Soap opera only lasted one year. Nevertheless, soap operas gained increasing prominence on UK television schedules. In 1995, Channel 4 premiered "Hollyoaks", a soap with a youth focus. When Channel 5 launched in March 1997, it debuted the soap opera "Family Affairs", which was formatted as a week-daily soap, airing Monday through Fridays. "Brookside"s premise evolved during the 1990s, phasing out the politicised stories of the 1980s and shifting the emphasis to controversial and sensationalist stories such as child rape, sibling incest, religious cults and drug addiction, including the infamous 'body under the patio' storyline that ran from 1993 to 1995, and
Damon and Debbie storylines, executive producer Phil Redmond suggests, Damon's departure would have to be "something a bit special". The producers developed the idea of a 'soap bubble', a term which Redmond credits to Channel 4 executive David Rose, so that the multi-stranded narrative of "Brookside" would continue during the standard episodes, with two characters co-existing in a separate production. "Damon and Debbie" is generally recognised as the first instance of a UK soap opera expanding its narrative world in such a way. According to Annie Leask of "The Sunday Mirror", the spin-off was a result of the characters' popularity with the viewing