Crossover Crisis
immediate family to react to Jake and Vicky's death. Unfortunately for ATWT, they couldn't incorporate Vicky's other children (and never did).
I often tend to blame the Sheila crossover success for the string of crossovers we've gotten since. It did raise B&B's ratings while she was there, she did add to the canvas. She didn't have the problem of really being tethered to anyone in a positive way back in Genoa City so she was free to come to L.A. and cause problems and nothing that happened on Y&R would effect her or vice versa. She, however, has always been the exception to the rule and it was still, basically, a ratings stunt. Granted ratings stunts done on Bell soaps until B&B's recently, were always classier and filled with much more quality than on other soaps, but that didn't make it any less of an unnecessary stunt.
And knowing how difficult it is to pull off one has to wonder, why bother doing this in the first place? I think if a soap can do it in a way that will benefit the canvas, there shouldn't be any rule against it. But the question isn't really why not, so much as why? I mean, how many times does a soap really require that it take a character from another soap to make a story work? Even at times when they have been qualified successes, there was no pressing necessity for the characters. I really don't see the possible payoffs of crossovers besides creative curiosity. In practice, it is nothing more than a huge pain to maintain (therefore most don't maintain it) and the deck is automatically stacked against it. No character from another soap is ever going to make someone become a loyal follower of another one; it will only make you watch a little while. It is what is going on with the rest of the soap that counts. That is what will draw a viewer in.
And no character from another soap needs to fill a void on another one. Soaps are supposed to be separate entities, different towns, canvases, environments, and identities. When you blur those lines you already have viewers on the defensive. Plus a character created for a different environment can never, I repeat never, really fit in another universe. Sure, some survive, some can create a non-offensive rhythm with other characters, but that isn't their home
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