Recently I persuaded my wife to take on another American daytime drama: Days of Our Lives. We used to watch it up until around five years ago, but once our kids weren't babies any more, we stopped.

I like American daytime dramas because they aren't as gritty and real as, for instance, Coronation Street. I've already discussed how Corrie is just too real for me; I can't escape my problems by diving into a world ten times worse!

Days of Our Lives has been running since 1965. Common in American daytime dramas, it centers around a few large, powerful families - notably, the DiMeras, the Hortons, and the Bradys. Although it's complex, the DiMeras are the "darkest" of the three; the other two are more mundane and less rich. When an intrigue is hatching, the DiMeras are assumed to be the cause of the trouble.

However, there is intermarriage among the families. For example, John Black (pictured right), is part DiMera, part Brady. Therefore, although he is a "good" guy, he is also part of the DiMera family. The same is true for other characters, either by birth or marriage.

The typical American soap opera may not have the challenging realism of Corrie, but it does have its own challenge: a complex web of family history. You can watch a soap like Days for years and still not be able to construct the familial relations of the characters. Even so, within about three episodes you can understand the current plots. The Yanks have a unique way of giving their characters problems that the viewers can understand without empathizing.

John Black (played by Drake Hogestyn) has been on Days since 1986. I remember seeing him when I was a teenager.

Keep it going, John! We'll be watching you tonight on the computer with a glass of wine.

Sources for this article: Wikipedia and Wikipedia.