Taking aim at the banality of US Soap Opera is an easy target and the creators of the very entertaining web series Drop The Soap have a great deal of fun at parodying all the over-the-top aspects that have made them such a staple of Daytime Television for decades.
‘Colluded Lives’ the fictional ‘Soap’ at the center of this comedy has ridiculous plots which give its cast ample opportunity to overact and ham it up to the camera. The worst of them is Julian Draker (Paul Witten) an aging matinee idol who is obsessed with getting enough close-ups and is determined to not just being the star of the show, but being treated with the appropriate deference.
However, the show’s ratings have plummeted so the network have brought in a ruthless new Executive Producer Olivia Vanderstein (Jane Lynch) who will stop at nothing to save the sinking ship. Her arrival upsets everyone especially Julian’s very pushy co-star Kit Knockers (Kate Mines) who had only landed the job when her father had been in charge. Olivia, whose own P.A.s never last more than a day, fires cast members at whim and encourages the remaining one writer to make the plotlines even more unbelievable and bizarre. This is much to the consternation of the cast who are all hilariously trying to curry favor with her at the expense of their colleagues.
Each of the ten episodes goes at quite a frenetic pace and they manage to cram a great deal into each of the brief 10 minutes. In fact, for a web series, it very unusual not only boasts of very high production values but also a star-studded cast that includes Missi Pyle, Mimi Rogers, Suzanne Friedline, John Michael Higgins, Lynch’s fellow Glee star Dot Marie Jones, Patrick Fabian, and Diedrich Bader.
Dropping the Soap is extremely campy and wickedly funny with its fast-paced farce-like humor, but it is nevertheless an acquired taste for those who enjoy a true sense of the ridiculous. And these evidently include the Emmy Award Voters as they handed out one of their statuettes to Jane Lynch for her rather glorious performance in this.
Labels: 2018, comedy, Web series
