Okay, I was going to ask, then decided not to, but Sean changed my mind
again: What would be a better term than "soap opera" to refer to that genre?
I hope there is something better than "melodrama".

I also happened to see Gone With the Wind for the first time (or at least a
big chunk of it. It came on and nobody turned it off, so I watched even
though I had no intention of doing so. Surprise! Another soap opera! One
soap opera set in the American Civil War, the other in the Russian Revolution.

At least I saw enough of GWtW to learn that Rhett Butler was a good guy
(never knew that before) and what is meant when someone is referred to
as having a personality like Scarlett O'Hara (as in Divine Secrets of the
Ya-Ya Sisterhood).

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves