| As a writer, sometimes you get commissioned to write a piece that ultimately doesn’t run or disappears from view. Unpublished is where I resurrect those stories. |
Originally published in The Bulletin, 13 July 2004
Soap time slip
Can daytime soap saddos survive a four-year fast forward in the interests of currency?
Carol Vaughan, an Australian prominent in online soap circles, is so obsessed with Jack Deveraux, a character on the long-running US daytime soap Days of Our Lives, that she has transcribed every scene featuring him.
Oft-derided for their hammy acting, glacial pacing and absurd plots, soaps still keep some viewers frothy with excitement. So a plan by the Nine Network to skip some 1000 episodes of both Days and The Young and the Restless has executives bracing for a collective long-distance stare – or at least some exaggerated hair-flouncing – when the changeover occurs in September.
Nine is planning the fast-forward because the episodes showing in Australia are already more than four years behind the US, and an annual broadcasting break for the cricket means that gap is always getting longer. Moving to episodes only six months old could help reinvigorate the soaps, which are starting to look a little washed-up in a daytime TV market dominated by Oprah and her clones.
To help minimise audience confusion, one-hour specials will be produced for each show, summarising what has happened in the missing four years, supplementary booklets will be published in TV Week and TV Soap, and a partnership between ninemsn and US web site Soapcity will offer online updates and summaries.
Formulating those explanations will not be easy, especially on a show that currently features a major storyline in which characters who apparently died were actually shipped to a replica location and kept on drugs for years on end. The summary broadcasts can only afford to devote about 2.5 seconds to each skipped episode.
Vaughan has cleverly sidestepped the episode losses. After an eight-year break, Jack Deveraux returned to the show in 2001, in episodes which will now never be seen here. Eager to continue transcribing, Vaughan has had a friend sending her tapes direct from the US. Each to their own.
The story behind the story
I always enjoyed writing media pieces for The Bulletin, and this was no exception. I found obsessed fan Carol in online forums, and while I was able to piece together her story she wasn’t willing to be directly quoted.
I remember being rung by a Today show producer after this was published, keen to get in touch with Carol so she could feature in a story about the fast-track. Like many TV professionals, he found it hard to understand that some folks just aren’t interested in appearing on the box.
Nine’s catch-up strategy didn’t work in the long run. By the time it stopped showing Days altogether in 2013, it was once again 16 months behind. The show then bounced around various Australian pay TV channels and online services.
But Days has outlasted most other daytime soaps and is still running, and in June, Channel 10 signed a rights deal to fast-track the latest episodes of both Days and fellow soap The Young And The Restless onto 10Play. Apparently it also wants to put both on its free-to-air channel, probably alongside schedule stalwart The Bold And The Beautiful, but that hasn’t happened yet.
And yes, the graphic of Dr Drake Ramoray is utterly gratuitous. Them’s the breaks.
For more circa-2004 media stories, check out the lost interview with Stephen Merchant.
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