I've watched every single episode of The Bold and the Beautiful since June 2023 and I've learned some key insights into the world of soaps.
Prior to this assignment, I'd never watched soaps before in my life. Well, not intentionally, anyway. I spent many afternoons as a child listening to my mom talk on the phone with her friends about Cricket, Luke and Laura. Fast forward to the present and thanks to my colleague at What to Watch I have been able to piece together that Cricket (Lauralee Bell) was on The Young and the Restless and Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis) were General Hospital's supercouple back in the day.
Now that I'm covering soaps regularly, I'm learning a lot about how they work and it's fascinating stuff. I thought I'd share some of the things I've learned (tongue-in-cheek, of course) while watching The Bold and the Beautiful every day.
Offices are for work... but mostly play
Why no one locks doors around Forrester Creations is beyond me, because people tend to walk in on each other regularly.
From Hope (Annika Noelle) and Thomas (Matthew Atkinson) to Ridge (Thorsten Kaye) and Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang), it seems like everyone has been getting busy in the office. And I don't mean busy with work.
Oddly enough, you rarely see anyone working in the office. They do all kinds of things in the office, but work is seldom one of them. But hey, Forrester Creations is one of the top fashion houses in the world so whatever they're doing is working for them.
No one is ever really dead... pretty much
I was sitting at the car dealership waiting for an oil change when Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) stabbed Sheila (Kimberlin Brown) in self defense. I was shocked. No one else in the waiting room seemed to be paying attention.
My esteemed What to Watch colleague took the death in stride, noting that there's no way the show would get rid of a legendary villain...and he was right. As soon as the sheet slipped from her body in the crematorium, it was revealed that the dead body wasn't Sheila Carter after all, rather it was her body double, Sugar.
Suddenly the world of possibilities opened up to me. Even now, as the show deals with the deaths of two characters, I'm wondering if they have identical twins hiding around the corner.
Things rarely change
I expected to see some growth over the course of the past year, but the family rivalries and long-held grudges are still going strong.
I suppose it shouldn't be surprising, because what would the soaps be without the drama, but sometimes I find myself talking to the television, asking the characters, "Well, what did you expect was going to happen?"
Take, for example, Steffy and Hope. As soon as Steffy realized she wasn't going to make the Monte Carlo trip, she immediately decided that it was time to tear down Hope for the Future while Ridge was away. This has happened time and time again, throwing fuel on the fire as the two women face off over past wrongdoings.
I know there wouldn't be that much soapy drama in the show if Steffy and Hope got along, but I think it would be fun to see them team up to fight on the same side for once. Even if it's just temporary.
For the most part, though, soaps characters don't seem to change much, with exception to Dollar Bill Spencer (Don Diamont), who seems to be reveling in his turn as a Girl Dad these days.
When one relationship ends, another begins
No one ever stays single on The Bold and the Beautiful. If one relationship ends, people just move on to the next...and it doesn't matter if the other person is single or not.
Hope has been the best example of this. In the year that I've known her as a character, she ended her marriage to Liam (Scott Clifton), entered into a relationship with Thomas and is now pining after Steffy's husband, Finn (Tanner Novlan).
Looking at a map of who has been with whom over the years, it seems like everyone has dated each other at this point. No wonder no one ever stays single for long!
When at first you don't succeed, forget the story completely
I quickly discovered that storylines tend to disappear completely in the world of soap operas. Whether it's a change in the writer's room or a story that wasn't working out, it's amazing how many stories seem to fade off into the good night, never to be seen again.
I didn't know this was a thing in soaps, so it was a little odd to see someone show up out of the blue only to disappear again. I was particularly frustrated when Steffy killed "Sheila" (aka Sugar) and no one ever revealed what Sugar had in her pocket. Was it a gun? A note? A knife? And let's not even get started on how the coroner missed Sugar's ten toes, knowing that Sheila had nine.
I still find myself wondering if there will ever be closure on some of the stories I've seen in the past year, but at least now I've learned not to hold my breath.
The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS and the following day on Paramount Plus. Check your local listings to see when it comes on where you are.
