Most Overused Soap Opera Plot Lines

First let me say that I am an avid soap opera watcher. They are my guilty pleasure although most people I know are of the opinion that the soap opera is bottom of the barrel television viewing. I began watching soap operas in the late 1970's with my mother and have been enjoying them ever since. Despite all the criticism, soap operas do bring public awareness to many health and socially relevant issues such as breast cancer, alcoholism and eating disorders. I will defend the soap opera genre to anyone who will listen. That being said, there are several soap opera plot lines that have been used and overused through the years that really need a rest.

1. Back From The Dead. Surely by now, soap opera scribes can come up with a more creative way to explain a character's absence than killing them off and miraculously bringing them back to life months or even years later. Taylor on Bold and the Beautiful has come back to life more times than I can count and Stefano on Days of Our Lives has more lives than a cat. Can't the characters just get plain old fed up with all the shenanigans in the fictional town they live in and ride off into the sunset for awhile? This way when the actor's maternity leave is over or when they don't get a job on prime time television, they can just pop back into town.

2. Switching Paternity Results. Every hospital in every town on every soap opera has the most lax security on the face of the earth. It's no issue in soap opera land if the one you love is the father of another woman's baby. Simply sneak into the lab, switch the results and no one is the wiser. There isn't even a need for black clothing or a disguise. You can always bribe the lab technician or just wait for the results to be left in plain view on a desk.

3. Your Bitter Rival is Your Mother, Daughter, Sister, Son Etc. Months and even years are spent building up a rivalry between two characters on a soap opera that by now is a predictable precursor to the shocking discovery that the two are related. Only now, it's not so much of a shocking discovery. Olivia is Ava's proud mom on Guiding Light, Jessica and Natalie are sisters on One Life to Live and Katherine and Jill on The Young and the Restless turned out to be mother and daughter after years of being at each other's throats.

4. Weddings Stopped At the Eleventh Hour. Soap opera weddings get stopped by people on horseback, people being helicoptered to the chapel and people waving a piece of crucial evidence that implicates the bride or the groom in some evil deed which therefore makes the nuptials impossible to go through with. When the preacher says, "Does anyone here know of any reasons that these two should not be wed?", that is the cue for the doors to be blown open by someone putting a stop to the wedding. More times than not, they are also back from the dead!

5. Amnesia. Every soap opera recycles the amnesia plot line for one of their characters at least once a year. This usually results from the classic bump on the head, but can also be provoked by any one of the mystery illnesses that makes it's way through soap opera land at an alarming rate each year. If you watch soap operas long enough, you can almost become convinced that amnesia eventually befalls everyone and is a more common ailment than a toothache.

Soap operas are entertaining. They have some of the most dedicated fans and followers and have been a staple of daytime television for more than thirty years.
I will continue to make my frequent visits to Oakdale, Genoa City and occasionally Springfield no matter what the current plot lines are. I am just hoping for a story now and then where I can't write the ending myself!