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Which soaps do you watch?


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Yeah, the only things that the British soaps have over the American ones are their primetime slots, their higher production values, and their willingness to include LGBT characters. I don't find the writing significantly better than the U.S. shows anymore beyond the ability to do events on a greater scale due to bigger budgets. If anything, they are far more sensationalistic, like Pratt x10. But around the turn of the millennium, they were doing laps around the American soaps creatively. That's when my interest in them first began.

 

The U.K. has a primetime tradition of soaps that's built into their TV culture, and it's just not economically sustainable here for many reasons. And even the British shows are suffering serious declines, so they may not last forever.

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They're all crap except EastEnders. What don't you like about them, though?

 

 

I disagree. EastEnders has done 2 back from the dead stories throughout its whole history, where it could in theory happen. Most of the cast of Days has come back from the dead at one point or another. The UK soaps are a lot more realistic, though I would say from my experience of watching Days that the scripts and cliffhangers are probably better in American soaps. The 1hr timeslot allows more time to explore the characters creatively IMO. I think they both offer different things. I wish I was around when soaps were in their prime in the US, as I'd have loved to see the first 20 years of Days.

 

Days also has some brilliant actors IMO who are just as good as a lot of the UK actors.

 

I can't see the UK soaps ever going. Emmerdale is probably more popular than it's ever been, Coronation St still has a huge following, EE is dwindling but it will bounce back I reckon. If any of them ever go, it will be decades from now. Even Hollyoaks which has looked at risk several times is still ticking along with a cult audience. Neighbours will probably be the first to go but I really hope not at creatively it's one of the more appealing ones to me.

 

I don't want any of the soaps to go, US or UK, I'm sick of all the crappy dramas/fantasy crap on TV. Soap is the best genre IMO.

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It's not so much about the "realism" and more about the frantic pacing and the stunts. Like Hollyoaks killing off basically half the cast in a pub fire, which was just the tip of the iceberg for that show in the past decade. There seems to a greater reliance on shock value, at least in my experience. The U.S. shows, at least in recent years, feel comparatively sedate, but I think part of it is they don't have the money to spend on lavish, gruesome stunts.

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Hollyoaks is the worst UK soap by far. I agree with you on that front, I dislike the stunts, and I don't like the way Channel 5 forces Neighbours to include such things. I didn't like the EE bus crash or ambulance crash either. I much prefer the character plots which is where the US soaps seem to do well, I just wish Days hadn't done all those back from the dead stories and Marlena being possessed as people don't take it seriously anymore. I keep telling people the show is much more than that. Even though Will coming back from the dead was totally ridiculous, the pacing was brilliant and the twists and turns leading to it kept me glued to it. They haven't rushed it at all which has made it so much better.

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Actually, in my own family tree, we had someone "return from the dead." One person, not 27, LOL.

 

I would say that DAYS was truly brilliant and in its prime from 1966 to 1976. I absolutely loved that era.

 

As for today, you are right: at least DAYS still has some stellar actors. Like Suzanne Rogers (Maggie) for example.

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@vetsoapfan I don't know how any of the soaps even managed to have viewers in the 60s and 70s when there were like 10,000 of them around....how did people fit it in?!

 

Look at you pulling my leg with Maggie

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 Kate is one of my absolute faves! And John and Marlena, Sami, Paul and Abi  

 

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Well, when soaps were only 15 or 30 minutes long, it was easier to fit multiple shows into your daily schedule. When they started to go to an hour in 1975...watching the same number of shows became a nightmare. Trust me, I know. At my peak, I was following ten (count 'em: TEN) soaps a day. I started with LOVE OF LIFE at 11:30 and finished at 4:30 with the conclusion of SOMERSET.

 

I thanked God when Betamax and then VHS arrived. I could tape all my stories and FF through the commercials, which shaved a good 25% off the running times. More when I also FFed through characters I found tedious.  But as dedicated as I was back then, I had hard choices to make, and was forced to drop several shows anyway, simply because I could not keep up with  them all.  I followed the synopses of my dropped shows in Soap Opera Digest at least, and would still tune in if something memorable or important took place. Then in the 1980s, the bottom dropped out of the industry and so many soaps become hollow shells of their former selves, so I started to lose interest and was no longer under pressure to follow the ones which I felt had been decimated.

 

I stuck with the tired old warhorses like TGL and ATWT until the bitter end, but it was hard seeing nail after nail being driven into their coffins.

 

Pulling your leg? MOI??? Whatever do you mean?

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Days in the 90s havimg the huge rat8ng increase in the mid to late 90s is partly the reason it's still around and AMC isn't.  I was a teen in the 90s and early 2000s....everyone watched Days and GH....sometimes AMC...but Days and GH were the soaps teens in my hs and college watched...passions was also huge in my college years as well.

 

Right now, I work so I just keep up on synposials...and peek in at TH or Days from time to time.

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