Concentrated soap power

Viewers in the rest of world are used to being behind their American counterparts - but until recently there has seemed to be little we can do.

12:34 13 September 2004

Viewers in the rest of world are used to being behind their American counterparts - but until recently there has seemed to be little we can do.

But now Australia's Channel 9 has come up with a plan to rectify the problem, it will run 2,000 episodes of two iconic American soaps into two hour-long omnibuses.

At 13:00 local time today, four years worth of episodes of Days of Our Lives were screened in one hour. At the same time tomorrow The Young And The Restless will have a similar period of plot crammed into an hour's programming.

The director of daytime programming at Channel 9, Lauren Sidler, explained that the programmes went through a dry patch - but have picked up again now. Feeling it was unfair to subject viewers to four years of sub-standard soap, the time-warp was seen as a good way to go.

"It's fair to say the shows became a bit dull," Sidler told Australia's Herald Sun newspaper.

"Days, in particular, was in dire straits. But about a year ago its head writer [James E. Reilly] returned and there has been a real resurgence in the US. Fast-forwarding was the best way to capitalise on that and help revitalise the shows," she added.

The soaps fell behind the US as, in the past, Channel 9 removed the shows from the schedule during the cricket season, which Sidler has said will not happen this year.

Storylines that would have been tabloid headline news in the UK were dropped from soaps where returning from the grave and murder is commonplace.

Days Of Our Lives - A New Day omits to tell viewers about the Salem Stalker - who killed Abe Carver, Maggie Horton, Caroline Brady, Roman Brady, Tony DiMera, Doug Williams and Alice Horton amongst others on the soap.

The Young And The Restless - The Next Chapter, fails to mention anything about Jill Abbott discovering her nemesis Katherine Chancellor is in fact her birth mother.

Certain things the viewers will have to decide for themselves.

On Days, Doctor Marlena Evans goes from solving the town's problems to embarking on a bloody rampage as serial killer after the fast forward.

"What viewers don't know is if Marlena is possessed by the devil again or if it is an evil twin," Vesna Petropoulos, editor of Australia's TV Soap magazine commented.