The Moment

I am five years old, sitting on the floor in front of my grandmother's couch. My mother and grandmother sit on the couch. I lean back on my mother's legs. We are all engrossed in what we see on the television in front of us: on the night before Philip Brent is to ship off to fight in Vietnam, he and Tara Martin have snuck into a church.

They are young.
They are in love.
In the darkness of an empty church, they privately exchange vows.
There is no priest.
This is their secret.
We are the only witnesses.

This is the moment that sets the scene for years of heartbreak, drama, tragedy and action in Pine Valley. It is the moment that will impact so many characters in the years to come. It is the moment that, years later, when Philip returns from Vietnam and finds Tara married to Chuck Tyler, he will bring us back to. It is the moment I first feel the power of the genre known as soap opera and fall in love with a particular kind of storytelling - storytelling that is about people and their histories, their secrets, their demons. Storytelling that is about people at their best and people at their worst, and all the shades of gray in between.

On hearing about the cancellation of All My Children and One Life To Live, I knew I'd have to write about what will truly be the end of an era for me, but I didn't know where to start. While exchanging emails with a group of friends who love soaps every bit as much as I do, and reminiscing about our favorite moments, it hit me like gangbusters: Philip and Tara. The church. Their secret. It is the first real story line I remember.

In my real life, I'd hear my parents talk about Vietnam. Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner talked about it on the news every night. It was part of the background noise as we ate dinner. But it was just a word to me. I had no idea what this Vietnam everyone spoke about really was, except that it was bad, and everyone had an opinion about it. My grandfather and father disagreed about it. A lot. And here, in the middle of the day, were Philip and Tara - two young, attractive characters who seemed like real people to me - talking about a war. About what it means for a young man to go off to war without any certainty that he'll come home, again. It is not an exaggeration to say that I figured out what Vietnam was - not through my parents or the news reports we watched every day - but  by watching Philip and Tara's drama unfold. It was a war! People had strong feelings about it, in part, because young men were going away for years and years, even though they didn't want to. Some of them never got back home. Some of them left home without ever having lived. Some of them left families behind, and people they loved.

For every crazy, stupid story line this genre has tackled - demonic possession, human cloning, time travel, a gorilla escaping from Central Park Zoo - there are so many human stories that really have made a difference in the way a lot of people live their lives. When Guiding Light aired frank and open story lines about domestic violence and breast cancer viewers paid attention - DV hotlines rang off the hook and women started booking appointments for mammograms in record numbers. Another World talked openly about abortion for the first time on television. As The World Turns revealed that a popular character was gay. Guiding Light tackled spousal rape for the first time on television. The Young and the Restless bravely introduced a story line about venereal disease in the mid 70s. Ryan's Hope broke tradition by featuring a Jewish character in the previously all Christian/ mostly Protestant daytime arena. And All My Children incorporated the Vietnam War - in real time, no less - with the Philip and Tara story line. And maybe this story line helped people talk about the war, or see it in a different light. I know it explained a lot about the war to me, as young as I was. But more. It made me notice story-telling. It made me pay attention to why characters did and said what they did and said. It made me notice that nothing exists in a vacuum, and that every action is followed by a reaction - even though I didn't have that language - and that these things are important to keep in mind if you want to tell a story that people will believe and want to listen to. Mostly, it made me want to make up and tell those stories, myself.

It is no small thing for me to think of All My Children being pulled off the air. Even though Tara and Philip are long gone, Agnes Nixon is no longer at the helm, and I haven't been a regular viewer for some time, that show is a little piece of home for me. It represents time shared with people who were important to me (my mother and grandmother), and a very specific moment in time when a big part of the person I am today was born.

It's no accident that people refer to their favorite soaps as their "stories," because that's what the genre has always been about - stories. Agnes Nixon wrote a story about Philip and Tara. Richard Hatch and Karen Lynn Gorney brought that story to life. That story made me fall in love with stories.

Dribs and Drabs

Mad Men

How well-written is Mad Men? It's so well-written that I find myself rooting for Joan and Roger to continue their adulterous flirtation/affair and live happily, ever after. Roger, played by the incredibly charismatic John Slattery, is only ever a real human being when he's talking to Joan. No one else stands up to him, or calls him on his shit. No one else seems to have the balls to tell him off. And Joan? No one really takes her seriously as a human being - and not just a femme fatale - but Roger. There's real love there, real friendship. Roger tells Joan things he would never, ever tell his ridiculous wife. Joan understands Roger in a way no one else can. Roger has respect for Joan - something her rapist-of-a-husband has never, shown. These two are gorgeous together in every way.

Dexter

He's back. Holy shit, is he back. Dead wife. Grief. Guilt. And an epiphany: he can so love! Too soon to tell, but I'm psyched about this season. Ritualistic beheadings, Aster's teen agnst, the past always threatening to catch up with Dex, and the Florida sunshine. What could be better on a Sunday night?

Boardwalk Empire

Holy crap is this show a thing of beauty. Then again, it was a pretty safe bet: Scorsese + Buscemi + filmed mostly in Brooklyn. The writing is tight, the acting top-notch, the costumes and sets are amazing. It's just beautiful, on every level. Paz De la Huerta pretty much naked every week? That can't be too hard to swallow, either.

SHOCKER

Tea's alive. Yeah, we knew that. The show has been a bit of a mess, lately. In some ways, unwatchable. However, the tide seems to be turning. Maybe the only actor I've really enjoyed watching lately: Kassie Depaiva. What can I say? I love Blair, and I really like that the writers have had her stand by her promise to Tea.

RIP, Stephen J. Cannell

He gave us Wiseguy, dammit. And The Rockford Files.  And The A Team. And Tenspeed and Brownshoe, a show which I loved. Goodbye, SJC.

The Bay

So much hype - which actually made me suspicious that it would ALL be hype. It may be too soon to tell but, so far, I'm not really impressed. Well, that's not true...I AM impressed that they've seen fit to feature black characters from the get-go, not as fillers or servants, but actual characters involved in the action. And more than one. Other than that, there's not much here to make me watch, again.

For my money, Empire is still the only websoap delivering the goods. Season 3 is set to start November 9th, and I can't wait.

They Yearn for Earthly Pleasures...

I soooo want to go to this, but my Poltergeist cronies live in places like NY and Hawaii, and this is not the kind of thing one goes to alone. 

Breakfast of Champions: Is there hope for The Great American Serial?

Recently, a friend and I had a discussion about the future of soaps. What, we asked each other, will daytime television look like once the few remaining soaps are gone? What will the networks and sponsors come up with to fill in the empty space? Infomercials? Talk shows? Game shows? All of these are distinct possibilities. In my opinion, not a one of them has a chance in hell of gaining the sort of viewer loyalty that a well-written, daily soap opera can elicit. Only time will tell what the daytime landscape will look like, but there are certainly several factors for TPTB should take into consideration when making decisions about programming.

The Myth of Youth

I keep hearing about how what has killed the American soap opera is the fact that young people aren't interested in this old-school style of entertainment. People under 30, we're told, don't have the attention spans of the generations that preceded them. This may be true to some extent, but something else is true: there are more of us than there are of them. Ever heard the term "baby boom"? This is an aging population. While networks have kept busy trying to court young audiences, the writing on the wall has become clear: there are not only more older people than young people in America, but older people have significantly more spending power. And, make no mistake about it - advertisers know this.

Most young people may never be fans of a traditional, daily serial that is character-driven, requires perseverance, loyalty, and an attention span of more than ten minutes, but that doesn't really matter if networks and sponsors are trying to develop programming that caters to people who have spending power.

The Melting Pot vs. The Box of 64 Colors

Remember that line in your grade school history book about America being a melting pot? Well, forget it. It was a lie. No one moves to America, anymore, and identifies as just "American." I don't care if people like this, or not (I love it), but there is no such thing as the American melting pot. Immigrants who arrived in the USA during the last 100 years have, by and large, retained their ethnic , cultural and racial identities. This isn't a nation inhabited by one, homogeneous race of human beings. We're black, white, Asian, Hispanic....we're Christian and Jewish and Buddhist....we're straight and gay and all things in-between.

This is how America looks. It's how the real world looks. Television should look more like the real world. We notice when it doesn't. It pisses a lot of us off when it doesn't. It pisses us off even more when it's clear that it doesn't because someone is making a concerted effort to make sure it doesn't.

How We Watch

I'm old enough to remember a time when, if you missed an episode of All My Children, the best you could do was have a friend fill you in and then read the Soap Opera Digest recap. No VCRs. No Soapnet. No YouTube.

Times have changed, and technology has moved at lightning speed in the last 40 years. These days, when fewer people are at home during the day to watch their soaps in real time, there's no reason to miss them. Soapnet airs rebroadcasts of several shows during the evening and on weekends. Television networks make episodes of their soaps available via streaming video on the web. DVR technology makes it possible to digitally record and store literally hundreds of hours of programming for later viewing.

If the way we watch television has changed, it follows suit that the way television is made, marketed and evaluated for ratings should also change.

Choices

When I was a kid, growing up in a major, urban market, there were three television networks, three local stations, and one public broadcasting channel on VHF to choose from. (UHF was, in large part, dedicated to Spanish-language programming, and aimed at what was then considered a negligible demographic. See "The Melting Pot..." above.)

Today, the rare person who is at home watching television on weekdays has hundreds of cable channels to choose from. Add to that video games and the internet, and it's astounding how many choices people have when it comes to choosing sedentary entertainment.

If television - any sort of television, not just serial drama - is going to attract viewers, there has to be a damned good reason to watch. Word has it that CBS is disappointed with the ratings for Let's Make A Deal, the game show that replaced Guiding Light late last year. Is it really all that surprising that people who are home during the day consistently find something other than this low-budget, out-of-date costume party game show to devote their time to?

A Good Story

Everyone loves a good story. Storytelling is about a lot more than just throwing random characters together, and assigning them arbitrary tasks to perform. Good storytelling relies on characters who have depth and history, relationships to one another and the world they inhabit. Good storytelling revolves around conflict that is interesting on the surface, and strikes a chord on a deeper level. With so many entertainment choices available to the television viewer, this fundamental tenet cannot be ignored: human beings love a good story. Our stories are who we are.

Next: Part II - The Daily Serial: Signs of Life

© 2010 Lana M. Nieves

Limited Licensing: I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the Creative Commons Attribution license, granting distribution of my copyrighted work without making changes, with mandatory attribution to Lana M. Nieves and for non-commercial purposes only. - Lana M. Nieves

The Women

The folks at We Love Soaps have compiled their list of the 50 greatest soap actresses of all time. I agree with a lot of their choices. I disagree with others. I marvel at some of the choices. It's inevitable that such a subjective list would generate all sorts of debate, and I applaud the WLS people for asking readers to submit their own favorites.

One thing to take into consideration: I've watched soaps since roughly 1970/71. I'm sure many great actors and actresses who appeared prior to this by all rights belong on a "best of" list, but I can only judge based on my own experience as a first-hand viewer. I don't believe one can fairly assess an actor's talent based on a few Youtube clips or reading about someone's greatness, so this is based on my own viewership

Here, then, in no particular order, is my annotated list of the top ten best soap actresses, followed by the ten women who complete my top 20.

Beverlee McKinsey - Daytime has seem many grand dames, but Iris Carrington was an original. By turns a wicked schemer, a spoiled child, an over-indulgent mother, a love-starved femme fatale, to say that McKinsey took both Another World and Texas by storm is not over-stating it. McKinsey was brilliant, period. And, in case anyone who thought her brilliance was a fluke, she turned around and joined the cast of Guiding Light, making Alexandra Spaulding one of the most memorable characters, ever.

Laurie Heineman - She may well be the finest Emmy winning actress that you've never heard of. Laurie Heineman was only on Another World for a short time,(1975-77) but what a time it was! Originating the role of Sharlene Frame (and you thought Anna Holbrook was the first Sharlene - nope), Heineman created a truly original daytime heroine. A woman with a secret past that threatened to catch up with her, Heineman's Sharlene was a study in quiet self-loathing, fear, anger, and loneliness. Heineman was a powerhouse, and her short stint on AW garnered her an Emmy, seeing her beat out co-stars Beverlee Mckinsey and Victoria Windham, and deservedly so.

(Beverlee McKinsey, followed by Laurie Heimenan)

Denise Alexander and Susan Seaforth-Hayes - Before the devil paid a visit to Salem, before Hope and Bo were even glimmers in their parents' eyes, before it became such a muddled mess...long before all of that, DOOL was all about Susan (Alexander) and Julie (Seaforth-Hayes), former-best-friends-turned-rivals, their battles over the attentions of Scott Banning, and their tug-of-war over Julie's son, little David Banning. This was riveting, character-driven drama...and it was all about these two fine actresses who brought so much depth to their roles that they turned what could easily have been a simple cat fight into an over-arching theme that endured for years, involved numerous characters, and challenged viewers to choose a side. Interestingly enough, neither Alexander or Seaforth-Hayes has ever been as good since this golden time. It speaks volumes of the chemistry these two actresses shared with one another that, together, they lit up the screen.

Beverly Penberthy - As Another World's long-suffering Pat Randolph, Penberthy was one of several great actresses from the golden age of Another World. Refined, vulnerable, almost timid, Pat Randolph could also be strong and assertive when need be. As a loyal wife forced to watch her husband spin into a vortex of alcoholism, Penberthy delivered a truly great performance, and it remains among the best examples of television attempting to portray how alcoholism effects every member of a family.

Nancy Addison

On Ryan's Hope, Addison had the unenviable job of making The Other Woman someone viewers loved, and whose happiness we rooted for. She brought a grace and gentility to Jillian that was in perfect contrast to Delia's (played by the wonderful Ilene Kristen, who doesn't quite make the cut for this list) selfish, crude neuroses. I find it impossible to put into words how and why Addison was so damned good, except to say that her work seemed effortless. To watch her was to forget there was an actor on the screen.

Elizabeth Hubbard - Best known as ATWT's Lucinda, to me, Hubbard will always be Dr. Althea Davis, of the defunct soap, The Doctors. Hubbard brought a strength and cynicism to her character - a well-respected surgeon and a single mother - that had mostly been reserved for villainesses. Also? Althea had a multi-layered sensuality - most evident in scenes with her lover, Nick Bellini - that was truly revolutionary for daytime: Hubbard made Althea a beautiful female character whose brains and sarcastic sense of humor were even more arresting than her good looks.

Maureen Garrett

Anyone who's read this blog for any length of time knows I have a huge soft spot for Garrett. She's amazing. On and off for over 20 years, Garrett made up half of one of soapdom's most complex and enduring couples - Holly and Roger (played by Michael Zaslow.) Garrett is one of those actors whose talent runs the gamut - she can do vulnerable, strong, vindictive, neurotic, maternal, murderous, bitchy, frigid, seductive. When need be, she's also an actor who can be relied on to rise above substandard material. She brings out the best in other actors. Daytime needs her back.

Judith Light - There's almost no point explaining why Light makes my top ten. She took acting on daytime up a notch with a performance as OLTL's Karen Wolek that looked, sounded and felt like nothing else we'd seen before. While Light's dramatic courtroom confession has taken on legendary status, her other work on OLTL is often taken for granted. The baby-switch story feels tired and hackneyed in 2010. When OLTL did it with Light in 1979, it was new and different. And it was riveting. Light, of course, went on to a successful career in night time television, but she's rarely had material to work with that was worthy of her skill, with the exception of her role in the motion picture Save Me, which she produced, and her husband wrote.

Ellen Parker - Parker was so damned good as Maureen Bauer on Guiding Light, and made such an impression on the audience, that many have pointed to the killing off of the character as the beginning of the end for GL. Mo Bauer wasn't a grand dame. She wasn't a titan of business. She wasn't a jewel thief, a surgeon, or anyone's mistress. She didn't have a secret past. Simply put, Mo Bauer was a decent person: a mother, a wife, a good friend, a hard worker. The genius of Parker was that she made the seemingly mundane compelling. Everything Parker's Maureen did was steeped in quiet dignity. She was amazing in her big scenes, but her small, every day scenes were like haiku.

Robin Strasser - Another World/One Life To Live

Helen Gallagher - Ryan's Hope

Maeve Kinkead - Another World/Guiding Light

Kathleen Noone - All My Children

Kay Collins - All My Children

Julia Barr - All My Children

Robin Mattson - General Hospital/Santa Barbara/All My Children

Maeve McGuire - Edge of Night

Michelle Forbes - Guiding Light

Beth Maitland - Young and the Restless

Honorable Mention - The Young Ones

Rachel Miner - Guiding Light

Hayden Panettiere - Guiding Light

Natasha Ryan - Days of Our Lives