MovieChat Forums > The Guiding Light (1952) Discussion > Imagine if they tried to put a new soap ...

Imagine if they tried to put a new soap on in today's TV landscape?

posted 15 years ago by artfuld2005
2 replies | jump to latest

My personal guess is it would have to be some sort of rotating set of actors coming in and out, meaning say have a few stories running that have a beginning and a wrap up say within 13 weeks tops. No time to get involved in long, rich family history, and back stories.

Or something like throw up a cast of like 30 people for a show, and let America decide each week or 2 who to have written out, like ewwww let's vote out Alan Spaulding he's too mean. Or have Billy Lewis banished to "The Biggest Loser" to trim that gut cause he is too fat. etc. etc.

Any more thoughts on how to make a new soap in 2009 or the future???

"You feed me minced fish! Have you ever caught a minced fish?"

[–] syrus99 15 years ago

Perhaps like you mentioned a Reality Soap. Put the GL characters in a Real World type of house.

[–] Thescottster4 15 years ago

I think soaps will definatly play out here in the next few years- as the budgets decrease, I'm afraid so will the quality and viewership. :( It's been a progressing trend for the past 15 years, I think this hole is just going to grow deeper at this point.

However...the way it seems, talk shows are taking over daytime. I believe that overtime, when all daytime soaps are cancelled...there will be such little variety in daytime television, that eventually people are going to get bored with talk shows and gameshows and eventually even those genres may run out of juice.

I have hope that in the oncomming years- when and if this DOES happen, that some kind of continuing drama may be created in order to throw some more variety into the timeslot. I think soaps will always exist in some way, shape, or form, and thus there is hope that even after the inevitable cancellation of Y&R...that eventually soaps may return- be that years from now or not.