melodrama – n - A dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.
Very popular, especially in Victorian England - but not only there by any means, and not only then either. Still, I grow nostalgic for a time I never knew when I think of Varney the Vampire, Sweeney Todd (the demon barber of Fleet Street), Sawney Beane and his cannibal family, etc.
