No Dark Shadows?

And all that crazy, silly stuff that Passion was and is being laughed at now was the reason NBC cancelled one of the best all time soaps Another World for— Big Sigh

A colne- possession- alien- time travel- etc //
I MISSED IT !! all of it.. I MISSED THE GOOD STUFF!
Now, that is fun great soap !!!

A1,0000 times better than than the crapola now, for sure..
Imagine– actually having fun watching a soap- AWESOME!
All we have is doom&gloom and 8 months of Morgan died !

I would pay for some outlandish sci-fi , anything but Morgan is dead..

my picks:

1. Marlena possessed by the devil DOOL

2. Casey the alien GH

3. Marlena kills half of Salem then they all are alive DOOL

4. Viki travels back in time to the Wild West OLTL

5. The Ice Princess freezes Port Charles GH

Eterna! Eterna! Eterna!
The wardrobe for the lost city under Llantano Mountain added to intrigue. Add to that Viki’s prolonged heaven dream and Clint’s trip back 100 years were totally over the top!

ONE LIFE TO LIVE had some of my favorite sci-fi storylines: Viki goes to Heaven; Clint time travels back to 1888; the underground city of Eterna; Bo and Rex time travel back to 1968; Professor Delbert Fina uses his magical remote control to show Rex and Gigi what really happened in the basement the night “Gigi” died. The least successful sci-fi story on OLTL was Bo trying to find a way to extract the mysterious solarimite to power Georgina Whitman’s prototype car.

PASSIONS was unlike anything seen on daytime since DARK SHADOWS thanks to James E. Reilly’s wild imagination. The Vincent storyline that played prominently during the show’s last few years on NBC was totally original.

And this type of plots are a part of the reason that soaps are in such bad shape these days. I rarely watched Guiding Light after Reva was cloned. Likewise, I permanently turned off Days when Marlena became “possessed.”

Cheap, gimmicky plots that insult the viewer’s intelligence.

I realize that all soaps have plots that really stray from day-to-day experiences. It is one thing to give us a plot where one woman has a relationship with every male member of a family. It is another to have the heroine kidnapped by aliens who take her to an unknown planet.

IMO, the main thing soaps have going for them are the relationships of the characters. By airing five days a way for decades, the shows have one advantage over every other type of show (or even a movie) —- The viewers can get to “know” the characters and want to keep up with their “friends.”

Clones, aliens, devils, “towering infernos”, etc. are the type of plots that only work in HUGE budget films that are gone in 2 hours of viewing. The soaps have no business pursuing these types of story lines as they don’t take advantage of the formats strengths. Moreover, the soaps don’t have the budgets to make these type of plots remotely attractive — They just look cheap because the show doesn’t have the huge budget to make it look even remotely “realistic.”

Mr. Fairman, I like your site and visit it frequently. However, we definitely have different opinions on the need to honor or celebrate these types of plots. The only way they should be remembered is as the type of story NOT to put on a soap.

I remember Casey, the alien. I’m a big sci-fi fan, but even this story seemed strange on GH at the time. But lets don’t forget vampires and Lucy as the slayer along with Caleb/Michael Easton, Livvie/Kelly Monoco, and Rafe. Another plus is that Anna Devane was in both.

All My Children was a very down-to-earth show (as much as any soap could be), but even they visited the Twilight Zone when they had Erica Kane’s previously-thought-to-be aborted fetus implanted in Greg Madden’s wife, where she gave birth to Josh Madden. What a disastrous storyline.

Casey the alien on GH was pretty out there, and I remember it well. I’d also add the Ice Princess storyline, which was out of comic books, not a daytime drama. It gave us great Luke and Laura and introduced us to Robert Scorpio, but it was way out there.

This clip was indeed entertaining! And I can’t argue with the choice of Passions, given its bizarre, unbelievable plots throughout.

As a soap purist, however, I am no fan of sci-fi plots as a rule because they defy logic and reason. Some would argue that soaps in general defy logic and reason. Great storytelling is no easy feat, which is why some soap scribes succumb to strange, suffocating scripts (including trying to make a hero out of an abusive, foul-mouthed crime boss/murderer) — yes, I managed to squeeze in an anti-Sonny rant! — and also why some writers explore science fiction. And then when the storyline has run its course, things go back to normal, almost as though the characters (and viewers) experienced a bad dream.

I am indeed a fan of some science fiction, but I don’t want the genres of soaps and science fiction intersecting. Put another way. I like chocolate and I like nuts, but I don’t like nuts in my chocolate (insert double entendre here). So no Snickers (or snickers) for me!

All that being said, I did enjoy the Eterna storyline (briefly mentioned in above clip) on OLTL!

“BAR BAR OF THE BLACK LAGOON” ON As the World Turns, when somebody sent Barbara, Lily, and Emily, (I think) to some place in Sweden where some mad scientist doctor did experiments on them to make them old. “DOCTA VESTON IS A CHEENIOUS!!!” As stupid as it was, we were glued to our tv in my house!!

Since I’m 90+ episodes behind on GH and testing the limits of my DVR, I can’t weigh in on anything current, but well said by a number of you already–no church and state and no sci-fi with my soaps! Having just binge watched 5 seasons of House of Cards, focus on great story telling and turn in strong performances and you’ll keep us watching. These shows are on thin ice as it is without another Ice Princess story line…although that’s about when I started watching. There’s so much savvy, enthralling television being done, so tap into that renaissance before you go all “Port Charles” on me and I wake up one day to find my show is now all about vampires. (Alas, I still hung in to the bitter end, but today I wouldn’t subject my DVR to that.) There’s just too much good stuff out there competing for our attention, so don’t you dare do it (going sci-fi), just stick to the formula! Sure, improve the wheel if you can, just don’t try to reinvent it.

Days of our lives was so good this week . please watch the replay and tune back in . This soap is finally taking a turn for the best .

Another World did a stupid story about a gorilla in love with Cass…it wasnt sci fi but just as dumb!

Poor James E. Reilly died not long after Passions was cancelled by Directv. He probably lost his will to live after not having a sci-fi storyline to write.

Too stupid for words! LOL!

LOL!!!! I thought the compilation was absolutely hilarious! And in the midst of real life drama, big or small, it only reinforced for me how such escapism, is, just that! Hahahha…to see these people, LOL, singing, dancing, talking to aliens in such wry, campy style is too fun. I really wish they had pursued Michael Easton’s Caleb on GH (I love a good-looking vampire!) rather than the stuff I find intolerable like Michael forgiving Sonny or almost every single person in AJ Q’s family putting him down when he was alive. Some of the emotions and reactions that are supposed to be realistic are just non-relatable to me.

I personally think there’s plenty of room for real life drama…friendships, family, romance…with a little alien (ala the gorgeous Casey) thrown in!

Kudos to SYFI Wire for taking the time to gather such “ancient history” and compile such a hilarious clip and “tribute” to the crazy soap genre, such as it is/was.

You just had to remind us of Reva’s clone, didn’t you? She also walked through a painting to a past life, and I think the other characters jumped in there too lol. Guiding Light really jumped the shark with Reva’s over-the-top stories. When they lost Cynthia Watros’ Annie they felt they had to make up for it, and it backfired. Even the replacement Annie was a bad recast and couldn’t pull off the crazy stories like Watros.

Soap Operas are fantasy fiction. end of story
When these stories are well written and acted they can be fully engaging and create the kind of drama you dont see much of these days. I like the stakes high.