Despite the conventionality of television drama, there are moments when alternative strategies emerge which continue to explore the boundaries of the medium."

Often, while sitting in front of the television, we hear one another predict what is going to happen next, or play a guessing game as to how this week's "issue" of a prime time TV drama will be resolved before the hour runs out. Our minds have become accustomed to the tried and tested conventions tirelessly used by most TV producers. Our eyes have become reliant on the bright, colourful studios, the numerous camera angles, the choreographed stances and deliberations of the actors. Our ears have come to expect clean, politically correct, cheerful language. We assume every problem will be resolved within the confines of an hour - every cloud has a silver lining…. and every action within a TV drama serves a purpose to produce future drama.

When a drama hits our screens that doesn't pander to these conventions - that breaks almost every one of them, it makes us sit up in our seats. We look around with puzzled faces - maybe not realising how it's different, just knowing it's not what we've come to expect. There have been quite a few British dramas that have made up sit up in our seats in the last few years. Last Summer saw the emegence of a new type of voyeurism when 'Big Brother' appeared on our TV screens and took over the

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But it wasn't only the British youth who found themselves relating to this realistic and unique creation. "bring me news from the front, because I don't remember what it's like to be in my twenties".

Young people in Britain had finally found a TV series that they could identify with. As in all soap operas a wedding is a perfect opportunity for drama and mayhem - with the church ceremony usually being carried on for multiple episodes (in American melodrama 'Sunset

16. Garnett, an established producer is credited as the producer of such dramas as 'Ballykissangel' and 'Between The Lines'. " She believed she had the ability to create a drama that would be an outlet for this frustrated generation. "I think it's like reality because it's the only programme I have seen in which a woman urinates in a toilet while chatting to a friend, who is in the bath. "…appalled at the drugs, booze, and, worst of all, simulated sex between homosexuals". It also gave a more chaotic, youthful and of course, realistic appearance.

While defined as a cross between a soap and a drama, 'This Life' tried it's best to be 'anti-soap'. It was one of the first British TV dramas to show explicit scenes between ho!

mosexuals on primetime television.

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