The soap opera: one genre of television programme to which I am not totally addicted. Well, that’s not entirely true. I do watch Hollyoaks (yes, the worst soap) every night, but that is more of a flat bonding exercise than an overwhelming addiction. Also, it is a soap that has such ludicrous storylines and such implausible characters that it makes you laugh rather than cry.
And that is my issue with more mainstream British soaps (Eastenders, Coronation Street, etc.). They are so inescapably depressing – I just cannot even begin to understand how someone can sit through all of that misery day in, day out, without going completely bonkers. For me, television is an escape from reality; I don’t want to be thrust into its infinitely drearier version!
Perhaps the main attraction to soaps can be explained by the TV phenomenon that henceforth will be known as: The Jeremy Kyle Principal. The main appeal of the soap opera (as well as the Jeremy Kyle show) is that regardless of any problem that you may have in life, you can count on the life of your favourite character being far more dismal. People always say, “you never know how good you’ve got it.” Well, you soon perk up about life once you tune in to the latest melodramatic tragedy that has bred havoc and devastation on the streets of the soaps.
Soaps can throw up some gripping storylines on occasion, but they often make the mistake of drawing plots out until the audience reach the point of desperate disinterest. There have been many times when I have shouted at the TV in an oddly apathetic rage “just tell him about the affair, you stupid woman!” Soaps can be enthralling, but they can quickly become frustratingly dull and monotonous.
This is not helped when the writers are just as bored as we are, and the actors were hired because they know the producer’s husband’s nephew. I will not deny that there is some fantastic talent in the British soap industry (writers and actors), but unfortunately the genre is currently saturated with mediocre to subpar talent.
Just as I hope for at least one happy ending in my soap of choice, I do hope for a soap opera saviour to land and save us all from the sad state of British soaps. Why can’t our soaps be more like Latin American ones? With characters named after rival countries insulting each other, missing dogs names after wayward Presidents, and international law suits (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12198502)!
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