Soaps have often taken on trends in the types of storytelling they do and story subjects they tackle. When eating disorders are in the news, suddenly everyone across the dial is suffering from them. When primetime had success with 90210, the amount of teenage based (and isolated) storylines tripled. During the eighties, nearly every soap got on the adventure bandwagon in some shape or form. Combined with the supercouple era, star-crossed lovers would travel to location sites on the trail of a killer, a mysterious artifact, or a kidnapped heroine. The shows that didn't figure out someway to incorporate that kind of storytelling really suffered and in fact most of them either were cancelled or bottomed out in the ratings. In the early nineties, based on the "success" of Days of Our Lives' supernatural and science fiction stories, soaps began to lap it up. Guiding Light has managed to make Reva suffer every type of supernatural phenomenon plus being cloned in the six years since she's returned. Meanwhile General Hospital decided to thaw out Stavros. A more recent trend actually started before the Sopranos, the Mafia storylines. GH started with Sonny, GL quickly followed suit with Danny, and even As the World Turns' had a dalliance with notorious thugs and mysterious backers when Craig and Dusty returned. Daytime has also recently suffered a very disturbing trend of making acquaintance rape sensationalistic television (with the preconceived notions being reinforced just in time for the real life trial). But these are all just storyline trends that go with the territory.
What soaps, however, have never done before, nor ever had to do, was to adjust their soaps for the fads of primetime viewers. Oh sure, they've stolen a couple of things here or there. The GH moment with Tony listening to Maxie's transplanted heart was taken from St. Elsewhere and like I said, it was popularity of primetime teen soaps that resulted in the teen influx. But now we are faced with soaps desperately trying to accommodate what appears viewers want to see now; real life soaps.
It's not surprising to me, with daytime dying, the clueless people in charge are constantly looking for the non-existent gimmick that will bring fans back; they were bound to try this. I understand executives frustration, I really do. For some bizarre reason, America seems obsessed with the reality programs whether it is in talk show form, game show form, or talent competition form. This is where the soap fans have gone. What soaps failed to do after the real life soap of the O.J. trial, create suspense and emotional connections, was soon done successfully in other mediums. First it was Jerry Springer, then it was Judge Judy, and now it is The Real World, Survivor, and The Bachelor. The entire idea of watching, waiting, figuring out what will happen next, becoming invested in the minute by minute action still exists in America. But the soaps that originally created that addictive need in the first place have recently failed to create it, or more importantly, maintain it. So many soap fans, some that still do watch some soaps, choose to bite their nails over who will win on Survivor, what the women will do when they find out Joe isn't a Millionaire and so on. It's almost hilarious to see how similar these shows are to soaps. They foster the same emotions and the same curiosities; will so-so's deception be rewarded, can a woman really win her Prince Charming away from twenty-four other women, and who is the person betraying the group? What's even funnier is the quality of the programs often is actually just as bad, if not worse than soaps today. Of course, since it is "real", that is the extra draw. When somebody cries because they were fighting with fellow houseguests on Big Brother, it's supposedly real. By being unrehearsed, it prevents people from seeing what is coming and keeps the shock value soaps have lost due to spoilers. So in a way, it's not the least bit surprising that soap executives who are so poorly educated on what it takes to bring soaps back to their glory days have decided if you can't beat em', join em'.
