My Long Text About Coronation Street

I found the the text that I mentioned in my last post—the one where I ramble on and on about Coronation Street to my sister Melissa. 

I decided to copy it here.

Maybe if I can't convince my sister to watch it, I'll convince some random stranger on the Internet to watch it. OR....really I just want to get it out there.  Because I so love Coronation Street.

Anyway, here is what I wrote:

My biggest recommendation is Coronation Street. It's on Hulu. It's a British soap opera but very different from American soap operas. It's over the top as in three people have gotten cancer in the last five years. But people don't return from the dead or have long lost evil twins.

The returning from the dead and long lost evil twins is a reference to the main soap opera our family grew up with—Days of our Lives.

I say it's on Hulu, because my sister has that streaming device. It's not the origin of Coronation Street. It's originally broadcasted from the UK on some UK channel I guess. It's an ITV product, but I'm not sure if there's an ITV channel?  I should look that up.  Maybe later.

As for the cancer, I'm not sure I meant the last five years in the show's time or the five years since I've been watching. I also don't remember the third cancer case. I know there's Haley (Julie Hesmondhalgh) and Sinead (Katie McGlynn).....

Wait. Now I remember. Little Hope (Isabella Flanagan) had cancer.

It's probably not very unusual for multiple elderly people to get cancer on the same street. But Haley was in her forties or fifties (I think?). Sinead was in her twenties, and Hope was a preschooler.

So...yikes.

I should get back to my original text....

Deals with so many different social issues...suicide, controlling/financial domestic abuse, male rape, suicide, human trafficking, etc. BUT almost always has great comic relief.

And it's amazing, because they tend to use the same actors from childhood to adult.

I REALLY love this.

So many of the adults on the show I see started as teens or younger. 

And the little kiddies I saw on the show when I started now are young adults.  

Oh!!!! And another thing I love is they rotate actors.

So let's say you start watching. There might be a man working at a restaurant who seems to be just a supporting/background character. Then a few weeks later, his storyline might be the center of the show.

And definitely family oriented.

Not a soap opera where kids hide out with a nanny while adults have storylines. 

Lots of storylines with parents struggling with their kids.

Lots of mental health issues.

Bullying, OCD

Drug addiction.

ADHD.

And they bring unique, ignored perspectives on issues.

There is a storyline now where a guy was sexually abused by his mom's boyfriend when he was 14, but he's in denial about it being abuse because he was in love with the man and he made the first move.

But his boyfriend gets him to see that it was abuse and he really didn't make the first move. The man would come into the boy's bedroom and they'd have intimate talks.

Later I'd learn/realize that this is called Grooming.  I think Coronation Street is what taught me this term.

I personally feel I did a great job promoting Coronation Street. But maybe that's because I already watch and love the show.  Maybe to an outsider, it sounds like gibberish.

Well, I just Googled. ITV is a TV network.  I guess it's like the American ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.

Oh and I want to check out the cancer timeline thing. When did Haley die?

Googled....

It's 2014.  My text to my sister was in October 2019.  So I was going by the show's timeline.




How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts 

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