SUch Sad Soap Storylines

Me too which is why I haven't watched soaps for years...

Try watching 'Gone Fishing'. Gentle, funny and beautiful scenery and music. It's not all doom and gloom on TV.

I watched Emmerdale and had to switch over, all this grooming and violence and teenage prostitution all before the watershed is horrible. Too much for me. Same with Eastenders and Corrie,

I used to watch Brookside and found their storylines were quite good. Having gone through a divorce myself I was surprised how realistic a divorce storyline was; conversations that I would have thought implausible prior to my own marriage breakdown. However, I stopped watching soaps when they became full of murders and explosions etc. I rather long for the early days of Coronation Street and Neighbours. I avoid the news these days as it depresses me and I do the same with soaps.

Same as Maybe I loved Brookside in its heyday. Also watched Neighbours at the outset, I'd been to Australia and was attracted to Aussie programmes, even though it was a load of nonsense, a bit of escapism in the middle of the day when I was a new mum. Coronation Street, they had some great characters like Deidre's mum once. S'tenders always inhabited by a dreary load of shouty people imo. Haven't watched any of them for years and years, from what I hear and read, definitely not missing much.

Aveline

Try watching 'Gone Fishing'. Gentle, funny and beautiful scenery and music. It's not all doom and gloom on TV.

Not very gentle for the poor fish though

I read an article once that said the whole idea of soaps was to be crisis laden with argumentative people so that when an episode finished we could be happy - that “our lives aren’t THAT bad”!

At least the fish are released again and, more often than not, they don't catch anything and it doesn't matter.

It also makes people realise how important it is that our beautiful rivers should be kept pollution free so the fish can thrive.

I feel like the OP. My DH and I are fed up with violence and bad language on TV. It’s hard to find anything light-hearted without it being puerile. I stopped watching soaps years ago. I don’t think any of them should be shown so early in the evening as they are unsuitable for children.

I’ve had it with soaps! Violence, intimidation and totally unbelievable story lines. I’m not naive as I work around many of the current issues but, boy, do they get it wrong.

I notice that most Scandinavian things are ‘dark’ and a bit depressing and also, now, the UK. Must be the long Winter nights. Still better than the American stuff, though.

I've also stopped watching them, I used to enjoy Coronation Street and even Eastenders, but it's all so dramatic, depressing and unbelievable now.

I’ve always loved watching Corrie and Emmerdale for the entertainment of the story lines and the humour especially. It was something to look forward to in the evening when you are winding down with a cup of tea. But not anymore sadly. It’s become too unpleasant to watch, and not entertaining at all. Quite traumatising actually. So I’ve switched off now, after about 40 years of watching. I’m quite upset about it and I don’t know who the writers are trying to entertain anymore.

I enjoy Eastenders and I think they cover important storylines. I don't watch the others,although I used to love 'Doctors' which is missed by many.

I don't watch any soaps now,used to love Corrie and Emmerdale but too many implausible storylines

Most soaps are crap and always have been . The people who watch the must have very,boring humdrum lives to think.they are entertaining.

Even in the Sixties when Corrie started off. My aunties thought. It was awful and wouldn't watch it as they said it out years on them listening to it.

Z Cars was big in our house.

I don’t watch any and haven’t for years, I find the adverts for them especially Eastenders, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks very aggressive and I wonder occasionally how many children watch them, although writers say they cover lots of present day topics my life is traumatic enough without watching others trauma for entertainment

Stopped watching soaps for the same reasons given by many so far.
DC were hooked on Home and Away and Neighbours and I quite enjoyed them. When DC left home we didn’t bother with those any more.
My favourite soap was Soap.

Sleepyhead52

I've only ever watched Corrie. I used to watch it as a late teenager with my Granny when I visited her each Wednesday for supper after College.

When she died I continued watching as it reminded me of her. Just 30-minutes on a Monday and Wednesday. Now three one-hour episodes (although I've read that both Corrie and Emmerdale are shortly returning to the half hour format). Problem is there's no longer the quality of scriptwriters to maintain decent storylines over the longer times.

Corrie was so much fun in the past, plus there was always really great interesting and engrossing dramatic storylines.

Now it's all doom and gloom with little humour. Oddly knife crime murderers and grooming gangs have all been white whereas we know that simply isn't the case - especially in the North of England!

And can any street in the UK ever have had so many residents who are male homosexuals or lesbians? Beyond belief.

My last straw was when after four husbands and multiple live-in lovers they decided that Carla would suddenly become a lesbian! Well, why not? It saves writing intelligent and fun stories.

Why do they think these storyline will be of interest to us? Homosexuals represent less than 4% of the UK population over the age of 16 - unless they live on Coronation Street when it's ten times that much!

I still record it but would estimate that I fast-forward at least 75%. Still enjoying Sally and Tim storylines so I always stop to watch those!

It seldom wins any awards now - which you would think would tell the producers that something isn't quite right but I imagine they know but still continue to spiral downwards.

Goodness knows what Granny would think of it now!
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When my dear Mum was alive she used to love watching Emmerdale Farm as it was. That was when Annie Sugden was always baking or making pastry and the stories were built around the farm. In her later years, she stopped watching as she hated “all this modern stuff”. I have never watched any soap myself but I understand why some people think they’re good.

I haven’t watched soaps for years (not that I watched many, only Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm). They used to contain quite a lot of humour, and mostly plausible story lines, but not any more - now, judging from the trailers, all of them seem so aggressive, shouty and far fetched, that they hold no interest for me at all.

There are some pretty awful game and reality shows, too, that have, in my opinion, had their day - they wheel them out season after season after season.

I like a good programme, some quite gritty ones, too, but I find so many seem to lack good writing, plot and plausibility.

There are some nice, gentle programmes about, including Gone Fishing, which is more about friendship than actually catching fish (though they always release the ones they do catch), and I found Pilgrim to be interesting. Another programme I enjoy is The Yorkshire Vet, and the recently finished All Creatures Great and Small, to name some.

So yes, there are some nice programmes out there, but so many are, to my taste, dreadful, but of course, others will disagree, which is fair enough.

Exactly,its called wokeness, I bet next storyline in corrie will be teacher abusing 16 year old pupil, I only watch now to see how ridiculous it can get.

Exactly, it's called wokeness, next storyline , I predict in Corrie will be teacher abusing 16 year old boy , I only watch to see how ridiculous it can get , its utter PC woke unbelievable nonsense, lol