My s/o and I started watching Dark Shadows last night, after many false starts. (The false starts will be discussed in a subsequent toot.)

We watched the first weeks worth of episodes (5) back to back.

They are pretty typically soap-y. There is a mysterious stranger, some unspoken intrigue, lots of warnings to "Stay away" or "go back home."

Very little is revealed, the action moves really slowly, and the same stock footage of the ocean is used multiple times per episode.

The music is weird and frantic and overwhelming, the dialog is stilted and melodramatic. The acting is uneven. The little plot that has been revealed so far could have just as easily been done in two or three scenes.

The first five episodes could have been half of one episode. Would have been half of one episode of a (modern) prime time series.)

Or, to put it another way, it's Wonderful.

It has all the mystery, supernatural, and intrigue of twin peaks, but with the sheen of 60s optimism.

Listening to my S/O talk about the show was kind of adorable.

We watched the first episode, and I fully expected her to be uninterested in watching any more.

Instead, she ended up binging the next 4, and was talking about how the pace was just right to keep her interested without revealing enough information at one time to leave her satisfied.

In other words, it was a perfect soap opera.

Soap operas are designed to make you watch the next episode. That's it. Every scene is a cliffhanger. Every answer is a question.

A lot of people, specifically men, but also people in general, tend to look at soaps pretty derisively for this reason.

I don't. I love it.

From the earliest radio soaps to Days of our Lives and As the World Turns or whatever soaps are airing today, soap operas have been about consumption.

Dark Shadows takes this further.