[watwut]

Soap operas use entirely different tactic - every information is repeated again and again and again. They are meant to be half watched by people who work while watching them. So you need to be able to miss half the episode and still caught up comfortably.

That is why slow graduate changes.

Neither of these could afford serious multi episodes long arc with nuance played out the way current series can have.

[miki123211]

The Polish "paradocumentary" format is like this, but taken to an extreme. Such shows are mostly dialog interleaved with a narrator describing exactly what just happened. There's also a detailed recap of everything that happened in the episode so far after every ad break, of which there are many.

It's basically daytime TV, to be watched at work, often as background, and without looking at the actual screen very often.