Anyone else getting bored with Soaps being so downbeat?

As you rightly say, bad things DO happen in life but so do GOOD things.

I know that all the popular soaps try to highlight serious issues and are supposed to help us deal with these things if they happen to us - there's often a help-line number at the end of the show.

I just wish these script writers would 'get on with it' and move on to something else . In REAL life we all have to 'deal with it' and move on.

( perhaps not as quickly as Phil got over his crack addiction in EE - Emmerdale's scriptwriters are doing better with the same theme)

Taking Eastenders as an example - I know that a cot death is dreadful - I know some ladies might and HAVE stolen another baby. The health visitor/midwife has ALL the answers and perhaps her findings will now be used to bring the story-line to a conclusion.

There is the weight difference and club foot for a start.

Mind you, there were more complaints when Ronnie's daughter was killed than now.

While we're talking about it , when are they/we going to find out that Roxy's daughter isn't also Jack's but Stacey's brother's - Archie swapped the samples

I'll still watch them and wish they would bring back Brookside, Crossroads and Eldorado!

I'm not sure Soaps are any more downbeat or gloomy than they used to be though I agree 100% about lack of originality & common themes that seem to be here to stay. The two that stand out the most and are on just about every Soap:

Doctoring DNA results has replaced the 'pregnant by another man's baby dilema' theme

Getting drunk & sleeping with the wrong person has been replaced by drugging them instead.

Yes! There's enough negative news on TV, radio and in the newspapers, without having to watch it on Soaps as well.

If it's not babies being snatched on Eastenders, then it's trams crashing and killing people on Coronation street.

I love Y& R and seems like on DOOL things are happening the same. Yep kinda fed up with it but i still watch everyday.

YES!! so fed up with the writers nowadays they are so pathetic and bunch of air-heads..don't they know that we know how stupid they are making these storylines? geez..they are getting soo boring anymore and they all seem to be about the same things all the time..OMG!! what am I to do...ahhh =)

Not really. There has still be some fun and laughs in Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.

I don't understand why anyone would want to watch ugly people (in every sense of the word) leading miserable ugly lives

This is true. Would it hurt if there was some happiness?