The odd sitcom and the occasional old movie on TCM aside, I don't really watch TV. If there's one thing I avoid in particular, it's soap operas. I can take a fair amount of horrible acting and absurd plot, but I know my limits.
If you live on the island, however, then there's one soap opera, which seems absolutely impossible to avoid. Coronation Street is a bit of a phenomenon around here. Everybody knows it, everybody watches it and everybody talks about it. In fact, the show had its 50 year anniversary not too long ago. Can you believe it? Fifty years of pain, sadness and suffering - because that's what this show is all about!
The basic idea behind this kind of show is fairly simple: Give people some fictional characters, whose lives suck so unbelievably hard, it will definitely make the audience feel better about their own problems. And the Brits have turned this format into a work of art. It's sadism in it's darkest, purest form.
The first time my significant other made me watch a full episode, they went all out: A derailed tram fell out of the sky and crashed right into a building, setting it ablaze and killing several characters. Quite possibly the most expensive and spectacular thing one has ever pulled off in that kind of show. Oh, there was also crazy-psycho-guy, who clubbed an old lady over the head and dragged her to the crash site to make it look like she died during the accident. She was actually just comatose, but he came to visit her in hospital later and pulled the plug.
There is absolutely no happiness on Coronation Street. Whenever something good seems to happen to one of the characters, it will inevitably turn into shit and get them miserable, heartbroken and/or killed. I'm not even talking about how everybody cheats on everyone, everyone has affairs, sleeps around with god knows how many people and lies about it all the time. That's soap opera for you.
But take garage-guy, who won 20,000 Pounds on a scratch card. Sounds pretty awesome until his naive daughter secretly borrows the money for a noble cause. Or so she thinks, until the whole thing turns out to be a scam, the money is gone for good and garage-guy is eternally pissed off at his own daughter. And of course his wife is eternally pissed off at him for being so hard on their kid. What a shame - they just made up after nearly getting divorced and now the whole family is breaking apart again.
Or take recovering-alcoholic-lady. She agrees to marry former-cop-from-cancelled-police-drama-guy until she realizes she's actually still in love with recovering-alcoholic-guy. She gets really upset about the whole thing, starts drinking again, then jumps into former-cop-from-cancelled-police-drama-guy's car, drives off with him in the car trying to stop her, runs right over one of the show's other depressing characters and finally crashes right into a store.
Oh yeah, the lady she hit with the car happened to be standing underneath her daughter's window, trying to make peace with her when they finally got in touch with each other after decades. Too bad - they finally started to get along, then they started fighting again and now she got overrun by recovering-alcoholic-lady.
Of course none of them can compete with ginger-chick-with-newborn-baby. She had a nice life, a happy little family, she gave birth to a little girl and everything seemed perfect until she realized that her husband is a murdering psycho. In fact he's crazy-psycho-guy, who clubbed the old lady during the tram incident. When it all comes out, the police end up chasing after crazy-psycho-guy until he finds himself cornered and jumps off a tall building, seemingly falling to his death. And as soap operas go, the supposedly dead body disappears the second everybody stops looking and the guy is nowhere to be found.
Okay, let me remind you of something: This is the land of CCTV. You cannot take a piss in an alley at 2 in the morning without getting caught on camera and having 3 police cars chasing after you to fine you for a hundred Quid. Believe me, I tried. And this guy, a murdering psychopath, simply "disappears"? Oh the horrible, horrible luck.
But ginger-chick-with-newborn-baby doesn't just get to sit at home and live in fear, waiting for crazy-psycho-guy to show up again. In fact, she got arrested for three of crazy-psycho-guy's murders and is now sitting in jail, where she's being bullied, threatened and abused by the other inmates.
Even the kids are sad on Coronation Street. Annoying-blonde-kid has been sold (!) by his own mother, evil-bitch-from-hell. To her older sister, slightly-less-evil-bitch-from-hell. And everything seems nice and well until yet-another-bitch-from-hell, who is hell-bent on the little family's destruction, hears about that evil trade. Long story short, the whole family breaks apart and social services are taking annoying-blonde-kid away.
Now his real mother, evil-bitch-from-hell, finally came to her senses and decided she wants him back, but annoying-blonde-kid would much rather go back to slightly-less-evil-bitch-from-hell. Little does he know that she is getting a divorce from angry-pub-guy and his old family has long ceased to exist. You just can't be happy on Coronation Street.
Then there's curly-haired-kid, who ran off and disappeared after his father had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and got into a fight with curly-haired-kid's stepdad over who is being the bigger dick. And that one is really tough to decide, because tumor-guy is being a dick to his girlfriend, his former boss and all his friends and stepdad-guy is being a dick to his wife, who is being a dick to him by inviting tumor-guy to stay at their place.
The list goes on and on and on. There's the three morons, who fear the wrath of fridge-guy, who is probably going to kill them when he gets out of jail for being locked up in a fridge by them. There's 100-year-old-transvestite-guy, who likes to dress up like a lady and got his heart broken by old-hairdresser-lady, who was incredibly cool and tolerant about the whole thing, then changed her mind and decided she can't put up with him in the end. There's hysterical-gay-dude, who is fretting over his child being taken away from him. Every single character is suffering on that show! All of them!
I'm not proud of myself there. In fact, I'm ashamed I'm so familiar with the plot of a show so insane, unbelievable and far-fetched. I'm not even into that kind of thing and I only ended up getting an insight into those sad, sad fictional lives because the Clairebear is following them, religiously. Holy fuck, this show is so unbelievably evil, depressing and wrong!
Ever since I've come here, Brits seemed incredibly polite, friendly and laid-back. Little did I know they get such a kick out of watching people weep, suffer and die. And I might be turning into one of them. Creepy...
-Cat
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