In soap operas, the nadir of storytelling

Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra once observed that there is nothing so bad that you can't find something good in it.

The worst Cervantes had to contend with was an abundance of trashy stories about knight-errantry. Cervantes never once had to read "Jane Eyre" or, worse, watch a soap opera.

I have. Although "Jane Eyre" thankfully is in my past, for two weeks while I was on vacation, I was subjected twice daily to the modern-day horror called soap operas. Two weeks later, I still am suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from what I endured. I'll refer to these soaps as "Puerto Carlos" and "Major Hospital."

It's not as though I wanted to watch soap operas on vacation. I tried to do some writing, and I tried to do some reading, but just being in the same room as the TV set was enough to be sullied. It's like the time I played rugby in my school uniform, only I don't know of any laundry detergent that can remove these ugly marks from my psyche, no matter how hard I scrub.

The dreary flicker of the TV, the bad acting, the worse directing and the really terrible writing combined to drag me into the show with the same horrified fascination I feel driving past a car wreck. I couldn't look away no matter how hard I tried.

I was so appalled by what I was watching, I decided to call ABC from a morbid curiosity to know where they get their soap opera writer.. Apparently all the major networks, not just ABC, use a special test to find the right people for major soap-writing jobs. Anyone who has read books for pleasure and not just for a book report, who can name three presidents of the United States in any order, or who knows how to use the word "obviate" in a sentence, is disqualified.

Every now and then, someone with talent does slip through the cracks. When that happens, the networks neutralize them with specially trained directors who pick the most melodramatic facial expressions and postures the actors can assume and let the camera linger painfully for three or four seconds on them at the end of every scene.

Nothing worthwhile of the plot survives.

Did I say there's a plot? My mistake. Plots have a clear beginning, middle and end. Academicians claim there are three basic plots in all literature: man against man, man against himself, and man against God, although in each case the writer has tremendous freedom to define what man is, what God is, and what it means to work against something.

Soap operas lack plots; instead, they have storylines, which also happen to come in a set of three: sleeping with someone, planning to commit murder, and manipulating people. Sometimes the writers will try to get creative by combining the three.

On "Puerto Carlos," one of the storylines I saw involved the disappearance of Luke Stephan, who like everyone else on the show is manipulative and controlling.

As the story unfolds, about 12 minutes after Luke Stephan disappears, the city prosecutor decides he was murdered and immediately arrests Luke Stephan's neighbor Rufus for the crime, judging that the complete lack of evidence is merely proof of Rufus' criminal genius.

As viewers, we of course know that Rufus is innocent of foul play, because he was having an affair with the prosecutor's wife, teen-age daughter and their dog, a German shepherd named Muffie, when the alleged murder occurred. He can't use this as an alibi, because of the harm it would cause Muffie.

About a week later, those clever writers reveal that Luke Stephan simply ran off to use the bathroom when no one was looking.

When he finally finishes using the bathroom, he discovers that the toilet he used is in Paris, France. On his person are 40,000 Mexican pesos and a passport that identifies him as a German shepherd named Muffie.

But in order to lose viewers interested in Rufus' efforts to defend himself from charges of murder and stay free of Muffie's canine machinations, the writers also develop a number of other storylines, none especially relevant to his situation.

At the same time Rufus escapes from jail, Lucille's adopted 1-year-old daughter is kidnapped by her biological mother and taken to Kzakhastan, a woman named Charlie tries to kill the man she blames for her recent miscarriage, and 33 other people plot to take over the world, or at least the board of directors of Major Hospital.

Confusing? That's not even half of it. By the time our vacation ended, Luke Stephan had been thrown into the pound because he didn't have a dog license, Rufus had disappeared to escape being framed, Muffie had bitten the prosecutor on the leg, the kidnapped little girl was found at Walmart in a different set of clothes and with a new haircut, and the entire board of directors of Major Hospital quit when the hospital's snack machine ran out of yellow Zingers.

Now I'm not saying these things don't happen in real life -- although I honestly can't say I know of anyone they've happened to -- but if they happened as regularly in real life as they did on soap operas, Jerry Springer would be out of business.