Sunday, January 6, 2013

See Ya Later Slaters

OK, what is it that some people do not understand about Numptie Newman saying that there was going to be a downturn in old characters returning to the programme, as EastEnders needs to move forward.

Apart from a return by Grant Mitchell, I couldn't agree with her more.

Yet nary a week seems to go by when someone on Digital Spy doesn't start a thread longing for a return of the Slater tribe, ostensibly to give Kat "something" off which she can bounce.

A trampoline would be cheaper and more reliable.

Stacey apart, the last Slater sister left in 2006 - almost seven years ago. And these women would be more than a decade older than they were when they were first, obnoxiously, introduced back in 2000. Besides, the Slater sisters were the first group of characters who were totally inward-looking in the fact that they did't integrate well with established Square residents, apart from horning in on every business the Square had to offer in those days - a bit like the Brannings ... Lynne in the cafe and launderette, Zoe on Mark Fowler's stall, Little Mo and Kat in the Vic. They were the first sibling group who were self-contained in restricting friendships to within their own family dynamic - paving the way for the equally self-contained Fox sisters (Chelsea and Libby) and the friendless Mitchell sisters.

Brought back now, the Slaters would be more than a decade older and without much of what their fans identified as "charm" the first time around.

Even recast, it wouldn't work, simply because the Slaters were spent. If they hadn't been, they wouldn't have sloped off when they did.

Lynn would be over forty at the moment. Divorced and remarried, she seems happy enough wherever she is. Besides, the actress is an alcoholic and hasn't worked since having been sacked from the job.

Little Mo is alive and well on the Square in the characters of Alice and Poppy. Actually, it's time EastEnders got away from the female village idiot, first evidenced by Little Mo, continued by Honey and now being strongly promoted by Poppy and Alice. Little Mo would be in her late thirties now, with a young son. A reunion with Billy and the prospect of hearing that ubiquitous Frank Spencerish "oooohhhhh Bil-lieeeeee" is frightful to imagine.

Belinda was ever only an occasional character, and if she had proven truly popular, she'd have been made permanent. The Thatcher wig and the faux posh voice would only have lasted so long. She was inconsequential and would be even more ridiculous, twelve years older, acting that way now.

Zoe is hardly mentioned. Zoe's one of those close relatives of characters who are far away and never mentioned. She joins the ranks of Sharon, Vicky, Dean Wicks and the Fox girls for never getting mentioned by people to whom they should matter.

Then, someone made this incongruous remark as a reason for the return of the Slaters:-

I'd love to see them all come back to go at Roxy!

Why, precisely?

What, exactly, has Roxy done? There seems to be a skewed sense of morality rising on Digital Spy at the moment - confusing Max Branning's wife for the other woman and suddenly thinking that the Slater contingent and everyone else should be having a go at Roxy for no good reason.

It behooves me to reminde this poster that Kat's the errant wife who, for no reason other than she was bored and wanted to get up to some mischief, thought to spread her legs in the Vic's kitchen and initiate a kinky sex affair with the greasy, reptilian brother of the resident dystopian family. Kat was married to a man who loved the bones of her, yet she was serially unfaithful to him - none of the incidences were ever her fault, mind you. She was the poor dirty girl victim.

We all know that's bullshit, yet Roxy Mitchell, yet again, gets labelled a slut. Little Mo, aside, who was in an horrically abusive relationship, the rest of the Slater sisters didn't have much about which to brag when it came to morals - Lynn, carrying on with Beppe di Marco on the eve of her wedding to Garry; Kat and Zoe sharing both Ant Knee Truman and Dennis Rickman; Belinda, screwing Garry Hobbes, her brother-in-law and also Jamie Mitchell in a car in the Arches.

So they should all descend en masse to Walford, to provide an emotional trampoline for their awful sister and just to have a rollicking go at a woman who truly loves the husband Kat treated like a piece of shit? Right.

Even Big Mo and Jean have enough nous about them to realise that what Kat did was totally wrong and out of order. The fact that they are remaining in the Vic supporting Alfie emotionally speaks volumes. Kat deserves to be on her own at the moment. She has to reflect on what she's done and what she's lost and - above all - she needs to take responsibility for her actions.

Until Friday night, she was bleating to all and sundry, Alfie mostly, that the entire affair was forced on her by Derek, which the viewers know to be a lie; and telling the pathetic Joey that she took responsibility for the affair with Derek isn't good enough. She needs to say that to Alfie, her husband, and she needs to tell him why.

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