Soap operas

[cjwatson]

Apparently I had nothing better to do while shopping and so was semi-consciously analysing the key change in the theme tune to "The Gilmore Girls". I remarked to ghoti that it was unusual for a soap theme tune to include a key change, and so we were trying to remember various soap theme tunes. Later:

cjwatson: And then there's "Neighbours", which was apparently written by a six-year-old.
ghoti: How did the theme tune to "Home and Away" go?
cjwatson: All I can remember is the bit right at the end: ♫ Home and away ♫
ghoti: ♫ Together each day, home and away ♫
cjwatson (after some thought): Wasn't it ♫ Closer each day, home and away ♫?
ghoti: Oh yes, of course.
cjwatson: Why are my neurons bothering to remember this?
ghoti: Isla Fisher.
cjwatson: Point.

Comments

[cjwatson]

I agree it's not quite your standard soap, but I can't agree that it's the same kind of distance away from that as "The West Wing". For me, the defining features of soaps are that they're episodic dramas and that they focus mainly on domestic relationships between the characters, and I think that latter part is a reasonably standard part of the definition of a soap opera. There's an element of that in "The West Wing", and it's interesting, but it's very much secondary to the politics. In "The Gilmore Girls" it's much more central.

The main thing that makes "The Gilmore Girls" less of a soap opera for me is that it's very much focused on two characters - you couldn't imagine any significant action going on away from either Lorelai or Rory - and it doesn't seem to have the sheer number of parallel storylines that you'd usually expect. (Although I only see it when Kirsten is watching it and I happen to wander past and sit in for an episode, so I don't know it all that well.)

[(Anonymous)]

I would say that to be a true soap requires year-round rolling production and it would help if it had at least two new episodes broadcast each week; but that's because I think there's an important and useful distinction to be made between 'soap opera' and 'returning series drama', both in in production terms and in audience response terms.

(The whole point of a soap opera is that you live with the characters and come to be involved with them as you see their lives unfolding in real time with yours; this doesn't happen when you don't have a year-round schedule, and happens less if you have to wait a week between episodes).

S.