Apologies if I don't articulate this point very well- it's early but I shall do my best.

It seems to me that the three "soaps" I mainly watch at the minute appear to be doing everything possible to drag plots out last their natural conclusion. This is not to say I want plots that come go and are forgotten about- there just seems to be a plethora of stagnancy. See below for examples:

Eastenders:

The rape. This has been on going for 7-8 months now, disappearing from screens at times whilst at others seeming to dominant screen time with little development in the story. For me tonight should be about closure in a sense, a confession if you will, anything to move the pace along somewhat but the POTD on the main site alludes to the fact this will not happen.

Another point- Dot. It's taken weeks to actually see her again and the storyline itself seems to be making little progress. At times these storylines work for example I found The Lucy Beale murder to be paced well, although seemingly forgotten at times, when it was screened it at least evolved. A lot of these other story's don't seem to be progressing.

Hollyoaks:

The Lomax Triangle- again last night on E4 I thought we were setting up nicely for a conclusion but this failed to have happened. Likewise with Patrick and Maxine- a perennial circle of a plot line if ever there was one.

My final example is Rita/ Connie in casualty. It all just feels a little flat and tired- it takes weeks on end to evolve and often I feel im watching the same scenes time and time again.

I don't watch Coronation Street or Emmerdale so will refrain from commenting.

Whilst I understand that these are ongoing serials or dramas and that we don't want event after event with no aftermath or development of character it just seems to me that currently a lot of stories seem to dominate screen time but offer very little new material to the audience. It may we'll be my understanding of storytelling changing as I grow older however I wanted to openly up to see what people's views were.

Apologies if this makes no sense.

I understand what you mean. Only last week, Jason Merrells revealed that he left Emmerdale in part due to his frustration with not being able to play a story from "A to B". That storylines just went on and on.

http://m.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/s12/...pasDODP7L5wv7J

The trick with a good storyline is knowing when to draw it to a close. The Lucy plot went on for nearly a year but there were enough twists and turns spread across time to keep it mostly interesting. The reveal has provided some sort of closure to it with the potential to revisit it further down the line. On the other hand, the never ending story of Kat and Alfie's marriage woes is one that has been going on forever. They get together, they break up, get back together, break up, get together and so on and so on. The idea with soaps is that they're supposed to be like real life and there is no specific end to a story but some plots are just plain repetitive.

Mick ruins the closure this week. They've actually admitted to writing him to more episodes on purpose even when he has no point.

It is tiresome and a sign that they don't know what direction to go in. People conveniently forget about any storyline that isn't the scene they are currently in. Most characters never see anyone except their family and lover. Maxine is doomed to misery, refusing to reportPatrick and then wondering why he's controlling her!

The problem is they are 'damned if they do and damned if they don't' a lot of the time.

If they resolve something really quickly we're all "This is hopeless in real life you wait 6 months for Cancer treatment/your trial to come up" and if they drag it out too long (to be more in tune with a real world timeline) then we're "Come on, let's get this story sewn up and move on/this story arc is going nowhere .....".

I do think sometimes the soaps think an issue-based storyline is good to start with, but then they don't always think of the messy repercussions and the effect it might have on other characters along the way. It also can't help that you have so many different writers all of whom (presumably) have characters/stories they like better than others and so are keener to feature them in their episodes.