A new web series injects some humor into the serious mission of the Save Our Soaps movement.
Using Hi-Jinx and Hilarity to Underscore the Struggle of Soaps
Last week Dropping the Soap (DTS), a ten-part series, debuted on streaming service Dekkoo. The comedy tells the tale of the cast and crew of beleaguered fictional soap, Collided Lives. These wacky characters will do anything to save their struggling series, and their antics in pursuit of their mission eventually become soapier than their own soap!
You can also catch the soapy sass of DTS on Amazon Prime, Roku, iTunes, and Google Play, according to We Love Soaps.
Jane Lynch and Lisa Kudrow served as two of the series executive producer and Lynch also stars in the series.
“As the TV soap opera itself circles the drain, I love how our crew of self-centered and desperate actors charge ever forward to save their show from the chopping block,” said Lynch in a press release. “The writing is so sharp and witty as the off-screen shenanigans become almost more absurd than the storylines of “Collided Lives.’”
“A number of familiar faces appear during the 10-episode first season, including Nadia Bjorlin, Dot-Marie Jones, Missi Pyle, and Ben Baur,” reported We Love Soaps.
Satire Can Save
Satirical approaches to serious subjects have been a part of the Western storytelling tradition since ancient times. They’ve made important statements in fun, unusual ways. The teasing and mockery help bring home weighty arguments and make them stick in audiences’ minds. Aristophanes’ The Clouds, for example critiqued the intellectual snobbery of Athens in 420 B.C., while Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock pointed out the oblivious superficiality of 18th-century European aristocracy.
Now, DTS adds some lightness and frivolity to the movement that solidified after ABC canceled All My Children and One Life to Live in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Those cancellations came after the axing of other long-running daytime classics in 2008 and 2009. The unofficially titled Save Our Soaps movement seeks to halt and reverse this devaluing and destruction of daytime drama.
Soap Cities (SC) readers know that we are committed to the preservation and revival of the fabulous daytime serial genre. Both SC‘s Co-Founders and Co-Editors-in-Chief, Shawn Brady and Akbi Khan, have been involved in advocating for soaps since 2011 and 2012, respectively. Brady is co-Admistrator of the Facebook group Soap Fans United, which has more than 8,000 members.
Watch the trailer for DTS below. And we dare you not to laugh at the web series’ slogan: “Bend Over, Daytime.”
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