The Death of the Supercouple?
It's probably important to let you all know where I'm coming from on this subject. I don't believe in the destiny, fate, soul mate nonsense that soaps have been spouting for at least the last twenty years. Of course soaps are escapist television often, but this is part of the escape I've never really been able to swallow. I can deal with someone coming back from the dead; I can deal with people being buried alive, long lost siblings, etc. But the constant drivel that two people are destined and that they will always be a part of each other just makes me nauseated. 98% of the time, the couples that I have loved and been loyal to, have been couples not a part of that nonsense. Perhaps the reason I feel that way is because it is a poor writing crutch to have people constantly be thrown back together on nothing more than a pitiful excuse as fate. Perhaps that is the reason many writers and producers decided to end the supercouple era that officially began with Luke and Laura. Recently, however, a lot of supercouples have gotten a new life like GL's Josh and Reva, Y&R's Nikki and Victor, AMC's Maria and Edmund, ATWT's Lily and Holden, and Days' Bo and Hope. But there is a huge difference from these couples origin to now and that is the absence of all of the destiny nonsense.
While I actually am not a stalwart fan of many of the soap supercouples, I do approve of long lasting couples on a soap that can get through many problems. One thing all of these couples have had (at least in the past) is a good working rapport with each other, which means I can easily believe that their characters will get through thick and thin together, so long as there is a foundation to it. If the characters can agree to grow up and be mature adults, there is still a lot of creative juice left for the couples without throwing things at them to see if they can handle it over and over and over again.
Of all the recent reunited couples I just mentioned there was a growing number of fans who were tired of the re-teaming. Whether they were a very small minority or half of the viewing public isn't relevant, but the fact that the number is growing is. Everyone is growing up. Whether you were in college when these couples got together or five years old, real life has set in and the "together forever" mantra has worn thin when these couples have lied, cheated, betrayed, and have been killed, maimed, married, remarried, and remarried again. Not only is it tiring for the fans, the writers are running out of ideas. So once you finally purge these pairings of that dreadful gunk they were distracted with in the past, what is left? Do all of these couples, once stripped bare, still have any allure? And can there be a new generation of supercouples? Well, yes, the couples do have some allure, but no, I don't think we can have a new generation.
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