General Gossip

Love in the Afternoon: “One Life to Live”

Here's what you do

When you don't find the rainbow's end

This time

Here's where you go

When it looks like the rain won't end

Don't cry

There's always tomorrow

Where you can have a second chance

And after tomorrow

All that you have to remember

Here's what you do

When you think nobody cares

For you

Look in my eyes

And see there's an answer there

It's true

We'll find tomorrow

A place for us

I know because

Time only knows

How long forever's gonna last

And we don't even need to ask

Let's live today

And find someone to share it with

Cause we only have one life to live

I'll give you tomorrow

Let me the one to share it with

And each day that follows

Cause you only have one life to live!

Love in the Afternoon: “Passions”

Twenty years ago, NBC sought to bring one of the craziest soap operas ever to television. Passions featured a real witch who created her own familiar, a doll come to life named Timmy. She would later enlist the assistance of a burly woman who did her bidding. Odd and bizarre? That was just everyday life in Harmony.

NBC had started to see a shift away from its daytime dramas. It enlisted the king of nighttime soap operas- Aaron Spelling- to produce a successful soap opera that it hoped would bring in a younger audience. When that show- Sunset Beach- failed, NBC looked for something to replace it that would attract attention. It thought it had found that in Passions, which would definitely attract attention, at least in the beginning.

The show would last eight years before getting canceled and resurrected by DirecTV in an experiment it conducted with NBC to air programs with cult followings but low ratings. Friday Night Lights would similarly move to DirecTV, but the experiment lasted just one season. Passions would be gone for good in 2008.

Love in the Afternoon: Super Couples

Love in the Afternoon

Love in the Afternoon

Love in the Afternoon: Say Don’t Show

Despite being on television five days a week, daytime dramas typically have to establish a lot of exposition in a limited amount of time. On the long running daytime show General Hospital, producers took advantage of the hospital setting to establish a gossipy nurses station that would provide a realistic reason to supply and re-supply exposition about what’s going on in the show to the audience.

The gossipy nurses were always filling in other characters (and the audience) about the latest happenings in town. Network executives knew that many viewers would not be able to watch every episode. Before VCRs and DVRs, viewers might stop watching the show altogether if they couldn’t keep up with the action. So the gossip sessions were mostly provided for the occasional viewer’s benefit; they could easily get up to date with the various affairs and scheming with a quick rundown given by a nosy nurse.

Now that there are multiple ways to keep up with the dramas- DVRs, streaming, on mobile devices, etc. the nurses station doesn’t have to provide as much exposition as before. Nowadays, the shows are more likely to use exposition to quickly establish new and recurring characters. For example, other characters can talk about how smart and successful a district attorney might be, even though the lawyer in question always seems to accuse the wrong person and can’t ever get a successful conviction. We are assured, however, that they are amazing just because the other characters keep saying that they are. 

Love in the Afternoon: “One Life To Live”

“Love in the Afternoon”: The Nurse’s Station

The nurse’s station on General Hospital has always been the center of gossip and intrigue on the show since the very beginning when it was manned by Nurse Jessie Brewer.

Nurse Jessie supervised the goings on at General Hospital from the very beginning until the actress portraying her (Emily MacLaughlin) passed away. Always wearing her trademark sweater, Nurse Jessie was ready for anything and often served as a reliable source of gossip. (This was years before HIPAA.) In her later years, Emily often revealed some of the show’s secrets- for example, her trademark sweater wasn’t a fashion choice. The set was very cold and Emily was often just sitting or standing at the nurse’s station during her scenes. Therefore, she began wearing the sweater for practical reasons, offering to take it off while filming. The producers, however, thought it looked good with her ensemble so it became an important part of her wardrobe. The biggest secret, however, was why there was a nurse’s station to begin with- and it probably isn’t the reason you’re probably thinking.

Originally, ABC and the show’s sponsors felt that the show’s audience wouldn’t remember key plot points or scenes past a couple weeks. If audiences became confused about what was going on, ABC feared that they would tune out. That’s why many soap operas featured clunky scenes where a character would tell another character something they should have already known. For example- “As you know, Monica- your aunt- is the sole manager of our Quartermaine Family trust.” How could this explanatory dialogue become less clunky? By having it spoken by gossipy nurses! For example- “Did you hear? Ned’s aunt Monica is the sole manager of the Quartermaine Family Trust! I bet that must be awkward!” While the explanatory dialogue could still become repetitive, having it repeated by gossipy nurses made it feel slightly more natural.

“Love in the Afternoon”: One Life To Live Goes Underground

“Love in the Afternoon”  here at Temporary Layoffs will focus on the world of TV dramas very other Thursday!

One of the most expensive (and strangest) events in Soap Opera history took place on One Life to Live in 1989. Selected residents of Llanview stumble upon a secret underground city named “Eterna”. 

For several months, several members of the cast were trapped in this underground city, where the soap opera’s grand dame, Vicki Lord discovers that the city was created as a strange experiment in the 1960’s and one of its residents had escaped and dated her for awhile. Vicki became pregnant, but her father hid the pregnancy and had Eterna sealed forever.

Over several months, Vicki learns the truth about her past and eventually escapes with the help of her husband. Eterna is sealed again, with most everyone escaping its clutches. The storyline was one of the most ambitious ever attempted on a Soap Opera at the time and the set was the most expensive ever built. It was a huge risk for a daytime drama, but one that apparently paid off with impressive ratings.