All I keep thinking in reading the original post and the comments is that my friend Barbara must be spinning in her grave right about now.

Barb was originally a producer for All My Children, and when ABC unceremoniously sacked her, Turkish television snapped her up in a heartbeat to create and develop one of the first Turkish soap operas, with all the foibles and similar characters and situations as their US counterparts.

Wake up, Pike! Turkey is not some third world backwater country. It has a centuries old tradition, and was still standing for centuries after the Holy Roman Empire was but a memory.