Family Affairs

Although soap is not a rare commodity in this world, occasionally some do stand out.

Having seen many many soaps over the years, and having dropped most after a few shows I can say that only a very few are both memorable and watchable.

Although this isn't the best of the three that would make up my complete list of good soap operas, I would say that it is the only one still in production.

What it takes to make a good soap opera is writing and although there are daily flaws in the writing of Family Affairs, over all it wins. It wins not only because the cast and the players are so heavily embedded within their part [hell they make five episodes per week they can't help it] but because of the perspective from which the writing takes place.

The writers Know they can't have a plane crash or and Ebola outbreak every week and so they make the smaller stories that do occur affect characters on a more intimate and personal level. Things occur to characters, the characters do appear to have lives. Admittedly on occasion just for viewing figures things go totally out of whack, but on the whole the writers do keep things based on the lives of the characters.

That's what makes this show great.

Oh and in case your wondering the other two shows are, A Country Practice [exceptional characters and writing, all under a limited budget] and Prisoner Cell Block H [yes it was more than just a bunch of ugly chicks doing each other, it had many of the same writers as A Country Practice but with harder stories].

I watch family affairs,coronation st &east enders on uktv every week night family affairs is by far the worst, bad plots, bad sequences and the worst acting of any soapie,even worse than the Americans and that is saying something.

I find it very frustrating that all these shows on uktv Australia" are so far behind the UK and when one trys to find out the reason for this they just fob you off with some story that they will show double episodes to catch up ,needless to say, this never happens. I am very happy that family affairs is going , to make space for something of better quality, but at the same time I would to know the background reasons, did they finally realize how bad it was? did people stop watching it? whatever it was you musn't leave us in suspense Why do you feel that you have to keep everything a secret from your fans? or is it that you just don't care? I feel strongly that you should try and keep your public up to date. Family affairs is notorious for just having its characters disappear and reappear for seemingly no reason,we do get involved in the people and enjoy following their lives.\

I can understand why family affairs would have to come to an end, even though we are so far behind here in Australia, it is easy to see that the writers are running out of ideas for new plots,so many plots are being repeated and old episodes coming back.I have also noticed that as new characters are being introduced, a lot of them are really bad actors, like you are scraping the bottom of the barrel and ending up with the drek regards Vince

Family Affairs is without a doubt the best of all the UK soaps. Why? Take the quality of the production first - There is a cinematic style to all the camera work, using jibs and dollies - keeping the cameras moving, all these things add up to a "professional" production. The show is shot on video (as it has to be when filming at least 5 episodes a week) and then filtered in post production to give the "film" look. Just look at the cheap video production of Eastenders and Coronation Street for comparison. It was certainly the quality of the Family Affairs production that led the producers of Brookside to totally change their production (too late to save the show as the script writing had unfortunately deteriorated to a level beyond redemption) style to attempt to emulate this high quality cinematic style.

Secondly, the show's writers keep the plot lines within semi-believable boundaries, choosing to deal with everyday characters and situations rather than the plane crashes and larger than life "comedy" characters utilised so often by Eastenders and Coronation Street.

Last, but certainly not least, is the superb cast who interact superbly. Actors like David Easter (Pete Callan) and Nicola Duffet (Cat Matthews) have an absolutely brilliant "natural" on screen friction that just cannot be duplicated by any of the shallow characters from the other two soaps.

Well done the whole Family Affairs crew, Actors/Actresses, Technicians and the Producers.

Since i started watching Family Affairs which was around early 1998, i have been glued to it ever since, i only wish i'd watched it from the start, i couldn't believe it when all the Hart's were all wiped out on that boat, i feel that it deals with more real life issues, which is more than you can say about the big two (Eastenders & Coronation St), it's brilliant and underestimated and i can't wait for the omnibus edition on Sundays. It has all the basic ingredients of being a great soap up there with the big two give it a GO!

This is a nice addition to the soap world by new channel Channel 5. It started out boring but has picked up since Brian Park joined the cast and wrote out an entire family (who were boring really). Me and my girlfriend religiously watch this. Doesn't compare to the big two (Eastenders and Coronation Street), but worth a look.