The Days of our Lives

OK, I admit it. For a period of time, early in my marriage, I watched a soap opera on daytime TV. I'm sure you've heard of it. Days of our Lives. Why can't Marlena choose between John and Roman? Can't Billie just leave Bo and Hope alone for love's sake? And Stafano! What a dastardly villain! (editor's note: characters and storylines may be from the early 90's. I have no idea what's been going on since then.)

Soap operas are, correctly, criticised for being cheesy and pandering to the Harlequin romance market. They are basically escapist fiction meant for lonely housewives. But, man, don't start watching one- you'll get hooked. I don't know why Days (as it is called) was so addicting. But I'm free now. Free to watch quality weekly drama series like Lost and Heroes.

I absolutely love the show "Lost." Lost has been such an amazing experience. The fascinating characters with intersecting backstories stuck on a bizarre island with the menacing "Others". The slowly unraveling mysteries have proven to be irresistible. I listen to weekly podcasts where other obsessed people delve into obscurities like book references and wardrobe choices to support their improbable theories. I love it! There are websites and discussion boards where you can go to try to figure out what things like the blast door map image (on the right) mean. The production values are amazing and the camera work is stunning. It's just a great show.

A newcomer to my favorites is the show "Heroes." This show is basically X-men serialized for TV. It is really well done. All my buddies at work watch it and we have a blast discussing it the next day. Unlike Lost, the plot moves rapidly and every week things happen that advance the story. The special effects are great and the cast does a great job. The mysteries are not as deep and the conspiracy seems simpler than in Lost, but the action makes up for it.

Both Lost and Heroes are critical successes watched by men and women the world over.

Then: Someone at work accused me of watching soap operas. This was a challenge to my manhood! These, I insisted, are great dramas. And I walked away full of righteous indignation.

Then: I thought more about it.

Are these shows really that different from soap operas like Days?

This quote from the wikipedia entry on soap operas is devastating.

A soap opera is an ongoing, episodic work of fiction, usually broadcast on television or radio. Radio entertainment has existed long enough for audiences to recognize them simply by the term soap. What differentiates a soap from other television drama programs is their open-ended nature. Plots run concurrently, intersect, and lead into further developments. An individual episode of a soap opera will generally switch between several different concurrent story threads that may at times interconnect and affect one another, or may run entirely independent of each other. Each episode may feature some of the show's current storylines but not always all of them. There is some rotation of both storylines and actors so any given storyline or actor will appear in some but usually not all of a week's worth of episodes. Soap operas rarely "wrap things up" storywise, and generally avoid bringing all the current storylines to a conclusion at the same time. When one storyline ends there are always several other story threads at differing stages of development. Soap opera episodes invariably end on some sort of cliffhanger.

Jeepers. That describes Lost to a 'T.' I mean, that last episode of season 3 had love triangles, make-out scenes, evil villains, lots of close ups of people yelling, tons o'melodrama, and a surprise cliffhanger ending. It could fit right in on Days.

Is it just production values and plot choices that differentiate my excellent Lost and Heroes, from daytime dreck like Days? Did the producers of Lost simply realize that the addictive nature of the open-ended, plot-twisting soap opera could be translated to a successful evening drama? Are my tastes in entertainment ultimately the same as the 80-something widow watching 'as the world turns' while getting her weekly hairdo at the beauty parlor? Is my manhood truly in question? Should I start wearing pink heels and a feather boa? The answers are elusive.

I'd think about this some more, but I've got to figure out how Desmond seems to be able to see into the future(did he travel forward in time when the button wasn't pushed and the hatch imploded?) and if there is indeed a third group of people on the island(who kidnapped the people from the 'tailies' camp the first night, and where are the missing children?) Oh, and on Heroes- what is Micha's power beyond fixing broken pay phones, and does Mohinder have a power? Does having your dead sister show you events from the past qualify as a power?