New answers tagged terminology
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A soap opera is an ongoing drama series that revolves around people simply living out their lives. There are several things that separate a soap opera from a standard drama (Warning, I'm going to be using UK soaps I watch semi-regularly to illustrate some points. Please don't judge me too harshly):
Structure
While serialisation has been brought up in other ...
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Just to add to the conversation of answers here,
I think in very contemporary context, what a lot of modern Television takes from the original and often day-time AMERICAN TELEVISION soap operas, is not just this idea of interpersonal relationships, but also characters and the reactions to plots that tend to be VERY "melodramatic".
The following link is a ...
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In the UK the term "soap" is usually used to refer to TV fictional dramas that broadcast new episodes regularly, without a break, featuring recurring characters and on-going plots. Broadcasts are usually made more than once a week, often daily. Less than once a week would probably not be considered a soap.
Any show that has series or significant gaps in its ...
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TLDR: A "Soap" is a serialized show that's about ordinary people having interpersonal drama. There's not a high concept, story arc, external villains, or greater purpose.
Don't confuse "serialized" and "soap opera".
Not Serialized
What serialization isn't: From the 1960s to 1990s, in the vast majority of TV shows, every episode starts the same, and ...
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Wikipedia's definition of soap opera is obviously flawed. If it was a perfect definition of soap opera you wouldn't have any questions about which shows are soap opera and which are not.
Of course, it's much easier to see that a definition is flawed than to to come up with a better definition and very hard to come up with a flawless definition (or to be ...
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I asked a similar question myself a few years ago because it didn't make sense to me. One of my favorite old shows was simply called "Soap", and as a young kid, I didn't get the joke.
The term "soap" comes from the fact that many shows in the golden age of television were, in fact, sponsored by soap and detergent manufacturers. Many of the original shows ...
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IMHO, yes. But it boils down to borders of "actual events and people". For some Jersey Shore/Big Brother and similar would not be factual television because the TV show was the reason everything you see is happening. People live in close space, have excess of money or alcohol or any other thing and their actions is driven by certain desired outcome known ...
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