drama/mysteries today.

AND it would have to have this opening, too.

(Hell, I'd even keep the fabulous Lois Kibbee shot.)

You bet your ass, you would R193!

There is really no reason why Guiding Light and As the World Turns couldn't be revived. Both had enough good pieces left when they died to reconstruct now. (Search and LoL are too specific to their lead characters.)

In fact, I'd be much more likely to pay for CBS's new streaming service over yet another iteration of Star Trek.

[quote] There is really no reason why Guiding Light and As the World Turns couldn't be revived.

There's really only one, but it's the killer: P&G won't give up the rights to the shows.

We the audience saw them, all along, as stories we loved. P&G all along saw them as filler content between the ads for their products.

Edge of Night or Secret Storm.