Well, well, well ... at the risk of raising the ire of the
I'm talking about the tanking on Tuesday night. Head-to-head against Emmerdale and below 5 million in viewing. With the World Cup starting up next week, meaning alterations in schedule with the programme all over the place, with the good weather here and incipient, with the school holidays upon us soon and with the Commonwealth Games, to score less than 5 million in a sitting at the beginning of June is a pure tut-tut moment.
Still, let's move the goalposts, shall we? Whereas last year, with the failure that was Lorraine Newman, with figures like that, the fanbois would have been baying for her blood, but with WonderBoy - yes, I said it, WonderBoy! Kill me now, scrotes! - they, curiously, seem to cut him some undue slack. I wonder why?
We're well into almost half a year away from "the Big Reveal," and already, several of the more literate commentators on various fora are expressing boredom - with the murdery mystery, because the characters are so unlikeable, in the cancer storyline, because the characters are so unlikeable, and in the Coronation of the New Royal Family of Walford, because Shirley, Queen of Scrotes is so detestable.
Yes, Biffo and your little band of acolytes, I said it, so go try to whine innocently in offense.
I have a feel that the "Big Reveal" isn't reallt about who killed Lucy at all, but about Crown Prince Mick discovering that that sour-beaked, old scrote who emotionally blackmailed a share of the pub from him, is his sainted mother.
Shirley's Coat-of-Arms
Life's a Bitch and So Is Honey.
So this is the big storyline promised to Billy, which will be done and dusted by the end of this week?
Honey's taking the kids to Canada, because William's been spotted for modelling work. It's only for a year, but hands up, who doesn't believe that, within a year's time, Billy will get word that Honey has met and married some Canadian lumberjack and is staying. Just picture it.
(Sigh) ... Wouldn't it have been a lot simpler had Honey been revealed to have met someone else whom she was going to marry and with whom she was going to emigrate? It's difficult enough to emigrate to Canada - they have to prove to their labour department that there's no Canadian qualified to do the work for which they import a Brit or a Russian or whatever. There are plenty of cute blonde boys in Canada.
Modelling, or modewing (as Honey calls it) is very important to someone as shallow-brained and shallow-minded as Honey. Who can forget those ridiculous pictures Billy took of her simpering atop the washing machines in the launderette.
Honey's a model, all right - the very model of a Village Idiot and a first class bitch.
Phil's busy playing Hart-to-Hart with Sharon, trying to suss Ian's little white lie, Ronnie's not been seen for dust, so the two runts of the Mitchell litter put their heads together to try to sort the problem of Honey moving abroad. The solution results in a bit of subtle passive-aggressive manipulation by Roxy and Billy still clinging to the hope that he could talk Honey around.
If Phil had been on hand, I would hope he'd have suggested Billy contact Ritchie Scott or Jimmy wotsit, because Honey cannot move the kids out of the country for a protacted length of time without Billy's consent. Lola was right. Billy does have rights. This topic was certainly brought up back at the end of 2008, when Tanya and Jack were planning on moving the Branning kids to France without Max's knowledge.
Honey's determined to go, and I wonder how much this does have to do with "seeing the world" because the first thing she said to Billy about it was that the money was really good, so, yes, what Roxy mentioned (tactless though it was) about Honey living off William's earnings held credence.
Line of the night, however, does go to Honey:
Roxy: I didn't have you down for a red wine girl.
Honey: Well. we weren't exactly bosom bunnies.
Sometimes Honeys' malapropisms were contrived, but this one was quite good.
If Phil had been on hand, I would hope he'd have suggested Billy contact Ritchie Scott or Jimmy wotsit, because Honey cannot move the kids out of the country for a protacted length of time without Billy's consent. Lola was right. Billy does have rights. This topic was certainly brought up back at the end of 2008, when Tanya and Jack were planning on moving the Branning kids to France without Max's knowledge.
Honey's determined to go, and I wonder how much this does have to do with "seeing the world" because the first thing she said to Billy about it was that the money was really good, so, yes, what Roxy mentioned (tactless though it was) about Honey living off William's earnings held credence.
Line of the night, however, does go to Honey:
Roxy: I didn't have you down for a red wine girl.
Honey: Well. we weren't exactly bosom bunnies.
Sometimes Honeys' malapropisms were contrived, but this one was quite good.
Something else she said was interesting as well - that she was doing very well now, better, financially, than she ever did with Billy. So, what exactly is she doing? Not modewing, surely? Besides that cack-handed attempt, the only other job she had was pulling pints and pushing out babies - one paid minimum wage and the other paid benefits. So, I want to know what Honey's done with two kids during the past seven years wherein she acquired a brain?
Hart-to-Hart with Sharon and Phil.
I have a niggle with this storyline. Sharon's getting better, but the writing is still not right for her.
I have no problem with Phil bonding with Jake Stone's experience as an alcoholic, but Sharon has a similar experience in her life as well. She'd be well familiar with alcoholics and their black-outs, having lived all her alcoholic mother all her life, even nursing her through her final illness; yet Sharon seems obtuse in trying to understand Jake. Yes, she was obtuse and needed convincing from the Mitchells when Sam was in prison, screaming her innocence from the rafters about her involvement in Den's death, but that was Sharon's father.
Still, this storyline gave us the best scenes of the night between Sharon, Phil and Ian, three of the programme's best and longest-serving characters in the programme.
Someone mentioned the possibility of Ian seeing Ben on the night Lucy was killed. Considering the cryptic phonecall he made after Sharon's and Phil's visit, I think this is most likely. IIRC, from the time scale that Ritchie offered when she told Phil that Ben had been released, it appears that he may have been released just before the time she got killed. We know he's contacted Jay, and it's feasible that he'd probably contact Ian and that Ian would most certainly keep this encounter from Phil if that's what Ben wanted.
Phil reminded Ian that if Jake Stone proved not to be a suspect (and since the evidence they hold against him is circumstantial, it can't hold water), then the police would be asking Ian a lot more questions. Ian's lied to the police (and this isnt' the first time, if you recall what happened with Steven in 2007), and that's quite serious. But more to the point, in real time, before the police even considered Jake Stone, their prime suspects would have been Ian and Peter. They'd have been all over the family like a bad rash, examining intra-familial relationships etc. So it was interesting to hear Ian say tonight that (a) he sometimes didn't like Lucy and (b) he wished he'd stood up to her more.
On the first point, that's understandable. Lucy, in both her incarnations, showed Ian scant respect and very little affection. I'll never forget the scene when he was away with Jane for a weekend and returned to find she'd had a party and she and her guests had trashed the house. Literally demolished the inside of it. Jay was part of the wrecking crew. Ian blessed her out and she smacked him across the face. He smacked her back and apologised. WTF?
On the second point, especially after the arrival of Christian, Ian was often undermined by Christian in his parenting techniques. Christian encouraged Lucy to backchat Ian and goaded Jane and Peter into being cheerleaders. Admittedly, Ian wasn't the best of parents in the way he spoiled his kids in exchange for a perfect life, but it was revealing to hear him speak of Lucy realistically and in correlation to the way their relationship was always portrayed on screen. Good continiuty.
Phil reminded Ian that if Jake Stone proved not to be a suspect (and since the evidence they hold against him is circumstantial, it can't hold water), then the police would be asking Ian a lot more questions. Ian's lied to the police (and this isnt' the first time, if you recall what happened with Steven in 2007), and that's quite serious. But more to the point, in real time, before the police even considered Jake Stone, their prime suspects would have been Ian and Peter. They'd have been all over the family like a bad rash, examining intra-familial relationships etc. So it was interesting to hear Ian say tonight that (a) he sometimes didn't like Lucy and (b) he wished he'd stood up to her more.
On the first point, that's understandable. Lucy, in both her incarnations, showed Ian scant respect and very little affection. I'll never forget the scene when he was away with Jane for a weekend and returned to find she'd had a party and she and her guests had trashed the house. Literally demolished the inside of it. Jay was part of the wrecking crew. Ian blessed her out and she smacked him across the face. He smacked her back and apologised. WTF?
On the second point, especially after the arrival of Christian, Ian was often undermined by Christian in his parenting techniques. Christian encouraged Lucy to backchat Ian and goaded Jane and Peter into being cheerleaders. Admittedly, Ian wasn't the best of parents in the way he spoiled his kids in exchange for a perfect life, but it was revealing to hear him speak of Lucy realistically and in correlation to the way their relationship was always portrayed on screen. Good continiuty.
The Paulinisation of Bianca.
Bianca's end is near, and with every episode closer to her departure, TPTB turn the screws on her character, making her turgid, stupid and even more unlikeable than before.
The lecky bill is haunting the Butchers. There are measures they could use now that Daddy Warbucks has disappeared. Didn't they have a key meter at one time? I seem to recall Derek giving Bianca a dodgy key and she got caught by the electric authority with it. They could resort to this again, legitimately. I'm no fan of Donna's but she had a good comeback line to Bianca tonight about buying her clothes at Poundsavers. This knock-off scam she's going to get involved with - tell me, this isn't the beginning of her leaving line and an even lengthier, indeterminate prison sentence?
Foreshadowing: Sonia's heading for a fall. The last time she was on the Square, she got disciplined for showing up to work drunk. Now, she's being reprimanded for being late and falling asleep whilst at work. Pretty soon, she'll be on the Square and in the caff full-time, and the nursing career will be forgotten. Note her hesitance to help with the electric bill as she's got a mortgage and a child of her own to raise. I guess when David was forking out Janine's blood money for expensive food and private medical care, the sky was the limit.
Foreshadowing: Sonia's heading for a fall. The last time she was on the Square, she got disciplined for showing up to work drunk. Now, she's being reprimanded for being late and falling asleep whilst at work. Pretty soon, she'll be on the Square and in the caff full-time, and the nursing career will be forgotten. Note her hesitance to help with the electric bill as she's got a mortgage and a child of her own to raise. I guess when David was forking out Janine's blood money for expensive food and private medical care, the sky was the limit.
Carter Overkill.
Here's the question:- did the Carters peak too soon? They hadn't been on the screen a week before Johnny had come out. Great and poignant episode, but then what? Well, we know what "then what" is ... Ben. The family core of Mick, Linda and their children, plus Stan, is fantastic, but the added additions of Shirley Queen of Scrotes and the latest village idiot make for terrible viewing.
Tina ... ugh! Just go. The "grown-up" references grated against my nerves tonight. You're forty years old; you're not some thirteen year-old stepping out in your first grown-up frock. If' you're not grown-up now, you'll never be. Tosh might be a bully, but it takes two to tango, and I'll bet Tina's hard-going to live with as well. In fact, Tosh can go too.
This is a forty year-old woman, dressing and trying to act pathetically like a child. No wonder Tosh is driven to distraction by her puerile antics. I have to ask myself, is Tina retarded?
More than that, when I think of the fanbois' belloweathering about Newman's penchant for love triangles, I wonder why nothing's been said about the love triangles of Lola-Peter-Lauren (boring), Shirley-Phil-Sharon (appalling) and Tosh-Tina-Sonia (just putrid)?
Johnny's in charge at The Albert, with the trust of his boss, and already, he's abusing that trust again, opening the place early and allowing his feckless aunt to drink up the profits free of charge. Dean was right - Tina is an adult. Why should anyone have to "keep an eye on her?" If The Albert is open early to "family members" only, surely that family is the Mitchell family, as they own the place, and not the Carters, one of whom is merely an employee there? By that score, Roxy had more right to have an early drink than Tina being silly.
And finally ... fee fi fo fum ... I smell the scent of someone who's married with children and cheating on his wife ... with Roxy.
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