Lets pick a character in Corrie each and remember what we can about them and see how typical a person they are in relation to otheres living in Manchester. In most cases the characters are ridiculous beyond belief

Lets start at t'Rovers. Steve McDonald

Married 5 times
Been in the big house
His dad is in the big house for armed robbery
Father to Amy, his wife is now pregnant at same time as he is father to another Corrie resident
Suffered severe depression
Nearly killed about 10 street residents in car accident
Been shot at by a Manchester heavy
Almost murdered by drug dealer

Just yer typical 40 year old

Anyone more ridiculous?

No soap is realistic. If they were - we wouldn't watch them. If one does watch them hoping for realism - there's something amiss!

Have no idea what you're talking about. Until about the late 90s, most of the soaps were pretty realistic and were at the height of their popularity.

I seriously doubt it! The only soap that was ever realistic in any way at all was Brookside in its early days. Corrie has always been unrealistic. I'm a Corrie fan but have never watched it for the realism - it doesn't stop me enjoying it.

That's not really far fetched, especially as some of those things happened in the 90s.

I know soaps have to have a bit of artistic licence we all look for some escapism in soaps, but do the characters and the storylines need to be that far fetched.

Anyone else have a character that is totally over the top in terms of realism

Also, for most people, there was only four channels, and no on demand television for Coronation Street to compete with.

Blame the soap awards. Its easy to see when soaps became more sensational and in competition with each other when the soaps themselves felt obliged to create more OTT storylines and stunts.

Fact is, they all have characters that are massively unrealistic. In actual fact singling out CS for criticism is stupid, its arguably the most realistic when it comes to everyday storylines.

I agree that all soaps have ridiculous charaters the only reason I picked Corrie is that it is the only soap that i watch, I have watched sine around the 1980's. So I did not pick out Corrie as such for ridiculous characters it the only soap I can relate to.

Anyone have any other totally ridiculous characters

I remember watching the Tram crash episodes, when the camera panned out on an aerial shot of the street and its surrounding area. You got to see that Coronation street is just one of many streets of terraced houses in Weatherfield. It made me ponder if the same level of drama and disaster is happening to the residents of those streets as well?

The Steve Mcdonald example, where one character seems to get an inordinate amount of dramatic life events, is of course caused by two things. Tenure on the show (27 years in Steve's case) and the episode output. Coronation street has gone from it's original 2 episodes to 5, an increase of 150%. The amount of programmes has to be filled with something, and when you reflect back on a characters history you do find the likes of Gail getting married six times, several street couples who have been married to each other twice (I can think of 4 examples of this), and a frankly terrifying street murder-rate.

Frankly I find the thought of marrying six times more terrifying than the murder rate.

I agree and I have exactly the same attitude towards Corrie and the other two soaps I watch EE and ED I don't watch for ultra realism I just enjoy them for what they are they are something I watch in the evening while relaxing nothing more nothing less.