On To The Next Round: Who Most Deserves A 2018 Daytime Emmy Nomination?

The Daytime Emmy pre-noms are out and now comes the hard part – deciding which performers deserve a full-fledged nomination.

There are numerous actors on every soap who shined over the year. They were handed powerful storylines and rose to the challenge with consummate performances. So, whittling down the contenders isn’t going to be easy.

Here are the stars who we think are most deserving of a chance at taking home the gold.

A GH Villainess
Evil Ava finally paid the piper when she was severely burned on General Hospital (GH), and Maura West was riveting throughout the entire story–as she always is.

Who can forget her blood curdling scream the moment Ava first saw her horrific facial scars or how she raced home dejected after her first public outing where strangers stared at her?

But, perhaps West’s greatest moments were conveying the goodness inside the murderous mobster as she connected with Griffin (Matt Cohen) and her totally selfless interactions with Patient 6.

A Y&R Ingenue
As The Young and the Restless’ Mariah, Camryn Gimes had a year filled with fights, fury, and heavy emotional conflict.

Grimes portrayed Mariah’s feud with Hilary (Mishael Morgan) with the perfect mix of humor and anger; her romance with Devon (Bryton James) with tempered tentativeness; and, above all, her confusing feelings for Tessa (Cait Fairbanks) with bold sincerity.

There’s a raw realness to her work that often makes viewers feel like they’re peering into her real life and not watching a soap.

A Days Duo
Two stars shined bright on Days of Our Lives. Judi Evans’ double duty stint as sweet proper Adrienne and bold ballsy Bonnie was sheer brilliance. Evans had the ability to delineate between the two characters without uttering a single word. All it took was her stance, a look, or a simple smile.

Handed storyline gold – playing the outraged father of a son mistakingly shot by a police officer – James Reynolds delivered as Abe. Whether chastising and raging at JJ (Casey Moss) for being trigger happy or depicting Abe’s heartache at the possibility of losing his beloved Theo (Kyler Pettis), Reynolds’ gamut of emotions were pure perfection.

A B&B Hero
Playing the upstanding good guy can be a bore, but Scott Clifton wouldn’t allow it as The Bold and the Beautiful’s Liam. With his daytime dad Bill (Don Diamont) an end-justifies-the-means kind of guy, Liam was constantly in conflict with his father, and Clifton never failed to convey his character’s inner struggle.

He easily balanced playing the son who looks up to his dad with the man keenly aware of his faults and always held Bill accountable. Through it all Clifton proved that the hero can be just as powerful and compelling as the villain.