It was weird. Really, really weird. If you grew up in the late nineties or early 2000s and happened to have the TV on NBC at 2:00 PM, you know exactly what I’m talking about. We aren't just talking about your standard "who's the father" drama that defined General Hospital or Days of Our Lives. No, TV soap opera Passions was an entirely different beast that decided, for some reason, that the standard tropes of daytime television weren't nearly chaotic enough. It gave us a town called Harmony that was anything but harmonious, a 300-year-old witch living in a basement, and a living doll named Timmy who had a penchant for "Martimmys."
Most soaps try to stay grounded in some version of reality, even if it’s a heightened one. Passions didn't care about your reality. It leaned so hard into the supernatural and the absurd that it became a cult phenomenon almost overnight. It's been over two decades since James E. Reilly—the mad scientist of daytime writing—launched this show, and honestly, we haven’t seen anything like it since.
The Absolute Chaos of Harmony
The show centered on four main families: the Cranes, the Bennetts, the Russells, and the Lopez-Fitzgeralds. On paper, that sounds like a standard setup. You have the wealthy, corrupt dynasty (the Cranes) and the salt-of-the-earth families trying to survive them. But then Reilly threw in Tabitha Lenox.
Tabitha, played by the legendary Juliet Mills, wasn't just a nosy neighbor. She was a literal witch who had been around since the Salem witch trials. Her primary goal in life was to destroy the people of Harmony, mostly because she was bored or spiteful. She had a doll, Timmy, played by Josh Ryan Evans. Through the power of a "brewing" spell, Timmy became a real boy—well, a living doll. Their relationship was the heart of the show. It was funny, strangely touching, and completely insane. While other soaps were dealing with corporate takeovers, Passions was showing a doll trying to avoid being eaten by a giant bird or getting trapped in a hell dimension located in the basement.
People forget how much of a risk this was for NBC. Daytime TV was dying even back in 1999. The O.J. Simpson trial had disrupted viewing habits years prior, and talk shows were eating up the budget. Passions was a Hail Mary. It was designed to capture a younger demographic that was raised on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. And for a while, it worked. The show was a hit with teens and college students who stayed home to see what kind of CGI monstrosity would crawl out of the Crane mansion next.
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Why TV Soap Opera Passions Broke the Traditional Mold
The pacing was the first thing you noticed. It was slow. Glacially slow. There is a famous legend among soap fans about the "Prom Night" arc. In many shows, a prom lasts maybe three episodes. In Harmony, that prom lasted for what felt like—and some claim actually was—nearly three months of real-time broadcasting. You’d tune in on a Monday, and someone would be halfway through a sentence. You’d tune in three weeks later, and they were still in the same hallway, wearing the same tuxedo, finishing that same thought.
It was infuriating. It was also brilliant.
By stretching out these moments, Reilly created a sense of mounting dread. You knew something bad was going to happen because Tabitha was hovering over a crystal ball talking about it for sixty consecutive days. This repetitive storytelling is a hallmark of the TV soap opera Passions experience. It wasn't about the destination; it was about the absolute absurdity of the journey.
Then there were the "disasters." Most soaps do a big location shoot or a stunt once a year. Passions had earthquakes, tsunamis, and literal portals to hell opening up in the middle of town with alarming frequency. It used these events to reset storylines or, more often, to just kill off characters that weren't working. It was ruthless.
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The Tragedy of Timmy and the End of an Era
We have to talk about Josh Ryan Evans. He was the secret weapon. His chemistry with Juliet Mills was undeniable, and he brought a genuine innocence to a show that was often dark and cynical. When Evans passed away in 2002 due to complications during surgery, it happened—in a twist that feels too scripted to be true—on the exact same day his character, Timmy, died on screen.
The show never truly recovered from that loss. Timmy was the moral compass, as strange as that sounds for a living doll who helped a witch. After his departure, the show leaned even further into the "raunchy" and the "bizarre," eventually moving from NBC to DirecTV's the 101 Network in 2007. This move allowed them to do things they couldn't do on broadcast TV, like increased profanity and more explicit storylines. But the magic was fading. The budget was smaller. The sets looked a bit more like cardboard.
The Cultural Footprint Most People Ignore
Critics hated it. They called it campy, poorly acted, and nonsensical. But they missed the point. Passions was camp on purpose. It was a soap opera that knew it was a soap opera and decided to turn the volume up to eleven. It paved the way for the "meta" storytelling we see in modern shows. It didn't ask you to take it seriously; it asked you to go on a ride.
It was also surprisingly diverse for its time. The Lopez-Fitzgerald and Russell families weren't just side characters; they were the leads. The show tackled interracial relationships and class warfare with a bluntness that was rare for the late nineties. Of course, this was often buried under a plotline about a demon possession or a talking orangutan nurse named Precious, but it was there.
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Yes, a talking orangutan nurse. Precious was a real character who took care of the elderly and had a crush on the town hunk, Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald. If you tell someone who hasn't seen the show about the orangutan nurse, they think you're lying. You aren't. It happened. It was a whole thing.
How to Revisit the World of Harmony Today
If you're looking to dive back into this fever dream, it’s not as easy as hopping on Netflix. The licensing for soaps is a nightmare of music rights and actor residuals. However, the legacy lives on in clips and fan-archived episodes.
- YouTube Archives: Large chunks of the show, especially the early years (1999–2003), are available via fan uploads. Search specifically for the "Timmy and Tabitha" compilations to see the show at its peak.
- Soap Opera Network and Forums: Communities still dissect the "what-ifs" of the show. Many of the actors, like Justin Hartley (who went on to This Is Us), got their start here, and fans still track their careers.
- The Script Books: If you can find them, the tie-in novels like Hidden Passions actually provide "backstory" that was used as a plot device in the show itself. It’s a weirdly immersive bit of transmedia storytelling from before that was a buzzword.
The show officially ended in 2008, but its DNA is everywhere. Every time a modern show does a "musical episode" or a "multiverse" twist, there's a little bit of Harmony in there. It taught a generation of viewers that TV doesn't have to make sense to be entertaining. Sometimes, you just need a witch, a doll, and a very long prom.
Actionable Steps for the Nostalgic Viewer
If you’re feeling the urge to go back to Harmony, start by looking for the 1999 pilot episode. Pay attention to the music cues and the way the camera lingers on the Crane mansion. It sets the tone for everything that follows. Don't try to binge-watch it like a modern sitcom; soaps were meant to be consumed in small, daily doses. Let the absurdity wash over you slowly.
Keep an eye out for the "Red Room" segments. This was where the show went full Lynchian horror. If you're an aspiring writer or creator, study how Reilly used "recap dialogue." It’s a masterclass in making sure a viewer who hasn't watched in three days knows exactly what’s happening, even if what’s happening is a woman giving birth to a shadow demon.
Finally, recognize that TV soap opera Passions was a product of a very specific time in media history. It was the bridge between the old-school melodrama of the 70s and the high-concept genre TV of the 2010s. It was messy, it was loud, and it was undeniably unique. We probably won't see its like again on daytime television, mostly because the budgets don't exist and the "rules" have become too rigid. But for those of us who were there, the bells of Harmony are still ringing.