A World Without Erica Kane

For any soap opera fans out there (even closeted ones), you may or may not have heard the recent news that ABC has cancelled All My Children and One Life To Live.   By early next year, both soaps will be forever off the air.  Added to the growing list of canceling soaps, it signals the end of a 40+ year reign in daytime TV.  It may seem silly, especially to those who don’t watch soaps, that the ending of these shows could be a sad event.  Shows end all the time.  Primetime shows come and go.  And in the big scheme of the world, the ending of soaps is not the biggest deal in the world.  But forty years is a tremendous time for a show to be on the air.  Guiding Light began as a radio show in 1937.  It made the transition to television in 1952 and was canceled in 2009.  It was the longest running story told in broadcast history.  Today, General Hospital is the longest running soap opera still on the air.

This may seem to have little to do with the world of writing, but it’s not as far removed as one might think.  For forty years, these shows have created characters with staying power.  Whether people watch soaps or not, most know who Erica Kane is.  And people who watched soaps years ago still remember the characters and couples they loved.  Soaps invented the “Supercouple” and as a writer of romance, I respect the Supercouple greatly.  The idea that a fictional couple has that much staying power (Luke and Laura, anyone?) is amazing.  As writers, we want to build characters that become a part of a reader’s soul.  Soaps have done that, again and again.

But soaps aren’t just about the crazy antics onscreen and the reason we watch them isn’t just for the drama, the families and the couples on screen – though we do love them.   Most people I’ve asked “How did you start watching soaps?” answer the same: “With my mom.”

That’s how I started on soaps.  My mother watched All My Children and I remember watching with her as a little girl, close to my son’s age.  I could go back in the kitchen and watch The Monkees instead, but half the time, I’d sit next to her on the couch, snuggled up and getting little tidbits of information about Erica Kane, Adam Chandler, Greg and Jenny and a host of other characters who became fun people to talk about.  As I grew up, I watched more with her, I understand more.  But at that age, I understood it was our time together and that was all that mattered.   It was a time I still cherish today, a few years after my mother has passed away.  Soaps were ours.  Even now, when I think of Erica Kane, I picture sitting with my mother, snuggled up next to her, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  That memory is intricately woven with soap operas.

And in my teen years, they were about my brother and me (but don’t tell him I told you.)  We’d watch Days of Our Lives after school, and let me tell you, the 80s were DOOL’s heydey.  Always good adventures, stories and drama to watch.   And later in years, on sick days when I’d be home for a week, soaps were a good friend to get you through the day when you couldn’t get off the couch.  They’ve been a great friend on days I came home from work and just needed to think about someone else’s world for an hour before setting back into my own.  I’ve watched with my husband.  I’ve posted on message boards and made friends that I am still friends with today.  I’ve met good people who shared a love of a soap.

With so few soaps left in the daytime line-up, I imagine it won’t be but a few years before they are gone altogether.   “Love in the Afternoon” belongs to an era that seems about to end.    For me, soaps are about memories.  And they will on in mine.