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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daniel Avery" data-source="post: 251755" data-attributes="member: 27">It's a good rule of thumb that scenes have just been getting shorter and shorter since the late-1990s when producers realized such a narrative structure could be much easier/quicker to tape, and a lot can be said without any real plot progression.  In many cases you can't even refer to the segments in current soaps as "scenes".  It's more of a system where one long scene is written, but broken up into segments that they show a few lines at a time throughout the hour.  It's a great way to stretch out a plotline, and lord knows B&B can stretch out a plotline like no one else.  The only time we get satisfying scenes of any length is when they make a conscious decision to advance the plot.  But even then, a modern "substantial scene" might be three or four minutes, even in an hour-long soap. The irony is that most soaps expanded to the hour-long format just so they could have longer, more in-depth and dramatic scenes.  Another World (the first soap to expand) regularly featured nine-minute long scenes after the expansion, often with just two or three actors interacting for the entire period between commercial breaks--no cutting to "B" plots or mixing in several smaller scenes.  Critics likened the format to watching a play rather than a TV show.  They eventually gave in to the shorter scenes like everyone else, though.  I can imagine the actors were not as enamored, however, since it meant memorizing a ton of lines regularly.  The current, choppy format is probably very actor-friendly in that regard.  And if your actor is not very...ahem, strong it would be much easier to hide it with frequent stopping and starting.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?