Sunday, September 9, 2012

Retconning the Branning Show and Other Batshit

I'd love to know when Lorraine Newman is going to disclose a couple of things that viewers are already beginning to suss themselves - like the fact that June Brown probably won't return at all. Why else is creepy Jean morphing into a version of New Age Dot, who - instead of spouting Gospel - spouts pop psychology gleaned from magazines?

Loads of lowest common denominator viewers of this programme - mostly functionally illiterate teens and manics like vaslav37  (a-huh-a-huh-a-huh) are adamant that the latest overexposure of Jacqueline Jossa's gurning acting style and the steroidically enhanced physique of David Witts (which counts, in some circles, as acting talent) is meant to reveal that Lauren is actually Derek's daughter.

Look ... it's bad enough that in 2009, Ian visited Sharon in Florida - in October 2009, precisely, in celebration of her fortieth anniversary. He came back bragging about the size of her house. Now we find she's been in the UK for the past four years. It's bad enough that 2008 saw it established that Morgan Jackson-King, now Butcher, was the product of a nameless one-night stand, only to have this retconned into a full-blown affair with Bianca knowing Ray and Ray even knowing Tony King, after a long, heart-wrenchingly poignant story told by Bianca (who really doesn't lie that well) about meeting Tony on a rainy night when the wheel on Tiff's pushchair had broken and Tony helping out.

But tell me, is it becoming the custom to for a current producer to retcon the work of his predecessor, because not only is this becoming ridiculous, it's an insult to the intelligence of the viewer. We're not all shallow tweenie viewers or morons of the vaslav37 variety.

I know the Branning sibling order has been retconned since the 1990s. When Carol first appeared on the Square, and David found out that Bianca was his daughter, we were told that Carol's three older brothers beat David up. This was said in the presence of Pat and Pauline, in the launderette. So this meant that, originally, Derek, Max and Jack were all older than Carol.

A couple of years later, when Carol was 34 and married Allen after her sister April showed up, we were led to believe that April was the oldest child, and the reason that Jim and Reenie married. Derek, with another head and no hair, was a 32 year-old racist living at home with Mum and Dad; and Suzy was the youngest. So ... the order then became April, Carol, Derek, Max, Jack and Suzy.

Now, ca 2007, Jack is the youngest child and the blue-eyed boy. Max is the penultimate child, and Derek is the oldest, followed by Carol. Final count and order: Derek, Carol, April, Suzy, Max and Jack.

Go bloody figure.

But the retcon about Derek being Lauren's father, if it happens, is definite proof that Lorraine Newman should be taken out and slapped again and again.

I'm hoping all this knicker-creaming is the same sort which occurred when Jack came on the scene and people started assuming he was Lauren's father. Bull-bloody-shit to that.

Listen up, here's the way it is ...

Max met Tanya when he was a 24 year-old insurance rep and she was an 18 year-old kappa-slapper hairdresser. He was married to Rachel and had a six year-old son, Bradley. By the way, Max had got Rachel pregnant too, when she was seventeen, and married her.

Max and Tanya had an affair, and she got up the duff. By Max. In the summer of 2011, Max and Carol had an altercation at Max's house, when she told Max off for daring to bring his pregnant teenaged mistress to his parents' home to introduce her as the woman he intended abandoning his wife and child for. Carol was with her parents at the time, and remarked how Jim ripped Max a new asshole for being so scurvy. The result was that Max left with Tanya and moved away from the area.

Lauren was born in March 1994. Max and Tanya married in August 1994, when Lauren was five months old. No one came to the wedding from Max's family, except Jack and Derek. This was referenced during Branning week in November 2011, not even a year ago. Why is this important? Because Derek remarked that this was the first time both he and Jack had met Tanya - five fucking months after Lauren was born!

It was also referenced then, that Derek had a fling at the reception with Tanya's younger sister, Rainie, who began Walford life as Tanya's older sister.

If they retcon this, even if they say her conception was a rape, this is one bit of sensationalism and retconning too bloody far.

Look, as much as people hate to admit it, when the Mitchells are at a low point on EastEnders, the show suffers. The only way that they can be rebuilt is through Sharon and Phil. Shoehorning Sharon with the cancer known as Branning is a big mistake.

Instead of flirting with Jack, she should have been supporting Ian. It should have been Sharon accompanying him to the GP, not Zainab. She should have been seen supporting and speaking with Phil about his predicament on screen, not off. Those two ooze chemistry.  The only thing anyone oozes when paired romantically with Scott Maslen is sawdust.

Jack Branning's Seminal Fluid AKA Sawdust

And Sharon should have been bonding with Janine, a character with whom she shares an abundance of things in common, commiserating and supporting her difficulties as a first-time mum married to a man she mistrusts. Instead, we get Tanya, making the situation all about her, whilst Sharon, who babysat Janine and who was on the Square at the same time as Janine from 2001-2004, fucking re-introduces herself to Janine as a stranger?

What the fuck is wrong with EastEnders?






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