The soaps are leaning too hard on one particular storyline right now
Coronation Street has recently announced a new storyline which will see Tracy Barlow embark on an affair with Weatherfield’s favourite ex-footballer Tommy Orpington, behind her husband Steve McDonald’s back.
Kate Ford, arguably one of the soap’s greatest assets, has been underused in recent months, and Tracy’s affair will put her firmly back in the spotlight. But neither she nor Steve are strangers to infidelity, and it feels like an attempt to manufacture drama for a somewhat happy couple (if you really want to stir up trouble, bring back Rob Donovan…)
It also feels like we’ve already seen this storyline many times before. There are too many affairs in soaps at the moment, and it’s all just got a bit tiring.
Soap opera is grounded in scandal, of course, and there’s always a place for forbidden affairs that viewers can get invested in from the comfort of their living rooms.
Some of soap’s best-loved couples started as affairs, such as Emmerdale’s Robert and Aaron and, more recently, EastEnders’ Suki and Eve. Plus, many iconic soap storylines over the years have involved affairs – stories that were built over time, with memorable moments and huge endings.
There’s the Christmas Day reveal of Max and Stacey’s affair to the whole family via DVD in EastEnders. And there’s the aftermath of Corrie’s 2010 tram crash, with Molly revealing her affair with Kevin to his wife Sally while she lay dying in the rubble.
These were incredibly compelling stories – but now it feels like this trope is majorly overused across the genre.
You would struggle to name a current long-term couple on a soap who haven’t been rocked by a cheating or affair scandal. As it’s become such a common occurrence in the various fictional streets and villages, the storylines lose the impact they would have had otherwise, turning something shocking into something quite normal.
It's also difficult to get too invested when a soap introduces a new couple, as it almost seems inevitable that there will eventually be some kind of infidelity that will tear them apart.
In Emmerdale, Tracy and Nate only got married in July, but she is already deep into an affair with Caleb – who also happens to be Nate’s uncle. The pair have been on-and-off since 2020 and have a child together, so it feels like a bit of a waste to throw away the relationship just after they’ve finally tied the knot for the sake of what seems like quite a random affair.
This is on the back of other wild romances in the Dales such as GP Liam and nurse Wendy, who had a brief affair last year. It was unexpected and didn’t make much sense, and felt like an easy plot device for two characters who were at a bit of a loose end in the show. Plus, once the affair was exposed, it wasn’t long before Wendy and partner Bob got back together, so it’s difficult to see what the point of it was in the first place.
While some recent affairs feel out of character, for other soap icons, cheating seems to have become a key part of their character.
Hollyoaks’ Mercedes McQueen has had a string of affairs over the years and is currently cheating on fiancé Felix with Warren – who she had a fling with years previously. Jennifer Metcalfe is an accomplished actress and is capable of tackling the most dramatic of stories, so it feels a shame for Mercedes to have been given effectively the same storyline again and again since she joined the show in 2006, restricting the potential for her character to grow and evolve.
Often these storylines don’t actually involve an affair, but rather a kiss or a one-night stand that the characters then struggle to cover up in the subsequent weeks and months. This can be seen recently in Corrie’s Daisy being unfaithful to fiancé Daniel and sleeping with Ryan, and EastEnders’ Phil cheating on Kat with Emma days before their wedding.
The attempt to hide the betrayal is usually dragged out for way too long, when viewers are well aware that it is only a matter of time before the partner finds out.
It’s presumably difficult to know what to do with long-term couples in soaps because the priority is to make good TV and too much stability is clearly boring to watch. But conversely, soap bosses need to realise that too little stability leaves little for viewers to latch onto. Plus, writers don’t always have to resort to affairs to keep things interesting.
A good example of this is Emmerdale’s Rhona and Marlon. The pair, whose relationship spans more than two decades, got back together in 2021 and later finally got married. Over the last three years the characters have been at the centre of some big stories that have tested their relationship, including Marlon’s stroke and recovery, his daughter April’s bullying and Rhona’s ex-husband using her frozen embryos without her permission.
The pair have had some challenging times and haven’t always seen eye to eye, but there has never been cheating or affairs involved. They feel like an authentic couple, and that might partly be because neither has randomly strayed from the other.
There’s plenty of space for passionate affairs in soaps, but relationship stories needn’t be limited to this. There are so many issues and struggles that could be depicted without resorting to infidelity time and time again.
And maybe, just maybe, let soap characters be happy! It doesn't have to be for long.
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