Every show that lasts more than a couple of seasons becomes a soap opera. I don't know why - perhaps they feel the need to 'power creep'? Apply that to personal interactions and you end up with a soap opera.
It helps that this show is still following the books, and that there was a plan for the arc of the books (I assume?) before they started writing them. It's interesting that 'power creep' in at least sci-fi terms is going backwards. Protomolecule for a couple of seasons, and yes, gateway, but now the focus is on human v human rather than human v alien weirdness.
I don't remember the stupid soap opera stuff being so heavily featured in the books, though the book that was adapted for last season definitely had a lot of skippable stuff along those lines.