The quarantine is the perfect time to get into daytime soap operas

[TMC]

https://www.thecut.com/2020/04/watch...ronavirus.html

A few weeks ago, I started following Days of Our Lives. I chose the show for its name: The days of my life are predictable, monotonous, and underpinned by pandemonium. I am sure these characters can relate. When Days of Our Lives debuted in 1965, it centered around a family of doctors — doctors! we love them! say more! — living in the miscellaneously midwestern town of Salem. In its early form, the show trafficked in realistic-sounding scenarios, but as ratings dropped off, the writers turned — like so many of us do in desperate times — to mysticism: One of the main characters underwent an exorcism after demonic possession caused her to burn down some churches and transform into a jaguar; others have died and come back in other people’s bodies; a woman called “swamp girl” once had to battle her way through a witch-filled Garden of Eden to reclaim her princess crown. Just to give you an idea of what we’re working with.

My inaugural episode opened on a corporate-looking couple, Kristen DiMera and Brady Black, discussing the apparent death of their baby, mysterious circumstances surrounding a man named Steve, and the recent changes in Kristen’s brother, Chad. Unbeknownst to all, Stefano DiMera — Kristen and Chad’s evil father, currently resurrected in Steve’s body — has been running around with a “mad scientist” named Rolf, planting microchips in the brains of select Salem townspeople. The brainwashed include Chad, who, on Stefano’s orders, has imprisoned two women in the tunnels under his house: a woman who, under Stefano’s influence, identified as Princess Gina; and an older blonde woman named Marlena, Stefano’s alleged “queen of the night.” Are you following?

Of course you’re not. The above is little more than Mad Libs. It’s a real balancing act, keeping all this information straight, and just imagine if you’d been watching for 55 years. But the beauty of the soap is how it requires you to succumb to nonsense. You can’t think too hard, really can’t think at all, about any of it. Maybe this is a welcome proposition, if you, like me, want to put your mind on ice for a minute, freezing the anxiety spiral in place.

Or maybe you will find it surprisingly resonant. Due (I am guessing) to budget constraints, the majority of the drama occurs on indoor sets. These people almost never go outside — a lifestyle with which you may be familiar. And even when their stories seem to settle, you know more chaos is coming down the pipe, either because the score hands you a clue or you’ve just seen someone plotting in the last scene. As in real life, every new installment brings heretofore unfathomable new details to the table. You may ask yourself how any of these threads could possibly come together, and what a satisfying ending for this show might look like in the event of its cancellation. You might ask that same question of the show we are living in right now. And while I would like to say that it feels weird to be watching my stories in the middle of a weekday, time means nothing now. It feels no more nor less unnatural than putting on latex gloves to go to the grocery store, or wearing a bandanna to the pharmacy and asking the man behind the counter to please just drop the prescription into the open bag, as if it were a stickup. I would not go so far as to say Days of Our Lives is good, or even enjoyable, but it’s a bone my brain can chew on for a while. It feels good to open the escape hatch, if only for an hour.

[Schmoopie]

Ha, that's so true! Too bad some of the stations can't run marathons of them, like the ones that aren't on anymore b/c some of those storylines would have only taken about a week to wrap up if they were shown in blocks every day rather than just one hour a day

[OH Nuts!]

I’m so busy trying to get connected to work I don’t have time to watch that much TV right now.

[lakesgirl]

I feel like they should air the old episodes. Those were when soaps were great!

[Schmoopie]

Originally Posted by lakesgirl

I feel like they should air the old episodes. Those were when soaps were great!

Exactly! I don't know why they don't! Remember the TV station Soapnet? I don't know why they didn't use that as a way to show the old shows. They could have started at the beginning with some of them and shown them in blocks. I would have watched that in a heartbeat. I don't think it would have taken that long to get through at least a few years of the show if they did it seven days a week and showed like five hours at a time. Or maybe showed episodes featuring a certain person, like General Hospital showing John Stamos' episodes.


I could go on and on about this, but I'll just stop here. I may come back to it later though!

[shandy630]

Soap Net ran some--like Y&R and Days. P&G/Telenext (which owned ATWT, AW, and GL) wanted a boatload of money to run those shows.

[shandy630]

I've been watching As The World Turns on YouTube and some old DAYS from the early 90's, but that's about it.