Introduction 1 Doubtless to be continued: A brief history of serial narrative 2 The role of soap opera in the development of feminist television scholarship 3Social issues and realist soaps: A study of British soaps in the 1980s/1990s 4 National and cultural identity in a Welsh-language soap opera 5 Global Neighbours? 6 The end of civilization as we knew it: Chances and the post-realist soap opera 7 “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV”: Characters, actors and acting in television soap opera 8 Plotting Paternity: Looking for dad on the daytime soaps 9 “They killed off Marlena, but she’s on another show now”: Fantasy, reality, and pleasure in watching daytime soap operas 10 “There’s a queer in my soap!”: The homophobia/AIDS story-line of One Life to Live 11 The consumption of soap opera: The Young and the Restless and mass consumption in Trinidad 12 Not all “soaps” are created equal: Toward a cross-cultural criticism of television serials 13 Our welcomed guests: Telenovel as in Latin America 14 Memory and form in the Latin American soap opera 15 Montezuma’s revenge: Reading Los Ricos También Lloran in Russia 16 The melodrama of national identity in post-Tiananmen China 17 All in the (Raghu) family: A video epic in cultural context 18 Sacred serials, devotional viewing, and domestic worship: A case-study in the interpretation of two TV versions of The Mahabharata in a Hindu family in west London