Ensoaplopedia

Invalid

Invalid: the status of far more soap marriages than one would initially think.

This comes about largely thanks to soaps’ old friend, the retcon.

When a couple is happy, or writers are running out of ideas, a favourite spanner to be thrown in the works is the introduction, or return, of a presumed dead spouse. Sometimes this is the return of a character the audience already knows, more often it’s the introduction of someone from a character’s past who has never previously been mentioned or alluded too.

Thus all five of the marriages of Days of Our Lives’ Marlena Evans seen on screen over almost thirty years were rendered suddenly invalid in 2005 with the introduction a Dr Alex North, a first husband the existence of whom had never been even hinted at before. Similarly Marlena's one-time sister-in-law Kayla Brady had her first marriage to Steve Johnson rendered invalid when Steve's previously unmentioned and presumed dead first wife Marina Toscano arrived on the scene. That plot device was not exactly welcomed by the audience and Marina was fairly summarily rendered actually dead, however her appearance did provide one benefit: the introduction of Marina's sister Isabella.

Similarly, the introduction of a presumed dead first wife for General Hospital’s Jasper “Jax” Jacks in 1996 rendered his marriage to Brenda Barrett earlier the same year invalid. That in turn meant that Brenda, despite being one of the show’s leading ladies over close to a decade, never actually managed to get legitimately married (her only other actual “I do” being her rapidly annulled sham marriage to Jason Morgan). Where most soap heroines have a problem being married too many times, Brenda is almost unique in having escaped unwed despite numerous trips to, and abandonments at, the altar.

All of the above examples are also demonstrative of the fact that presumed dead and never before seen spouses rarely, if ever, amount to any more than a rapidly disposable speed hump/excuse for a second wedding between a previously happy couple. And the note "invalid" after the listing of a character's marriages in their character histories.

Ask Ensoaplopedia + Trivia

The newest feature over here at Ensoaplopedia is “Ask Ensoaplopedia”. Inevitably all sorts of questions pop up in the referral logs and I will endeavour to answer those that make sense, and be inspired by those that don’t, over in the side bar. Just over there --->

Of course, you can also feel free to email any questions and I’ll add them to the list.

The other new occasional feature I’m adding is soap trivia, because it’s amazing what bits and pieces I either remember, or come across in putting together other entries, and obviously I need to share.

Who's The Daddy?

WTD? or Who’s the Daddy?: a story where it is unclear who a soap child’s father is. Possibly the most staple of all the soap staples. Well, after boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.

There are really only three types of soap pregnancy:

1. The (super-)Couple pregnancy: a couple goes through all the trials and tribulations and finally gets married. Soon after they have a baby. It’s happily ever after, soap style. It’s usually how older siblings come about.

It’s how we have Days of Our Lives’ Shawn-Douglas Brady, General Hospital’s Maxie Jones and The Young and the Restless’s Fenmore Baldwin.

This is the child most likely to get kidnapped or to suffer through ongoing childhood trauma.

2. The inconvenient one-night stand pregnancy: someone, male or female, makes a big mistake, gets drugged or gives into temptation, and a child is conceived. Often, these pregnancies are solely for the purpose of throwing a spanner into the works of one or both of the characters involved and winds up in miscarriage.

But it’s also how we had All My Children’s Adam “JR” Chandler, Jnr, Santa Barbara’s Chip Capwell Castillo and GH’s Kristina Corinthos.

This is the child most likely to wind up with an adoptive parent (official or otherwise) who takes them on as their own.

3. Who’s the Daddy? The child who’s paternity is in question in the early stages of pregnancy, up until birth, or, if the writers can really drag it out, until the child is struck down with its first life threatening disease that can only be cured with bone marrow or a transfusion of a rare blood type.

Obviously, this is the child most likely to be the subject of a life-threatening childhood illness that requires the donation of blood or bone marrow. It’s also the child most likely to end up accidentally almost sleeping with a sibling.

It’s how we have roughly 80% of all soap children.

It’s also how we end up with wholly complicated family trees and a dearth of full siblings born onscreen. It’s also frequently subject to being retconned when and as convenient.

A WTD story usually takes one of three forms:

Either, for any number of reasons, contrived or otherwise, our heroine (or bitch) sleeps with two men in a short space of time. Surprise, surprise, she winds up pregnant and has no idea who the father is. She could be having an affair, or she could just be combining clichés by combining WTD? with an inconvenient one-night stand pregnancy.

Or, in rarer but hardly unheard of circumstances, she visits a sperm bank/goes in for artificial insemination where somebody has been tinkering with the merchandise, and once again, she has no idea who the father is.

Or, finally, she knows who the father is but passes the child off as someone else’s for a reason often only rational to her.

For an example of a fairly standard WTD? story, see Y&R’s Phyllis Summers. She was having an affair with the married Nick Newman, but also had a one-night stand with her ex-husband Jack Abbott. Unsurprisingly to anyone who had ever watched a soap, even though Phyllis had believed she couldn’t have any more children, she found herself pregnant and unsure of who the father was. A period of uncertainty followed while both potential fathers got their hopes up, and eventually the baby was revealed to be Nick’s.

Occasionally, if our “heroine” is GH’s Carly Benson, she can combine several of the classic WTD? elements. When, in 1997, Carly found herself pregnant with baby Michael, she didn’t know if the father was her then live-in boyfriend/step-father Dr Tony Jones, or her drunken one-night stand AJ Quartermaine (himself the subject of a WTD? story when his mother Monica was unsure if his father was Alan Quartermaine or Rick Webber). Instead of really settling that dilemma – the baby was AJ’s – Carly wound up passing the baby off as the child of AJ’s estranged brother Jason Morgan. Ultimately the truth came out one piece at a time and through a series of events best left to a whole other entry, Carly wound up raising Michael with her multiple ex-husband Michael “Sonny” Corinthos, after whom he was named. None of which worked out particularly well for young Michael, based on present evidence.

Also good at combining elements, not to mention throwing in an additional Who’s the Mummy? twist, was AMC’s Kendall Hart Slater. When, in 2005, her friend Greenlee Smythe, devastated by the ”death” of her husband Ryan Lavery, was advised she couldn’t get pregnant after suffering a miscarriage, Kendall agreed to act as a surrogate and carry a child conceived in a test tube using Greenlee’s egg and Ryan’s frozen sperm. However some tinkering with the clinic electricity supply by Kendall’s husband Zach Slater and some dubious practices by the doctor performing the procedure, Greg Madden, meant that Kendall wound up pregnant with her own child, not Greenlee’s. She kept that to herself and in the meantime a question arose as to exactly who’s sperm had been used, so for a period of time it was uncertain who either of the baby’s parents were. Ultimately Kendall came clean about the fact the baby was hers, and Ryan was revealed to be the father, and thus Spike Lavery was born.

Then there’s second child syndrome. A soap couple (super or otherwise) gets married, has a baby and all is happy. But where to go from there? Having them just have a second child without any drama or question lacks, well, drama. So the marriage gets tinkered with, or may even come to an end, new partners and mistakes happen; even when a soap couple manages to have a second child together, it’s extremely rare that there isn’t a WTD? story attached to it. So while Days’ Bo and Hope Brady had Shawn-D with no questions, their two subsequent children, Zack and Ciara, were both the subject of WTD? stories, and retcons once the writers got sick of that plot and preferred Bo and Hope to only have children with each other. And while GH’s Frisco and Felicia Jones subsequently had Georgie, she was the product of a post-divorce one night stand during Maxie’s heart transplant ordeal, and it wasn’t known whether Mac Scorpio or Frisco was her father until after she was born. In the end she was Frisco’s biological child, but Mac’s in every other way.

Finally, in a recent poll over at my Soaps By Remote blog, WTD? was the story voted as the one readers would most like to retire for a while.

Nichols, Stephen

Nichols, Stephen. Few soap actors have proven so versatile that they have played two startlingly different and substantial characters and disappeared so far into each one that the audience was capable of forgetting entirely that they had played the other.

Yet Stephen Nichols managed to play a repressed and morally ambiguous minor European Prince (of the Royal Family Evil) -€“ General Hospital's Stefan Cassadine - in such a manner that it was difficult to remember that his signature role had been the physically and emotionally wounded, highly tactile, part-time thug, part-time pool hustler with a heart of gold, Days of Our Lives'€™ Steve Johnson.

Nichols first appeared on Days in 1985, and quickly took the path of other charismatic actors before him (notably GH's Anthony Geary and Tristan Rogers) by turning a short-term and thuggish part into a long term role. Originally a hired goon for Victor Kiriakis, Steve "Patch" Johnson'€™s past was revealed over time, with every new revelation allowing Nichols to play additional layers and vulnerability. Then, in 1986, Mary Beth Evans joined the cast playing Kayla Brady and a super-couple was born. Over five years in Salem Steve developed from a one-eyed thug known only as "Patch" into the show's leading man, in later years Nichols fighting all the way to keep the edge about the character that had made him so interesting in the first place.

After a misguided stop over at Santa Barbara, Nichols arrived in Port Charles in 1996 playing Stefan Cassadine, a Cassadine sibling retconned into existence in order to bring Laura Spencer's son, Nikolas, to town. It was more than just the two eyes, short darker hair and three piece suits that distinguished Stefan from Steve. Where Steve had been loose and extremely physical, Stefan was upright and compact, closed up. It was hard to recall that they were played by the same person, despite Nichols'€™ ongoing ability to generate chemistry with a rock (not to mention rather inappropriately with Stefan'€™s sister, played by fellow chemistry generator Nancy Lee Grahn). The skill involved in the transformation was even more apparent when it was considered that he played each part alongside many of the same actors -€“ in particular Mary Beth Evans, Genie Francis, Wally Kurth and Matt Ashford - with the mid-1990s migration of actors between the two shows.

In 2006 Nichols returned to Days and Steve Johnson's jeans, and it was like Stefan Cassadine, who he'€™d played for 7 years, never existed.

Newman, Nicholas

Newman, Nicholas. The son of The Young and the Restless’s Victor and Nikki Newman, Nick was the victim of one of the more outrageous cases of SORASing ever seen. Born onscreen in 1988, Nick was sent off to boarding school in 1994 and returned weeks later as a 16 year old.

While played by Josh Morrow ever since, this SORASing continues to have implications.

Not only are Nick and his equally SORAS’d sister Victoria forced to fabricate childhood memories on a regular basis, Nick now finds himself married to the ex-wife of his one-time step-father Jack Abbott, while Jack is married to Nick’s ex-wife Sharon. When you find yourself on one side of a Who’s the Daddy? dilemma with the man who raised you for a considerable part of your short childhood, and just a few years ago to boot, it’s got to be rather uncomfortable.

Nick is father to Noah (with Sharon) and Summer (with Phyllis).

Name

Name. What’s in a name? A lot of confusion if a soap opera is involved.

When a soap baby is born, it is almost mandatory that the name the child is given is linked to the family or has some other significance. Sometimes the gymnastics involved to achieve this, and the confusion that ensues immediately upon said child being SORAS’d means it’s a relief on the rare occasions when a child is named without any explanation or special meaning whatsoever. Even when that name is Spike.

The Young and the Restless’s Victor and Nikki Newman clearly never had a third child because they had already used up the available monikers by naming their children Victoria and Nick. However they came off better than young Fenwick Baldwin, saddled with his mother Lauren’s maiden name as a first name.

If Days of Our Lives’ Steve and Kayla Johnson are successful in their bid to have or adopt a second child they’re going to have a problem given they elected to name their eldest Stephanie Kay. They are also in the unfortunate position of having most of the other family names used up by Kayla’s other Brady relatives. Kayla’s brother Roman already has a Carrie named for their mother Caroline, and an Eric named for their child molesting (and recently retconned out of existence) Uncle Eric. Brother Bo has Shawn-Douglas, named after father Shawn and Hope’s father Doug, which causes considerable confusion between grandfather and grandson now that an adult Shawn-D has unsurprisingly dropped the “D”. Niece Sami (named after her mother’s dead sister and mother’s third husband) now has an Alice Caroline and John Roman, not to mention a William named (ultimately) for grandfather Bill Horton. Regardless of these limitations, resorting to naming any new Johnson offspring after part of an article of clothing, as they did with foster son “Pocket”, is not recommended.

The Bold and the Beautiful’s Brooke Logan also lacks originality in naming her children. She named her eldest son Eric Forrester Jnr after his father, and her second son Ridge “RJ” Forrester Jnr after his father – their fathers being, of course, father and son themselves – and named her eldest daughter Bridget after both Ridge and Brooke herself, hoping the child was Ridge’s but being entirely wrong. That she managed to produce one child, Hope, without naming her after someone is somewhat miraculous.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be all about family, it can also be about friends. General Hospital’s Jason Morgan named his non-son Michael after best friend Michael “Sonny” Corinthos, and in turn Sonny and Carly named their son Morgan after Jason.

See also: Alcazar, Lila-Rae; Corinthos, Kristina; Jones, B.J.; Quartermaine, A.J.; Chandler, Adam Jnr; Black, Isabella; Black, Brady; Deveraux, Jack Jnr; Chandler, Colby; Newman, Summer; Scorpio, Robin.

Brady, Roman

Brady, Roman. Days of Our Lives’ Roman Brady could be the prototype for the work-a-day soap cop, leading man turned underused veteran, if not for the unique circumstances of the character’s casting and recasting.

While recasting a popular character is not unusual, the recasting of Roman Brady went from the sublime to the ridiculous. Roman has been played by three actors since 1981, two of whom have previously or subsequently played other characters on the show, and all three of whom appeared on the show at the same time 2005.

Originally played by Wayne Northrop, the character died in 1984. Two years later John “the Pawn” Black, played by Drake Hogestyn was revealed to be Roman, brain-washed and subjected to plastic surgery, in a reincarnation that unlike many of its successors appeared well-planned. Hogestyn continued to play Roman until 1991 when Northrop returned to the show, and it was revealed that John was not Roman at all. Again, certainly in comparison to what was to follow, this made a degree of sense and the actors worked side by side with Hogestyn playing John and Northrop playing Roman until 1994, when, again, Roman “died”.

In 1998 Roman again returned from the dead, this time played by Josh Taylor. This caused viewers more than a little consternation as Taylor had played the character of Chris Kositchek on the show for ten years up until 1987 and as that character had regularly interacted with both the other versions of Roman, not to mention dated Roman’s sister Kayla.

Nevertheless, this piece of confusing casting was topped again when Northrop returned to the show in 2005, this time playing Dr Alex North. North was supposed to be the never before mentioned first husband of Dr Marlena Evans – the love of both Roman and John’s lives – regardless of the fact that that retcon made no sense whatsoever. What it did result in was all three of Roman’s portrayers onscreen and playing different characters at the same time.

It should also be noted that in 2004 Roman was one of the many victims of the Salem Stalker, “dying” and returning from the dead for a third time.

Further, while the Brady family may now be the heart of Salem, it was Roman who provided our introduction to the family with his first appearances in 1981. In the following three years we then met his parents, Shawn and Caroline, and three siblings, Kim, Kayla and Bo.

Roman has been married three times, to Anna Fredricks, Dr Marlena Evans, and Kate Roberts, and is father to Carrie Brady (with Anna), Samantha Gene Brady and Eric Roman Brady (with Marlena), and, in a story twist that’s almost inexplicable even to those who watched it first hand, Rex and Cassie Brady (with Kate).

retcon

retcon or retroactive continuity: the practice, often employed by soap opera writers, of re-writing a character’s history in order to generate new story, or portray the character in a new light.

This often includes filling in a character’s unseen past with a marriage or child the audience didn’t know about, or seeking to colour an incident or story the audience did see in a different light.

Retcons can be a positive when well written, and can render the history-aware audience incredulous when mishandled.

General Hospital provides examples of both. When, in the mid-1990s, Laura Spencer’s history was retconned to include the birth of a son, Nikolas Cassadine, during a period when actress Genie Francis had left the show in the early 80s, it generated years of story that continues to reverberate, positively, today and facilitated the reintroduction of the Cassadine family. However, when in 2007, the writers decided to add layers to the past of (already retconned Cassadine) Samantha McCall by adding several marriages and a murder in self-defence to her past, it served only a short-term purpose and rendered the story more comic than the dramatic the writers appeared to be aiming for.

Dead

Dead. You wouldn’t have thought that “dead” would require a definition beyond the dictionary version: deprived of life: no longer alive. Or that at the very least Monty Python had the possible variations covered: passed on; no more; ceased to be; expired; gone to meet his maker; a stiff; bereft of life; rests in peace; pushing up the daisies; metabolic processes are now history; off the twig; kicked the bucket; shuffled off the mortal coil; run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

Not, however, when a daytime soap opera is involved.

When it comes to soaps there’s dead. Then there’s Dead, dead, dead, “dead”, fake dead and Salem Dead.

Some of the rules are universal:

1. If a character dies and no body is found: alive.

2. If a character dies and the body is burned beyond recognition: alive.

3. If a character is a shortish term villain who is shot, stabbed or – quite popularly – thrown off a building and shown to be dead, and is played by a charismatic actor: probably actually dead, but be on the look out for the appearance of a not as vile identical twin or look-a-like cousin in the near future.

4. If a character is an ingénue with a new baby who develops a terminal disease and dies surrounded by family, leaving behind a hunky grieving widower/single parent: probably actually dead.

5. If the actor playing the character dies and they subsequently kill off the character: dead.

6. If the actress playing the character has been carrying a lot of large handbags and glowing more than usual prior to the character’s death: not even remotely dead; the actress is on maternity leave.

7. If a character fakes their own death – perhaps by a stupid plunge off a cliff on a motorcycle – and the audience is told about it at the time: obviously not dead.

Soap viewers pretty much take those rules for granted. However, particularly since 2005, things have become more complicated.

There used to be a few more rules on the list that have now had to be removed as soaps have become rife with flouting even the previously established guidelines and several new varieties of soap death have sprung to life.

First there’s the now popular “dead” version of dead. A character dies, often in hospital surrounded by family and friends, or perhaps at the hands of a serial killer – both previously almost guaranteed to result in actual lasting death – and is given a heartfelt funeral allowing for lots of cast integration and award-baiting performances. However, usually right after the funeral, a loved one begins to see, talk to, and sometimes physically interact with the dead character. Be they ghost, conscience, or manifestation of a brain tumour, what this new type of “dead” character really is is the Have Your Cake and Eat it Too Spectral Vision. In many cases, this new state of purgatory actually results in more, rather than less, airtime for the “dead” character, which is not what one would usually expect when a character dies.

Then there’s another new kind of dead: dead. Remember that foetus that was aborted decades ago? Or the still-born baby who may just have been buried in a swamp? Alive. And likely suffering from SORAS to boot.

Finally, there’s Salem Dead. Days of Lives was certainly always the world leader in the dead = alive stakes – if you look around any Brady family dinner, or that of their arch-enemies the DiMeras, it’s not a matter of counting who has come back from the dead, but rather how many times each character has come back – but usually there was a general adherence to rules 1 and 2 above even when vats of acid were involved. In the last few years all that’s gone out the writers’ room window. The husband and father who dies in hospital after being attacked by a serial killer, and has all his organs harvested: alive. The husband and father who dies in hospital surrounded by friends and family after being hit by a car and has a large, moving funeral and burial: alive. In other words, in Salem there is no longer any such thing as actually dead.

For various examples see: Quartermaine, Dr Alan; Quartermaine, Emily; Black, John; Black, Isabella; Evans, Dr Marlena; Brady, Roman; Brady, Hope; Brady, Chelsea; Johnson, Steve; Deveraux, Jack; Abbott, John; Martin, Dixie; Madden, Josh; Scorpio, Robert; Devane, Anna; Alcazar, Luis; Alcazar, Lorenzo; Baldwin, Dominique; Lavery, Ryan; Hayes, Dr Taylor, and so many others I need to stop now or the list will be longer than the entry.

Evans, Dr Marlena

Evans, Dr Marlena: Days of Our Lives’ resident psychiatrist, Dr Marlena Evans North Craig Bradford Brady Black Black North Black may be soaps' oldest, least convincing ingénue.

Portrayed by Deidre Hall on-and-off since 1976, Marlena began life in Salem as a competent mental health professional with a penchant for hypnotism and over the decades has been reduced through multiple kidnappings, the requisite return-from-the-dead and a stint as a serial killer into a simpering, gasping, occasionally amusingly crazy grande dame with fabulous hair.

Regardless of what else she does, Marlena will always be remembered for her time as a minion of Satan. In 1995 Marlena became possessed by the Devil and ran around Salem terrorising its citizens disguised as The Desecrator. In this form Marlena was also rather fond of levitating. Eventually an exorcism was performed in part by Marlena’s husband many times over, John Black, whose love, and previous history as a priest, returned her to life.

Marlena is mother to Samantha Gene Brady, Eric Roman Brady and Isabella “Belle” Black. And was somewhat hilariously pregnant to ex-husband Roman Brady in 2005, aged in (at least) her (unacknowledged) mid-50s.

Video link.