Soap Opera Pet Peeves

[chicklitsandfantasies]

That is a Passions staple.

[DramatistDreamer]

Is it just me or do soaps today not take full advantage of a proper Script (Continuity) Supervisor?

I know the fact that soaps have to go through numerous pages of dialogue and action is partly the culprit but every soap I've seen these days has had some noticeable continuity flaws. And many of them are glaring.

Does these shows still use a Script Supervisor? Seems like they'd need more than one at this point. Oh, I know budget schmudget.

[All My Shadows]

DAYS used to have it so that sometimes, characters would talk loudly in public areas and no one would hear them, yet sometimes a character would be listening to two characters whispering in another room and hear them loud and clear.

[frequentsoapfan]

Was it during the JER days? Because that always happened on Passions. ALWAYS!

[ChitHappens]

My god! I thought I was the only one who had a problem with empty paper coffee cups. The actors don't know how to handle them to make them look full. This is across the board and PT. I was watching SVU a few years ago and someone handed Olivia a paper cup of coffee that was clearly empty. That bugged the !@#$%^&*] out of me.

[applcin]

One of my peeves was the lack of security (and locks, apparently) when it comes to rich people and their homes (the Quartermaines, Viki's Llanfair, etc.). Folks have these mansions and grounds that characters walk in and out of all the time with no apparent difficulty. I remember thinking how strange it was when I started watching DOOL and Victor's bodyguard actually went everywhere with him or the fact he had a bodyguard at all. I mean, it made sense for him to have one, I was just surprised the show actually hired someone to fill that role on an ongoing basis. Then again, Palmer Cortlandt had his Dobermans and Asa Buchanan had his shotguns!

Tied into this is also the apparent ease with which people can not only break into confidential hospital files but actually alter test results.

[jo.frank88]

I know soaps have to re-use sets and re-decorate them for budget reason.. I'm fine with that as long as they really go all out to differentiate the sets...but there were some "lights" that Days has used for the past 5-8 years and they have popped up EVERYWHERE! Can any DAYS fans back me up on this? They are oval lights that are mounted on a wall - they are longer than wide. The lights first appeared on the pier set (I think that's where they originated) but over the years (especially around 2007-11) I remember for sure that I saw the SAME light mountings on the wall at the hospital, hotel rooms, office rooms, pretty much any temporary set. The lights don't look bad.. but it just got on my nerves that these lights popped up EVERYWHERE! I haven't noticed the lights too much recently though. Some Days viewers who are just as OCD as me please back me up on this

[jcar03]

I am normally to distracted by DAYS reusing the same room for several different offices (the blue room) to notice the light fixtures.

Do hospital's really put patient names outside doors? That seems like a privacy concern but I see soaps doing it all the time. The hospital set on DAYS has two entry doors which I find ridiculous.

[chicklitsandfantasies]

Yep I instantly though of the damn blue room combined with the bad lighting that made people look purple

[EricMontreal22]

Hell, it's rare that you would even get your own room (JR on AMC makes sense if he was in a coma so long--and his family has money--but not when you go to ER, etc.)

[JackPeyton]

I was in the hospital for a week last year, and they had my name on the door. When my grandma was in the hospital they had her name on the door, along with the other three people in the room. But those are my only two hospital experiences.

Days does have that one set they reuse for everything. A hospital room, a police station room, an office. Its annoying.

[Darn]

The fact that JR's room said "JR Chandler" and not "Adam Chandler Jr." annoyed me. JR is his NICKNAME.

[Nate4]

I HATE when characters get family relations wrong!

For example: Clint called Drew Asa's great great grandson, when it's his great.

[EricMontreal22]

Thanks to this thread, now I keep noticing all of the doors that open the wrong way Thanks guys...

[All My Shadows]

Yep!

This type of thing gets to me as well. I feel like when I was 14, writing fan fiction, even I would have made it a point to put the real name instead of the nickname.

I also agree on mansions with front doors opening into the living room or a tiny foyer. Expanding on that, houses where all of the rooms are opposite the camera. I know that all TV shows do this and that it's hard to give the illusion of their being rooms behind the camera, but it just seems silly to assume that the front door is either to the extreme left of the house or the extreme right. AMC subverted this sometimes in the 80s with Phoebe stumbling off of the Wallingford set to make it look like she was going into another room.