A Soap Opera Analysis
I've long been a sneerer of daytime dramas. I've seen so many films where exceptional work is put in and time-consuming effort and performances are given that will never be duplicated or forgotten. So when I see a soap opera bring a tiny, tiny percentage of these great entertainment skills and tactics over, I know that I'm watching something less, and I disliked sitting there watching it for the longest time, knowing there are plenty of better things out there. But I just didn't understand their formula back then. What allowed me to sit through their 20 minute show (in an hour long block of forty minutes of commercials) had been to make fun of it. There's plenty to make fun of, and there still is. I think there always will be, and that'll for sure keep me coming back. This is one of the things I like about soaps: they can be hysterical, and I think sometimes they're both not meaning to and are fully aware that it's going to be taken that way. Oh well, it'll be forgotten by tomorrow's episode, so have some fun with today's. That writer's room I think must be unlike any other show. It's also a difficult job writing a show for every weekday, and Young and the Restless -- the one that I watch -- is well over the thousand episode mark. I have to grant it forgiveness there. You're not going to make over a thousand really, really awesome episodes every single time, nonstop. There are going to be identical twins like there are going to be time travel episodes of a sci-fi show. There are going to be millionth marriages and people still get excited about it.
I love when the dialog works and when it doesn't. I love catching when something works and when it doesn't. I love when a film or pop culture reference is thrown in. I love noticing these things and trying to pick it apart and learn from it, and be surprised when the writers and so forth do their job and try to cover up their tracks. I think that's what I like most about it right now. The fights are hilarious, and I always look forward to those. 20% of the time (or less) I really enjoy the romances, which leads to my next point: occasionally, but very rarely, these shows can have an exceptional episode. A Christmas episode I recall was A Christmas Carol themed, and another had the dramatic death of a main character outside a church wrestling over a gun with a bad guy that would eventually end him (all set to orchestral music). And, hilariously, they ruined the value of that death and that scene by saying it was a twin brother later on to bring the character back. So they do still use that cliche! But that was an exceptional bit.
Everything's still there with plenty of new stuff, and I'm very intrigued to see how it's all used. I think I like seeing something that should by all rights be watered down so much you can't even taste it, but efforts from all over find ways to keep it fresh, and it's inspiring as a writer to see that kind of longevity and writing being done every day like the job it is. So I do find myself sitting down to this show more than once a week to get some entertainment and even inspiration out of something that I will still tell you that I do not like very much. But will I defend it? Yeah, yeah I would.
