Soap Opera

Seems to me that one way in which internet forums operate is as interactive soap operas.

The good ones anyway.

i watched the wire. i guess i don't really understand what constitutes a soap?

Soaps are the kind that never end.

I like soaps when they go mad, like 'Bouncer's dream'-era Neighbours, or when a passenger jet crashed and wiped out two thirds of Emmerdale Farm, or the last five years of Brookside...

All soaps seem to have moments when they lose grip and spaz out. Around about 1993 or 94 Neighbours was absolutely mental: Jim's magic mushroom trip, Good Julie/Evil Julie, the endless and overlapping and nonsensical Rick Alessi scams.... It was totally great. It made school lunch hours feel psychedelic.

The whole Mitchell Brothers saga sent Eastenders over the edge quite a few times.

Has anyone got any good examples of soap opera insanity? I mean, Brookside doesn't count really, that's cheating.

When Deidre Barlow married a serial killer in Coronation Street. That was a hoot.

Apparently the last series of Dynasty was legendarily insane. Did anyone ever see it?

So any serial drama is a soap? That might be your definition, but it isn't as far as TV Guide goes. Soaps are usually ongoing and about regular people having affairs and shit isn't it? Like the general consensus?

Used to watch Neighbours and Coronation Street regularly. The latter can have some great comic set pieces.

There are certain rules to soaps: for instance, any character who dared to leave the safety of Ramsey Street and Lassiters would inevitably come to a sticky end, lost in the outback or mixed up with the criminal elements in the Big City.

Other rules are 1) if there are three characters and two of them want to speak to each other in private, all they have to do is take one step to the side and their conversation will be completely inaudible to the person they left behind 2) however large the gathering and however small the table, one side of the table will be strangely unusable

Soaps can be delightfully moral, and the moral centre is often embodied. Neighbour's moral centre has been, for some time, Toadie. It is fitting that he's now the resident lawyer. Everything has to go through Toadie, and now it's official.

Eastenders is too depressing for me.

The moral in Eastenders is that life sucks, anything else is unrealistic: if two people get on for more than a week without shouting at each other, then come Monday morning one of them will have to die.

Why can't soap be a place where everybody gets on, like Dissensus?

Ha ha, yes the Big City in Neighbours was a sinister, mythical place! And if people did come back in one piece, they looked completely different.

Annalise Hartman was one of the greatest soap characters of all time. Charlene who?

In the late 80s and early 90s everybody in Britain watched Neighbours, which is a bit weird when you stop to think about it. Apart from the endearing loopines, and despite being set in a location of non-stop sunshine, it was quite a dreary and depressing show.

craner said:

Apart from the endearing loopines, and despite being set in a location of non-stop sunshine, it was quite a dreary and depressing show.

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It was the antidote to the US glitz.

Tho' Charlene and Scott were quite aspirational: their goodness was my guiding light.

Maybe, but we had the Brit soaps for that. I suppose Neighbours is the exact mid point between The Bold and the Beautiful and Brookside.

I used to be a little amazed by Home and Away watchers. They were quite hardcore. It defies belief that Home and Away is still trundling on after all these years. Does anybody know anybody that still watches it? Last time I skipped past, I couldn't believe my eyes: there was fucking Alf!

Separated at birth:


Alf


Alf

Alf and Ailsa, the elders, in Home and Away acted as uber-mentors for all the youngsters in that lawless cove.

Playing Alf for decades must fuck with your head.

craner said:

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Has anyone got any good examples of soap opera insanity? I mean, Brookside doesn't count really, that's cheating.

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Falcon's Crest.

craner said:

Playing Alf for decades must fuck with your head.

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Putting up with all those flaming galahs

If Grange Hill counts, that was hitting untouched peaks around 88-90: Danny Kendal vs. Bronson, Gonch vs. Ziggy, Fresh n Fly, Trevor Cleaver's booze problem, um, the trip to the Isle of Wight, etc. Amazing stuff. In fact, Gonch is possibly my favorite soap character of all time. That is, if we can call Grange Hill a soap. Which we probably can't.

woops said:

this was a good thread. i miss noel.

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luka said:

i was just thinking yesterday he was my favourite character on dissensus street.

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still applies by the way. maybe he'll come back played by a different actor?

for lunatic soaps, what about Sunset Beach?

From a North American perspective, the only time I actually attempted to make it home at lunch and watch a soap (when I was in High School) was during the wonderful period on "Days of Our Lives" in which the character Marlena was possessed by the devil.

He would manifest as a giant rubber demon, parts of which would slough off and fall to the floor as he brushed against tables.

There were also (if I remember correctly) a large group of Russian (?) priests attempting to put a stop to his evil work. Sadly, they were constantly attacked by minions of the devil in the form of stuffed panthers that would be thrown on them from offscreen. Death was inevitable thereafter.

There was also another American soap that featured a demonic hand puppet as a recurring character, but the details of that one have left my mind.

watching all my children at the mo'. the wife has been watching since childhood. when i ask about a character's motivations or history, it is so long, convoluted and incredible. i have learned, after maybe a dozen years of watching these shows with her, that suspension of disbelief is the name of the game. i occasionally bring up the lack of logic in a storyline and she reminds me that i am going about watching it in the wrong way. it is about building up the circumstances to achieve maximum drama.

what's interesting about amc is that the last word or image of a scene is the beginning of the next scene. a daisy chain of dramatic imagery.

i also like when the actors that play a character are swapped out in mid-scene.

and one last note, doppelganger-dom is a recurring theme in soaps. can't be a bad thing.