melodrama

Increasingly dismayed, Dudek hatched a plan that seemed to embody his mix of good intentions, hubris and melodrama.

“Butterfly” is a sort of an action soap, an extended family melodrama with guns.

“The Gilded Age” has always plied high-toned melodrama as its chief asset, but Season 3 ripens the starched formality of previous episodes into succulence.

“Part of what makes ‘Sunset Boulevard’ such a pleasure to watch is that it’s always on the verge of tipping one way or another into comedy, mystery, melodrama, social satire, or horror,” Lubin writes.

It’s a challenge to write from the perspective of a child without being arch or cutesy — stories about kids learning about the real world can degrade to plainspoken YA or cheap melodrama.