Introduction

This is a collection of essays about a form of television drama being watched (quite literally) at this very moment by tens of millions of people around the world. Whether called soap operas, soaps, telenovelas, teleromans, or, as my mother calls them, simply “my stories,” television serials together constitute one of the most popular and resilient forms of storytelling ever devised. In some television cultures (Russia, China, Italy, Germany), serials are relatively new phenomena. In others (the US, Great Britain, Australia, and several countries of Latin America), they have been staples of broadcast programming since the early days of radio. Some serials eventually end (if only after hundreds of episodes). Others, even after a halfcentury of continuous unfolding, are no closer to their characters living “happily ever after” than when the first episode was broadcast.