Thoughts on Who Shot the Daytime Soap?

Last month TVGN aired "Who Shot the Daytime Soap?" below are my thoughts on this one hour documentary. (This is from memory so it isn't a summary of the program.)

The show highlighted the end of certain daytime dramas along with other things that happened to cause the genre to fall apart on television. They not only mentioned the cancellations of ABC's All My Children and One Life to Live, but also went into detail about the death of the three long-running P&G soaps: Another World, As the World Turns and Guiding Light.  Watching actors talk about how the shows went off the air and how they heard the news isn't exactly my idea of entertainment, unless I want to get myself upset. If the producers wanted to create that kind of emotional reaction, good job. AW died in 1999, so its inclusion surprised me, as its death while showing that P&G didn't care for its soaps anymore didn't signal the beginning of the end of NYC-based soaps. Actually I liked hearing that idea of how they stopped caring as that's how I felt as a viewer.

While I liked that Ellen Holly was mentioned, she wasn't the first African-American on a daytime soap. When Agnes Nixon was writing Guiding Light, the program had African-Americans couple named Jim and Martha Frazier: he was a doctor and she was a nurse. They were first played by Billy Dee Williams and Cicely Tyson and then by James Earl Jones and Ruby Dee. Actually the part about Generations was the most surprising thing about the special as it is a "forgotten" series. It was a significant show, and I do wish it would return somewhere in reruns. Due to the short amount of time it was on-air it wouldn't be out of the question for it to be posted on a streaming service. Also speaking of online ventures Venice while being the first to win a Daytime Emmy for a web soap opera wasn't the first soapy program created for the web. That being said most earlier shows were quickly forgotten.

There was the obligatory section on the 90s OJ Simpson situation. I think of it as a scapegoat, as really if the shows had been stronger it would have been easier to get people back to watching. Yes viewing habits can change as someone gets out of the habit. That being said when the shows are pre-empted for weeks and one is stuck watching the 4th of July almost until August, you are going to turn people off of your show. (The only soap that didn't have that problem ironically was Y&R as they planned ahead and had a stand-alone episode for the holiday. I have no idea how on earth I remember that, but I do.)

One other comment I wanted to make about the special was the comment about how soaps are the one genre that people pass down through their family. While this is something that soap fans do, it isn't just a soap fan thing. Long-running science fiction franchises like Star Trek (which is a year younger than Days of Our Lives) and Doctor Who (which began airing in the UK the same year as General Hospital) along with sports teams tend to have more male-oriented fandom than American daytime soaps, but they are also shared among different generations. I'd argue that sports teams were the first to get the four/five generation fan base as some franchises began well over a hundred years ago. While sports are different than soaps, the loyalty some people have to their teams is incredibly deep.

If I'd give my theory as to the subject of "who shot the daytime soap?" I'd say there wasn't one cause. It wasn't a "who" exactly, but a what as the American culture has evolved. While I think there will always be a place for storytelling, finding and grabbing an audience is incredibly difficult with how fragmented things have become with the myriad of programming choices available.

I'm glad that TVGN aired this special, but I think a show on this topic is incredibly difficult to discuss in such a short amount of time. Also due to the subject matter, there was a lot less chatter about the currently running shows, than the ones that have ended. The serious tone of the show was also appreciated along with how many actors were interviewed from both coasts. That being said I'd be there for a 10-hour documentary, though I think no one would ever go into such depth about the topic.