The 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster was the previous benchmark for American oil spills, which garnered soap-operatic coverage.

FORBES: The BP Spill: Who's Responsible, Part I

Aaah, this is cricket at its soap-operatic best: two great teams act out the latest installment in a drama that spans generations.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia

So instead she has chosen to recount the soap-operatic lives of the surrealists, of their promiscuous, scandalous, perfidious and self-obsessed goings-on, all in the name of revolution.

ECONOMIST: 20th-century art