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Are the series that get the most critical accolades and cult followings soap operas at heart? Large casts and multiple, open-ended plot lines - what else could "Game of Thrones" be?
Are the series that get the most critical accolades and cult followings soap operas at heart? Large casts and multiple, open-ended plot lines - what else could "Game of Thrones" be?
Funny you say this, Mouldy. I have been pondering the same thing lately. In the heart of the furor over Downton Abbey, I tried to watch it and made it through 2 seasons before I realized that the core of the show was a prettified, trumped-up soap opera. I am beginning to see this pattern in several shows, or perhaps I just haven't noticed before now. Don't get me wrong, I was a huge All My Children fan several years ago, but at least the writers/producers were up front about it being nothing more than a soap opera. I feel that these latter day shows are pretentious and masquerading as profound TV, which seems a tad bit deceitful to me.
Or I'm just getting too old for romance and like my gritty crime shows.
Almost all of them have a soap-opera component. People like at least some interplay between the characters and their personal stories.
Like Criminal Minds. The soap-opera component is very low on that show - each episode definitely stands alone, but they let us know the characters and their stories and there are some things in each episode that if you aren't clued in you will miss the meaning of.
To me, most of my favorite shows I'd miss a LOT w/o knowing the backstories.
I have been watching one soap off and on since it's beginning in the mid-sixties. Prime time TV is very much like it, in fact I think that's probably where they get some of the ideas for their shows and certainly some of the actors.
"Downton Abbey" was one big fancy dress soap opera. It had everything daytime TV has. I once posted that on a TV forum and got flack for it. How dare I used the words "soap opera" and fine British TV in the same sentence.
But I have a friend in the UK who watched it who told me that's exactly what people call it there.
One difference though is that the acting is better both in the British dramas and prime time American soaps than in daytime TV shows. Actors on soaps are often former models who are hired for their looks and not their acting ability. Some, however can act and have gone on to be very successful actors in other acting genres.
"Downton Abbey" was one big fancy dress soap opera. It had everything daytime TV has. I once posted that on a TV forum and got flack for it. How dare I used the words "soap opera" and fine British TV in the same sentence.
But I have a friend in the UK who watched it who told me that's exactly what people call it there.
Yes!! So true. I have several friends in scattered throughout the U.K. and they all roll their eyes at how sudsy Downton is. It's as if a posh English accent magically transforms mediocrity into high-class art.
"Downton Abbey" was one big fancy dress soap opera. It had everything daytime TV has. I once posted that on a TV forum and got flack for it. How dare I used the words "soap opera" and fine British TV in the same sentence.
Seriously? Downton was totally a soap--intrigue, blackmail, murder, melodrama. Heck, there was even a long-lost relative with amnesia. It had posh accents and pretty clothes, but still.
Soap operas, when I was young enough to be home during the day, they aired during my naptime. "Soap", on the other hand, was a great show. Liked the cast with Richard Mulligan, Katherine Helmond, and a young Billy Crystal. Rod Roddy as the narrator was also a great feature of the show. I still catch myself humming the theme when I buy soap at the supermarket.
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