"Emmerdale Farm" came about after Laffan was asked to write a lunchtime "farm serial" for ITV after government restrictions on broadcasting hours were relaxed. On his agent's advice, he at first refused, fearing that writing a soap opera would damage his reputation as a playwright, but then wrote the requested three months' worth of episodes "as a 26-episode play the end open so that it could continue." He eventually wrote 262 episodes of the serial, which was first broadcast in October 1972, but stopped in 1985 after twelve years because producers wanted "sex, sin and sensationalism" rather than the realism he had intended; however, he remained as a consultant and met Queen Elizabeth II on the set on the programme's 30th anniversary.