Once upon a time, there was a great man named
William J. Bell. He worked with the
Mother of Soaps, Irna Phillips, on shows such as As the World Turns and The
Guiding Light. Later he co-created Another
World and was an early head writer on Days of our Lives, where he created the
stories that would become the staple of every soap: love triangles, questions about paternity, amnesiac
characters coming back from the dead, rogues turned romantic heroes, and young
heroines who relentlessly pursue love, romance, and acceptance, though not
always in that order. Prior to leaving
his post at Days, Bell created The Young and the Restless, which would become
the gold standard of soaps by the time it reached its fifteenth birthday. As a counterpart to the social climbing and corporate
intrigue of Genoa City, he created The Bold and the Beautiful, intended to be a
glamorous behind-the-scenes look at the fashion world of Los Angeles. The vast majority of daytime soaps are
created to take place within fictional environs; why be constrained by the
geography and culture of a real city when you can make one from scratch? Your town can have rich folks, poor folks, exiled
royalty, vampires, and everyone in between.
It can have the beach and the mountains; you can have brutal winters as
well as summer heatwaves. But instead of
the constraint of the real City of Angels, B&B evolved to become an
imaginary version of a city of millions, where the same two or three families
marry within each other an endless number of times. In the beginning, however, the show was
actually quite pedestrian. The primary
focus was on the fashion house Forrester Creations, run successfully by Eric
and Stephanie Forrester, alongside their two sons, Ridge and Thorne. Their two daughters, Kristen and Felicia,
would show up later. Also on the scene
were widowed publishing tycoon Bill Spencer and his daughter, Caroline. Across town living much more humbly were Beth
Logan and her passel of children: Storm
(Stephen, Jr.), Brooke, Donna, and Katie.
Beth was a college classmate of Eric and Stephanie, though this fact
wouldn’t be revealed for several episodes.
Brooke had a long-term boyfriend named Dave who was a cop, while Storm
was in law school and the younger two remained in high school. Returning across town, Ridge was the typical
spoiled playboy who wanted to have his cake and eat it too—he was dating
Caroline and wanted to get more serious, but she had opted to save herself for
marriage.
The episode opens backstage at a Forrester fashion
show, where Ridge is unhappy with the designs his father is peddling this
season. He tells the long-suffering
Thorne (second-best son in the family, now and forever) that the designs just
aren’t sexy enough. While observing Eric
discuss something with his assistant, Margo Lynley (Lauren Koslow between
Y&R and DAYS), he also speculates on whether or not they have ever been
intimate. It’s probably none of your
business, Rigid. Thorne figures Ridge is
just angling to replace their father as president of Forrester Creations. Ridge leaves to go call up Caroline, who
tells him that they can meet that night, as her father won’t be home. Scandalous!
On the dark side of town, Katie Logan is fretting
over her acne and slipping into fantasies that her dream man will see only her
and not her skin condition. Brooke runs
home after having escaped an attack by the Campus Rapist. Not to make light of rape, but this is one of
the few times Brooke will ever turn down a man’s advances. Katie wants to help but Brooke kind of
ignores her, as people are wont to do to Katie in her original
incarnation. Brooke’s boyfriend Dave
arrives, having heard over dispatch of the incident. She gives him a rundown of what happened: two men in a blue van tried to abduct her,
but she apparently fought them off and they gave up. Dave tries to reassure her that the
perpetrators will be caught, and that not all men are so malicious. That’s it for the Logan family in this
episode. Fast forward twenty-plus years
and they would take over the show, for better or worse.
Back at Forrester, the fashion show has completed
and Ridge confronts his father over the designs. Eric tells his arrogant son that he has no understanding
in regard the psychology of the women who buy their clothes. Ridge is informed that Bill Spencer is
waiting for him in his office, and the conversation the two have is not
pleasant: Bill lets Ridge know that he
wants the charming playboy to end the relationship with his daughter before she
gets hurt. Ridge scoffs and Bill leaves,
cane in hand. I have no idea what
happened to Bill’s cane, or why he needed it in the first place.
The final scene of the episode finds Ridge at Bill
Spencer’s palatial apartment. He tells
Caroline that her father annoys him like no man ever has. They start kissing and she pushes him away,
vowing that the man she marries is the only one who will ever get in her cookie
jar. So Ridge proposes and she accepts. End of episode, but certainly not the end of
the story.
It’s interesting to note, given the importance of
both Stephanie and her portrayer, Susan Flannery, in the history of soapdom,
that neither appears until episode two.
For me, she carried the show on her back the entire time she was on, and
since her departure it has barely been worth watching. At the beginning, though, there was no real
indication of what was to come. B&B
was very humdrum and in need of some kind of shakeup. Thankfully Bill Bell wasn’t one to rest on
his laurels, and within a few years he had jettisoned every Logan save for
Brooke, while creating the unsinkable Sally Spectra, played to the hilt by the
late Darlene Conley, to rival the Forresters in the fashion business, if only
in her head. By the mid-nineties, Margo
and the Spencers would disappear from the show, too. While Spectra may have never been able to
seriously challenge Forrester Creations, the introductions of her family and
work crew (Macy, Saul, and Darla) as well as Clarke Garrison helped create the
fashion wars and high drama for which B&B would come to be beloved around
the world. In 1990 he created one of the
show’s most popular characters, Dr. Taylor Hayes, played by the beautiful
Hunter Tylo. That was definitely my
favorite era of the show, when Ridge and Taylor were a couple and the storylines
actually concerned fashion as well as family drama. No American daytime drama has ever attained
the same level of worldwide popularity, though that has slipped in recent years
as the show continues to tread the same ground endlessly: love triangles that never seem to conclude
but roil endlessly in a pool of tepid drama.
Brad Bell has taken his father’s creation and both of their years of
hard work and flushed it down the drain in a concerted effort to make it The
Brooke Show. Critics may be wowed by his
ability to spin a yarn in this era of declining interest and slashed budgets,
but for me The Old and the Pitiful is a more apt description these days.
For any fans who might be interested, the first
sixteen episodes are available from Amazon.com as a MOD set. The volume is rather flat, but I have had no
problems with playback or picture quality.
I also own two import sets from Australia: a best-of set that covers the years 1987-2007,
as well as a Best of Weddings set that covers 1987 to 2009. The latter is my favorite of the two, as
classic soap weddings were always filled with romance and high drama.
All images are the copyright of Bell-Philip Dramatic
Serial Corporation and CBS
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