Shortland Street

Shortland Street was pretty good for a soap (although I prefer Home and Away, which has more excitement like a gun-toting, crystal-meth addict on the lose), but Shortland Street has gone down hill.

If you like your programs with 99% relationship stuff and 1% excitement, then you might like the 2005 series of Shortland Street. I haven't actually watched much of it, but I can tell from the ads on T.V. that relationships are the main source of entertainment for 2005.

But, if you can see episodes before 2005, it has had some good stuff and the end of year cliffhangers are a must for most viewers of this type of soap opera.

I really see no appeal to this show, it's a struggle for me to watch when I'm forced to. I remember watching it a lot when I was a kid, but that's because back then there were three channels, we couldn't get TV3 and TV1 was pretty bad reception.

The show is repetitive and, personally, boring. When forced to watch it, I know what's going to happen because I can almost always say "This happened ten years ago," and it will have, except with different characters... well, sometimes it's the same characters.

Also, sadly, there are often untalented actors. But that can almost be excusable, as there is admittedly little public outlet for actors in New Zealand to hone their skills.

In all, I feel that the show is rather cheap. So I guess if you want to watch something with limited quality, and you didn't watch the show already a few years ago, you can give it a shot, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Being a New Zealand resident, I get a first-hand look at this 8 year old soap opera, which stars some of New Zealand's finest acting talent.

Starting in May, 1992, SST got off to a rocky beginning in it's home country. The ratings weren't that great, yet the producers were still optomistic. However, only a year after, the ratings picked up, and now it's come to be a way of life in NZ. Yep - nearly every house will have the TV on channel 2 at 7pm, to watch their fave soap.

Over the past 8 years keen followers have seen Nick, Kirsty, Rachel and the gang battle diseases, broken hearts and evil maniacs as they try to live life as the script-writers see fit. Many an actor have walked into the Clinic Reception, and let's hope Shortland Street Medical Centre will keep it's doors open for a long time to come!

I regret to say that I find this television programme boring, predictable and totally lame. But what do you expect, it is a melodramatic soap opera, is it not! The characters are shallow, more predictable than the sorry plotline we endure every week. It does, however, match other soaps ie 'The Young Doctors', 'Sally Jessie Raphael' and 'The Young and the Restless'. Fortunately, this will never equal ER or even Chicago Hope.

Shortland Street is New Zealand's most successful television "drama". Market saturation (it runs at every weekday) and determination by TVNZ has seen the show a steady rater. But despite all the hype (critics and academics who once drubbed it now fall over each other in praise), it's hard to see what's so great about it. Sure, compared to Neighbours, Brookside, Days of Our Lives, it comes off well, but Shortland Street is hardly great drama. In fact, technically, it ain't drama at all but melodrama. The plotlines are thin and pointless, largely consisting of the standard soap love triangles of who is sleeping with whom this week, and the show's much vaunted "humour" is about as amusing as jamming your fingers in a door. I think that Shortland Street's success has, in the long run, crippled NZ TV drama. It seems that, having one success, broadcasters and production companies are now unwilling to branch out and try new things. There is no stratification of primetime drama, there's just Shortland Street and nothing else.

At the end of the day, Shortland Street is a finely put together little soap. But that's all it is, and until we learn to grow up and create proper TV dramas, this silly show will be all we're ever capable of.