when you consider the definition of soap opera a drama characterize by stock character and situation and sentimentality and and melodramaplenty of admirable movie come to mind and include oscar winner from the very first and seventh heaven and through rebecca and the great show on earth and and kramer versus kramer to recent movie like chicago and crash . peyton place be certainly a soap opera and but not an admirable film . the litany of flaw would take more than the 1 and 000 word imdb allows and and anyway i would use up every synonym for mundane and include conventional and corny . the character be so uniformly muttonheaded that i infer extensive inbreeding in peyton place . the cockeyed motivation of two particular character actually and make that four serve a proof represent first represent selena cross be face trial for murder lucas cross and her sexually abusive stepfather . she beg dr. swain not to come to her defense by testify that she have miscarry cross child year before . her reason . she in love with a soldier name ted and and believe ted life would be ruin if her secret be reveal . she argue ( get this ) that she would rather face life in prison than live without ted . and dr. swain and a dim witted a practitioner a i ever hope to encounter and doesn not think to point out that life in prison be also ( duh ) life without ted . second represent allison mackenzie want to be a novelist . she show some short story to the high school principal . he like them but with reservation and so he wisely recommend college . but she doesn not want to go to college . she doesn not want to read stuff like shakespeare . she want to find out about write for herself and at a typewriter . her passion convince him and so he take her to the newspaper editor . who hire her . so make that five cockeyed character . so allison go on to write crap like peyton place . the end .