I've never been sure if soaps are supposed to simulate real-life. If they are meant for this purpose, that's got to be the biggest waste of time in history. Why simulate real-life? We can all admit that most of our lives are repetitive and dull, so why would anyone want to watch a simulation of that, played out by people who don't even exist?
Eastenders is unconvincing to the extreme. Nobody seems to own a computer, washing machine or car. People seem to buy shares in local businesses within a matter seconds, with someone owning "half the Arches" or "half the Vic". Sam walks around with "the books", which really are books! Most business managers have computers and accountants to do that for them. Those who run stalls on the market like to leave their livelihoods with friends, simply handing over their money pouches. They're the lucky ones - a lot of the cast don't have jobs at all so how they manage to survive in east London is beyond me.
The "gangsters" are so unrealistic it's hard to watch. The scripts are terrible, mainly down to watershed restrictions, so the writers cannot include most swear-words and are forced to use words like "moron", "idiot" and "wally" which don't really work on the same scale.
Strangely enough, soaps are the shows that are watched the most in the UK, and I don't understand this. Numerous soap magazines are on the shelves, and these tell us what's going to happen in the coming weeks, so nobody really needs to watch at all.
I don't understand the concept of soaps, why anyone feels the need to watch and why there are so many.