Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome

Soap opera rapid aging syndrome (SORAS) is the practice of accelerating the age of a television or film character (usually a child or teenager) in conflict with the timeline of a series and/or the real-world progression of time. This allows for, for instance, storylines around a pregnancy and birth to be relatively quickly followed by storylines around the travails of that child as a teenager or young adult. This is usually accomplished by recasting the actor playing the part, although in some cases the character is not shown onscreen, only mentioned, until after they have been "rapidly aged".

The process originated (and is most commonly used) in daytime soap operas, though it is also sometimes used in prime time shows. On sitcoms, a newborn infant character is sometimes aged quickly into a kindergartner, for greater comic potential, as was done with the character Chrissy Seaver on Growing Pains in 1990.

The term was coined by Soap Opera Weekly founding editor-in-chief Mimi Torchin in the early days of the magazine, which began publishing in 1989. It is now widely used in the soap opera media and is sometimes used as a verb as well ("the character was SORASed"). Torchin has jokingly called it "my one greatest contribution to the world of soap operas."

The practice of rapidly aging characters dates back to the early years of television soap opera. In As the World Turns, Tom Hughes was born onscreen in 1961. By 1970, he had been to college and fought in the Vietnam War. Subsequent recasting exhibited a reverse phenomenon, keeping him in his 30s for 20 years, with Tom hitting his 40s in the 1990s. Dan Stewart, born onscreen on As the World Turns in 1958, reappeared as a 26-year-old doctor in 1966.

On the situation comedy, Family Ties, Elyse Keaton learns that she is pregnant with her fourth and final child in an episode (which was first aired on September 27, 1984), The baby, whom they named Andrew (or "Andy", for short), was born during the episode of the third season that aired on Thursday, January 31, 1985. The Keatons consider preschool for the child in an episode, which was aired 13 months later in the fourth season (1985-86). However, in the next season, which began on September 25, 1986, Brian Bonsall was cast in the role of Andy at the age of four.

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