The American

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

television series ''

Soap Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...

'' originally aired 85 episodes over four seasons from September 13, 1977, to April 20, 1981. The series is a

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

s and features a large

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast to ...

. The show ran for 85 episodes in its original ABC broadcasts, but its syndication package included 93 episodes (several one-hour ABC episodes, mostly from the condensed Season 4, were split into half-hour syndication episodes). There were also four ''Soap''

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...

specials, which were

clip show A clip show is an episode of a television series that consists primarily of excerpts from previous episodes. Most clip shows feature the format of a frame story in which cast members recall past events from past installments of the show, depicte ...

s designed to catch viewers up with the previous seasons' storylines. The first of these was broadcast on December 20, 1977, after the first 13 shows had aired. The other three were shown at the beginning of each new season (on August 31, 1978, just before Season 2; on August 30, 1979, just before Season 3; and on October 29, 1980, just before the shortened Season 4.)

Series overview

Episodes

The 93-episode version of the episode list is shown here, with an indication of what the episode numbers would have been in the show's original run displayed in the last column.Ibiblio
FAQ guide listing the Dean Adams episode guide for Soap as a "Usenet FAQ" originally posted to rec.arts.tv
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Season 1 (1977–78)

Season 2 (1978–79)

Season 3 (1979–80)

Season 4 (1980–81)

This season was originally shown as 16 episodes of which six were one hour in length. When the one-hour episodes were standardized into half-hour episodes this yielded 22 episodes.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Soap Lists of American romance television series episodes Lists of American sitcom episodes Lists of soap opera episodes