1 post tagged “as the world turns”

Some people like true crime shows because of all the delightful fact finding and craziness.  Some people like makeover shows because they like the feeling it gives them seeing people finally become happy about their own appearance.  And some people like the news because they are horrible masochists who enjoy watching stuff about all the murders, death, corruption and the occasional fluff piece about a rescued dog.  Me?  I love soap operas.   

My love for soap operas kind of started out weirdly.  I didn't like daytime soaps.  My mom lived for As The World Turns and Guiding Light.  I preferred Beverly Hills 90210 and then jumped ship to Melrose Place.  I was probably the only kid in my school who watched MP religiously and probably the only one who was watching when Dr. Kimberly Shaw took off her wig after returning from the dead.  Which was disappointing in that I didn't have anyone to talk about it with.  Because they were all watching, hell, I don't even know.  Full House, probably.

But then, I started watching Guiding Light with my mother and sister every summer and I got hooked on the Santos family.  Specifically Carmen.  She was everything I wanted to be.  Powerful, feared, bitchy and AWESOME. And ok, she was actually really evil and tried to kill her son's wife more than once, but still, AWESOME. Once she left the show, so did I. After that I stuck with whatever turgid drama I could get my hands on that wasn't daytime.

Then my best gal pal Lucy got me to start watching Days of our Lives right around the time that Marlena was revealed to be the Salem Stalker.  It took me a good week to actually understand any of what was going on, but once I did, I was hooked.  I started reading the internet soap fansites, searching for info on who was going to die next.  And that's I think the number one thing that I love about soaps: the format of soaps is so fluid anything can happen.  Literally, anyone can die, anyone can come back from the dead (for whatever stupid reason), anyone can take over the world with a weather machine, or hell, even 2 witches can cross magic beams and create an earthquake that causes a tsunami in New England.

So here's my list of reasons why I love soap operas:

• Anything can happen.  - Like I said above, plots can meander and sometimes be truly shocking.
• No matter what the crime, you can still be redeemed - It's true.  Look at One Life to Live: Todd basically raped women for ages and he's now kind of a hero on the show.  Or take Marlena on Days: She sort of killed 9 people and people in Salem still love her.  That's not something that can happen in everyday life.
• Plots move slowly - Miss an episode of Lost and well, you're kind of lost as to what's going on in the next episode.  Soaps conveniently remind you constantly of what happened in the last episode, sometimes recycling the exact same scene again.  And then flashing back to it five minutes later (this is especially true of James Reilly's days on Days).
• Plots that don't work? Re-written.  Characters that don't work? Recast or written off.  This doesn't happen in primetime because of the massive lead time needed to produce the bigger shows.  When a storyline ain't working on Grey's Anatomy, it could be 8-10 weeks before the viewers sees the episode where they change it.  Soaps don't have that problem.  They can re-write on the fly, recast seamlessly and still have the storyline work.  Sometimes (hey, I'm not blind...sometimes it just don't work).
• Self-contained storylines.  Don't like what's going on with one storyline, fast forward.  Primetime focuses on the ensemble, mostly, so all the characters tend to interact.  Not so with Daytime.