Ever have those days when you’re just so bored that you read the bits in the newspaper that you never would have if you weren’t so mind-numbingly bored? One day, I had decided to read through every single page of the newspaper. Because I had nothing better to do and the Internet had suddenly gotten very monotonous. So there I was, perusing through the entertainment section, and I come across a column affectionately called something like “Soap Opera Updates.”

Apparently, soap opera storylines are so convoluted that you need a section in the paper to tell you what’s up with Billy, Bobby, and William. Or something. Anyhow, I started to read these soap opera thingamabobbers, and came to the conclusion that (HELLO!) they’re just about as strange as all the parodies make it out to be. Case in point, here’s a summary of last week’s Young and the Restless lifted from the Miami Herald:

Sheila’s holding Phyllis, Fen and Summer hostage in a retirement condo. Paul told Neil that Phyllis, Fen and Summer were kidnapped. Jack saw an AMBER Alert on Phyllis, Fen and Summer. Via a walkie-talkie, Paul talked to Sheila, who asked if Maggie had died (she survived surgery). Brad found a ”bug” that had been planted in his living room to record everything said by anyone in the house. At the retirement home, Lauren heard a baby cry while quizzing a neighbor about seeing Sheila. Via the walkie-talkie, Michael and Paul heard Sheila and Phyllis fighting. Lauren, holding a gun, burst into the condo surprising Sheila and Phyllis. Over the walkie-talkie, Paul and Michael heard a gunshot. Dru is convinced that Carmen is alive. Colleen admitted to Brad that Korbel figured out some of the script puzzle on the reliquary. Amber wants to marry Cane so he won’t have to return to Australia.

Insert a big “double u-tee-eff” here. There are almost ten different characters in that dinky little paragraph and about five storylines. I can’t imagine watching this for an hour. It sounds like I’d want to bash Colleen over the head with a hammer before she got through with her speech about the reliquary. What is a reliquary anyway?

All this made me wonder is how far-fetched soap opera parodies can be, when soap operas are already pretty funny in themselves. Their storylines, anyway, seem to be strange, non-linear, and confused. There’s nothing wrong with a non-linear storyline in a series, but where do you draw the line? Two of the other updates mentioned something about people presumably dead not being dead. And they were buried under the ground!

So, if anyone out there watches soap operas, can you please tell me the appeal? (Of course, I’d probably be the one who sits down to watch it, and then can’t get up out of my seat after that.)

Posted on February 20th, 2007 by Joy
Filed under: Television