Oh, The Daily Drama!

Showmax is the place to go for all things soapies, sepies and telenovelas. But what’s the difference and what makes the day-time dramas so popular?

- Craig Falck

Okay, first things first: soap operas (aka soapies) and sepies are identical – except soapies are in any one of 10 of the official 11 languages of South Africa (English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa or Zulu), while sepies are in Afrikaans (11th of the official languages). Now for the fun part: the difference between soapies and telenovelas and why they’re some of the most-watched programmes you can stream on the Showmax platform…

NATURE OF THE BEAST

Soap operas aren’t created with a fixed ending. They evolve over time and new characters come in, old characters leave and sometimes return years later to continue their storyline and branch into new stories. Telenovelas, when they’re written, have a definite start and end part and can last anywhere between 12 and 18 months. That’s the plan, but sometimes they become so popular with viewers that they’re turned into a soapie. Like Isibaya – when it started way back in 2013, it was planned as a drama series, which then turned into a telenovela, which then turned into a soapie all in the space of a year.