It’s been suggested that soaps are in crisis because their ratings-chasing storylines have become too ridiculous. But it’s the unbelievable plot twists that we watch them for

According to the writer and broadcaster Mark Lawson, it’s time for soaps to tone things down. The likes of Coronation Street and EastEnders are in crisis, he says in the latest issue of the Radio Times, because they are “[piling] catastrophe after crisis on the best-known characters” in order to boost flagging ratings. “As other TV fiction has become busier and darker, perhaps the soaps need to aim lighter and slower,” he adds. But, really, what would the fun be in that? Here are the most outlandish, most memorable soap plots of all time.

1. Neighbours
Harold Bishop returns

Surely a heart attack on the edge of a cliff would be enough to finish anyone off? However, drowning proved no biggie for Erinsborough’s resident tuba fan, who was found five years later at a Salvation Army shop, having apparently been afflicted with amnesia and assumed the name Ted.

2. Crossroads
It was all a dream

The first rule of writing – do not, under any circumstances, use the words “It was all a dream” – was flagrantly flouted by Crossroads. The soap’s early-00s revival, plagued by poor ratings, was explained away in its final episode as some kind of hallucination on the part of a supermarket worker, with the show’s characters merely customers in the shop where she worked (yes, really).

3. Emmerdale
Plane crash wipes out the village

There have been few culls bigger than Emmerdale’s fiery air disaster, which wiped out half of the cast and sent the formerly sleepy daytime soap into TV’s big leagues. Corrie who?

4. Brookside
Body under the patio

When his wife, Mandy, could no longer stand his abuse, Trevor Jordache ended up six feet under in this infamous soap plot. However, an underground leak – and not, gladly, the weird stench of decomposing flesh – led to his discovery.

5. EastEnders
Dirty Den returns

Like Harold, Leslie Grantham’s Den was presumed dead when he was caught up in some cut-price Krays business with “the Firm”. But, 14 years later, it was revealed that, like many a Briton before him, he had faked his death and moved to Spain.

6. Dallas
Dream season

Not as bad as Crossroads yet still completely implausible, Dallas wrote off its entire 1985-86 season – including Bobby Ewing’s highly unpopular death – by claiming it had all been the hyper-vivid dream of his wife, Pam.

7. Dallas
Who Shot JR?

The cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers, the shooting saga dragged on for eight months, via twists, turns and tie-in T-shirts. Around the world, 350 million people tuned in to find out the answer, which makes Line of Duty’s viewing figures look paltry.

8. Neighbours
It was all a dog’s dream

What’s better (worse?) than “it was all a dream”? It was all a dog’s dream, of course! Which is precisely what happened in Neighbours when pooch Bouncer enjoyed a totally normal romantic reverie.

9. Days of Our Lives
Salem stalker

A killing spree rocked the US soap in 2000, culminating in the perpetrator, Marlena, choking her final victim with a doughnut. The dead characters were subsequently revived and marooned on an island. And then the killer was revealed to be someone else. Because why not?

10. Coronation Street
Tricky Dicky

Slippery finance guy Richard Hillman ingratiated himself with Gail Platt and family, subsequently kidnapping, gaslighting and killing his way across Weatherfield. He eventually drove the Platts into a canal in his people carrier, but – luckily – the only fatality was Tricky Dicky himself.

11. Hollyoaks
Twincest

Incest. There’s not really a good way to cover it. But if you’ve got to do it, maybe having two characters have a one-night stand, completely forget one other and then find out that they are siblings – as tried out by Hollyoaks with Dodger and Sienna – is the most palatable option?

12. EastEnders
You ain’t my muvva

The storyline may be cliched, but it was the way in which Kat Slater revealed to sister Zoe that she was, in fact, her muvva that makes this such a classic. Less of a scream, more of an almighty, earth-shaking bellow, her words rang out so far that non-viewers could probably have heard them if they had opened a window.

13. Dynasty
Wedding massacre

Amanda and Prince Michael’s wedding ended in bloodshed – mixed with Dynasty’s trademark melodrama, the effect was almost stunningly gruesome. The show’s producer Esther Shapiro later described it as “like a Goya painting” – the first and last time Dynasty would be described in such highbrow terms.

14. Sunset Beach
Cursed jewels

The completely bonkers Sunset Beach aired for just two years, but managed to pack in more ridiculous plotlines than most do in 30. The jewel in the crown? Cursed gems that mummified their victims.

15. Neighbours
Fake Dee

Dee Bliss did a Harold/Dirty Den disappearing act, only to reappear on Ramsay Street 14 years later. Or did she? It was, in fact, an impostor, Andrea, who would later come face to face with the real Dee, who was actually her twin sister. Obviously.

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