The Age Factor
through the test of times during rosier days for soaps can withstand that monotony a lot longer than May/December pairings. If for no other reason than eventually, a character gets old enough where it is no longer a big issue, writers have to move on from the original focus on age. Those who don't do that, just end up beating said couple into the ground.
And that short length of shelf time is why I feel May/December romance is actually one of the weakest foundations for a star-crossed lovers' story. Two families can be in a bitter war for a long time, a racist father can remain estranged from his black daughter-in-law, but being upset because your seventeen-year-old wants to have sex with a guy in college can only be drawn out for so long. If you want to do create a romance between characters with a significant age gap, I think making the conflict of the relationship about something other then that is the way to go. For example, there was definitely and age difference between Guiding Light's Mindy and Roger, but the story of their affair had nothing to do with the appropriateness of Mindy's age, so much as what Roger sleeping with Billy's daughter would result in when it became public. Even if age was the initial focus, there has to be something more to the story than a teenage girl's crush and a man's very mature take on love and sex, because even if it clicks in the beginning, you're simply gonna need more. As the World Turn's romance between Jennifer and Bryant initially was all about her age and his obvious experience, but more was added to the story when Craig came back and wooed her mother and Bryant nearly killed Jennifer and young Parker in a crash. Had the story been simply about their age, it would have died quickly, I promise you. Instead both characters had defined personalities and dimensions outside of their romance and the romance and obstacles were allowed to evolve and change. I often wonder if these types of romances just developed like any other romantic storyline instead of all the focus on age, if things wouldn't work out better for some of these couples.
A perfect example of what is often done wrong with today's couples with startling age differences, however, would be ATWT's Chris and Alison. Now, for my money, as
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