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The Silly and the Scandalous

On the occasion of daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful's 22nd anniversary (the little-recognized molybdenum anniversary) Entertainment Weekly has a slide show counting up super-couple Ridge and Brooke's many jaunts down the aisle. It's not necessary to know who Ridge and Brooke are to enjoy this list, since it perfectly encapsulates soaps' semi-heroic insistence on remaining absurd with or without prior knowledge of BRidge. Since 1990, the two have been the bride or groom in 19 weddings. For some of these weddings they married each other. For some they married each other's relatives. Some were completed, some were interrupted (by presumed dead wives and other inconveniences), and some took place on beaches. Ridge was shirtless for one, unless a lei counts as a top. All but the most recent (which took place in January 2009) have ended, usually in a divorce. (Sometimes you get married because you think you're carrying one guy's baby, but then it turns out to be his brother's, OK?)

Soaps are the television that time forgot. While the networks and, especially, basic and premium cable are churning out better and better shows, soap operas remain fundamentally the same. There have been some technological advances—Guiding Light shoots digitally now—but the plots are still overdramatic and ridiculous—a dead girl's doppelgänger just showed up on General Hospital. (Please don't ask me how I know this.) The form is hemorrhaging viewers because younger audiences just aren’t interested. I have a hard time imagining what soaps would have to do to attract new viewers in large numbers (not pretending marriage No. 12 is perfect and going to last forever and ever might be a start) and so suspect they won't be on daytime TV indefinitely. Laugh while you can.