Anyone who is murdered routinely has at least 12 people who had reasons to want them dead.
People constantly marry their ex-spouses. In between such marriages, they are often married to the ex-spouse’s siblings.
There’s also a branch of a European noble (or possibly even royal) family in town. In fact, it’s very possible that somebody you know is secretly a member of that family even though this contradicts everything that’s ever been said about their background before.
Most people invite their archenemies (and most people do have archenemies) to any fundraiser, wedding, or other major social events that they host, which leads to some flung drinks and occasional fistfights.
There’s no shortage of islands that you can buy if you have the money and create everything from a mansion to a state-of-the-art cosmetic surgical center on without being on any known maps.
That hospital in which every state-of-the-art, experimental procedure is performed employs three doctors and two nurses, all related by blood and marriage. The nurses spend most of their time talking about the doctors’ philandering.
There is always ice in the ice bucket.
This is one of my favorite lessons from Perry Mason, too. 
Split-personalities are amazingly common. There is always one good personality, and one evil.
Brain tumors occur most often to pretty, yet demure young women. Brain tumors cause slight dizzyness and gentle “swooning” spells (the woman faints, but falls to the floor in a graceful, willowy manner and someone is always right behind her in order to cath her in their arms. Nobody ever just keels over.) Brain tumors eventually kill the vicitm mercilessly, she justs goes to sleep and doesn’t wake up.
If a person goes blind, deaf, or becomes a paraplegic, they just have to be patient - they will inevitably experience a "miraculous’ recovery eventually. Nobody ever STAYS disabled.
Likewise, disfiguring facial scars are always ultimately corrected through plastic surgery to restore the persons’ face.
99.9999999% of all women are blonde, with shoulder-length hair.
There are exactly two African-Americans in the whole town. One man & one woman who will become attracted to each other. Asians, middle-easterners or Eastern Europeans don’t exist.
If two people hate each other from their very first meeting, it is a sure sign that they will eventually sleep together and ultimately marry.
During your teen years, everything happens to you during summer time. Vacations, school, your fourth and fifth love affair, and probably a kidnapping or two (either with you as kidnapper or kidnappee) will happen between June and September. The rest of the year, you will be mysteriously busy at college (usually the local, though world renowned, school that always has a top 10 medical school, business school, and law school) or possibly camp.
Unless you’re a doctor (and must spend time performing cutting edge procedures at the state of the art hospital), your job never actually requires you to work, or even to show up. No matter what type of “job” you have, you will still be able to afford a beautifully furnished home and stylish tailored clothing and accessories.
People routinely record conversations featuring incriminating evidence, which are then (accidentally or otherwise) played back at an inopportune moment to a fully packed room.
I’m in the UK, and I’m looking at you, Eastenders.
Unlike sitcoms, where pregnant women tend to go into labor while stuck in elevators or on roller coasters or whatever, in real (soap opera) life most women go into labor after being knocked down a set of stairs by a villain or while stranded at a remote farmhouse without cell service. Luckily humans no longer have umbilical cords and the baby can go from “plopped out” to “swaddled and in your arms” in two seconds.
A kid born in 1999 and a kid born in 2002 and a kid born in 2004 will, like female dorm mates synchronizing menstrual cycles, synchronize ages to all be 17 in 2011.
Even death is temporary…multiple deaths, even. People have more lives than cats or Jason Vorhees. Even if you see the body, get the autopsy results, and add a couple of caps yourself, death isn’t permanent.
Everything you say must be followed by a dramatic pause and dramatic music and dramatic staring.
If you murder someone, hang out for a little bit because the person you actually wanted to kill will enter the room with the body in a few seconds after you leave. This is especially necessary because of the propensity of evil twins, body doubles, plastic surgery and mistaken identity.
Everybody is amazingly good looking, even horribly deformed people.
People either talk out loud to themselves for anyone to hear their crazy plans or they talk with a confidant and recap everything everytime they discuss the secret matter, often just a few feet away from possible listeners.
All My Children actually hired a war vet with scars to play a war vet with scars, unfortunately he’s not a very good actor but they paired him with an equally bad actress so she makes him look better.
Speaking of AMC, a 20 year old can join the police academy, become an officer and then a detective in a short span of a few months and her police chief father had nothing to do with it, she did it all on her own. They also routinely pair rookies with cadets because no veteran police officers are regular characters.
Women who have gone through menopause can still get pregnant and often do and no one ever mentions the mother’s age.
Evil doerskeep diaries where they record their evil doings in great graphic details. often leaving them open for anyone walking by the ead.
No matter how much you eat and drink, you remain thin and sober.
It’s only cold and snowy around Christmas.
All grandparents look around thirty years old. Another World had Rachel give birth to twins when she had a 12 year old grandson.
Nobody has a TV in their living room, but everybody has a fully stocked liquor cart with crystal decanters.
Attorneys never recuse themselves or are removed from cases due to conflicts of interest. It is not at all uncommon to prosecute an ex-spouse, or defend somebody who once tried to kill you.
And the aforementioned ever-full and internally-chilled ice buckets. 
Powerful businessmen (such as Palmer Cortlandt on All My Children) who go bankrupt and end up owning a fried chicken stand, will get all their wealth back in three months.
95% of the people who start off as thieves or embezzlers will have a change of heart and end up as good guys.
You probably have a child that you don’t know about. (This happens to both men and women)
You definitely have sibling that you don’t know about.
Birth control never works.
It is impossible for medical science to determine the father of a child until after the child is born, at which point mere visual inspection will do the job.
Not only that but all cases of amnesia also cause horrifying personality changes turning normal, wholesome individuals into their own evil twins.
So many true facts I didn’t know, just because I don’t watch soaps!
Sometimes, when people come back after leaving town for a while/dying, they look very different upon their return. Being away changes a person. It’s considered impolite to mention it, though.