I recently started watching the web soap Empire: The Series. When I sat down to watch the first episode, I realized I had seen it before. I recalled that I had watched it back when it first started a few years ago, but didn't keep watching. This was for a couple reasons:
- The show was not shot in HD and the camerawork seemed amateur.
- No one in the cast was from the daytime soap industry.
I had been hearing good things about Empire, so I decided to give it another try. I had to really power-through season one, because the two reasons I mentioned were big issues throughout the whole first season. But it was worth it, because they are no longer problems in the later seasons.
By the second season, the show is shot in widescreen format and looks a lot more professional. Additionally, soap fans will start to see a couple familiar faces - Tina Sloan (Lillian, Guiding Light) and Orlagh Cassidy (Doris, Guiding Light). I think that it's important for web series to be as reminiscent of actual television as possible - the more professional look of the show and the addition of actual daytime actors in season two of Empire helps this cause.
Another important factor important in a web soap is drama - the level of drama that one would find in any current soap opera. So far, I've watched the first three seasons of Empire, and there have been no problems with the level of drama. In the first three seasons, there's been a kidnapping, a murder, a faked death, a teenage pregnancy, two brothers fighting over the same woman, and much more.
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