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<blockquote data-quote="Willie Oleson" data-source="post: 440514" data-attributes="member: 8">But...what is a soap opera?Let&#039;s pretend that is a poll question.A: one story from start to finish (and it better make sense!)B: the one that does it better or worse than another soap. It&#039;s all about winning.C: the moment I sit down to watch an episode, and what came before and what may come next week is not my biggest concern (let&#039;s see what happens)D: I can&#039;t answer that question unless you show me the ratings.I mean, a continuing story - that doesn&#039;t even make sense. It&#039;s a paradox and I&#039;m going to say that it is a effing miracle that most of it turned out to be as good as it was.Sure, there is some time to prepare and outline the main developments but it&#039;s still nothing compared to the luxury of shooting a film (one story).A soap cannot stop and there are various schedules to consider, the recurring negotiations with the crew and actors and Lord knows what else it takes to get things done.That&#039;s not an excuse to fail, and if you can&#039;t do it right then don&#039;t do it at all, but I think soaps are allowed to occasionally throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks, to see if they can find new angles to explore a potential storyline. I&#039;m sure that explains Pam&#039;s unpredictability (phew!)A more cynical point of view is that a soap/continuing story is inherently flawed and that all story-telling in this format is damage control. They constantly need to prevent it from failing.It cannot be a coincidence that there&#039;s a lot of fandom desire to &quot;fix&quot; what these soaps did or didn&#039;t do.But regardless of what your definition of soap is, to discuss these soaps in general terms and opinions is always at the expense of the nuances, details and performances that you can find in a episode. However, this is not very useful in the context of a discussion board because most people don&#039;t really have the desire to examine and present the episode details - and what made it so great or not.It&#039;s much easier to discuss it in big chunks i.e. &quot;the reason why season 6 was the best&quot; or &quot;the effect of this or that character&quot;. And there&#039;s nothing wrong with it, but it&#039;s legacy-talk and doesn&#039;t have much to do with the experience of watching soaps. Not to mention the anticipation of &quot;what will happen next? six days without my soap, this is infuriating&quot;.If I was only interested in the big payoff of major storylines then I wouldn&#039;t have the patience to watch soaps, let alone rewatch&nbsp; them.Oh! IF ONLY someone would take the trouble to compare these soap episodes week-by-week. Then&nbsp; we would know who did what best.<img src="http://yoursmiles.org/msmile/think/m1703.gif"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":think:" title="Think&nbsp; &nbsp; :think:" data-shortname=":think:" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Willie Oleson, post: 440514, member: 8"] But...what [I]is[/I] a soap opera? Let's pretend that is a poll question. A: one story from start to finish (and it better make sense!) B: the one that does it better or worse than another soap. It's all about winning. C: the moment I sit down to watch an episode, and what came before and what may come next week is not my biggest concern (let's see what [I]happens[/I]) D: I can't answer that question unless you show me the ratings. I mean, a continuing story - that doesn't even make sense. It's a paradox and I'm going to say that it is a effing miracle that most of it turned out to be as good as it was. Sure, there is [I]some [/I] time to prepare and outline the main developments but it's still nothing compared to the luxury of shooting a film (one story). A soap cannot stop and there are various schedules to consider, the recurring negotiations with the crew and actors and Lord knows what else it takes to get things done. That's not an excuse to fail, and if you can't do it right then don't do it at all, but I think soaps are allowed to occasionally throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks, to see if they can find new angles to explore a potential storyline. I'm sure that explains Pam's unpredictability (phew!) A more cynical point of view is that a soap/continuing story is inherently flawed and that all story-telling in this format is damage control. They constantly need to prevent it from failing. It cannot be a coincidence that there's a lot of fandom desire to "fix" what these soaps did or didn't do. But regardless of what your definition of soap is, to discuss these soaps in general terms and opinions is always at the expense of the nuances, details and performances that you can find in [B]a[/B] episode. However, this is not very useful in the context of a discussion board because most people don't really have the desire to examine and present the episode details - and what made it so great or not. It's much easier to discuss it in big chunks i.e. "the reason why season 6 was the best" or "the effect of this or that character". And there's nothing wrong with it, but it's legacy-talk and doesn't have much to do with the experience of watching soaps. Not to mention the anticipation of "what will happen next? six days without my soap, this is infuriating". If I was only interested in the big payoff of major storylines then I wouldn't have the patience to watch soaps, let alone [I]rewatch[/I] them. Oh! IF ONLY someone would take the trouble to compare these soap episodes week-by-week. [I]Then[/I] we would know who did what best. :think: [/QUOTE]

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