Soap Opera Reviews

It is sad and unavoidable that I must retire from writing this column. But me try to explain why I must go, share some parting thoughts before I leave, and the future of the column.

The highs, the lows, the winners, the losers, and blindly judging the panel's choices.

A busy sweeps month, an Emmy controversy, and everything in between.

There is an increasing element of surprise about which storylines are focused on from day to day … and it's slowing killing soaps.

Do soaps really get away with the paradoxical small town feel of a soap town while lining the scenery with skyscrapers?

Soaps are no longer in balance. The days where a soap writer knows how to utilize his entire canvas are behind us. But even if we had the choice of which characters should be focused on more, what if the problem isn't who is used and how often, but how they ...

It's a difficult road to achieving character redemption should a writer attempt it. But one very popular route to take is punishing that character. Whether illness, rape, or false accusations, these villains are made to suffer, realize the error of their ways due to that suffering, and then start fresh. But ...

Soap characters rob the cradle on soaps all the time, but when is it a clever twist, a pairing with future potential, or just plain disgusting?

Having characters travel from one soap town to another may have been a harmless idea in the beginning, but it may have gotten out of control.

While the other ABC soaps have managed to stay afloat, nothing One Life to Live tries seems to be able to give it another chance at life.