The Return of "One Life to Live"

[WorkInProgress]

To state the obvious, soaps can be really inane. A character can be killed off--I don't mean the character disappears, I mean you actually see the body, the doctor checking for a pulse and shaking his head sadly--and then, years later, it turns out that the death was faked, that the character was merely lying still and then slipped away when no one was looking. A woman can also learn that she gave birth years ago and was hypnotized to lose all memory of it until the now-grown offspring shows up at the door. And, of course, characters can age as fast or as not-at-all as the producers desire. What's more, if you follow a soap over the decades, you see some truly ludicrous retroactive rewriting of the past.

Still, I have a soft spot for soaps, especially now as so many of them are dying off. Over the years, they've made paying jobs for friends of mine in the theatrical world who act, write, and direct. But even beyond that, they have an appeal. They're an escape, and sometimes they even have something serious to say.

And now it seems that, just as much as a soap character can be brought back from the dead, so can a soap. "One Life to Live" went off the air last year, but now, online, it's back. And if you remember any of the characters at all, you'll appreciate the first few seconds of this episode, where you see Viki, still played by Erika Slezak after all these years, and as she picks up the morning paper, you see right away from the headline that the ageless Dorian is back as well.

It's right here, if you're curious: http://www.hulu.com/watch/482325?from=f

 

[DontAskJusTckle]

When I was a child in the 1960s, there were basically two types of shows on TV during the week day. Game shows and soap operas. The soap operas bored me to tears with the exception of Dark Shadows, which took a radical macabre departure from the typical soap opera template. When I served in the military, working evening shifts, I would watch General Hospital with a bunch of other dudes in the day room. Back then, it seemed like the female characters were hot, but the guys were for the most part dweebs. Rick Weber. Alan Quartermain. Scotty Baldwin (before he cut his hair and grew a pair). I don't remember seeing any bizarre character resurrections on GH.

Having said that, I used to read a lot of comic books as a young man, which like soap operas, were largely serial in nature. No matter what happens to a hero, villain, or any key character, they can always find a way to bring him/her back, if they really want to. All they have to do is say, "Here's what really happened." Then they recount how the series killed off the character but then they "reveal" previously unknown "facts." The most extreme case of this principle I saw was when John Byrne brought back Jean Grey. It was so lame. I think that was the point in which I decided I was no longer interested in Marvel Comics, and stuck with DC, Comico, and First Comics.

 

[milagros317]

I never much enjoyed soap operas, but they were the main form of entertainment for one of my grandmothers. She wouldn't miss her favorites (in that era before even VCR's existed) for anything less than a medical emergency.

 

[Bugman]

When my brothers and I were growing up in the 60s, my mother would shoo us out the door or send us to a bedroom to play so she could watch her soaps in peace. As I recall All My Children was her favorite but she watched several of them.

One year in my twenties, I took a summer off and stayed home sitting on the couch, doing some piece work I picked up and smoking pot. I had roommates then, and we rented a duplex. I developed a rather strange affinity for Days of Our Lives.
Must have been the weed.

 

[WorkInProgress]

My ex-wife watched "All My Children," and I knew all the characters on there between 1984 and 1988. Much more recently, riding the subway in New York, a woman sat next to me with a script on her lap, showing that she was on her way to a taping session to play a nurse on that show. As she was getting off the train, I called to her, "Have fun in Pine Valley!"