Hello lemmings,
I am not exactly a fan of soap dramas, however through regular visits at my moms place i end up watching these shows (specifically the german shows “Alles was zählt” and “Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten”).
Until this year, the drama was worth it because Doctor Who aired inmediately after and i think Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Clara Oswalt etc. are much more entertaining.
Over time i’ve noticed that the plots have become much more dramatic. Schemes have become much more schemey, crimes have been commited and became more crimey and the drama has become seemingly constantly more dramatic.
Now my question is: Am i mistaken with my impression? Is there a name for this drama creep? Does this also happen to other long-running soap dramas where you live?
I think thats a common problem with most long running shows. It starts off normal enough, with logical plots but as time goes on the writers need to come up with new and better stuff to keep people watching. A lot of the really great shows out there were great because they had an end in mind and actually ended. They wrote in a way that drove the story towards that ending. The never ending shows like soap operas/dramas don’t have that option so they have to get crazy with the story. Disclaimer: ive never watched soap operas personally.
I saw an episode of Young and the Restless or One Life to Live (they’re all so similar and I am not a fan personally) a while back after I thought that show ended when I was a kid. It was pretty much exactly what I remembered. Hell, for all I know the episode I watched most recently was set only 2 days after the last one I saw with my mom when I was 10.
They’ve always been over the top and batshit crazy.
In GZSZ the plot really turned bonkers, especially over the years.
Here are a few bullet points:
- Introduced gay guy
- Introduced guy that turns out to be bi
- Introduce girl so guy can learn he’s bi
- Have him learn he’s bi through practical experimentation
- Make him decide for one of them
- Ignore previous events until plot-convenient
Another arc that happened over the span of 1 to 2 years:
- Introduce bad guy for established woman
- Make woman fall for bad guy
- Oh oh! Bad guy is cop!
- OH OH! BAD GUY IS ABUSIVE!
- Continue abuse until breakup
- Introduce dad for woman
- OOOOOH OOOOH! DAD IS ACTUALLY STALKER!
- Bad somehow redeems himself
- Bad guy ends up throwing dad in river, woman and other dudes are witness
- Nobody tells police
- Dad returns a few episodes later
- Bad guy loses job as cop because turns out police doesn’t like coverups (unrealistic af)
- Bad guy now becomes dollar store punisher because somewhere in between all of this gang is introduced
- Bad guy stops gang
- OOOOOOOH NOOOOOOOOOO! THERE’S A CHARACTER WHO DIED AND THE CHARACTER ISN’T DEAD AFTER ALL! WE LEARN THAT THROUGH THE INTRODUCTION OF DOLLAR STORE MISTER RABBIT KILLING EXTRAS! CHARACTER GOT A CRYPTO WALLET AND MISTER RABBIT WANTS IT BACK!
- BAD GUY IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAY WITH A MULTI-EPISODE TACTICAL ESPIONAGE AND HACKING ARC!
That’s the tendency of drawing out shows for too long. The same goes for new season renewals because it got popular. The stakes have to be bigger, and it just gets bigger and bigger until it becomes absurd or unrealistic. The worst ones are shows that were supposed to be a one-time thing, but they go viral and super popular that the network forces a new season to milk it, and the quality suffers as a result.
Even great shows tend to do this as well. For example, Peaky Blinders was a great show about a local gang fighting for power in their town. By the last season the protagonist was fighting against the rising fascists on a national scale going into WW2. Money Heist, whether you think it was great or not, was a simple heist story contained in a single event. But because it got popular, the stakes had to be bigger on the following seasons, which obviously starts to make things unrealistic.
Korean dramas have a way around this. Kdramas tend to be lenghty (i.e. 16 episodes that are 1.5 hours each), and what makes the great ones successful is there are 2 to 3 arcs that happen within the show, so it doesn’t feel like the plot just keeps escalating and getting stretched out for the entire run. There is a semi-conclusion halfway, then a twist happens which opens up another side to the story.
Hard to say. Soap operas in Brazil were always like this. Example here, from 2004.
