Q&A With Alina Adams, Author of Super Soap Scenes

Q&A With Alina Adams, Author of “Super Soap Scenes: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Greatest Moments”

Why soaps? Why now?

Because soaps are back, baby! After “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” went off the air in 2011 and 2012 – this was after losing “Guiding Light” in 2009 and “As the World Turns” in 2010 – it seemed like the genre was slowly (or, actually, pretty quickly) fading away. But then we got a renaissance. “Days of our Lives” moved from NBC to streaming on Peacock in 2022, where it’s doing really well, and, then, of course, the big news was this year, when “Beyond the Gates” premiered in February 2025. It’s the first new network daytime drama in 25 years. It’s the first new soap opera to debut on CBS since 1987. And, to top it all off, it’s sponsored by Procter & Gamble Productions, the company that put the “soap” in “soap opera!” Clearly, the people who matter most – the money people; let’s not kid ourselves about how decisions are made – have rediscovered the value (in every sense of the word) of daily, serialized storytelling.

So if soaps are headed for the future, why are you looking back at the past?

Because that’s what soaps are all about! The best scenes on soaps are so powerful because of what came before them. The more you know about the nuances of a story, the more you can enjoy it. You know how in movies or primetime, if they want to do a flashback, they either have to hire a different actor or slather the current one in some very obvious make up or, these days, de-age them with computers until they look like an uncanny valley special effect? Soaps don’t have to do that! If they want to show you something that happened 10 years ago that’s affecting what’s happening now (which is the best kind of storytelling), they can show you the scene shot 10 years ago! No make-up or computer effects required!

And speaking of soap scenes….

Oh, you picked up on my subtle plug there, did you?

Your book is called “Super Soap Scenes: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Greatest Moments.”

It is! And that’s exactly what it’s about! Soaps have had so many amazing scenes over the almost 100 years that they’ve been airing, first on radio, then on television. It would be impossible to pick the very best ones. But I tried to. Though I didn’t do it all by myself. I went to my fellow fans. I asked them to vote on their most memorable moments. And then, once I had their assessments, I went to the actors, writers, producers and other crew members who made all those scenes possible for a behind the scenes peek at how each of those moments came together.

Did you find any trends in what the fans particularly responded to?

Weddings are big. I have Hillary B. Smith talking about the time her character, Nora, and Bo were married by Little Richard on “One Life to Live,” and I’ve got Thom Racina, the headwriter who married Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis) on the “General Hospital” episode that got the highest ratings ever for a daytime show, talking about how that wedding happened much earlier than they’d planned due to a (very famous) fan’s insistence. 

People also love big, dramatic confrontations. For “The Young and the Restless,” I interviewed Peter Bergman (Jack) about his and Victor’s (Eric Braeden) “chair” scene, and Jess Walton (Jill) about her and Kay’s (Jeanne Cooper) attic catfight.

But then there are the quieter moments, too. Eden Riegel on Bianca coming out to Erica (Susan Lucci) on “All My Children,” and “Guiding “Light’s Tina Sloan on Lillian discovering a lump in her breast.

And, of course, the only-in-soapland classics, like James Reynolds on how Abe ended up in the same room with two of his wives, one dead, one alive on “Days of our Lives.”

So you feature past shows as well as present ones?

Absolutely! Cancelled soaps are like lost loved ones. Just because they are no longer with you, doesn’t mean you don’t still think about them. Soap fans have very long memories. I feature multiple contributors talking about the final episode of “Another World,” as well as entries about “Santa Barbara,” “Ryan’s Hope,” “Search for Tomorrow,” “Dark Shadows,” “Edge of Night,” “Generations,” etc… They are all still beloved and deeply missed.

What is your connection to soap operas?

Well, I’ve been a viewer since the summer of 1980 (latch-key kids rule; we can watch whatever we want!). I’ve worked for the talk show “Pure Soap” on E! Entertainment, and as a researcher for the Daytime Emmys from 1997 to 2003. I was at ABC Daytime and wrote the transitions when “Loving” turned into “The City.” I was at Procter & Gamble Productions where, among other things, I wrote the NYT best-selling tie-in novels, “Oakdale Confidential” and “The Man from Oakdale” for “As the World Turns,” and co-wrote “Jonathan’s Story” for “Guiding Light,” as well as the officially-sanctioned multimedia continuation, “Another World Today.” I was also involved in the Prospect Park reboots of “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” and I currently write for SoapHub. 

How many books have you written?

“Super Soap Scenes: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Greatest Moments” is a nice round number 20. Also this past year, on May 1, 2025, I released a historical fiction novel, “Go On Pretending,” which is set in the early days of radio soaps transitioning to TV, and features Irna Phillips, the woman who basically invented the genre, as a supporting character. There are shout-outs to “Guiding Light” and to Agnes Nixon, who created “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.” 2025 isn’t just a big year for soaps in general, it’s a big year for me and books about soaps! 

Anything else readers should know about “Super Soap Scenes: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Greatest Moments?”

It’s not all doom and gloom! Soaps have a reputation for being deeply dramatic, but, while the book does feature some very intense scenes, there is also an entire section on outstanding comedic performances. And, because it’s about what goes on behind the camera, readers will be surprised to find out which heavily dramatic moments actually came with a bunch of bloopers and other hilarious shenanigans in the background. This book is fun and laugh-out-loud funny – even when the scenes aren’t!