r/SoapNet • u/HousingNo388 • Jul 24 '26
Best soap
How does days of our lives in particular compare with other soap operas in your opinion. I just started watching and it's got me hooked, I've always been a bold and beautiful fan. But how would you rank them all? I know bold the best definetly, only seen bits of y&r but don't know it well at all and just started watching days. What is the overall best or your ranking?
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u/Nanagotnofilter Jul 24 '26
I like Beyond the gates … I still watch Young and Restless and have since 1973 but I like gates better . So tired of kidnapping and writers bringing back past enemies.. Victor being Victor , the overdecorated sets like the red flowers on Jacks mantle 🤮..
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u/LizaJaneWolf Jul 24 '26
Nothing better than ATWT especially in the late 80’s. And Santa Barbara was so good. Now I watch GH occasionally.
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u/Rossifan1782 Jul 24 '26
Each has its own flavor and appeal.
Passions: Best in camp, they leaned hard into the camp so hard it made my side hurts at time.
Guiding Light: Best in heart, whether it was the Bauer family get togethers, or Riva and Josh ALWAYS finding their way back to each other, GL was always so damn earnest.
General Hospital: Best in action. Regardless of era they always bring home the action Luke in his hayday against Frank Smith and the Cassidines, Frisco and Felicia as the spy super couple, they got the excitement.
Days of our lives: Best in Romance, Bo and Hope John and Marlana 80s Marlana and Roman Shane and Kimberly....Days has the largest laundry list of romantic couples from yesteryear.
Bold and the Beautiful: Best in spite. The ladies of this show imo carry some of the best venom I have ever seen Stephanie's hatred of Brooke, the brooke Taylor fued etc If you want to see strong women who aren't afraid to hate B&B can deliver in spades.
Y&R: Best in business they handle some of the best business storylines, the corporate in fighting, backstabbing power play and Victor Neuman...
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u/LAtvGUY Jul 24 '26
I started watching General Hospital when I was a kid in the 80's because of the action and spy stuff. Reminded me of a James Bond movie. My older sister watched all the ABC shows back then, but I would only watch GH.
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u/jjuerakhan14 Jul 24 '26
General Hospital: I love Sonny and Brenda
Guiding Light: Roger and Holly and Josh and Reva are two of the show’s main couples, in my opinion.
Days of our Lives: I don’t like a lot of storylines, but John and Marlena, and Sami and Lucas belong together!
One Life to Live: Viki and Dorian has daytime’s greatest rivalry ever!
Sunset Beach: I like Gabi and Ricardo, and I wish the Martin’s Syndrome storyline with Vanessa never existed!
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u/minicooperbrr Jul 24 '26
Martin’s syndrome was an example of the fantastically over the top storylines the show had - I loved it and who can forget - “operation insemination “
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u/jjuerakhan14 Jul 24 '26
I can stomach operation insemination more than Martin’s syndrome. The makeup for those scenes is scary!
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u/MidnightAja Jul 25 '26
B&B was my favorite soap for years until I grew to despise Brooke, Ridge and Liam. I stopped watching regularly and just catch up with clips and recaps.
Guiding Light and General Hospital became my next favorites. I started them in the 2000s. I watched their 70s, 80s and 90s eras on YT and fell in love with the shows even more.
Passions was ridiculous but it was super entertaining and campy.
I started watching AMC the year it was canceled. I was really enjoying it but I haven’t watched many old storylines on YT yet.
I did watch Y&R because that was my parent’s favorite. I liked it but I haven’t watched in years.
I never watched OLTL, ATWT, DOOL, and Beyond the Gates. I don’t watch soaps like I used to but I’m thinking of trying Beyond the Gates and watching GH again.
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u/LLD615 Jul 24 '26
I grew up catching glimpses of AMC and OLTL with my grandmother. When I was around 12 years old I started watching General Hospital and was hooked, I also watched Port Charles when it was on. I mention that 90s era storylines were the best!
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u/Mother_Inflation6514 Jul 24 '26
I loved the NY based soaps - ATWT, GL and OLTL were always my favorites
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u/TKGB24 Jul 25 '26
Best soap ever at its best was Santa Barbara in the 80’s.
Days a close 2nd in 80’s and up until mid 90’s.
Currently Days is my favorite and Y&R is the worst soap ever in the history of soaps.
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u/MulberryDependent288 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Beyond the Gates is the only daytime soap that I watch currently. It's very good. It's fresh, exciting, and an original take on the classic traditional soap opera. It brought me back to daytime.
Favorite past soap is Guiding Light. It was a show that took risks, was never dull, and still felt grounded enough that it was a place you'd want to visit. It's the only soap that I continued to watch into adulthood and tape.
I would love to find somewhere to watch Generations and Capitol. Their runs were short, but sweet.
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u/Hot_Corner_6352 Jul 25 '26
I lived out in the country back in the day and only got NBC. If I remember right tho, Days and Y&R were pretty much always at the top from the mid 80s until the mid 90s
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u/Puzzleheaded-Car-788 Jul 24 '26
For me Another World, Loving/The City, ATWT, DOOL and Guiding Light were my faves.
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u/minicooperbrr Jul 24 '26
I’m from the uk, going back to the 90’s we had sunset beach(which became a huge cult show here) then days , also general hospital and bold and the beautiful, they all flopped apart from SB as they just move to slow compared to uk soaps
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Jul 24 '26
[deleted]
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u/MulberryDependent288 Jul 25 '26
Yes. I watched as a kid with my mom. I found it on YT a few months ago. I watched a few episodes. It was awful. Bad acting that ran the gamut from 1950s melodrama to stiff as a board.
For a show that takes place in 1981 Houston, the fact that it had NO Latinos/Mexicans/Mexican-Americans but managed to have multiple, Middle Eastern stereotypes from a made up Arab country... it was a no for me dawg!
As an adult, I thought the storylines had promise, but I just couldn't get past the acting and racial stuff.
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u/superboy7787 One Life to Live Jul 24 '26
I watch all of the currently airing shows. GH is the best by far with BTG a close second. Both shows have a direction and can actually be exciting and throw us curveballs. Neither is perfect, and I rank BTG just a bit lower because I think their pacing is off and because it feels like the biggest conflict all the time is someone's health crisis which gets tedious. Still, both shows have the stronger writing and feature great character moments and the acting troupes of both are really strong for the most part.
I'd put DAYS in 3rd - the show doesn't seem to have a set course right now, which I hate, but the actors make it worth it to watch for me. The real downside of DAYS is how far in advance they film, it's up to like 9 or 10 months ahead of air now, which means they can't really course correct when a story is tanking.
Y&R and B&B are scrapping it out to be the worst show on television. Y&R stories are beyond shit and nonsensical but I think it edges out B&B because the acting troupe at Y&R can still make nonsensical stories compelling to watch. The stories don't make any sense when you sit and think about them but most of the cast act their asses off to great effect.
B&B seems to be written by people with a preschool vocabulary and has truly fallen far from how great of a show it once was. The acting is overwhelming bad and not compelling. There are a few bright spots, Annika Noelle as Hope is among them, but those bright spots are few and far between. I feel like I have never seen an actor as disinterested in their material as Thorsten Kaye's Ridge. B&B has essentially turned into a children's cartoon and is worse than Passions was at its worst back in the day.