ALL: General Retro Soap Discussion

[slick jones]

Terry aka danfling passed away last year, but his board has been down for several years.

[Tisy-Lish]

So sorry to hear this.  I enjoyed his message board for many years.   Thank you for responding to my post.    

[Reverend Ruthledge]

Thank you for posting this. I found that interview with Beverlee McKinsey really interesting. She's a candid and stimulating interviewee. I wish the interview would have been post-GL so she could have talked about that. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Scott McKinsey, Beverlee's son, had that interview but he'd never watched it, so he didn't know what he had. Someone had given it to him. I discovered it & asked his permission to listen to it & I of course was amazed. Here was a forgotten gem. I asked him if I could post it & with his permission I have put it out in the cyberspace universe. He & I agree that it is her most candid & also most interesting interview. Totally agree that it would be fabulous to have had her time as Alex included, but it wasn't to be. However, the Micheal Logan interview after she left GL is also quite candid. One thing I liked is it shows her friendship with Victoria Wyndham.

 

[Franko]

Welcome, Tisy-Lish! I take it you're a Family fan?

[Contessa Donatella]

The opening number to the 9th Annual Daytime Emmys 1982

https://www.instagram.com/p/DIYDFNdJYEa/

[Spoon]

Speaking of danfling, let's debate/discuss serial vs. soap opera.  Anyone agree that soap operas are a NYC thing and the rest are serials?  The NYC serials always had a unique feel to them.  The acting was different, the look and feel was less slick.  Plus you had all of the theater people on the East Coast shows bringing a generally higher quality of acting.

 

Soaps are serials but not all serials are soaps.  Especially since most all non-procedural dramas are serialized these days, would we call all of them soap operas?

Edited April 13 by Spoon

[Contessa Donatella]

I have always used the terms interchangeably but I see the point you're making.

To be serialized a show only has to advance day by day, or episode to next episode, where no episode is skipped & where one day follows the one before.

To be a soap it must be a serial. Most have families, intergenerational, or multigenerational. Some employ cliffhangers. Soaps can use sex, adventure, escapism, all kinds of relationships, trials & tribulations, secrets & lies, social issues, health challenges. Soaps may be melodramatic. What else?

I do not agree with the fairly popular idea that only soaps out New York are true soaps. I do agree that New York soaps tend to be different than LA soaps. 

Parodies of soaps may be serialized or not. Parodies must include comedic elements, satire, irony & the self-referential & self-mocking aspects usually are very heightened & not natural or realistic. 

 

Edited April 13 by Contessa Donatella

[Khan]

I don't.  Y&R, for instance, might be a West Coast soap with a slicker production aesthetic, but I think its' roots are in the the classic, P&G-sponsored soaps that were produced in NYC.

Edited April 13 by Khan

[Reverend Ruthledge]

I'd only ever heard of the NYC vs. LA thing from Danfling and I just chalked it up to a neurotic quirk of his. Not anything that that invited a logical debate. I personally don't see any difference between "soap opera" and "serial" in format. I think "soap opera" was just the more common, albeit slightly derogatory, term for the serial. Most dramas and comedy on TV are serials unless they're anthology programs. Most people who watch serials would never admit they watch a "soap opera" though because that term is used to deride what they feel like is melodramatic serials. People that watch serials on TV (most people) don't really consider them or call them serials. Most people don't give a thought to that term. However, if a serial becomes too melodramatic or plot-heavy in their mind, they are quick to say, "It's just a soap opera". And the root of that derisive phrase goes to their unwarranted disdain for daytime serials. I say "unwarranted" because most of those people have never watched daytime serials. Especially not in the glory days of daytime serials which most people are too young now to have experienced. In my mind, there is no difference between a soap opera and a serial except perhaps the daily aspect of the daytime serials. The daily serials have always just been classically referred to as "soap operas". But most people who watched a show like "The Sopranos" or "The Walking Dead" would never in a million years admit that they watch a soap opera. 

Edited April 13 by Reverend Ruthledge

[Tisy-Lish]

I disagree with Danfling's odd insistence that the term soap opera referred only to serials taped in New York. But I never argued with him about it, mostly because he ran that message board AND he had a right to believe whatever he wanted to.  Que sera serootie...  

I do believe all soap operas are serials (regardless of where they are shot), but not all serials are soap operas.  I suppose any continuing-story tv shows or continuing franchises of movies are serials. But few of them bare much resemblance soap operas, in my opinion.  For example many of today's primetime dramas have stories that continue from episode to episode, but I'd never call them soap operas.  Many limited series streaming dramas also feature stories that continue from episode to episode, but again -- they aren't soap operas.  And as I mentioned, some movie franchises continue their storylines from one film to the next -- so they are serialized (serials), but not soap operas.  

I've often tried to create a workable definition for the "soap opera", but it's tough because there are always a few exceptions.  What would you say are the characteristics of a soap opera?  I've tried to compile a list a few times, but it is difficult -- again because there are always a few exceptions.  So how would those exceptions be justified without destroying list or the definition??  

First, I would start with the characteristics of a daytime tv soap opera, and then discuss primetime tv soap operas (Dallas, Dynasty, Peyton Place, Our Private World, Falcon Crest, Knots Landing, etc) separately and work out the differences later.  I'd also probably separate the radio soap opera, and then work out those differences later as well.

And I think it goes without saying that we posters here at SON would never agree on that list of characteristics.  So we'd need to engage in some friendly sparing about it and then agree to disagree.  

 

 

Edited April 13 by Tisy-Lish

[Contessa Donatella]

Of course the bias you are talking about only exists for US daytime dramas, not for Brit soaps for example & not for US primetime soaps either. I have always thought it was a pink collar thing, straight-up sexism, misogyny, etc. but is why the genre is ghettoized. (If that is actually a word.)

 

This of course was not the case in typical US entertainment for a very long time. Most of what was provided by the 3 networks then was flat-out episodic TV. But, it has now also been a long time since primetime began to heavily poach US daytime. Personally I think of Hill Street Blues & St. Elsewhere as the shows that began to produce more soapily, first, had success with it & then that spread because the US is so very prone to copycatting. 

 

I've got someone in my soap group on FB that wants me to do this so we can have a discussion about what people like & dislike in their soaps today, right now & I have been resisting because it seems so impossible to codify, quantify, qualify, etc. just as you seem to be saying. 

 

[Khan]

Good point.

To me, the difference between a continuing drama or serial and a soap opera is that a soap opera should be geared specifically toward women, with an emphasis on romantic conflicts.  Of course, that doesn't mean romance needs to be the center of EVERY plot.  However, there should be a healthy dose of it; and every plot should concern itself most with interpersonal relationships - meaning, of course, what goes on everyday inside the living room, bedroom and kitchen.

[Tisy-Lish]

If we were going to make a list of the characteristics of the daytime TV soap opera, I think we would need to preface many of those characteristics with the term "traditionally".  Examples:  traditionally written for a female audience; traditionally focused on romance, domestic drama, and workplace drama; traditionally shot on videotape (as opposed to film) and later shot digitally preserving the camera appearance of videotape; traditionally limited to studio sets with limited on-location scenes; traditionally utilizes studio sets (homes, workplaces, public spaces, etc,) many of which become iconic to the particular soap opera, and often used for decades with little change; etc., etc., etc... 

Perhaps prefacing the characteristics with the term "traditionally" would provide wiggle-room to avoid having the exceptions blow apart the list.  Who knows??

[TEdgeofNight]

A certain someone is posting to herself, again. We all know it.