Word: soaping
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Although the prèmiere is not until Sept. 13 (9:30 p.m. E.D.T.), Soap is already assured of its place in television history. This ABC sitcom, a bubble-headed parody of daytime soap operas, will always be remembered as the show that broke the TV sex barrier by spilling uninhibited promiscuity into the allegedly sacrosanct hours of prime time. Other prime-time shows trade in sex, of course, but Soap is the first to flaunt its carnal knowledge directly for the viewer. Even without the enfilade fire that has preceded its arrival, this series would still...
...noisy debate over Soap has largely been fueled by religious groups, whose strenuous letter-writing campaigns have now driven 15 ABC affiliates (out of 195) and some sponsors to drop the series. Soap's detractors seem to feel the show will sully the innocent minds of children in the TV audience, but a young TV viewer's mind really does not stay unclouded for long. Any child who regularly watches leering sitcoms like Three's Company, action series like Charlie's Angels or even daytime soap operas has already been exposed to more sex than...
...possible-though unlikely-that public pressure could yet squelch Soap, but even if that happens, the networks are not now going to go clean. It can also be argued that sex, like any other reality, deserves a role in TV entertainments that purport to portray contemporary life. The real trouble with Soap, a series in which characters exchange sexual partners almost as often as they do wisecracks, is that sex is used only for cheap gags. Television, which routinely trivializes so much of experience, should not be permitted to take the fun out of intimacy...
...Washington: Behind Closed Doors, America's long national nightmare has been transformed into a long-and fiendishly entertaining-prime-time TV soap opera. For 12½ raucous hours this miniseries wallows in Watergate, re-creating White House horrors in the same pulpy style that characterized ABC's Rich Man, Poor Man and Roots. Though...
Individual characters are not crucial to soap opera, but broad-stroked action is. Washington packs in more instances of official malfeasance than even the series' marathon running time would lead one to expect. Covering a period from Lyndon Johnson's 1968 abdication speech to the Watergate break-in in 1972, Writers David W. Rintels and Eric Bercovici manage to dredge up White House wiretaps and enemies lists, CIA assassination plots, FBI domestic surveillance activities, L.B.J.'s love life, various dirty tricks of the 1972 campaign, C.R.P.'s convoluted money-laundering maneuvers - and more...