As
@James from London has suggested, and I agree about "Bloodline", the trend nowadays seems to be that every soap has to disguise as something else, something with pretensions of being above average in every sense.
So here are my choices of best soaps by decades:
90´s: "Melrose Place" (though I hate those 3 last seasons with Big Lips!), and also soapy with a pedigree were the competitors "L.A. Law" and "Knots Landing" in its latter seasons. I´d also add "Lois & Clark" because Jacobs was involved in its first season, and because they had a tendency to use cliffhangers and big romance very often.
Wasn´t this the second hottest couple in TV history?
00´s: "Desperate Housewives" probably leading the decade, not only because of its overall soapiness tinted in black but also for its dependence on continuity and its cast of main stars and guests from the 80's & 90´s, from Nicollette Sheridan to Larry Hagman to Doug Savant, as well as launching a whole new bunch of future soap stars, most of them showcased in TNT Dallas: from Brenda Strong to Josh Henderson & Jesse Metcalfe.
Jesse, Gale & Josh: "Ab" Fab
Also from this decade, I´d like to point out a few more: "Providence" (set in a small city but a soap with occasional mansions in it too, and guest stars like VP or Tippi Hedren), US "Queer as Folk" and its female counterpart "The L Word" (both of which, despite the gay sex controversy, were very traditional in their narrative), the bastardized "Glee", the very uneven "Brothers & Sisters", and last but not least, "Smallville", the one that captured the secret love "angst" spread through every soap that deserves that name. Young pretty Clark was full of secrets, and the "Smallville" cliffhangers were even better than the "DH" ones.
Little could go wrong with such a Super-Cast!
10´s: "Revenge" probably would be the jewel in the crown, because of its boldness to embrace the primetime soap when nobody was doing it, to create a CGI world of its own with that
fake Hamptons´ universe, and to put together a flawless original cast that made believable its very unbelievable premise...and for 4 years no less, despite the lameness of certain low points. Of course, casting Madeleine Stowe as the local bitch was as much a triumph as choosing such a talented young lady as Emily VanCamp as her nemesis (or was it the other way around?).
Victydia: the love couple that never was
Aside from "Revenge" (which also had a big quota of beautiful people to dream about, by the way...), and the ultra soapy "Scandal", the 10´s have given us so far hit-and-miss shows like "Ringer", "Blood & Oil", "Lone Star", "MP 2.0" (or whatever they named it), "Sexy Dirty Money" and, well, also "Empire" and TNT "Dallas". All of them had potential in one way or another but ended up ruining it.
Who else wants a well-executed sequel to this?
Only the first season of "Empire" can stand on its own from beginning to end, since now its creators seem only concerned about stunt casting and promoting hip-hop music. Sure they can cook up good cliffhangers, but not much more. They don´t still know how lucky they are to have Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard.
TNT "Dallas" might have gone the route of those early canceled shows mentioned above. IMO we didn´t know what we had until we lost it, and we lost it in the worst possible way, with a pathetic Season 3 that only had 3 or 4 fine episodes and the great as usual acting by Patrick Duffy, Linda Gray, & Josh Henderson. It was "Dallas" in WS, digital image, shot in the same exteriors of Southfork and Dallas, and with no recasts. If something doesn´t work, try to fix it instead of making it worse and worse. Shoot (so to say) the showrunner and find a better one. And please don´t tease us with new storylines if there are no chances to come back.
All that wasted (screen) time...
...we could have watched real Ewing stuff!
I won´t talk about CW´s "Dienasty" because I only watched the Pilot (give me back that hour of my life!), and have nothing good to say about it. And, like any good Southern Mama would say, "if you don´t have anything good to say, don´t say anything at all!".
Yes, they looked good. And they were good, but not enough for "them"...
And now I go back to where I started: the soaps that pretend to be quality dramas and not soaps. I could make a long list of them but the most obvious choices are: the excellent "Big Love" (a Mormon version of "Knots Landing"), the now controversial "House of Cards" (an update of the consummate corrupt that was J.R. Ewing in Kevin Spacey´s role), the already mentioned "Bloodline" (a new "Flamingo Road", maybe?), and I´d even dare to mention the soapiness implicit in such (apparently) non-soapy products as "Game of Thrones", "Mad Men", "Billions", or "The Americans" (did anybody else think of how well the protagonists would have fit in KL´s cul-de-sac instead of the Williamses?).
I haven´t had the chance to watch other shows like "Sisters", "Savannah" or others from the 90's. But I did discover recently the second and very last season of "Secrets & Lies", which is a combo of "Dynasty" and TNT "Dallas" (with, ahem, Jordana Brewster herself thrown - literally - at us in the first scene!). Give it a try if you want to have fun with the most messed up family of the decade - it´s only 10 episodes!
