<B>Well, my answer is two-fold on both issues. Yes soaps have changed - in the aspect of how long (or rather SHORT) the story arcs are these days. I remember in the good ol' days - stories would play out for months and months before any resolving - or payoff - would happen....and we LOVED watching it! Of course it would frustrate us to no end that our fav characters - or fav couples - would be two seconds too late to learn the truth - or would ALWAYS miss their lovers by minutes - and then all hell would break loose! But we dang sure would never miss a minute of it! BUT the formula of soap opera pretty much remains the same. And it HAS to in order to survive. It is an art form that still relies on the original formula for its longevity.</B> -- TODD'S LAIR

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Date Posted: 23:13:38 10/03/07 Wed
Author: TK
Subject: Well, my answer is two-fold on both issues. Yes soaps have changed - in the aspect of how long (or rather SHORT) the story arcs are these days. I remember in the good ol' days - stories would play out for months and months before any resolving - or payoff - would happen....and we LOVED watching it! Of course it would frustrate us to no end that our fav characters - or fav couples - would be two seconds too late to learn the truth - or would ALWAYS miss their lovers by minutes - and then all hell would break loose! But we dang sure would never miss a minute of it! BUT the formula of soap opera pretty much remains the same. And it HAS to in order to survive. It is an art form that still relies on the original formula for its longevity.
In reply to: tat statler 's message, "
Okay ... I just gotta ask this." on 07:32:03 10/03/07 Wed

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As for the audience - I don't believe for a second that the general soap opera audience has changed. And I base that on folks I know who stay away from all of the 'online' - you call them CRITICS (and they aren't even good critics, because they don't even begin to understand that which they constantly bitch about) and I just call them COMPLAINERS. Soap fans LOVE the genre, and like I said above - although they get frustrated with the near-misses and storyline twists - they STILL love to watch their stories. The internet has provided an outlet for those who certainly must bitch 24/7 - and they don't just do it in the soap opera communities - they are EVERYwhere on the net. It is truly a reflection of sad, lonely, and rejected souls. And to top it off they ALL believe they can write soaps better than the pros! HA! Soaps would have been dead decades ago, if these idiots were in charge - I'd lay money on that. (NT) -- TK, 23:26:57 10/03/07 Wed
And the constant whining about characters being written out of character doesn't make the least bit of sense. (Not to mention it shows how little they truly know about said characters...) Soap opera and the soap characters have GOT to always be fluid/flexible - always changing to a certain extent. Never of course veering too far from the original formula of the story-telling, though. And that is exactly how soaps and the characters are still managed today. They HAVE to be. Those crying about the latest Carly spoilers (and don't even get me started on the whole 'spoiler hysteria' aspect of the onliners) for example - all I can say is they obviously don't KNOW the character AT ALL!! It would be in CLASSIC Carly style to pull what the spoilers say she is about to do. SHEESH!! Conflict. CONFLICT is what soaps thrive on - and the audience, too. Period. (NT) -- TK, 23:44:22 10/03/07 Wed
Ah, TK! Hee! Yeah ... you are right about Story Arc lengths. Sigh. I hate that. But you know ... I think writers now think that viewers have a short attention span and are no longer capable of sustaining any kind of long term thought processes. And maybe they are right. The boards constantly scream ... move it up ... move it on! People no longer seem to relish the long view. They want what they want ... and they want it immediately. Again ... they don't want Soap.
And ... I agree that there is an incredible gap in the perception (and appreciation!) of Soap between the offline and "unspoilered" audience ... and the Online Writer Wannabes. Geez. If they are so good, why ain't they in the biz? Huh? Uh huh!
And you're right ... the Carly Conundrum really illustrates what we have spoken about in the past. Sigh. (NT) -- tat, 04:13:23 10/04/07 Thu

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