The Bold and the Beautiful is Out of Drama, But There's a Way to Revive It
It's been 35 years since The Bold and the Beautiful premiered on CBS.
Like its "sister show", The Young and the Restless , this long-running drama thrives on the usual soap-opera thrills; love triangles, backstabbing, kidnappings, baby-swappings… with the occasional unique twist thrown in (remember when Thomas had a brain injury and fell in love with a mannequin?!)
The Bold and the Beautiful (or just B&B, to fans) is centred around the wealthy Forrester family and their fashion house, Forrester Creations. In the 1987 pilot, we meet Eric Forrester and his wife Stephanie, who run the company and have raised four children. Their eldest son, Ridge, immediately became the centre of a love triangle that took up most of the 90s. Oh, who are we kidding? It's still going on – 8,000 episodes later.
Along with the Forresters, B&B spends time with a few other wealthy, unrealistically attractive families: mainly the Spencers (hot people with media conglomerate money) and the Logans (hot people with too many Forrester connections and marriages to list here). Other families have come and gone over the years, but the Forresters have remained B&B's bread and butter for the entire run of the soap. As wild and imaginative as some of the plotlines have gotten, it's hard to go 35 years without getting just a little bit stale. The Ridge/Brooke/Taylor storyline has been repeated, with variations, for decades. Don't believe me? Ridge and Brooke have walked down the aisle ELEVEN TIMES (though they only managed to get legally married seven times). Now it looks like the couple is on the rocks again. Yawn.
There's a very simple way for CBS to revive the B&B drama. No, it's not to have Brooke and Ridge divorce (AGAIN), nor is it for Ridge to hook up with someone he used to think was his daughter (once was enough. Eew.) Instead, it's time for a new family to challenge the Forresters and take centre stage.
Fans of B&B stick around because they like love triangles and drama. What's gotten tired is seeing the same people play out the same love triangles and drama over and over again. Some fresh blood would shake things up, allow old favourites to battle with someone other than each other, and introduce some new dynamics in the world of fabulously wealthy, stupidly attractive, wildly horny Forresters.
Oh, and by the way… It seems like there aren't as many catwalks as there used to be. Can we get more B&B fashion shows, please?