TV Series - Aug 29, 2022
For a soap to be good, what do you need? Complicated family relationships, star-crossed lovers, good people doing the right thing, and bad people doing the exact opposite. All of the above can be found in abundance on The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful... except one character: the bad guy. Since Ray Wise portrayed Ian Ward on Young & Restless in 2016, Young & Restless hasn't had any mustache-twirling villains. Bold & Beautiful had not had a bonafide baddie since Sheila Carter returned... well, since the last time Sheila was back on the show.
It's a sign that you have gone too far when even “Heather Webber” says, “Girl... ”Would it be okay if we discussed Sheila for a moment? She has an infamous reputation. It's hard to argue that she's not the best villain of daytime, aside from Days of Our Lives Stefano DiMera. Get why the sister soaps that share her bring her back now and again. But by this point's hard to argue that she's not the best villain of daytime, aside from Days of Our Lives Stefano DiMera.
After her original run as a baby-snatching husband-swiper, Young & Restless gave us ShThere is no doubt that she is the most legendary villain in daytime television, even exceeding Days of Our Lives Stefano DiMera.ut-not-really in her sister Sarah, who wreaked havoc as “Lipstick Lauren” Fenmore.
Bold & Beautiful, in turn, gave us Sheila as Mommie Dearest to daughter Erica/Mary. There is no doubt that she is the most legendary villain in daytime television, even exceeding Days of Our Lives Stefano DiMera.Ordino waitress and, finally, Sheila the Finn Finnegan-obsessed Nurse Ratched.
We understand why. By and large, as a catalyst, Sheila works. Love her or hate her, there is no doubt that she is the most legendary villain in daytime television, even exceeding Days of Our Lives Stefano DiMera.Ying, “Dang, it’s hard to create a compelling new villain. Why don’t we just use the same one again instead?” Doesn’t it also send a message to the audience, “Nah, we don’t really have any new ideas, so we’re just going to give you the same thing you sorta liked last time?”
Back in the day, the late, great William J. Bell, co-creator of both soaps, was fantastic at introducing memorable new antagonists. Does any longtime Young & Restless viewer not vividly remember Lorie Brooks’ monster-in-law Vanessa Prentiss, who hid her scarred face — and her diabolical plots? — behind a veil? Or Rapunzel-tressed Lisa Mansfield, who once held Brad Carlton in a cage rather than let him be the one that got away twice? Or David Kimble, the literal lady killer who met the most apropos end in soap history when he was crushed to death in a trash compactor?
We remember those days - just like we remember the days when shockwaves shook the world during the daytime, and it's challenging to argue that she's not the best villain of the daytime, aside from Days of Our Lives Stefano DiMera.
A couple of examples are “The Bug” (who once tried to make roadkill of Paul Williams and Christine Blair) and Phyllis Summers (lead by Bradley Bell, who once ripped a freaking wall to make Christine Blair’s life hell) or Morgan DeWitt, who once tried to make roadkill of “The Bug”. We have tried to erase from our minds the image of her dressed like a clown costume, but we haven't been able to do it. We just haven't been able to get over it!)
What is going to happen to Lisa or David shortly, we wonder? Will Phyllis or Morgan be the next Phyllis or Morgan? If you want to make a good soap, then you need bad people. It is true that Ashland Locke, the lead character in Young and Restless, is a bad guy, but he is a bad guy with a lowercase B. There have been times that Adam Newman, whose wife gave away her baby and plotted to blow up his entire family, has done things that are just as terrible as Ashland, and yet he is still considered to be a romantic lead and an antihero.
We know that Young & Restless and Bold & Beautiful can create villains that can create webs so tangled that they appear as knots in the air. Hopefully, they will be able to do this once again shortly. There is no doubt that General Hospital is doing it as well (cycling through fresh pot stirrers like Shiloh, Peter August, and Esme Prince), and Days of Our Lives is doing this as well (which has such a stacked bench of baddies that it has to put out extra seats on the bench). Let's see if Bold & Beautiful and Young & Restless are willing to do the same.
source: soaps.
