A soap opera is an ongoing, episodic work of fiction, usually broadcast on television or radio. Programs described as soap operas have existed as an entertainment long enough for audiences to recognize them simply by the term soap. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers such as Procter and Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers as the show's sponsors. These early radio serials were broadcast in weekday daytime slots when mostly housewives would be available to listen, thus the shows were aimed at and consumed by a predominantly female audience.
The term soap opera has at times been generally applied to any romantic serial, but is also used to describe the more naturalistic, unglamorous evening, prime-time drama serials of the UK such as Coronation Street. What differentiates a soap from other television drama programs is the open-ended nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. The defining feature that makes a program a soap opera is that it, according to Albert Moran, is "that form of television that works with a continuous open narrative. Each episode ends with a promise that the storyline is to be continued in another episode". Soap opera stories 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 typically end on some sort of cliffhanger.
Evening soap operas sometimes differ from this general format and are more likely to feature the entire cast in each episode, and to represent all current storylines in each episode. Additionally, evening soap operas and other serials that run for only part of the year tend to bring things to a dramatic end of season cliffhanger.
The main characteristics that define soap operas are "an emphasis on family life, personal relationships, sexual dramas, emotional and moral conflicts; some coverage of topical issues; set in familiar domestic interiors with only occasional excursions into new locations". Fitting in with these characteristics, most soap operas follow the lives of a group of characters who live or work in a particular place, or focus on a large extended family. The storylines follow the day-to-day activities and personal relationships of these characters. "Soap narratives, like those of film melodramas, are marked by what Steve Neale has described as 'chance meetings, coincidences, missed meetings, sudden conversions, last-minute rescues and revelations, deus ex machina endings' ". These elements may be found across the gamut of soap operas, from EastEnders to Dallas.
In many soap operas in particular daytime serials in the United States, the characters are generally more attractive, seductive, glamorous, and wealthy than the typical person watching the show. This is true to a lesser extent in soap operas from Australia and the United Kingdom, which largely focus on more everyday characters and situations and are frequently set in working class environments. Many Australian and UK soap operas explore social realist storylines such as family discord, marriage breakdown, or financial problems. Both UK and Australian soap operas feature comedy elements, often by way of affectionate comic stereotypes such as the gossip or the grumpy old man, presented as relatively harmless disasters as a sort of comic foil to the emotional turmoil that surrounds them. This diverges from US soap operas where such comedy is rare.[ UK soap operas frequently make a claim to presenting "reality" or purport to have a "realistic" style. UK soap operas also frequently foreground their geographic location as a key defining feature of the show while depicting and capitalising on the exotic appeal of the stereotypes connected to the location. So EastEnders focuses on the tough and grim life in London's east end; Coronation Street invokes Manchester and its characters exhibit the stereotypical characteristic of "Northern straight talking".
Romance, secret relationships, extra-marital affairs, and genuine love have been the basis for many soap opera storylines. In US daytime serials the most popular soap opera characters, and the most popular storylines, often involved a romance of the sort presented in paperback romance novels. Soap opera storylines sometimes weave intricate, convoluted, and sometimes confusing tales of characters who have affairs, meet mysterious strangers and fall in love, and who commit adultery, all of which keeps audiences hooked on the unfolding story twists. Crimes such as kidnapping, rape, and even murder may go unpunished if the perpretrator is to be retained in the ongoing story.
Australian and UK soap operas also feature a significant proportion of romance storylines. In Russia, most popular soap operas (though most of them are serialized) explore the "romantic quality" of criminal and/or oligarch life.
In soap opera storylines, previously-unknown children, siblings, and twins (including the evil variety) of established characters often emerge to upset and reinvigorate the set of relationships examined by the series. Unexpected calamities disrupt weddings, childbirths, and other major life events with unusual frequency. Much like comic books—another popular form of linear storytelling pioneered in the US during the 20th Century—a character's death is not guaranteed to be permanent without an on-camera corpse, and sometimes not even then. For example, the death of Dr. Taylor Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful seemed permanent as she had flatlined on-camera and even had a funeral. But when actress Hunter Tylo returned in 2005, the show retconned the "flatlining" with the revelation that Taylor had actually gone into a coma.
In series recorded and broadcast live, or recorded live to tape with limited time for re-takes as many weekday serials of the 2000s are, stunts and complex physical action are largely absent. Such story events take place offscreen and are referred to in dialogue instead of being shown. This is because stunts or action scenes (such as a car accident) are difficult to adequately depict visually without multiple takes and post production editing. A convincing fight scene usually requires multiple takes, and multiple camera angles.
United States daytime soap operas have a distinctive style musical soundtrack. Soap operas aired during the golden age of radio usually used organs to produce most of their music (because they were cheaper than full orchestras). The organists from the radio serials moved over to television, and were heard on some serials as late as the 1970s.
These soundtracks were overblown and melodramatic. Stereotypical use of music in soap opera which has been parodied several times, is a single, blaring, organ chord being used to underscore a shocking revelation delivered by a character in dialogue. Organ music was abandoned by the serials during the 1960s and 1970s to be replaced by pre-recorded library music, mostly created by synthesizers.
Other soap operas, especially British and recent Australian ones, frequently use pop music in their soundtrack. UK soap operas, with their realist tone, rarely feature any non-diegetic music at all, and the popular music backing is depicted as being played on the radio within the scene. Australian serial Neighbours has in the mid-2000s used popular songs from the Mushroom Records label, playing grabs of music across scene transitions.
Pop music is less frequent on the US daytime serials due to royalty costs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera