Cliche Soap Misery

I couldn't resist. I had to write something. I said I wouldn't write a blog post over Christmas. But every Christmas it's the same. They can't manage to come up with a happy storyline for EastEnders. The characters can't have a nice, peaceful, happy Christmas. Den handed the divorce papers to Angie on Christmas Day goodness knows how many years ago. Someone has a complete dislike for someone so they have to shoot that 'someone,' (was it one of the Mitchell brothers?) Pauline Fowler breathes her last, falls over in the snow in the middle of Albert Square, all alone. How come it snows exactly on 25th December (when in reality the temperature is spring-like in the 'real world'? Does Albert Square have it's own micro climate?) Why on earth would anyone choose to live in Walford? Does nobody have the common sense to just LEAVE for a better life elsewhere? It makes me wonder why ON EARTH people want to watch soap. Particularly when most are so full of misery and such horrible characters. I reckon it's because they're on at the same time every week, it's familiarity and nothing changes. Just a habit to go on being bored with he same old same. Pity really.

In tonight's episode, Max Branning explains the reason for his behaviour on a 'virus in his 'ed.? Is this a new medical condition? How can you blame your mental state on a virus? Just a weak scriptwriter's excuse. Now, as I watch, Phil Mitchell is threatening to shoot Max with a shotgun, he's lying on the ground and it's pouring with rain. Mind you, it's good BBC stair-rod type rain  (real rain never falls in that shower bath type fashion. Far too regular, and they're using pre-recorded BBC sound effects thunder.) Just one big cliche if ever there was one. No, sorry, I'm not concentrating too hard on what's going on. A great deal of arguing and shouting about something or other. So, this is Christmas television entertainment? Over two 30-minutes instalments? I don't generally watch any television soap. Quite frankly, I have better things to do with my time. There's far better drama on elsewhere. Piles of stuff on catch-up with our SkyQ box.

Can nobody cook a Christmas dinner without burning it, or there being some other disaster in the kitchen? Then, as a result, everyone going to the Vic to have their Christmas dinner. Or going somewhere else in the Square for their meal. Then their being an almighty argument over the turkey and pudding. Probably a lot of stuff being broken, food thrown about, possibly somebody having their face thrust into a plate of food.

Then, the other old stand-by. A long-lost relative arriving at the last moment. A character who hasn't been seen in the Square for years, knocks on the door or someone or other. Or a love-child or a character arriving to stir things up somewhat. Admittedly, this doesn't always happen at Christmas, but it matters not, as it's still a cliche.

I know this is all awful, but I only ever watch EastEnders to see how truly bad it is. There can be no other good reason, and particularly over the Season of Goodwill. Certainly the characters in EastEnders have never heard of 'Goodwill.' 

A Load More Corny Television Clichés (Usually In Soap Operas)

Why is it that scriptwriters, as well as directors, use lazy clichés in television drama, particularly soap? Things that annoy me such as when a scene is supposed to be night time and the action is outside and dark, it's always lit so that you can see the characters and the action perfectly clearly. Why is it so light? Where is the light coming from? The moon isn't always full at night, or if it is it's not always clear and cloudless. It's just rather corny. I bet if I go outside at night and there's no street lighting and there's the chance of it being a full moon, I don't somehow think I'm going to be able to see that well and certainly not other people, regardless of how close they are to me. And it's always a sort of false moonlight-blue sort of coloured light. Why? If it streetlights it more likely to be that orange sodium light that are more common these days.

Why is it when a character in a drama, particularly a soap, is searching for something on the internet, using a search engine such as Google (although for some reason, another cliche, they never actually use Google, which anyone else would use, they use a made-up search engine which nobody else in real life would bother to use, basically because they couldn't use a named 'brand' particularly the BBC, which tries it's hardest to disguise a known name, otherwise they'd get done for advertising. Probably ITV could pass it off as 'product placement' and then get paid by the company.) Anyway, returning to this character using a search engine. How is it that when they're searching for something or other, they always manage to find exactly the right website and THEN, once they're on it, they find the bit of information they're looking for, if it's a detective story, the detective finds the vital bit of information which will lead to the murderer or whoever. Too corny by half. Another one, when there's something someone wants to hear about, such a news item, how is it, when they turn on the television or perhaps a radio, it just so happens to be EXACTLY the right bit of news on when the set comes on, at just the right time, with exactly the right person or thing that they wanted to know. The headlines on the front of a newspaper just HAPPENS to be about a particular incident, a murder, a police investigation, which is the main subject of a particular television drama, how is it it is on the front of the paper at that particular moment in time, or if it's inside the paper, when a character is looking for it they find it so easily, without making any effort to search for it? If I was looking for a newspaper article I imagine it would take a good deal of time and effort before I discovered it, having waded through many pages before I found it. Totally unrealistic. I realize that television drama isn't always supposed to be REAL, but at least make it believable. I know it speeds up the action, but why does it have to be so UNREALISTIC?

In a soap, particularly EastEnders, so many of the characters find it difficult to communicate logically. Why are they endlessly searching for another character? Why not just use their mobile phone and RING UP the other character or text? Wouldn't you do that in real life? They do seem to spend an amazing amount of time on this search for so-and-so. Again, crazy and unrealistic. Just another cliche.

In soaps, why do so many of the characters put up with the generally awful surroundings they live in? In EastEnders or Coronation Street, why is it that someone like Ken Barlow, who had a degree, became a teacher, then ran a local newspaper (amazing and very unconvincingly, all on his own. How come? Was he editor as well as reporter etc etc.) He then became a local councillor or something, and ended up as a (wait for it) trolley collector in a supermarket! Crazy and unrealistic. How many wives has he had and why has he spent his life living in a somewhat rundown back-street in a Manchester suburb? Why on earth didn't he move away years ago? Totally ridiculous and crazy sort of thing for a man with his academic ability. In real life, how many people remain in exactly the same street they were born and raised in and then went to university and then come home and spend the rest of their life in? I know a soap isn't supposed to be like a documentary, but at least make it a bit more convincing. I know I wasted a lot of my time watching Corrie for years and years, but I haven't seen it for more than 10 years so I'm somewhat out of date with the characters and plots, but I don't imagine things have moved on much.

In other forms of drama there's got to be some sort of journey for the characters to go on as the story develops. The central character has to change as things develop, he/she should be different at the end of the story, at the climax of the plot, to have learnt a lesson to some or a greater extent. In soap opera the characters never seem to develop, to learn from their mistakes and try to change things. They're not supposed to, because the audience expects things to be safe and cosy. To retain the audience it's no good having the characters change too much. That is what makes soap so popular, the fact that you know exactly what you're going to get each time you tune in. It's a sort of familiar and safe place for your returning audience. Make too many changes, such as writing out characters to frequently or changing the location, you'd find you would loose your audience in droves and a soap is really there in the schedules as a ratings winner. The fact that a soap is set in one location, such as a Manchester suburb street, a square in the East End of London means that it's a good deal cheaper to produce with fewer sets which can be reused endlessly and cuts down the expense of producing the show. Also, with a large cast of characters they can have virtually endless plots created for them, even if they are actually recycling the same sort of plots week after week and year after year.

I can see why soap is so popular, but for me they're just full of stock characters and cliched plots that are, as I've already mentioned, recycled endlessly. I can't stand the fact that most storylines go one ad infinitum. I want plots that come to a definite conclusion some how or other and characters that change. We always get a 'big story' breaking over the Christmas period. Who'd ever get married in a soap? There's always a big bust up or some 'reveal' whenever there's a wedding, or someone who's been out of the show for years suddenly makes an appearance or a long-lost relative makes an appearance or the illegitimate child of someone appears who didn't realise they even existed. Or as I say, at the big Christmas dinner there's an almighty bust-up or another 'reveal.' Just think Angie Watts and Den, when Den gives Angie the divorce papers on Christmas Day, perhaps one of the first big 'events' in the early days of the soap. 

Cliche and Over-Worked Plots In television soaps

In my last post I managed to hint at a subject which intrigues me a great deal and that is the subject of cliche, nowhere more prevalent than in the area of films and television soaps. If you watch soaps on television you will no doubt be aware of the over-use of certain story lines, stereotypes etc. I cannot actually see what the attraction of soaps is, although  in the past I have been caught up in the long-running story lines of soaps such as Brookside (long since cancelled), Emmerdale, EastEnders, Coronation Street and the only radio soap left, The Archers. Admittedly, it has to be said, it must be extremely hard to keep a soap going for 52 weeks of a year, and there must be times when there is nothing much happening as regards plot. But then there are big stories that are supposed to hook the viewer, usually at peak times of the year, most notably at Christmas. The cliche of the big Christmas 'reveal' around the dinner table in EastEnders, Den giving Angie the divorce papers in EastEnders was during a Christmas episode and consequently the rating soared to record levels. Some long-running soap story lines do 'hook' the audience, for example the Trevor Jordache 'body under the patio' in Brookside which ran and ran and was a definite 'hook' (I have to admit I was caught up in it during the 1990's.)

It has often intrigued me about soap and that is, why do the characters live and work in such a small area, i.e. a small northern backstreet,  an east-end square that  is run-down, etc etc and not only live and work there, but form relationships with one another in such a small area, why do they never seem to do what the rest of us do and not move away from such a small area?  I know, you're thinking to yourself as you read this, "well, it's not real. It is drama, and it isn't supposed to be real." But that doesn't excuse the fact that it doesn't bear any resemblance to how the 'real' world acts and behaves so we can at least identify with what we're watching. For example, why is it they never seem to move away from that little closed world as the rest of the world does? Some do seem to go outside the confines of this small world, but when they do they never seem to return or are forgotten. Perhaps it's because of the soap format, the restrictions of the soap 'form' because if they do the soap can't work. In that respect I find it so boring, so depressing and unimaginative. I suppose the story lines have to work within such a restrictive format because it is an open-ended form of drama, because it is expected to run several time a week, for 52 weeks of the year. For me, I have to say I prefer something which ties up within one episode or over a set number of episodes. We rarely get single dramas or plays on television as we used to have in the 1960's or '70, with such strands as 'Play of the Month', 'The Wednesday Play', 'Play For Today' or 'Armchair Theatre.' It's a pity that everything seems to fit into a series slot, either crime, mystery, who-done-it, medical, etc etc. There's nowhere to go for a 'one-off' story. The BBC have done daytime drama series, such as 'Moving On' which has a sort of theme, but all the stories are told over a 45-minute running time and don't relate one to the other with stories overlapping or having returning characters. A bit like short stories in the printed form as opposed to long-form writing with, say, novels.

Why do soaps get such high ratings? Could it be that it's actually a habit-forming sort of drama. Soaps are on several times a week and at the same time. Also, people are drawn to the gossipy element, everyone love to 'find out' the latest bit of juicy gossip, which is always carried by the tabloid newspapers. Soap seems to sell newspapers so it's a sort of cyclical thing, soaps drive sales, the audience for soaps soar and round and round it goes.

I do seem to have wandered off the topic of cliche, but never mind. Once I get going on a subject such as this it is always so easy to get onto another area. I'm just interested in why people get so hooked on soap, unfortunately they don't have much else on that they can get their teeth into. Soaps seem to make good topics for the tabloids whenever they use social issues as the basis for story lines. It was usually such playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Mike Leigh and all those who wrote for the BBC series such as 'Play For Today' and 'The Wednesday Play' which used such subjects as homelessness which made those plays so memorable.

EastEnders and Coronation Street are one big cliche without going into too much detail. Corrie is stuck in some sort of late '50's early 60's time warp.  EastEnders is stuck in a sort of 1980's time warp. Do people still live in backstreets like that? Wouldn't that area have been bought up by developers and been bulldozed long ago and been replaced with a retail park, modern houses and business premises? As for EastEnders, can someone please explain how it is no one in Albert Square owns a washing machine? And from experience I have used quite a few laundrettes, but the one near Albert Square has staff who DO YOUR WASHING FOR YOU and the place looks dirty and uncared-for and would most certainly put off customers. Why, whenever the writers want to kill off a character or characters do they have someone run into or run over by a car, when there are surely no more than half a dozen cars in the Square and that person just happens to walk into a car when there are no other cars about and there's no through-traffic? Ludicrous and silly, to say the least. How is it so many of he EastEnders characters can afford to spend so much time in the Vic pub (the same can be said of Corrie in the Rover's and Emmerdale in the Woolpack.) and they drink excessive amounts of alcohol yet can still stand up straight and walk in a straight line. Most people would have permanent hang-overs and be falling all over the place. No one seems to have a job that would earn them enough to be able to afford to buy the homes they live in. Most of the houses in that area of London would be worth far more than they could afford.

I could go on. I may return to this subject in future posts.