♥ Critique
Live Or Let Die
Why Producers Should
Stop Bringing Characters
Back From The Dead:
When Dorothy's house fell and crushed the Wicked Witch of the East in THE WIZARD OF OZ, the Munchkins celebrated. Not only was their tormentor "really dead," she was also "most sincerely dead." The same cannot be said of the many famous and infamous soap characters who have died on-screen only to resurface months or even years later, alive and well. In fact, the survival rate of characters presumed dead is astonishing. Once a last resort of desperate producers, now resurrections are standard fare on most of the soaps - the notable exception being GENERAL HOSPITAL. Not only is this trend reaching epidemic proportions - Bobby Ewing's return wiped out an entire season of DALLAS and compromised the integrity of KNOTS LANDING - it is undercutting the emotional power of continuing drama.
Viewers can't really grieve for a character who isn't really dead. Audiences don't identify with the suffering and loss of a possibly-departed's loved ones. Why should they? Death loses its dramatic impact and its sting when it is treated as just another convenient plot device - and a temporary and annoying interruption in day to day living. In addition, there is only the slightest attempt to follow up a melodramatic loss of life with a period of genuine bereavement. Yes, there is a perfunctory funeral and a few days of sniffing, but long-term, deep and abiding sorrow is not portrayed.
There are obvious reasons for this. People watch soaps for good doses of both escapism and fantasy. They don't particularly want to see characters selecting coffins and writing obituaries any more than they want to watch someone cleaning out closets and sorting through mementoes. But these painful activities are part of the period of adjustment for those in mourning. It's not glamorous. It's not romantic. And if producers and writers don't want to deal with it, they should stop the casual killing which has crept so insidiously into both daytime and night-time serials.
Characters are strangled, shot, drowned, blown to pieces and stabbed. They succumb to drug overdoses and poisonings. They wither away from fatal diseases or expire in plane wrecks and car crashes. These aren't romantic or glamorous, either. In fact, they are violent and disturbing when confronted head on. But the soaps aren't confronting the inherent violence, instead they're incorporating it. And in subtle ways, condoning it, by making its effect so temporary.
When real people die, they stay dead. And while a certain amount of dramatic license is acceptable, the far-fetched and preposterous explanations offered to viewers when characters are revived merely adds insult to injury. Bodies don't mysteriously disappear from accident sites, amnesia isn't as common as the common cold, and plastic surgeons don't routinely give people complete overhauls. When those storylines came along once in a show's history, they were more acceptable. Now resurrections are a dime a dozen and, rather than being surprising, they are expected. Viewers are hip to all the shop-worn devices employed to restore life into a departed character or engineer a star's return. In fact, they are so clued-in to the technique that amazingly enough sometimes they request it...
(Please Note: Because BASEBALL MEMORIES AND MALIBU DREAMS is a pro Drake Hogestyn site, we always strive to make this site as user friendly to Drake's legion of fans as humanly possible. In order to accomplish this, we've removed large areas of text in this article that we felt didn't pertain to Drake or his character. Mimi Leahey did an extraordinary job scribing this article so we wanted to give her credit where credit is due, but in our opinion this article in its entirety regarding characters from other shows like SANTA BARBARA, ALL MY CHILDREN, ONE LIFE TO LIVE, DAYS OF OUR LIVES, AS THE WORLD TURNS, GUIDING LIGHT, RYAN'S HOPE and ANOTHER WORLD returning from the dead and her opinion on why soap operas need to stop this epidemic fast, doesn't belong on a Drake site.)
Usually it's the returning character who has amnesia. It's a convenient affliction because it precludes explanations. Where were they? Why didn't they come home? Why didn't they let their loved ones know they were alive? Simple. They didn't know who they were. Roman Brady had amnesia on DAYS OF OUR LIVES and returned as a totally different character, John Black. His scripts were laced with the suggestion that he might be Roman, after all. Some fans liked the idea, and as the suspense mounted, they all but demanded that his identity as the popular detective be revealed. Never mind that Roman had died on-screen in his brother's arms. Roman's body disappeared - a fateful clue which meant that the producers were leaving the door open for a comeback or a recasting...
Husbands and wives who have been dead as doornails since a show's inception are regenerated when their sudden presence would create an interesting love triangle or pump up slumping ratings...
It's obvious why this is done. What is not so obvious is the toll this manipulation takes on a show.
It tips the scale heavily into the realm of fantasy and adventure, and away from the domestic reality which has given soaps their substance for many years. In the process, it is threatening the very life-blood of the serial form as we know it. It often seems as if producers were creating episodes of AMAZING STORIES rather than real-life situations and romances. The solution is simple and was employed for many years. Send characters happily off into the sunset rather than consigning them to limbo - or the realm of the undead. Let's see soaps once again adopt the philosophy of Ben Franklin who said in 1789, "Nothing is certain but death and taxes."
Mimi Leahey, SOAP OPERA DIGEST, 4/7/87
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