Modern soap operas have lost the plot

I have Asperger’s syndrome and since childhood have been watching TV soaps: mainly EastEnders and Neighbours. I found classic EastEnders from the 1980s and 1990s highly reassuring during a dark time in my life three years ago, and in lockdown. I would say, though, that in recent years these two soaps have gone downhill. They are more staged, the storylines less intriguing and the themes exaggerated. They don’t seem to be about everyday life any more.

In the EastEnders of the 1980s and early 1990s you could relate wholeheartedly to the characters and reflect on their behaviour. You would feel they were real, and also that they were part of the real life of the East End. Even the sets of the characters’ houses then seemed more convincing, as well as the plots feeling more authentic. My assumption is that the scriptwriters then had perhaps experienced and closely observed the relevant way of life. I read recently, for instance, that several actors in the EastEnders of the 1980s and 1990s would ask for Susan Boyd, a particular scriptwriter who was superb. Those actors too were of high ability and took their roles very seriously. They would become loyal to the characters they played. (I heard that Barbara Windsor based her character Peggy Mitchell partly on the Kray twins’ mother.)

But now exaggerated drama and fashionable political issues seem to have taken over modern soaps. More money is spent on over-the-top incidents in a way that makes the shows seem desperate. Last year in EastEnders there was an enormous boat crash on the Thames; in Neighbours a woman called Prue was killed when a bomb exploded in her car and a whole island was set alight by a maniac called Finn Kelly.

Recently it was reported that Janine Butcher, Frank Butcher’s daughter, will reappear in EastEnders after a seven-year absence.