Forgotten: Foreign Soaps
As our “forgotten” season continues we take a look at some less successful attempts at launching oversees soaps here in the UK. While Neighbours and Home and Away may have found a place in British hearts these other soaps just weren’t as successful. How many of these do you remember?
Chateauvallon 1985, Channel Four
In the 1980s there was no Hollyoaks on Channel Four it just had Brookside and so the newly created channel tried to find another successful soap to draw in audiences. For this it turn its eyes to our 
continental neighbours and hoped their soaps would be a success with British audiences. So Channel Four snapped up a French soap that makes Hollyoaks, in terms of raunchiness, look very, very tame. In fact the French soap was so raunchy that Channel Four bosses eventually moved it to a late-night slot – which for Channel Four is saying something! Chateauvallon was the French answer to Dallas with warring families plotting and battling for supremacy but language was once again a barrier. British audiences had to suffer dodgy dubbing or read subtitles. However, it did create a cult following mainly due to its raunchy nature!
Black Forest Clinic 1988, Channel Four
After not having a lot of luck with the French, Channel Four turned to the Germans instead and came back with Black Forest Clinic. Better known to German audiences as Die Schwarzwaldklinik, which is something of a mouthful really so no wonder Channel Four preferred using its literal English translation. Imagine trying to have a conversation by the water-cooler and having to say “Did you see Die Schwarzwaldklinik last night?” Somehow we just can’t see it. Anyway the soap, set in a hospital, was hugely popular in its native country and regularly attracted audiences of 25 million viewers. Obviously on Channel Four it was never going to attract anything like that number! The soap barely lasted two months on Channel Four because, as with other non-English language programmes, British audiences don’t like subtitles unless they are rewarded for reading them by a decent plot, plenty of drama and sex – all of which were absent from this German soap. There were also lots of shots of woodland – just to confuse Brit audiences more!
Santa Barbara 1984 – 1993, ITV
Before ITV secured Home and Away, to rival BBC One’s phenomenally successful Neighbours, they had America’s own answer to Ramsay Street – Santa Barbara. Like its Australian counterparts, Santa Barbara had dodgy acting by good looking people and shared something in common with Brit 
soap, Crossroads – shaky sets. This is surprising really as Santa Barbara had $30 million spent on it while Crossroads had bugger all really. Santa Barbara’s scripts weren’t much better either. Storylines included an earthquake, which handily killed off several unpopular characters, and even male prostitution. Characters were often recast, sometimes on a yearly basis, further adding to the soaps notoriety. The soap was far more popular outside the US than it was inside with the French being particular fans of the series. However, UK fans have never seen the final episodes of the soap because ITV dropped it as soon as they got their hands of Home and Away and while Sky did pick up the soap shortly after they didn’t reach the end either before dropping it from their schedules.
Breakers: 1998 – 1999, BBC One
Short-lived Australian soap that never quite managed to gain a foothold on Australian or British audiences quite like its more famous counterparts, such as Neighbours and Home and Away. The soap ran between 1998 and 1999 and was set around a Cafe and Modeling Agency, and also a newspaper, and featured mostly a young cast. The series was different to other Australian soaps because it had something of a gritty nature and tackled storylines others dared not including homosexuality -something Home and Away and Neighbours have only danced around. Australia is quite a conservative country when it comes to issues such as homosexuality and it was a daring storyline for a new soap to tackle. Just look at all the publicity surrounding the lesbian storyline in Home and Away at the moment! The Sun dubbed the soap the “Australian EastEnders” because of its gritty nature. Unfortunately for the soap ratings were never really high enough to secure its long-term future and after a series of stop/starts Network Ten decided to scrap the show in November 1999.
