Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Ms Newman Needs to Pay Attention to Her Viewers

A thread on Digital Spy Soaps Forum posits that Kat has no right to feel sick and disgusted at Alfie moving on. You can read the thread, itself, here.

One commentator, Matthhhftw, asks plaintively:-

Why are the writers trying to make us feel sorry for her?

(Because, in case you haven't noticed, that's exactly been the plan of action since Derek was revealed as Shaggerman.)

And one of the many perambulations of the dan dynamic, dannysays, replies:-

 Because I am guessing they want us to want Kat and Alfie to get back together. So they are now trying to make it all seem like the entire affair was Derek's fault and he manipulated Kat into every illicit shag....which is complete tosh if you go back and watch the affair from the start. I really do hope we get some proper insights into why Kat had the affair with Derek, I really do because I am at a complete loss with this storyline now tbh. It was bad to begin with, dragged on and on with the mystery aspect, got interesting once Derek was revealed as the lover and we actually got some scenes of him with Kat....now its just a case of 'Well, what was the point of it all?'. TPTB are just gonna reunite Kat and Alfie, so there is gonna be no real long term after effects from this affair. Alfie's 'different side' lasted all of about 2 episodes. Roxy will be the rebound. It won't last. He will soon start sniffing round Kat again. They will get back together. Then every thing will be recycled once more.....as a couple they need a good year or two apart before reuniting if at all, but this just won't happen unfortunately. I can understand Kat feeling like she does seeing Alfie now with Roxy but I have no sympathy.
Bingo! Give the man a prize. That's exactly the tactic they're using. In fact, in her Digital Spy interview with yet another dan dynamic, Daniel Kilkelly, one of the very few definite things Lorraine Newman stated was her intention to repair Kat and restore Kat and Alfie as a couple.

In what was mainly a pandering, softball interview, one of the few direct lines of questioning Kilkelly pursued was about Kat, how her character had been systematically destroyed and how the viewers wanted to see her punished, even to the point of going.

 Newman reiterated that Kat was going nowhere, and Shane Richie has repeatedly said that Kat was meant to be with Alfie or with no one. In more than one ways, Newman implied that Kat would be happy again, and the spoilers indicate a love triangle between Roxy, Alfie and Kat, with some sort of conflict affecting Alfie.

Ne'mind the fact that, in the past, an unpopular character, one whom it was impossible to love to hate, had a limited shelf life, and - since Kirkwood created Monster Kat, Spousal Abuser, people have turned off her character big time. However, Newman is pursuing this tack as a means to assauge her own ego, having been in on the creation of Kat when she'd just assumed the mantle of Series Producer.

And that's wrong. It's a smack in the face of all the viewers who have been offended by Kat's turn this time around. Also, the fact that Newman, with the clever interpolation of Simon Ashdown, have managed to retcon the Shaggerman storyline so much that it's now become a storyline about how poor, pitiful Kat was manipulated into having an affair with Derek, how she couldn't stop it because he threatened to tell Alfie everything yadda yadda, when we know for a fact that Kat was very much part and parcel of initiating the proceedings. Hell, even the voicemail Derek played Alfie indicated as much that she was just as up for this dalliance as Derek.

Sorry, Lorraine, but as we say in the Southern part of the United States, that dog - or rather, bitch - don't bark.

Newman needs to pay attention to what her viewers are saying about Kat and the direction in which they want her character to go - away from Walford, with Alfie staying with Roxy.

1 comment:

  1. I have no problem in feeling sorry for Kat. If she was someone I knew, I'd have spent months asking "what are you doing? Why are you destroying the best relationship you've ever had?". As we've seen, Kat knows exactly what she's done. She's known all along that it was going to blow up in her face. But I can still show compassion while at the same time wanting to slap her silly. It's her own fault that she's lost everything, and nobody knows it better than she does. For that, yes I can feel sorry for her. But I do agree that we're now being pushed into seeing Kat as the victim and Roxy as the slag who's about to slip into Kat's side of the bed before it's even cold. There's nothing else we can think when Alfie's replaced his wife so quickly. The Walford residents were shocked at how quickly it happened and while they can excuse Alfie, confused, heartbroken and lost, their opinion of Roxy isn't quite so forgiving. Even those who snubbed Kat are showing no approval of this new relationship. Michael, wisely, is keeping Roxy's room free. Cora remarked that Kat had been gone about five minutes. Alfie and Roxy have no chance. It's so badly written, Alfie on the rebound and Roxy just plain desperate. The writers have brought these two together so quickly for a reason, to generate sympathy for Kat. And for a lot of viewers, it's working.

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