Why Soap Fans Can’t Get Closure

I posted this one originally but it got lost when I lost my blog.

I have read and heard many folks bashing soap opera fans since the announcement of the cancellation of All My Children and One Life To Live. What those folks can’t understand is that there is never any closure or going back for a soap fan.

This will be a fairly short post because there is a simple reason for why us fans of the soap opera genre can’t get closure. The simple reason is that DVDs of soap episodes don’t exist. For that matter, places to find online episodes of our soaps are regulated to a small amount of scenes on YouTube. And don’t mention SoapNet to me because it doesn’t show soaps just like MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore. It is a cheap version of Lifetime.

When other shows get cancelled after many years on the air, fans can buy season sets, series sets and sometimes even ‘best of’ sets of DVDs. These sets contain all kinds of great fun things like featurettes, interviews and even gag reels. This also holds true for sporting events – you can buy the big game on DVD or even a DVD devoted to a whole season of a sport’s team triumphs.

For soap fans, none of this exists. Creators, producers and/or distributers of soap operas have never been able to capture the DVD audience that exists. If a soap fan could simply look forward to a special edition DVD release, it would be a small consolation to losing an entire genre of television. 

With technology and devices like the Roku, Apple TX and Boxee – there are many opportunities to capitalize on the soap fan base. Roku even has an entire channel dedicated to “Speed Racer” – surely us soap fans deserve something like this as well.

Okay, I will get off my soap box and go back to YouTubing things like Stone’s Death, Reva’ s Fountain Confession, Cruz/Eden’s wedding and whatever other nostalgic scenes from soap opera’s glorious past.