Yearly Review: SOAPnet

Sadly, there's really not many positive things for me to say about SOAPnet this year.

There are two things that I was really entertained by though. One being the Emmy marathon back in June. I imagine that they went a bit out of their way getting the episode of Guiding Light and two episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful, and the idea of seeing the actual full episodes that made the cut for Best Drama is a really good one. The second thing was the Days of our Lives marathon back in October that had episodes from Marlena's possession. It's always a good idea to me to dust off the classics from the vaults and holidays and special occasions are really good times to do such marathons. And I wish they would take more advantage of this aspect. It's nice to revisit some of these series when they were written better.

April really ticked me off. By then for a while Dallas was on 4 times a day; no show should air that much daily. Another World would be gone, and Ryan's Hope and Port Charles were only airing twice a week. Luckily after a couple of months Ryan's Hope was back in its old time slot. I've become a big fan of that rather quickly and two episodes a week drove me insane. It took longer for Port Charles to come back to 5-day-a-week showings. I'm not as into Port Charles, but I still feel bad for the fans as I notice in December they got screwed again as the weekday episodes were taken off once more and again only the two weekend episodes remain. I'm sorry, but you don't air a show that has produced over 1,000 episodes twice a week. You just don’t do that. Anyone with common sense would know that. They also did nothing for Port's 10th anniversary. And you can't even begin to imagine my frustration to find out that Another World would not only be gone but replaced with One Tree Hill. And The O.C. does not belong on this network in my eyes either.

My problem with The Fashionista Diaries coming in August is very plain and simple. It is not a soap opera. And while I'm no big fan of either I Wanna Be A Soap Star, Soap Talk, or Soapography, at least they have something to do with the genre. Why is a network called SOAPnet, and using their old slogan, "devoted to soaps and soap fans" airing a show that has absolutely nothing to do with soaps? If fashion was the big deal, they could have called up CBS and tried to pick up same day/week rights to air The Bold and the Beautiful.

Just because it's either simply a drama or a show that has conflict between the people on it, that doesn't mean that it belongs on a network devoted to soap operas. If conflicting people was all that was needed, then they might as well pick up reruns of any courtroom show or Maury since they have "conflict." As a fan of One Tree Hill, I will still watch first-run episodes on The CW and buy the DVDs. If a more appropriately fitting network picks it up and I have the channel, then I'll be glad to watch the reruns. Same with The O.C. Nothing against it at all. I'm sure it's a decent show. I’m just not watching it on SOAPnet out of principle. When you've got these shows, and more primetime dramas on in the other time slots, and a show like The Fashionista Diaries on, and seemingly paying more attention to these shows than focusing attention to the actual soaps themselves, and you're called SOAPnet, that my friends, is pretty sad.