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SORAS or '''Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome''' (less commonly called simply '''rapid aging''') is a term for when an infant or young child in a Soap Opera is aged very quickly by the writers. It is nearly always done by recasting the role after the character has been absent for a number of weeks, months or years, with the new actor of the age the character has been ''SORAS''ed to. This is done to permit an older actor to portray the character and to involve the character in different - usually more adult - storylines. The term was coined by '' Soap Opera Weekly '' founding editor in chief Mimi Torchin in the early 1990s. {Link without Title} HISTORY In the early days of the soap opera it was not uncommon to age a character right into his or her 20s; for example, this happened to the character of Tom Hughes on '' As The World Turns '' in the late 1960s. One day he was a Preteen , and the next he was shipped off to Vietnam . (This caused the actress playing Tom's mother, Eileen Fulton , who was then only in her late 30s, to have it written into her contract that her character could never become a grandmother; a noteworthy by-product of this is parents of SORASed characters -- often portrayed by actors in their late 30s or early 40s -- becoming grandparents or even great grandparents.) However, in the past few decades as soap producers have introduced more and more teenagers into soaps in order to attract the lucrative teen audience, it is now common practice to only age a character into the mid teens, with 15 and 16 being the most common ages that a character will be "SORASed" to. Eight-year-old Sami Brady on '' Days Of Our Lives '' was aged to a 15-year-old when she was reintroduced in early 1993 (played by 16-year-old Alison Sweeney ). Her twin brother Eric Brady , who also left the show as an eight year-old, returned in 1997 SORASed to match his now-adult sister. The characters of Shawn-Douglas Brady (born in April 1987), Belle Black (born October 1993) and Philip Kiriakis (originally born 21 February 1995) returned to Salem as 16 year olds in 1999 (changing their birthyears to 1983). Some child characters literally mature faster than others. For example, Billy Abbott on '' The Young And The Restless '' was born on the show in 1993, yet was 16 years old by 1999 (played by 21-year-old David Tom ), while his niece Colleen Carlton (born 1991) was only 14 years old in 2001 (played by 14-year-old Lyndsy Fonseca ), meaning that Billy had changed from being two years younger than his niece to being four years older. Perhaps the character with the biggest impact is Nicholas Newman . He was born at the end of 1988 and was sent off to a "Swiss boarding school" as a preschooler, only to return as a late teens/early 20s grown man a few years later in 1994, and has since been featured as a prominent character. On the other hand, Phillip Chancellor IV , a child born several months prior to Nicholas remained at his real age until he was finally aged in 2000 . Phillip however, was only aged by about two years. On '' All My Children '', Erica Kane's daughter Kendall Hart was Retcon ned/SORASed at the demand of fans. When Kendall (played by 16-year-old Sarah Michelle Gellar ) arrived in Pine Valley in 1993, she was a waifish teen, despite the fact that she was the result of Erica's rape at the age of 14, before the show even began in 1970, 23 years earlier. Fans protested, and so the show's producers immediately aged Kendall to "over 21". On '' Guiding Light '', Rick Bauer and Mel Boudreau's daughter Leah was born on-screen in 2004 but at the apparent age of 18 months was sent to boarding school in Switzerland and was brought back on screen 6 months later in 2006 having been aged to 14. This posed a serious problem with fans who not only remember Leah being born on screen 28 months earlier but had to suspend disbelief that Leah is now 10 years older than her "older" half-brother Jude, who was born in 2001 and is only 5 years old on the show. Subsequently, the character of Leah was to only be shown on screen 3 times in three months. On '' One Life To Live '', Rex Balsom was introduced in 2002 as a 17-year-old high school senior. By early 2006, he was aged to 26-years-old for the sake of his character being able to be a potential candidate in the storyline involving Dr. Paige Miller and the search for her long lost son whom she had given up twenty-six years prior. On '' Passions '' Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald gave birth to Ethan Martin "Little Ethan" Crane on June 21, 2002. Over the next three years, Little Ethan would be aged to approximately 9 years old. On '' EastEnders '', Ian Beale has been aged by one year, and Ethel Skinner claimed to have various ages and birthdays on different occasions. On '' Emmerdale '' Terence Turner was originally written as the younger brother of Steph Forsythe but was later written to be several years older than her. Sometimes characters' ages are accelerated to be older than the actor or actress playing the role. An example is on '' Days Of Our Lives '', when the character of Abby Deveraux was SORASed from eleven to 17-years-old and the role was recast with Ashley Benson . When she took over the role in November 2004, however, she was only one month shy of her 15th birthday. The character of Abby remains to be two years older than Benson is in real life. A few American soap children have managed to grow to adulthood in real time. One was Patti Barron Tate on '' Search For Tomorrow '', first played from 1951 to 1961 by Lynn Loring . Her character did not have any jumps in age from the first episode until the last (in 1986). Another was Amy Ames Brittain on '' The Secret Storm '', played from 1954 to 1974 by Jada Rowland (although she was off the show from 1971 to 1973). Her character was eleven years old when the show debuted and thirty-one when the show ended. On '' General Hospital '', Robin Scorpio has been played since 1985 by Kimberly McCullough ; Robin was introduced as a seven-year-old girl and as of 2007 was a 29-year-old doctor. SORAS ON OTHER U.S. SERIES The phenomenon of SORASing can also apply to other television series, usually Sitcoms , usually the rapid aging of babies to kindergarten age. However, since presumably the time-space continuum of television sitcoms and possibly dramas are close to that of the timeline in real life although not often acknowledged, the rapid aging of young characters causes discrepancies in character histories. In certain television series, pregnancy and the birth of children become part of plotlines because the pregnancy was written into the script either to use for creative interest or rarely, because an actress was pregnant in real life. After awhile, however, babies are of minor comedic interest or little dramatic interest and often re-integrated into the plot the next season with someone a few years older than when the character was originally born. However, rapid aging can also occur with older children. The following are a list of television series whose characters have aged rapidly:
OUTSIDE THE USA SORAS was traditionally not widely utilised on British soaps with their purported realist tone. In recent years UK soaps have increasingly begun to age their younger characters to their teenage years for storyline purposes. This occurred with Ian Beale on '' EastEnders '' who gained an extra year so that his character would be more mature in a plot involving his discovery that his wife was cheating on him and that his child was not his. His original birth year was 1970 and he celebrated his 18th Birthday in 1988 , but this was subsequently changed to 1969 and he celebrated his 21st in 1990. '' Coronation Street '' has also used SORAS for storyline purposes, with the character of Mark Redman being aged by two years so that he could attend the school where his father Mike Baldwin 's enemy Ken Barlow was a teacher. In '' Hollyoaks '' in 2006 Kathy Barnes aged a whole seven years in one year, in time for her 40th birthday. The characters of Josh and Carly Hope in '' Emmerdale '' were first seen as a baby and young girl, respectively, in 2001, but when they were seen again in 2006, Josh was older than Carly and both were teenagers. Australian soaps have recently begun the trend of SORASing characters for storyline purposes. Home and Away In 1999 the character of Duncan Stewart on '' Home And Away '' was aged by three years from 9 to 12 and starting high school. Recently, Duncan's niece Martha (who was a year older than Duncan) returned to the show. She too was aged, having originally been born in 1988, but coming back as an 18 year old in early 2005. NEIGHBOURS 2005 also saw the arrival of Lucinda "Elle" Robinson on '' Neighbours '' and later her brothers, identical twins Robert and Cameron. The three siblings, who were triplets, were now 19 years old, even though the characters would really have only been 16 years old in real time (while the birth of the triplets was not an on-screen storyline, their mother Gail left the show pregnant with them sometime in 1989). Most recently Louise "Lolly" Carpenter returned in 2007, a 15 year old, despite being born in the show in 1994. One of the earliest examples of SORAS on Neighbours was when Hannah Martin arrived in 1992 and was old enough to have been born before her parents had even met. A mostly unnoticed jump in age was Oliver Barnes , who is supposedly 25 but was stated to have been conceived during the period in which the man believed to be his father Paul Robinson , was working as an airline steward, a job he took in 1985. This is a probable continuity error, however. Serena Bishop ( Lara Sacher ) was 15 when she arrived in 2003 and in Year 9 at Eden Hills Grammar school, but in 2004 she was in Year 11 along with her cousin Sky Mangel at Erinsborough High . Serena was also another instance of a character being old enough to have been born before her parents had even met. A few other ''Neighbours'' characters also had small leaps in age. Summer Hoyland ( Marisa Siketa ) went from being 10 years old in 2003 to being 14 years old in 2005, whilst Jack Scully's age was moved a few years downwards (and the character revised from an FA Premier League footballer playing for Liverpool FC to a talented schoolboy soccer player) when the character was recast from Paul Pantano to Jay Ryan in 2002. ELSEWHERE In the Canadian series '', the rapid aging seemed not to have happened. In the - 2003 have grown to teenagers in year 2007 . In the Dutch soap Goede Tijden Slechte Tijden (Good Times Bad Times) eight year old Nina Sanders went to a clinic after she survived a kidnapping and a fire. A year later she returned from the clinic as a sixteen year old teenager. This wasn't very usual for the show, but since Nina other kids on the shows were SORASed too. Telenovelas typically avoid SORAS since they usually only contain one story arc. Instead, sometimes the entire show will jump weeks, months, or even years ahead in time. This allows the show to jump foward through pregnancy, a jail sentence or the growth of a child. "DE-SORAS" A similar fan term, de-SORAS, occurs when writers make a character younger. One character that has been "de-SORASed" is Erica Kane on ''All My Children''. When the show debuted in 1970, Erica's date of birth was said to be 1954; in 1993, it was changed to 1956. And in 2002, the year was changed again to 1962. Actress Susan Lucci , who plays Erica, was born in 1946. The '' General Hospital '' character Justus Ward has been de-SORASed as well. The role was originated in 1994 by former '' Cosby Show '' actor Joseph C. Phillips , born in 1962. Monti Sharp , born in 1967, assumed the role in 1998. In 2003, the role went to M'fundo Morrison . Morrison was born in 1974. Thus, if it is assumed that the character's age and the actor's age are approximately the same, then Justus has de-aged twelve years since first appearing on ''GH''. Justus was later killed off by a mobster in 2006 . On ''One Life to Live''; in the early 1990s, Rachel Gannon was said to be the same age as her college peers: Kevin Buchanan, Todd Manning, and Marty Saybrooke--all noted to have been born in 1970. In 1996, however, Rachel (now interacting less with the aforementioned characters) was noted to be twenty-one years old. In another unusual de-SORAS/re-SORAS occurrence, in 2004 , '' The Bold And The Beautiful '''s twins Phoebe and Steffy Forrester were aged to fourteen, and now played by Chandler and Jordan Mella. Several months later, Keaton and Kylie Tyndall took over and de-SORASed the twins to pre-teens. However, this was only a temporary de-SORASing. In 2005, Keaton and Kylie Kendall were replaced by Addison and Alex Hoover, and Phoebe and Steffy were aged to approximately fourteen again. Eventually, almost a year and a half later, the Hoovers were let go from the show and only Phoebe was brought back three months later. When Phoebe was brought back however, now played by MacKenzie Mauzy, the character was SORASed once again to 17½ years old (which corresponded to Mauzy's own age at the time). In 2005 on ''As the World Turns'', the character of Carly Tenney Snyder, then assumed to be in her mid-thirties (portrayed by then 33-year-old actress Maura West ) was revealed to be the half-sister of 17-year old Gwen Norbeck (portrayed by then 22-year-old Jennifer Landon ). The storyline suggested that Carly was around seven years old when Gwen was born, thus making her 25. This now meant that when Carly's son Parker was born in 1997 (by which time, she'd already been married three times, and had given birth to a stillborn daughter), she was only 16. In 2007 on the daytime drama '' Guiding Light '', Harley's daughter came back as 17-year-old "Daisy", played by Bonnie Dennison . The last time the character was reintroduced on the show in 1999, then played by actress Brittany Snow , she was 14 years old. She left two years later in 2001 as a 16 year old, suggestting that the character aged only one year between 2001 and 2007. '' Guiding Light '' also de-SORASed the character of Alan-Michael Spaulding. Born in 1981 , Alan-Michael returned to the show in 1986 as a teenager, then was aged with an actor change (from Carl Tye Evans to Rick Hearst ). When the character left the canvas in 1997 , he was in his early 30's. However, when he returned to the show in 2005 , he was played by actor Michael Dempsey , who was about a decade younger than his counterparts. The character was also portrayed as being in his late twenties or early thirties. A minor example of this occurred in the Prime-time soaps '' The O.C. '' and '' Beverly Hills 90210 '' when the characters, who in the first seasons were implied to be juniors in high school, were allowed to spend an additional year in high school. From the '70s through the '90s, the character Mike Horton on '' Days Of Our Lives '' repeatedly returned to the show as a young man in his twenties. Even though he was born on the show in 1968 , and had been rapidly SORASed in the 1970s, he and Carrie Brady (introduced as a child in the '80s) later supposedly grew up together as children. An unusual de-SORAS occurrence happened when General Hospital's Maxie Jones was SORASed from a 15-year-old played by Robyn Richards to a woman in her early twenties, played by 19-year-old Danica Stewart . The change was so unpopular and criticized by fans and press (partly due to unliking the new actress and partly due to the fact that Richards had portrayed Maxie since childhood and through a very memorable heart transplant storyline) that GH de-SORASed Maxie back to her high school age and re-hired Richards. Eventually, General Hospital SORASED Maxie once again when they fired Richards a second time and hired Kirsten Storms to portray a more grown-up, troubled Maxie. Prime-time soap Knots Landing halted the clock on one character, Jason Avery, son of Laura and Richard Avery. Originally played by Justin Dana, Jason began as contemporary of Olivia Cunningham (played by Tonya Crowe ). Recast with a succession of younger actors, Jason remained a child as Olivia grew into her teens and adulthood. Curiously enough, none of the young or old characters in The Simpsons seems to have grown older, even though the (uncounted) birthdays of several characters have been portrayed; this is clearly a running joke ("...poor little Maggie never seems to grow at all !"). However, Homer Simpson has aged, albeit extremely slowly, being 35 in Season 1, 39 in Season 10 and 40 as of Springfield Up . |
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