Tomorrow Never Knows: Soap on Australian Television

This monograph – number 3 in the Moving Image series – was first published in 1994 and has been made available again with a limited release.

As television in Australia enters a period of upheaval, we have much to learn from soap. It is a dynamic genre with a diverse following, and our ways of talking about it need to catch up with the ways in which it behaves …

Soap opera and television: a perfect match? A tawdry affair? The evidence is that neither description is entirely satisfactory. Rather, the relationship between Australia and soap is a complicated and promiscuous one, linking producers, publicists, viewers, writers and critics, crossing national boundaries and contradicting genre experiences, challenging stereotypes and yet satisfying formal expectations.

In this collection, five writers examine some of the questions raised by this relationship. Sue Turnbull asks why Sylvania Waters was promoted as a soap; Angela Ndalianis explores the stylistic excesses of The Bold and the Beautiful; Kay Schaffer unpicks the ideology of A Country Practice; Stephen Crofts documents the fate of Neighbours in its overseas markets; and Kate Bowles argues that Ramsay Street anticipates the virtual spaces of future entertainment systems.

The first published collection of essays about soap in Australia, Tomorrow Never Knows demonstrates the diversity of material currently screened as soap and the range of discussions which these different products generates.

The contributors work in film, women’s studies and media studies in institutions around Australia.