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Originally posted by IMNOTHERE:
The 'Daytime Soap' effect sounds like a (bizarre) effect associated with switching to all-digital cameras, high-frame rate (or interpolation to high frame rate) and the reduction of motion blur.

There was a lot of fuss about this when The Hobbit first came out in high-frame-rate (48fps) format.

Traditionally, "daytime soaps" and other cheap programming were shot directly on video at a time when movies and high-quality drama were shot on film. There's a sort of CD vs. Vinyl thing here in that although video is technically better in many respects, many human beings prefer the look of film from an artistic point of view. In particular, because it is 50/60 fields (half-resolution frames) per second rather than film's 24/25 full frames per second, video captures smoother motion in a similar way to high-frame-rate film. It can also be somewhat sharper than film (especially in subdued lighting).

So what I think happens is that your brain subconsciously notices the high frame rate effect and sharpness and it just flicks a switch that says you're watching cheap shot-on-video footage despite the image being technically superior.

I noticed it like mad some years ago after I got a new TV with '100 Hz refresh' and a feature that synthetically interpolated the motion to 50fps - and yes, for a month or so until I got used to it, everything looked like a daytime soap.

Now, along with 4k, there's the prospect of true 50/60 or100/ 120 fps TV coming soon. https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/hfr-explained-high-frame-rate-is-com
ing-to-tvs-heres-what-you-need-to-know

So, my guess is that where you're seeing the effect, either they've shifted from using film to digital cameras for new material (so you're getting 60 fields-per-second and a sharper look) or they've remastered old shot-on-film shows with some sort of motion interpolation. If they were already using digital, perhaps (in response to the 'Hobbit effect') they've previously been using 'cinema' filters to soften the image and add motion blur but have stopped that due to the coming of 4k, HFR and HDR.

Brains are weird. Years ago, when 'flat(ter) screen' computer displays started to appear (I don't mean LCDs - I mean CRTs with 'flatter squarer tubes' or Trinitrons that were only curved in one direction instead of being flattened spheres) it took me a long time to stop seeing the nice new square image as a squidged-in-the-middle 'pincushion' shape because Mr Brain Cell was so used to compensating for the curvature of the old screen.

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