Soaps and the Icebox Test

The famous film director/producer Alfred Hitchcock had the belief that if one watches a movie and buys into the story while watching it and only hours later realizes the plot holes then he was successful in the storytelling. In soaps, the viewers have to put up with a lot of plot holes and sadly many aren't just noticeable hours later when we go to the refrigerator (icebox) to get a snack.

Why is it that soap watchers (myself included) put up with ludicrous and/or outrageous things that defy logic? I can't answer that, but I can write about some of the standard soap conventions that fail this test like coming back from the dead, missing twins, and Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.


Coming back from the dead stories

Dying on a soap doesn't always mean you can't somehow be alive, even if your organs have been donated, just ask Jack Deveraux from Days of Our Lives. While that may be an outrageous example of a return (and that was only one time Jack "died"--IIRC he was assumed dead two other times), it isn't the only time this has happened in daytime. The fact this concept got parodied in that 90s movie Soapdish is another "proof" that this is standard operating procedure.

Don't get me wrong, there have been times I've been thrilled to see characters come back from the dead. If a character has a "no body" death or even a closed casket funeral the chance that he or she may come back some day is a lot higher.

Writing an ambiguous death in some ways gives fans of a character or an actor hope that things could change and a favorite could return. Like Days wasn't going for that when they killed off Steve Johnson in 1990 and had his casket switched. With that one action, the audience knew it was possible that their Patchman was not really dead even if everyone in Salem felt differently. A decade and a half later, Steve returned alive though with amnesia to the shock of everyone. Of course, by this point coming back from the dead should be "normal" to the Brady and Horton families, so the shock over Steve's return could have been minimized. The list of people who've returned from the dead in Salem is massive some notable characters that fall into this category are Marlena, Roman, Tony, Maggie, Hope, Jack and Alice (and that is only a partial list.)

Sometimes a show will decide someone's death was too extreme to re-write and they try another tactic--the unknown lookalike. Guiding Light did this when Vincent Irrizarry returned as his character of Lujack's death was final, so his unknown twin brother Nick was born.

The Evil Twin Paradigm

There is a cliche, everyone has a double. How many times have we seen a character have an unrelated twin or even a biological twin they didn't know about? The show that I felt had the most unique spin on the twin cliche wasn't even a soap, but the science fiction show Farscape. The lead male character John was doubled and for a whole story arc, there were two Johns on canvas. That may sound crazy, but it was handled beautifully as both men shared the same history and memories up until the point of the doubling. Science fiction shows also have these icebox test issues as some can't abide by watching a story that takes place in a far flung universe or years in the future.

Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome (or SORAS)

Unlike the others sometimes good writing may not negate it. Having to check your memories at the door may be necessary. It is one thing to accept someone being aged for dramatic purposes and another if they jump over their peers. One of the ugliest examples is GL's Leah Bauer. She was born in 2004, and now is in high school. When she was a baby, Rick and Phillip spoke about how their daughters would grow up together. Leah (Rick's child) is now a teen and Emma (Phillip's child) is in elementary school. There was no need to age Leah so much, especially since they aged her past her own older brother, Jude. By making Leah older than Jude, they changed Rick's past. A good example of SORAS on the same show was how they aged Phillip and Rick from kids to teens. They didn't skip over any characters on canvas, and it didn't rewrite character history. Most of the soaps are guilty of this not only Guiding Light. I just was using that as an example of what not to do.

All the cliches I've mentioned above if a show is well written can be lived with even if they break the icebox test. If the acting and story are strong, one can focus on those things instead of any liberties that are taken, which stretch credibility.