For all the additional bums on seats EastEnders attracted on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, one thing and one thing only proves that Newman and Co are blatantly pandering to the distaff end of the viewer spectrum - the tweens, the teens, the fanbois and cheerleaders who are incapable of sustained critical thinking; and the reason TPTB are doing that is, simply because, with this demographic, they can't go wrong, and it allows Newman and her writing room to feed their own egos with regards to certain characters, who are no longer sustainable.
Pardon me for thinking that the licence fee we pay, which allows Newman and her cronies to make very comfortable salaries, means we get some sort of entertainment in return. The soap genre has always operated on the premise that unpopular characters are shown the door, somehow, especially if they don't decided to go of their own accord. Now, we're told that a formerly iconic character, who - since her heralded return in 2010 - has been nothing less than poison in the eyes of most viewers, is about to be redeemed, repaired and reunited with her long-suffering screen spouse, even though viewer opinion wants her gone.
It didn't take long for Bryan Kirkwood to re-introduce Kat and Alfie back in September 2010, for viewers to suss that something was seriously wrong with Kat. When the couple left the show in 2005, Kat's character arc had been completed; she had been to the depths of despair and self-hatred, had been raised and redeemed by Alfie's love, lost it and fought like a tigress to regain his love, trust and affection. As a reward, Kat and Alfie were given their happy ending. A couple left Walford together and in love.
Yet when the pair returned in September 2010, Kat was pregnant after an affair with Alfie's cousin. She was seen not only physically assaulting Alfie in public (a scene done for comedic purposes), but also slapping her way around the Square with Stacey in tow, being rude to people in businesses, causing havoc on the market. Kat wantonly encouraged Stacey to break up Janine's marriage because Janine's husband had fathered a child on Stacey in a one night stand of which Stacey remembered nothing.
She flaunted herself flagrantly in front of Alfie, pinched Ryan Molloy's bottom and insinuated publically that Alfie was less than a man. During the throes of the babyswap, she treated him worse than a piece of shit.
After having her son restored to her, she convinced herself for some reason that Alfie either didn't love her or wasn't paying enough attention to her, so she indulged herself with a quick shag in the alleyway with the brewery deliveryman. Subsequently, she confessed this to Alfie, who forgave her yet another indiscretion.
Since 2010, the one person to whom Kat has shown any sort of love, compassion and understanding is Jean, and this is often manifested in scenes where Kat gives Jean a bath after any number of Jean's interminable breakdowns. Alfie is seen, more often than not, caring for their son, whilst Kat's off clubbing with Kim or comforting Jean.
After Kat's confession of infidelity with the deliveryman, she failed to apologise for her misdeed. Instead, she rationalised that this was, simply, the way she was. She was, in her words, a "dirty girl." In other words, because she had been sexually abused as a child by her Uncle Harry, this was the way she was, she couldn't change and Alfie and everyone else would just have to accept that, from time to time, she'd have to have a quick bang from someone other than her husband. Actually, she went on, it wasn't really her fault, since Alfie didn't pay her adequate attention.
The cult of the victim is rife at EastEnders, and it's strongest amongst various female characters. Because of some event in their past, this is used as a reference point and explanation for any and all inappropriate behaviour, for which they can never be blamed because of something else that happened to them.
In the middle of 2012, we were fed the PR blurb by TPTB that Kat was about to enter into an exciting new storyline, and the public would be invited to play along with the guessing game. She was going to have a mystery lover, and we had to guess the man from five suspects - the three Branning brothers, Ray Dixon and Michael Moon.
Ne'mind that Kat's husband had done nothing to deserve such behaviour, we were actually, subtly, being asked to condone wanton adultery by a married woman as if this were her entitlement. We were asked to treat it like a guessing game. Then, we were promised that the identity of Shaggerman would be revealed in the autumn.
And what?
Soap structure dictates that whenever someone is unfaithful in a major, predominant soap couple, if the couple are separated, someone leaves the show - usually, the guilty party. As Kat was the wife of the landlord of the Vic - in pre-Kirkwood days, this meant the Alpha male of the Square - this demanded public revelation, humiliation, ritual shunning and a departure from Walford.
It happened in Sharongate, when Sharon, Walford's original Princess, was baited, berated and shunned by the local yokels, led by none other than Pauline Fowler. Why? For cheating on her abusive husband, Grant Mitchell, with his brother Phil, who was engaged to be married to Pauline's ex-sister-in-law, Kathy Beale.
It happened to Pat in November 2005, when her affair with Frank Butcher was revealed. In the pub. On bonfire night. By Peggy, who was then married to Frank. Pat got a resounding smack from Peggy. Frank (Mike Reid) left the Square for the last time, and Pat was treated like a pariah.
Why should Kat be any different? Indeed, the longer the affair prevailed, the more unpopular Kat became. And make no mistake, Kat was as much the instigator of this affair than Shaggerman - openly and insidiously flirting with all and sundry, who - heretofore - hadn't given her the time of day, ending with a shadow seeking her out in the Vic's kitchen, only to be met with opened legs by Kat, who was next seen looking curiously and lasciviously satisfied and hiking down her skirt.
There followed another tryst in the alleyway, another in the cellar of the Vic, and then countless meetings in the Bedbug Bedsit, which Shaggerman had leased, including one all-night session. Shaggerman would call, and Kat would answer.
When Alfie eventually found out, Kat confessed as much as that she had been having an affair, but not with anyone Alfie knew. And with that, she whisked him away on holiday, leaving the pub to ruin and promising him never to stray again. Until the next time.
Now we're seeing what a convenient ploy the Shaggerman mystery was. Derek always and only was the most obvious choice. Viewers knew his character was leaving at Christmas, so someone would leave the Square. We knew for certain when Jack became unbelieveably more involved with Sharon, the latest Branning appendage, and Max dealt with his impending wedding to Tanya.
Derek, an unpopular character, was being phased out and his unlikeability was increased. As Newman proclaimed in her Digital Spy interview, her vested and personal interest in redeeming Kat, the blank slate offered by the fact that viewers were only allowed to see Kat's affair from a blatantly sexual viewpoint, made it easy for Newman and her merry men and women to retcon the entire story, after the reveal of Derek's identity to Alfie, portraying him as the obsessed, possessive stalker of a lover who controlled, manipulated and even forced poor, pitiful Kat into a relationship, threatening to tell Alfie everything if she stopped sleeping with him.
She even told Alfie the night he caught her at the bedsit that Derek actually forced her from the beginning to have sex with him. Now, either she's wantonly lying, which means we have a further expose' to reveal; or the whole damned kerfuffle has been retconned in order to save Jessie Wallace's character. I suspect the latter, but Ms Newman would be well advised to remember that anytime a man forces a woman to have sex, that's rape.
So now we're being asked to invest in poor Kat, the rape victim again, tossed out onto the cold Walford street by Alfie, who's unwilling to listen to yet another poor-me story, with Kat even begging him to hit her, only to be picked up by Derek and held virtual prisoner to his love whims. He lies to her and manipulates her into believing Alfie was unwilling to listen to her pathetic voicemail, finishing the affair with Derek - and why should he? he's been told the same thing so many times before - until when she finds out the actual truth of what Derek revealed to Alfie, she's even willing to watch Derek die.
Newman's words were that there were miles more to go with Alfie and Kat, that they were meant to be together and that Kat would laugh again. That Christmas 2013 is the tenth wedding anniversary of Alfie and Kat is significant. That poor pitiful Kat is about to be reduced from Queen Vic landlady to scrubber and toiler cleaner is also significant - I think the Christians call it atonement for one's sins. That she's about to have ruckus after ruckus with Roxy is yet something else of importance.
Even now, fora participants on Digital Spy and Walford Web kindergarten are surmising that Alfie and Kat should remain apart as friends (WTF?), that Alfie and Roxy should remain at the Vic whilst Kat couples with Michael as they "have so much chemistry" (errr, not as the only two women with whom Michael Moon has shown any chemistry at all have been Ronnie Mitchell and Janine Butcher, his wife, who has yet to return).
People need to wake up and think. If Alfie and Kat are to be separated definitely, someone has to leave; and that someone is Kat. Alfie has been given a shot in the arm and the chance of further character development by pairing him with Roxy, a woman who genuinely loves him. Kat is, effectively, isolated, starting on the long path to lagdom, which will see her emulate Shirley in ten years and Cora the Bora in twenty.
Anytime a couple split and remain on the Square, there's the eventuality that they will re-connect, and the prevalent question becomes will-they-or-won't-they-and-if-so-when. Think Max and Tanya. Think Mas and Zainab. The former is the established yo-yo couple. The latter the new pretender to the title; but Tanya and Zainab are leaving, so Alfie and Kat remaining on the Square leaves them the obvious successor to becoming the couple who reunite only to split within a couple of years, caught in a hamster's web of ever decreasing circles.
Best it's recognised now. 2013 will be the year of the Kat-Alfie-Roxy Kabuki theatre, which will result in the Moons reuniting just in time for their tenth anniversary.
I can live with that. It's bound to happen and was ever going to happen the moment Lorraine Newman stated that Kat was going nowhere. The actress won't leave of her own volition, since she was sacked at the end of her first tenure and damned lucky to be asked back for a second stint. The only way she'll go is if she's sacked, and that remains to be seen how successful a con Newman can shift on the viewers to get them firmly behind Team Kat.
The one thing I can't live with, however, is the attempt by Newman and Co to make Kat the victim in this sordid, little story. Derek no more made her sleep with him than she wanted to do so, herself. The voicemail played by Derek to Alfie indicated that entirely. There's simply too much of the victim cult circulating about Walford now, and the best thing Newman can do is put a stop to it - first of all, by Kat admitting her fair share of responsibility in her association with Derek, and apologising sincerely to Alfie - not for getting caught, but for treating him like a prize piece of shit. And if that means Alfie has to watch her skanky arse like a hawk for the rest of her sorry life if he takes her back, she's not entitled to any protest.
A turn-up for the books, however, would be for Alfie to reject Kat entirely and for Newman to have the balls to wield the axe on a character that EastEnders created and destroyed without reason to the point that she's beyond repair.
I just don't know what annoys me more about the Christmas storyline - Kat's self-pity and rebirth as the self-perpetuating victim, the barefaced brass and disrespect of the production crew in asking the viewers to believe this pap, or the insipidity of various viewers who are now cooing "poor Kat."
Spare me.
Pardon me for thinking that the licence fee we pay, which allows Newman and her cronies to make very comfortable salaries, means we get some sort of entertainment in return. The soap genre has always operated on the premise that unpopular characters are shown the door, somehow, especially if they don't decided to go of their own accord. Now, we're told that a formerly iconic character, who - since her heralded return in 2010 - has been nothing less than poison in the eyes of most viewers, is about to be redeemed, repaired and reunited with her long-suffering screen spouse, even though viewer opinion wants her gone.
It didn't take long for Bryan Kirkwood to re-introduce Kat and Alfie back in September 2010, for viewers to suss that something was seriously wrong with Kat. When the couple left the show in 2005, Kat's character arc had been completed; she had been to the depths of despair and self-hatred, had been raised and redeemed by Alfie's love, lost it and fought like a tigress to regain his love, trust and affection. As a reward, Kat and Alfie were given their happy ending. A couple left Walford together and in love.
Yet when the pair returned in September 2010, Kat was pregnant after an affair with Alfie's cousin. She was seen not only physically assaulting Alfie in public (a scene done for comedic purposes), but also slapping her way around the Square with Stacey in tow, being rude to people in businesses, causing havoc on the market. Kat wantonly encouraged Stacey to break up Janine's marriage because Janine's husband had fathered a child on Stacey in a one night stand of which Stacey remembered nothing.
She flaunted herself flagrantly in front of Alfie, pinched Ryan Molloy's bottom and insinuated publically that Alfie was less than a man. During the throes of the babyswap, she treated him worse than a piece of shit.
After having her son restored to her, she convinced herself for some reason that Alfie either didn't love her or wasn't paying enough attention to her, so she indulged herself with a quick shag in the alleyway with the brewery deliveryman. Subsequently, she confessed this to Alfie, who forgave her yet another indiscretion.
Since 2010, the one person to whom Kat has shown any sort of love, compassion and understanding is Jean, and this is often manifested in scenes where Kat gives Jean a bath after any number of Jean's interminable breakdowns. Alfie is seen, more often than not, caring for their son, whilst Kat's off clubbing with Kim or comforting Jean.
After Kat's confession of infidelity with the deliveryman, she failed to apologise for her misdeed. Instead, she rationalised that this was, simply, the way she was. She was, in her words, a "dirty girl." In other words, because she had been sexually abused as a child by her Uncle Harry, this was the way she was, she couldn't change and Alfie and everyone else would just have to accept that, from time to time, she'd have to have a quick bang from someone other than her husband. Actually, she went on, it wasn't really her fault, since Alfie didn't pay her adequate attention.
The cult of the victim is rife at EastEnders, and it's strongest amongst various female characters. Because of some event in their past, this is used as a reference point and explanation for any and all inappropriate behaviour, for which they can never be blamed because of something else that happened to them.
In the middle of 2012, we were fed the PR blurb by TPTB that Kat was about to enter into an exciting new storyline, and the public would be invited to play along with the guessing game. She was going to have a mystery lover, and we had to guess the man from five suspects - the three Branning brothers, Ray Dixon and Michael Moon.
Ne'mind that Kat's husband had done nothing to deserve such behaviour, we were actually, subtly, being asked to condone wanton adultery by a married woman as if this were her entitlement. We were asked to treat it like a guessing game. Then, we were promised that the identity of Shaggerman would be revealed in the autumn.
And what?
Soap structure dictates that whenever someone is unfaithful in a major, predominant soap couple, if the couple are separated, someone leaves the show - usually, the guilty party. As Kat was the wife of the landlord of the Vic - in pre-Kirkwood days, this meant the Alpha male of the Square - this demanded public revelation, humiliation, ritual shunning and a departure from Walford.
It happened in Sharongate, when Sharon, Walford's original Princess, was baited, berated and shunned by the local yokels, led by none other than Pauline Fowler. Why? For cheating on her abusive husband, Grant Mitchell, with his brother Phil, who was engaged to be married to Pauline's ex-sister-in-law, Kathy Beale.
It happened to Pat in November 2005, when her affair with Frank Butcher was revealed. In the pub. On bonfire night. By Peggy, who was then married to Frank. Pat got a resounding smack from Peggy. Frank (Mike Reid) left the Square for the last time, and Pat was treated like a pariah.
Why should Kat be any different? Indeed, the longer the affair prevailed, the more unpopular Kat became. And make no mistake, Kat was as much the instigator of this affair than Shaggerman - openly and insidiously flirting with all and sundry, who - heretofore - hadn't given her the time of day, ending with a shadow seeking her out in the Vic's kitchen, only to be met with opened legs by Kat, who was next seen looking curiously and lasciviously satisfied and hiking down her skirt.
There followed another tryst in the alleyway, another in the cellar of the Vic, and then countless meetings in the Bedbug Bedsit, which Shaggerman had leased, including one all-night session. Shaggerman would call, and Kat would answer.
When Alfie eventually found out, Kat confessed as much as that she had been having an affair, but not with anyone Alfie knew. And with that, she whisked him away on holiday, leaving the pub to ruin and promising him never to stray again. Until the next time.
Now we're seeing what a convenient ploy the Shaggerman mystery was. Derek always and only was the most obvious choice. Viewers knew his character was leaving at Christmas, so someone would leave the Square. We knew for certain when Jack became unbelieveably more involved with Sharon, the latest Branning appendage, and Max dealt with his impending wedding to Tanya.
Derek, an unpopular character, was being phased out and his unlikeability was increased. As Newman proclaimed in her Digital Spy interview, her vested and personal interest in redeeming Kat, the blank slate offered by the fact that viewers were only allowed to see Kat's affair from a blatantly sexual viewpoint, made it easy for Newman and her merry men and women to retcon the entire story, after the reveal of Derek's identity to Alfie, portraying him as the obsessed, possessive stalker of a lover who controlled, manipulated and even forced poor, pitiful Kat into a relationship, threatening to tell Alfie everything if she stopped sleeping with him.
She even told Alfie the night he caught her at the bedsit that Derek actually forced her from the beginning to have sex with him. Now, either she's wantonly lying, which means we have a further expose' to reveal; or the whole damned kerfuffle has been retconned in order to save Jessie Wallace's character. I suspect the latter, but Ms Newman would be well advised to remember that anytime a man forces a woman to have sex, that's rape.
So now we're being asked to invest in poor Kat, the rape victim again, tossed out onto the cold Walford street by Alfie, who's unwilling to listen to yet another poor-me story, with Kat even begging him to hit her, only to be picked up by Derek and held virtual prisoner to his love whims. He lies to her and manipulates her into believing Alfie was unwilling to listen to her pathetic voicemail, finishing the affair with Derek - and why should he? he's been told the same thing so many times before - until when she finds out the actual truth of what Derek revealed to Alfie, she's even willing to watch Derek die.
Newman's words were that there were miles more to go with Alfie and Kat, that they were meant to be together and that Kat would laugh again. That Christmas 2013 is the tenth wedding anniversary of Alfie and Kat is significant. That poor pitiful Kat is about to be reduced from Queen Vic landlady to scrubber and toiler cleaner is also significant - I think the Christians call it atonement for one's sins. That she's about to have ruckus after ruckus with Roxy is yet something else of importance.
Even now, fora participants on Digital Spy and Walford Web kindergarten are surmising that Alfie and Kat should remain apart as friends (WTF?), that Alfie and Roxy should remain at the Vic whilst Kat couples with Michael as they "have so much chemistry" (errr, not as the only two women with whom Michael Moon has shown any chemistry at all have been Ronnie Mitchell and Janine Butcher, his wife, who has yet to return).
People need to wake up and think. If Alfie and Kat are to be separated definitely, someone has to leave; and that someone is Kat. Alfie has been given a shot in the arm and the chance of further character development by pairing him with Roxy, a woman who genuinely loves him. Kat is, effectively, isolated, starting on the long path to lagdom, which will see her emulate Shirley in ten years and Cora the Bora in twenty.
Anytime a couple split and remain on the Square, there's the eventuality that they will re-connect, and the prevalent question becomes will-they-or-won't-they-and-if-so-when. Think Max and Tanya. Think Mas and Zainab. The former is the established yo-yo couple. The latter the new pretender to the title; but Tanya and Zainab are leaving, so Alfie and Kat remaining on the Square leaves them the obvious successor to becoming the couple who reunite only to split within a couple of years, caught in a hamster's web of ever decreasing circles.
Best it's recognised now. 2013 will be the year of the Kat-Alfie-Roxy Kabuki theatre, which will result in the Moons reuniting just in time for their tenth anniversary.
I can live with that. It's bound to happen and was ever going to happen the moment Lorraine Newman stated that Kat was going nowhere. The actress won't leave of her own volition, since she was sacked at the end of her first tenure and damned lucky to be asked back for a second stint. The only way she'll go is if she's sacked, and that remains to be seen how successful a con Newman can shift on the viewers to get them firmly behind Team Kat.
The one thing I can't live with, however, is the attempt by Newman and Co to make Kat the victim in this sordid, little story. Derek no more made her sleep with him than she wanted to do so, herself. The voicemail played by Derek to Alfie indicated that entirely. There's simply too much of the victim cult circulating about Walford now, and the best thing Newman can do is put a stop to it - first of all, by Kat admitting her fair share of responsibility in her association with Derek, and apologising sincerely to Alfie - not for getting caught, but for treating him like a prize piece of shit. And if that means Alfie has to watch her skanky arse like a hawk for the rest of her sorry life if he takes her back, she's not entitled to any protest.
A turn-up for the books, however, would be for Alfie to reject Kat entirely and for Newman to have the balls to wield the axe on a character that EastEnders created and destroyed without reason to the point that she's beyond repair.
I just don't know what annoys me more about the Christmas storyline - Kat's self-pity and rebirth as the self-perpetuating victim, the barefaced brass and disrespect of the production crew in asking the viewers to believe this pap, or the insipidity of various viewers who are now cooing "poor Kat."
Spare me.
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