What constitutes a soap opera?

Cafe Society
1

Is there a definition of what style of programme constitutes a soap opera?
Discussion in the office here (after National Soap awards last night, sad I know) is divided on what programmes qualify as ‘soaps’ and which are merely ‘dramas’.

For the Brit dopers, which of these are classed soaps?

Obviously Brookie, Corrie, Eastenders, Emmerdale and Crossroads qualify automatically.
Then the Aussie ones: Neighbours, Home & Away and that other one.

But what about:
Family Affairs. Hollyoaks. The Bill. Heartbeat. Merseybeat. Causality. Doctors?

What is the crossing over point between a ‘soap’ and a ‘TV drama’ series?

2

Er… that should be casualty.

3

When I studied film, we had a definition which I think serves well and isn’t connected to taste or (lack of) quality: A dramatic story with no resolution.

4

Does the time (over the year) the programme is shown for have any influence on it?
i.e on that definition, even “Only Fools & Horses” could be a soap. Or ‘Friends’. But then we trip over into Sit-Coms territory.

Does it have to run continuously all year, not just be a, say, 12 episode series, even if it does continue the following year?

‘The Bill’ has no resolution in its storyline, yet was not mentioned at the awards (AFAIK).

Colour me confused.

5

Not being a watcher of soaps, I may not be best qualified to solve this, but apparently (in the UK at least) the producers prefer the term “serial drama” and there’s a clue in the use of the word serial.

AFAIK, to qualify as a soap, the plotline has to be continuous from one edition to the next, just as it is between one side of a commercial break to the other. In shows like Fiends, er Friends sorry, and Only Fools and Horses, although the characters remain the same and the plot elements directly arising from the characters’ personal circumstances remain continuous, each episode has a beginning, middle and end of its own. The only exception would be a special episode that they couldn’t finish in one show and which is indicated by “To be continued…” at the end and a preamble at the beginning of the next show.

By that reckoning, Family Affairs, Hollyoaks, and The Bill would all be classed as soaps (and I frequently hear them described as such), and Heartbeat would not. You’ll have to categorise Merseybeat, Casuality and Doctors for yourself because I haven’t watched them enough to be sure.

6

Your other point about soaps being shown continuously all year rather than in batches of episodes with breaks in between does also seem to be part of the formula though.

7

Thanks Everton. Thatt’s pretty much what I thought too.

I wouuld have expected The Bill to be at least worth a mention in the (nominations for) awards, but didn’t feature at all.

Maybe it doesn’t run all year, and is thus disqualified from soap status? I can’t remember.

8

They don’t have reruns. And the people don’t do much but talk about stuff. 90% of the show is people talking about what already happened. Something happens, and then it’s talked about for five days with nothing else happening on that particularly story line. And things happen that would never happen in real life. Like people faking their deaths, or killing themselves and setting it up to make someone else look like their murderer, or marrying their ex-spouse’s sibling or parent. Or marry their ex-, sometimes two or three or more times. Or someone stealing another person’s embryo from a lab and having it implanted into herself or faking a pregnancy.

9

Soap Operas.

Soap refers to the genres commercial origins, format emerged from radio sponsorship by detergent companies in the 1930’s

What is soap opera today? A serialised narrative, with as The Gaspodesaid no fixed resolution.
Characteristics include:
A three camera set-up, each scene is only filmed once but with three cameras, shots are edited together to form what you see on screen.

They are videoed not filmed

They tend to have a naturalistic feel, and don’t usually dramatise events with fancy camera work or lighting, mainly due to time constraints.

There are more, anything common characteristic between programs you consider a soap can be listed here. (about family life for instance,

Genre studies is not an exact science at all, the lines between genres blur and overlap often creating new genres, i.e. the docu-soap. And it’s pretty subjective. And f course there are difference between American Soaps and British soaps.

I don’t consider Casualty a soap opera, there is only one episode per week, (Soap usually run at least three times a week) and the main story is wrapped up in a single episode. In fact it’s Episodic in nature, unlike a soap in which stories continue and are serial in nature. Although of course there are serial narrative elements, showing where the line between drama and soap blur.

Only having a single episode a week, it’s filmed like a drama, it doesn’t use the three camera set-up and can afford to spend more time n lighting an camera work giving the whole episode a more ‘dramatic’ feel.

I don’t watch the Bill so I can’t comment but maybe it’s more episodic in nature. From what I have read it started very episodic and should have been classed as a Police Drama, but now it has more sop elements (serial narrative etc)
There are loads of books on the subject, just search for genre studies on Amazon.

10

Annie,
Or waking up, a character walking out of a shower almost a year later, with the whole last series having been just a dream in one characters head.

:wink:

But the (lack of) re-runs thing might be a good indication of a soap, except for the Sunday omnibus repeats (in the UK).

11

I appear to have forgotten how to type. :smack:

12

Oh, Gartog, missed your post prior to mine.
Think you have pretty much nailed it all there. Good information, thanks.

And thanks all for the replies.

13

np Aro Studying TV is part of my degree, and I had textbook to hand, which helped :wink:

14

Apparently The Bill won the Best Drama prize at the Inside Soap Awards 2002. I’ve also heard the same comment Gartog read, that it started off as an episodic drama and morphed into a soap when they began showing several editions per week.

On that subject, the British soaps began with only two editions per week but have expanded to satisfy (or in my case vastly exceed) public demand. Even so, only imported ones show more than four editions per week. Some soaps are repeated on digital channels, which probably doesn’t count, and more than one soap has a weekly ‘omnibus’ edition to summarise the week’s story, but they don’t rerun like regular programmes because they’re shown continuously all year.

I don’t think the “three cameras” formula applies to the British ones, and few British TV shows are shot on 35mm anyway, but those characteristics may well be true for US ones. I caught an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful on holiday once. It made Neighbours look like The Cherry Orchard.

15

A cinema professor told me that there really is one crucial difference between soap operas and other forms of drama.

In drama, characters tend to be doing something while they are talking - usually something that advances the story in some way.

In soap operas, characters just stand there and talk.

According to this prof, if you see people standing and yapping without doing anything else, you’ll know right away that you’re watching a soap opera.

16

I think the three camera rule applies to British soaps too. Although I can’t find a cite, and I’ve never worked on a soap. However the studio production modules on the course here (University if Wales, Aberystwyth) uses a three camera set-up and is designed to match actual set-ups used.

But if you have worked in soaps, then I will defer to your greater knowledge.

17

I haven’t worked on soaps, but even as a viewer it’s clear that on a technical level they vary from one to another. For instance, Brookside pioneered the use of only one camera (often a steadycam) to give a more realistic point of view. I wouldn’t doubt that some (most?) soaps use three cameras in fixed positions here too though.