Yeah, I dislike how constantly miserable soaps are. I know that they sometimes throw in the odd comedy moment to try and lighten things up, but its still too miserable to be enjoyable. And the never-ending thing is a problem- it means that unlike other stories they don’t really plan out character arcs. I mean, they only plan ahead a year or so, and have to adapt the story to the needs of the cast, who might not renew their contracts. So you end up with stupid stuff like Eastenders, where characters rarely learn from their mistakes and couples get together and break up again about twenty times. It’s especially annoying when they forget horrible things they’ve done to each other and act like a character’s a good guy when they’ve done things that in real life would make them the most hated person in the community.
My sister watches Eastenders, so I’ve ended up seeing quite a bit of it. I find it really hard to watch some of the storylines though. They’ve been dragging out a story about a teenage girl who wants her baby out of social services for months now, and its relentlessly miserable and unrealistic. You can’t even defend it as social commentary because it doesn’t really reflect people’s experiences.
I feel the same way. One thing that makes me laugh is when the characters act shocked when young hoodlums are causing a mild distrubance, as though they don’t live the murder hotspot of the UK. Like, get your priorities straight.
As for the whole ‘never-ending’ story thing, I feel like that’s a problem superhero comics suffer from. I kind of liked The Dark Knight Rises because it at least gave Bruce Wayne an ending. That said, comics at least have the advantage of reboots and alternate universe scenarios to stop things from becoming too stale. And at least they have exciting adventures rather than episode after episode of domestic misery.
No offense to its many fans, but I always thought As the World Turns was overrated. Though I respect the creators of the show, they made a new episode almost everyday for 54 years. That’s a long running show and they had a new episode almost every day! But I always found it boring and a drag to watch, but I can’t believe it went on that long and had a new episode every day.
This is the first I’ve heard of that show, and it does look kind of boring. I guess managing to keep it going for so long is impressive.
Speaking of shows with many fans, I didn’t realise how many people liked the cartoon Arthur. I was really surprised when I looked it up on the internet one day and found out loads of people love it. But I never liked it as a kid. I found the characters annoying and hypocritical (like, one episode they’d do something bad, the next episode they’d be lecturing their friend for doing something bad as though they were holier-than-thou). And I found a lot of the episodes just plain boring and unfunny. But I guess it’s not one of the worst shows ever. I hear it sometimes tackles difficult subject matter, so I guess they get some credit for that. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the show’s appeal though.
Seeing how many people loved it made me reconsider my stance a bit. It’s still not to my liking, but I don’t find it as annoying as I used to. Plus Neil Gaiman appeared in it once, which is a plus
The character designs are a bit weird aren’t they? I used to get confused by Arthur and Brain- I couldn’t figure out if they were supposed to be mice or bears. I think it’s funny how the very first Arthur book is about how much he hates his aardvark nose, because its completely disappeared since.
I had one of those Living Book CDs of one of the Arthur books as a kid that was pretty cool though.
The character designs are a bit weird aren’t they? I used to get confused by Arthur and Brain- I couldn’t figure out if they were supposed to be mice or bears. I think it’s funny how the very first Arthur book is about how much he hates his aardvark nose, because its completely disappeared since.