Ever follow any soaps?

[Orcadian]

When I lived in Boston (late 80s) I shared a flat with a guy from Hong Kong, and every week we would watch Dallas with two friends. Ed would cook (he cooked fabulous Chinese meals), the friends would bring beer, and later I'd do the washing up. I can't say I really got into the Dallas storyline but those were fun evenings - so good memories overall.

 

[Orcadian]

Hill Street Blues and The West Wing.

I didn't think of The West Wing as a soap but if it was, then I watched that too, in 2000-2001, the year I was in Austin TX. Actually there's a bit of a mystery here as my partner gave me some West Wing DVDs a few Christmasses ago and neither of us enjoyed them. I felt like an idiot as I'd really bigged it up! Some of the characters were not played by the actors I remembered, and the whole White House ethos seemed a lot more 'big stick' than I remembered it. Based on the timing, I think it must have been season 2 that I saw in Austin. The President was played by Martin Sheen.

There was one memorable episode where the President goes into the basement, where a young aide is photocopying stuff. Not realising who this is, she speaks her mind vehemently. Evidently she holds Republican views and she imagines she's about to be fired. But the President says "I like to have around me intelligent people who disagree with me" - so she keeps her job. Anyone know if that happened in season 2?

 

[paeng]

Dark Shadows is notable: they borrowed a lot from classical horror literature, from Shelley to Hawthorne to Lovecraft.

 

[Elckerlyc]

It seems I did, given that Hill Street Blues has been tagged as a soap in this thread.
The only other program I can remember that I faithfully watched was The Flying Doctors.