ChatterBank3 mins ago
Television soaps
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.To be fair to soap writers and producers, all these 'annoyances' are part of soap structure, and are common to all soaps because they have to be to make the format work.
OK, objective head off - I hate the fact that when characters disappear, no-on ever mentins them again, except maybe once a year.
And if Phil Mitchell owns the Arches, The Cafe, The Vic, and the never-seen billiard hall, why doesn;t he buy a big house out in Essex and stop grubbing around in the East End?
And when, as they do, people keep 'going away', what the hell do they use for money?
I can probably think of some more, but the red mist is starting to descend, so I'll stop now ....
Oh god where do you start and where do you end.
How characters can commit all sorts of heinous acts including adultery, rape, murder even, get found out, they spend a few weeks in jail where a few scenes are filmed, then hey presto they are released back in soapland and within weeks its as if it never happened.
How soap charactors can go from being unpleasant seedy toe-rags without a shred of decency to lovable bloke within a few months..[billy from eastenders to name just one]
How 90% of all plots are taken up by tedious short term affairs, and the other 10 involve just talking b****** in a pub.
when a charcter decides they want to leave the area - for good - they always leave that evening or first thing in the morning!
in reality a decision to leave your home, family, friends, life etc would take many weeks to sort out and wouldn't be a decision you make overnight nor would it be because you had a row with a neighbour
oh, oh, oh, I have one. I hate hate hate the way that the writers in Eastenders seem to see Scotland as some far-off mythical land with no decent roads (did you see the Christmas episode when the younger cast members got stranded on some moors on the way up to Edinburgh?! The last time I looked there was a straight motorway the whole way up, and not a moor in sight) and also no specific cities. Whenever anyone needs to get away (Nigel, I'm talking about you), it's always "I'm going up to Scotland." At least up here we all have kettles and washing machines!
Also, when 2 characters are having a heated discussion about something, they tend to talk almost in riddles to each other. It's like the scriptwriters build these kind of conversations using drop-down lists of the most common clich�d phrases, until the whole thing makes absolutely no sense.