I know a lot of soapie-fans will probably form a posse and come after me for this, but here’s five reasons why I don’t watch soapies. At all. Ever.
1. It requires too much investment from me
I don’t mind investing in a show, I really don’t, but having to watch it forever and ever more every day of my life is too serious a commitment.
Give me a show with 20plus episodes which I watch once a week. That’s about the level of betrothed-ness I have in mind. Analogy: It’s not that I prefer one night stands, but there’s a happy middle ground between this and marriage till death do us part.
2. The time
When I get at home at 5 o’clock I prefer not having to turn on the telly immediately. I’m weird, I know, but I unwind (with or without alcohol depending on the day I had), make dinner and go for a walk and the earliest time I can get in front of the television is 19:00. Something that starts at 19:30 is more comfortable in my life. How do you eat your dinner and talk to your significant other about your day through a haze of melodrama wafting around your living room?
3. There are simply too many
If I wanted to start to watch a soapie, how would I choose, because there’s a surprising number of options, from tried and tested international hits like Days of our lives and the Young and the Restless, not to mention The Bold and the Beautiful, to newer South African versions like Egoli, 7de Laan and Generations. How would I know which one I wanted to choose?
4. The melodramatic over-intensity
I find it amusing and irritating at the same time to watch a scene from a soap-opera. I catch these sometimes as I’m scrolling by with the remote, or waiting in line somewhere where the TV is tuned to one of these invader-programs.
Every scene is acted, many times badly, as though every conversation is on par in importance with saving the world. Everything is acted as though it is life or death. Somebody that didn’t pay for their coffee is treated in the way a nuclear emergency is treated on a non-soapie show. If anything there might be even more (unfortunately fake) emotion about the coffee.
5. The stilted acting
I’m sure that there are some terrific actors who act in favorite daytime soaps. It’s just that I’ve never seen them. That’s not too difficult to explain, seeing that I don’t watch soapies, but most of what I’ve seen have involved overdramatic, stilted acting. This irritates me. There’s no flow in the dialogue at all.
So there you have it, my five reasons why I don’t watch soapies.
I’m sure that you probably have five reasons why you do.
The excitement of seeing Beth’s long lost cousin return from France, and turn out to be the father of her 13-year old son who believes he’s the adopted son of the local crime lord and his third wife who also happens to be his sixth wife and is Beth’s mother to boot, is probably only one of them…
It's one hell of a reason, I'll give you that. :)
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