Explaining My Love-Hate Relationship with Soap Operas

Ah, soap operas. In the immortal words of an iconic comic strip character, "Good grief."

I'm just going to be blunt. I hate soap operas. To me, they're all the same. The storylines are often way too ludicrous and over the top, as is the acting. Stereotypically (especially decades ago), there were always the same twists: someone always had an evil twin, or some relative that we had never seen before pops up and causes all sorts of chaos, or my favorite--someone popping up after being killed off!

"It can't be! Didn't you get your head lopped off on a guillotine?!"

Soap operas have been around for decades, even back before television was a thing. I was only five when I learned about soap operas, and of course, it was the Big Three networks airing them: CBS, NBC, and ABC. Also back then, it was a lot of them. CBS had The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, As the World Turns, and Guiding Light. NBC (at that time) had Santa Barbara, Another World, and Days of Our Lives. ABC had All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital, and Loving. That's eleven soaps! Others have come like Passions and Port Charles, but as the time progressed, a lot of these soaps have become obsolete. Right now, CBS has just Y&R and B&B, ABC only has General Hospital, and with Days of Our Lives now exclusively on Peacock, NBC now has no actual soaps on their network.

So yeah, it's decades upon decades of this. Now, as time passed, soaps have been homaged and satirized, with the biggest example being the classic sitcom, Soap. It's also been said that professional wrestling's basically a soap opera; I've even heard it referred to as a "male soap opera." As a wrestling fan for over 25 years, I can attest to that. The storylines are over the top, and we have seen our share of love triangles as well. In addition, just like in soaps, we've seen characters in wrestling go from good to evil and back again, similar to a revolving door.

Which brings me to this following complication. I hate soaps with a passion, but holy moley, they have the best villainesses.

I've read up on some stuff over the years, and yeah, there have been a plethora of different wicked women appearing on so many different soap operas over the years. I've even peeped in on some select soaps just to catch them. Unlike with Pokémon, I couldn't "catch 'em all," but I saw and learned about enough of them, and oh man! I want to talk about some of them that I've learned about and seen. Now bear with me. I am not exactly an expert when it comes to soaps, so if I make any mistakes, please feel free to correct me.

I remain awestruck, as a fan of Eva Longoria, that before she was "Desperate," she was deranged in the world of soaps. Between 2001 and 2003, Eva Longoria recurred on Y&R as Isabella Braña, who began an illicit affair with Paul Williams. That affair actually resulted in a pregnancy, and regarding Paul, he was planning to raise their son with Isabella...until wife Christine found out that Isabella was sent by Michael Baldwin break up that marriage. She tells Paul, they stay together, and Isabella, well, she took it well. All she did was try to frame Christine for her own murder and then attempt to off Christine while she was bathing. That's all.

I think I saw a clip of psycho Isabella in action; it wasn't much, but it was delicious. Eva Longoria was amazing as hell in this, and it's a shame that she hasn't played many villainous roles since then. At least she gave us this amazing gem.

About 20 years ago, I was channel surfing and I stumbled on to One Life to Live, and saw this character, who I learned was Victoria Lord. Here's the thing. Viki, as she was called for short, was actually going by Niki, and I learned much later that the character of Victoria Lord (played by the legendary Erika Slezak) had multiple personalities. Niki--Nicole Smith--was one of them. One thing I do remember was that Niki, well, she was basically in villainess mode, but I don't remember much--I think she was trying to eliminate somebody. I would learn that Viki had a long list of alters, I never saw any of them other than Niki, and I'm wondering if Niki was the lone heel persona out of all of Viki's other alters. From what little I do recall seeing, Niki definitely was quite villainous, but I'm not quite sure.

I mentioned the amount of turns in both soaps and wrestling. Many characters go through a lot of them, and at times, it can be the most heroic of characters shifting towards the dark side. Marlena Evans is no stranger for the Face/Heel Revolving Door, and I still remember peeping in 21 years ago and seeing Marlena, one of the biggest white meat babyfaces in soap opera history, wreaking havoc as a serial killer! It was a beautiful sight to see; a deranged, sadistic, and evil Marlena coldly killing her way through Salem, and I remember it was during this period that I learned about a previous storyline that had Marlena actually possessed by the Devil! That angle took place during 1990s (I believe), and the Salem Stalker thing occurred in 2003, though the latter turned out to be an alternate reality or a long dream sequence. Crazy stuff.

So right after watching Chucky's first season finale in 2021, I learned a surprising development: Marlena turned heel once again and has the Devil back in her. Yeah, so they resurrected that nugget for the Halloween season that year, and I later learned that Marlena actually faced Satan when he was inside of Doug Williams. Not wanting Doug to be further tormented, Marlena decided to take one for the team, and it was followed by several instances of Marlena undergoing her steady heel turn before flashbacks of the "MarDevil" in action result in possessed Marlena being in full control. According to what I read, this angle only lasted a few months, but overall, it was wild. Deidre Hall's played Marlena for such a long time, but I really think she enjoyed playing evil for as much as she did, especially during her most recent brief run as the "MarDevil" in 2021.

Of course, I can't mention soap opera villainesses, without mentioning...

Sheila Carter. Holy moley! If that name doesn't strike fear in you, something's up with you big time. Let's get one thing straight: I know as much about soaps as the city of Atlanta does about keeping NHL franchises (and they're going to try again, watch what I tell you), but even I know that Sheila Carter is the undisputed GOAT of soap opera villainesses. Her villainous rap sheet is longer than three CFL football fields. You name it, she's done it. Sheila's evil is so big that it transcends two soaps; she originated on Y&R but she's recently been on B&B. And yes, folks, Sheila's alive. If you really think she's gone for good, then I don't know what to tell ya. Everyone knows cockroaches don't die, especially one that venomous.

So yeah, while I am not a fan of soaps, I do love that the genre has the best villainesses. As you see, my main photo has the All My Children logo. That's my inspiration for this story. I read an online report stating that AMC could be back in the form of telefilms, a TV movie franchise. And who would give this to us, you ask? None other than Lifetime. It does make sense. Their thrillers are a tad soap opera-ish, and I've seen a lot of soap actors appear in these films. I would definitely be down for that big time, and I hope this gets done; I think Lifetime will knock this out of the park if they do this.