It’s rather befitting that the post preceding this one covers Arrested Development seeing as there are more than a few coincidental (or not so coincidental) similarities between that sitcom and SOAP. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

In order to properly unpack SOAP (‘77-‘81) is to understand where all of its various players, producers and writers would wind up. Firstly, the actress who portrays Jessica Tate, Katherine Helmond, would eventually go on to become Mona on Who’s the Boss? Billy Crystal went on to become – well – Billy Crystal. That doesn’t need too much explanation. But the show’s writer as well as it’s producer (who would be married in ’83), Susan Harris and Paul Junger-Witt respectively, would go on to work together on Benson (whose character first appeared on SOAP), The Golden Girls as well as Blossom, which featured Ted Wass as the title character’s father, but here is Danny Dallas, the simple, dimwitted son. That’s not too bad for a show that only ran for four seasons.

Anyway, the plot of the first season, which is meant to mimic the travails of any and all soap operas does it’s job by including marital infidelity, murder, embezzlement, baby snatching, insanity and the (almost) seduction of a priest. And that’s over just twenty five episodes. But as the show begins, the Tate family as well as the Campbells, who are tied together through sisters Mary Campbell and Jessica Tate, are seemingly normal – for the first few minutes anyway. What sets this particular show apart from others in a decade that was rife with new ideas from television land was the broad narrative arc.

That same feature – while most adroitly utilized by Larry David – was put to good use by Mitchell Hurwitz during the three year run of Arrested Development. Similarly to SOAP, that show also focused on the problems that a family had with the law while simultaneously having characters embroiled in a number of (attempted) extra-curricular sexual affairs. The constant mentioning of the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t hurt either, nor the intentionally cheesy narration.

But regardless of the commonalities between those two shows, SOAP featured the first openly gay character (on a popular, well watched show – there were a few predecessors). And while Crystal’s character and the relationships he finds himself in are treated with some fare level of respect, some of his off the cuff comments might have (or still do) cause some consternation in the gay community (I would guess).

Amongst all of this outrageousness – for the time at least – the one seemingly normal character out of the entire cast was that of Robert Guillaume’s ‘Benson.’ Functioning as the punch line to any and every possible joke dealing with race, Benson is the foil to his boss – Chester Tate. The interactions that the two have are often startling and a few of the jokes or comments might not even pass today as anything all too acceptable.

With all of this, it’s kinda easy to forget that in the closing moments of the season’s last show, Jessica Tate is found guilty of a murder she didn’t commit. What happens next? I hafta watch the next season before I let you know.