1. Westenwind (1999-2003)
Totally unexpected, out of the blue, there was a Dutch prime time soap and oh boy, was it prime and was it time.
Marketed as the
Dutch Dallas it tells the story of two rival families/companies and...well, everything else. I think it was our last "TV event".
2. Footballer's Wives, I think this self-explanatory.
3. The Tudors
I'll say: this is a historical drama, not a soap. And then burst into laughter.
The time it took to divorce his first wife and marry that conniving Boleyn tramp felt like daytime soap.
Case in point (or is it "point in case"? It's so hot I can't
think anymore, let alone in a foreign language):
4. Dirty Sexy Money
Excellent first season, a hip new Dynasty, like Central Park West was the hip new Dynasty of the 1990s.
Unfortunately it also ended the same way, cancelled after the mediocre second season. Such a shame.
5. Everwood
A heartwarming series that doesn't
really qualify as soap, but there was plenty of romance, rivalry, tragedy - and I always had to know what would happen next.
6. Desperate Housewives
I'm not sure if it was designed as soap, to me it seems more like a crime/mystery/black humour thing.
But there was so much soapy drama going on, it would be crazy to say that it
wasn't a soap.
Too bad they often took the "dark" out of the dark humour, but it certainly had plenty of wicked moments.
Brenda Strong's character (probably the best of the lot) dies in the first episode, just like she did two years earlier on Everwood.
7. The O.C.
I've watched almost three seasons because I liked the storylines for the adults, but the kids were the main characters and I found them un-watchable, especially after season 1.
Writing out Chris Carmack's character (sort of a blonde John Ross type) was a failure of epic proportions.
(Actually I don't know how it happened, maybe he wanted to go).