What's Old is New Again?
For the past two years or so, soaps have started bringing back old characters to jump start ailing soaps. In several columns I've touched on the recent slew of returning characters and their success rate. The analysis for most of the characters is about the same, failure. The situation isn't always the same, often producers can not get the same or most famous portrayer to return, but sometimes they can. Sometimes the character's personality remains the same; sometimes they are completely different. But what is the same in nearly every instance, it really does nothing to help the soap. I have my theories on why it doesn't work. The main problems including unnecessary returns, poor writing, hard to believe recasts, poor explanations for a drastic personality changes, and so on. But when it comes right down to it, I feel a bigger problem is the people returning are the wrong people.
Let's get real, whether people realize it or not, the reason fans want to see former characters return is because they represent what they feel is missing from soaps. Whether it is a clever villain, a mother figure, a pillar of strength, or enough characters to reestablish a family, when we start reminiscing for the characters of old to return, it is because there is no character written or performed as well on the canvas today. Of course I understand that characters can't always stay. In real life, families move away as do best friends and sometimes, even in the world of the Internet, they lose touch. But soaps fans were fed a fifty-year diet of family, friends, love, and unity. When newer executives let that slide they lost a natural dimension to storytelling and the loyalty from the fans who were used to being emotionally touched by stories that impacted a majority of the canvas. So nine times out of ten when it is asked of fans what can be done to save their soap, as part of the solution, someone mentions a character that has been written off the show should come back. Fans of Guiding Light cry for a return of Nadine, Fletcher, or Vanessa. Fans of General Hospital say they want Laura, Robert, and Anna to return. Fans of Days want Stefano to return. And fans of As the World Turns will never be quieted on their desire to have Scott DeFreitas return as Andy. Yet fans never get their wish. GL went to the point of having Fletcher be unreachable after Ben's death instead of asking Jay Hammer back. ATWT most of the time avoids mentioning Andy, even when his niece, sister, and stepfather were struck with deadly illnesses. All My Children officially killed off Robert and wasted Anna while GH decided Genie Francis was expendable.
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