Have you noticed how...?

[andy at handiwork]

In soaps, have you noticed how..
1. Everybody seems to know everybody else. Even in a pub I might go in regularly, I will only know a few people, and they will probably only know some of the others etc. In soaps, within a week of joining, a new character will be sleeping with anything with legs, or killing them, or know everything about them.
2. Nobody ever thinks something might be a bad idea. For example, a Mitchell is having a b/d party in the Vic in Eastenders at the mo. I'll give it 5 mins before it kicks off.
3. There is rarely a mention of anything outside their immediate experience. Brookside at least had a fake tv show that got refered to occasionally. Funnily that fake, Hollyoaks, is still going long after B/S has gone.

Anybody got anymore. None of the above is intended to suggest that I actually watch soaps of course.

[baggieb]

No matter who's at the bar the main character will walk into the pub and get served straight away.

[Snake Diamond]

I haven't watched "soaps" in a very long time. Last time I flicked over the channel onto a soap, I noticed it was shouting/screamiing/crying/bullshit drama, & every time I come across a Soap, they are ALL the same. How fake is that, not EVERY person in every village/town/city is arguing/fighting with everyone all the fucking time. Soaps are just mindless drovel for the masses to liven up their deadbeat lives.

[mart]

Your Point 3 is explained by the time lag between an episode being shot and its screening. With the exception of seasonal events like Xmas, New Year there's no way the producer can know whats going to be a current event.
But it is strange that while Coro. refers to the local Council I can't remember a soap ever making a reference to its local MP.

The only exception to the time lag is the soap Pwbl y Cwm (S4C/Welsh 4th Ch.).
Unless its changed since I left Wales it used to be shot and screened the same day. So it was able to refer, for instance, to Diana's death/funeral.

Martynz

[andy at handiwork]

The time lag goes without saying, however the soaps manage never to make external cultural references except on the broadest terms, eg its Christmas.

[Ace]

Emmerdale and Eastenders has 2 very pretty female car mechanics that are always repairing cars brought in there and then, whereas any mechanic I have visited barely looks over his copy of The Sun, with a fag in his mouth saying he's booked solid all week and looks like he belongs on a nightclub door barring thugs.

[colonel]

Pobl y Cwm- love it. My ex and I once had a holiday in Wales and discovered it.

We always used to sit up in bed to watch each daily edition. On Sky all over the UK via S4C Digidol now.

[steve56]

used to fancy the vet in emmerdale but she turned out a lez.Ace wrote:

> Emmerdale and Eastenders has 2 very pretty female car mechanics
> that are always repairing cars brought in there and then,
> whereas any mechanic I have visited barely looks over his copy
> of The Sun, with a fag in his mouth saying he's booked solid
> all week and looks like he belongs on a nightclub door barring
> thugs.
>
>

[Ace]

oh, in Soap-land it seems you can just walk into a doctors and get seen to there and then, whereas at my local surgery, you have to book up on the day and sit in the reception for at least an hour reading 1997 issues of Hello! and if you DARE look at the receptionist in a manner that suggests you are pissed off sitting there, you can bet your life you'll be moved further down the waiting list.

[The Cream Bun]

In any given Soap, everyone has a different first name, whereas in real life if you took 15 mates you'd probably have 3 or 4 with the same common first name.