Series / Dream Team

Dream Team was a British sports Prime Time Soap that ran from 1997 until 2007. Originally broadcast like a standard Soap Opera, with two half-hour episodes a week until its third season, where it switched to one hour episode a week. 419 episodes overall were produced.

Focusing on the fictional football team Harchester United, the first season focused mainly on the youth team, but Season 2 expanded to show the exploits of the first team as well as their manager Ian Coates and the owners Jerry and Lynda Block (the latter played by a pre-Coronation Street Alison King).

It was known for its rotating cast, as befitting a drama about a football team, as well as its storylines becoming Denser and Wackier; the captain being shot by a sniper as revenge for an affair, the goalkeeper holding the entire team hostage to pay off gambling debts before getting gunned down by a SWAT Team, a plane crash killing several players...the show's body count gave Game of Thrones a run for its money.

For the football scenes, the series used Rotoscoping to have the show's cast be seen competing against real life players, with Harchester Utd's kit manufactured professionally and also part of The Merch while it was airing. Everton FC even gave the series a nod during the 2014-2015, wearing a kit inspired by Harchester's.

Not to be confused with the 1989 film starring Michael Keaton or the trope Dream Team, although one could argue the show did use that when it wasn't portraying the team as a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.

Tropes:

• Accidental Pervert: Conor has to go through an Initiation Ceremony - getting hold of any woman's underwear - and the nearest girl available is Zoe. He gets caught going through her underwear drawer, leading her to believe he's a stalker.
• The Ace: Karl Fletcher, known as the star player and the one who was around the longest.
• Acoustic License: When in Studs, characters are able to hold deep meaningful conversations with only mild disturbance from the background music.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Warren has to do community service and the elderly woman whose bathroom he's supposed to be painting takes one look at him and slams the door in his face. Brenda the social worker is not impressed but Warren chuckles while waiting outside the door.
• Age-Gap Romance: At the start of the series, Warren is in a relationship with Mandy, who's 25 and refers to him as "a kid".
• Ambition Is Evil: Biloo Kapur is described as "a vicious blood sucker", and is motivated by greed to increase his wealth.
• Betty and Veronica: In the first season, Dean is in a love triangle between the down-to-earth reporter Lucy and the sultry club girl Georgina.
• Big Bad: Don Barker, the manager, was the source of much conflict; including raping a player's wife, fixing numerous matches, bullying a Black player into a staged racist abuse scandal to score an away win, poisoning people, murdering the star player and getting revenge for being fired by becoming a suicide bomber and taking several players with him.
• Bitch Alert: Zoe is introduced telling her little brother to make his own dinner and turning away Conor, who's just been left stranded because of her father's hold-up in France.
• Bi-Wildered: There was a storyline exploring Frank Stone's bisexuality in the later seasons.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Zoe for Des. The first few episodes' conflict center around her being so unwilling to give up her room that she made Conor have to spend a night sleeping outside. And when they find a solution that benefits everyone, she makes a big fuss about moving out.
• Butt-Monkey: Poor Conor can't catch a break. He's left homeless on his first night in England, gets his boots stolen, put through a punishing fitness regime and treated like dirt by the other players.
• The Bully: Sean towards Conor. While all the other players give him a hard time, Sean is the ring leader.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Dean cheats on Lucy by getting drunk and fooling around with Georgina in the club's trophy room, and of course the pervy security guard records it and it later gets leaked as a sex tape. Georgina then ends up pregnant from the incident.
• Country Mouse: Conor comes from rural Ireland and is definitely the fish out of water in London.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Lynette slaps Dean when he lies about where he was the night before, saying "that was for Lucy". Because he cheated on Lucy and lied, she's meant to be seen as in the right.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Frank through and through. He even has No Sympathy for Conor having had to spend his first night in England sleeping outside and reprimands him for being late.
• Driven to Suicide: Midfielder Clyde Connelly had a storyline where he suffered depression thanks to falling out with the new manager, and tragically jumped off the stadium roof after helping Harchester win a big game.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Season 1 is remarkably different from the rest of the series - focusing exclusively on the youth team, only giving the adults the odd storyline or day in the limelight. Starting in Season 2, the focus switched to include the first team and the lives of the club owners too, eventually dropping the youth team altogether. The tone of Season 1 was closer to Teen Drama, and the series would become Denser and Wackier from there. Within the first season, Dean was initially the central character and the focus would later switch to Fletch.
• Fille Fatale: Georgina is only 16, and loves the idea of making trouble in Dean's life once he dumps her.
• Football Hooligans: One storyline involved abusive fan Jason Porter heckling so much abuse at Harchester that they put him on the pitch intending to Break the Haughty...and then he scored the winning goal and was signed to the club!
• Local Hangout: Studs, the local nightclub, where many a misunderstanding or indiscretion is likely to happen on a Friday night.
• Long-Runners: Ten seasons, with the first three having over sixty episodes each.
• Lower-Class Lout: Billy O'Neill, a Liverpool native, who's introduced arriving in a police car and proves to be a bad influence on Leon.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: Warren attends a meeting with his social worker, inexplicably wearing sunglasses. But the explanation comes as he leaves.
  Brenda: I can see where you've been looking. I suggest you get darker lenses.
  Warren: I suggest you wear longer skirts.
• Odd Friendship: Conor eventually becomes friends with Warren, who was one of his bigger bullies initially.
• One-Steve Limit: A plot point. Jerry gives a £50,000 bribe to "Billy-boy", accidentally giving it to Billy O'Neill when he meant to give it to Biloo Kapur.
• Oop North: Despite being set in the south, there are several northern players; most notably the Hockwell brothers Dean and Sean.
• Purple Is Powerful: The team's signature colour is purple.
• Really 17 Years Old: Dean's Oh, Crap! when Georgina is revealed to be the chairman's daughter is increased when he finds out she's only 16. In fact, she's celebrating her 16th birthday when this is revealed, meaning she was likely only 15 when they did it.
• Redemption Equals Death: Jamie Parker is convinced to stand down his hostage situation, his wife managing to talk him down. He unfortunately gets shot by a SWAT team anyway.
• Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Dean has Georgina, the privileged Daddy's Girl, and said daddy is his club's chairman.
• Sibling Rivalry: Between brothers Dean and Sean, who are frequently pit against each other by their coaches. The first scenes in the series are Sean getting chewed out for not cleaning the changing room showers, and being compared to Dean, who's just been promoted to the first team.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: Conflict between Zoe - a somewhat spoiled princess - and Sean - a working class boy for whom football is his only prospect. Played with in the sense that Zoe actually tries to get a job and make enough to live on her own, and Sean has a huge ego because of his status.
• Team Mom: Lynette is a housemother for the youth players and acts as a surrogate motherly figure to all of them. Or at least tries to.
• Teen Pregnancy: Georgina gets pregnant from her tryst with Dean, but unfortunately loses the baby.
• Token Black Friend: Vincent's screen time is usually hanging around Sean or being a sounding board for the other players. Averted with Warren, who's also Black, but has his own storyline.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Georgina is last seen having come to after an overdose, but a warning from the doctor says she needs an emergency liver transplant, with the possibility of her dying before then. Her fate is never confirmed.
• Workout Fanservice: Given that the series is about young attractive footballers, there are many a scene of them practicing shirtless.