What is the best soap opera of all time?
Daytime and prime time, British and American and Australian, still running and long finished. Two at a time, one pick each, and the order is whatever the voters decide.
1General HospitalOn air since 1963 and the longest-running scripted drama in American television.
2Days of Our LivesSalem, the Horton family and an hourglass that has been turning since 1965.
3The Young and the RestlessThe most-watched daytime drama in the United States for over three decades.
4The Bold and the BeautifulHalf an hour a day about a Los Angeles fashion dynasty, and the most-watched soap worldwide.
5Coronation StreetBritain's longest-running soap, on ITV since 1960, filmed in a fictional Salford street.
6EastEndersAlbert Square, the BBC's answer to Corrie, running since 1985 and built on the doof-doof cliffhanger.
7EmmerdaleStarted as a farming drama in 1972 and survived a plane crash that wiped out half the village.
8NeighboursRamsay Street, cancelled in 2022, brought back in 2023, and the launchpad for half of Australian pop.
9Home and AwaySummer Bay since 1988, and Australia's most exported piece of television.
10As the World TurnsCBS, 1956 to 2010, the show that invented the daytime cliffhanger and the long pause.
11Guiding LightBegan on radio in 1937 and ran until 2009, the longest story ever told in any medium.
12One Life to LiveLlanview, 1968 to 2013, the first daytime soap to build a genuinely multiracial cast.
13Another WorldBay City, 1964 to 1999, the show that spun off Somerset and Texas.
14DallasSouthfork, the Ewings, and the 1980 cliffhanger that had the world asking who shot J.R.
15DynastyThe Carringtons, the Colbys, and the shoulder pads that defined 1980s prime time.
16PassionsNBC, 1999 to 2008, a soap that added witchcraft and a living doll and somehow made it work.
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