Family Affairs - Review:- 06.03.2014

Hmmmmm ... I'm wondering about the viewing figures, especially now that BBC is in its terminal stages. Not that I didn't like BBC3, I did; but too many people are worrying about what this might do the stagnant viewing malaise under which EastEnders is still labouring.

Let's be honest. No matter how much the manboi/fanbois and one brain-celled dolts like xTonix might try to massage the figures, they really are much the same as they were this time last year under Lorraine Newman - i.e., breaking bad under 8 million. It seems that neither the returns of Ronnie and Stacey have upped the figures, and putting hatchet-faced Shirley front and centre seems to have scared more viewers away.

The difference is that this time last year, people were actively worried about the figures falling under Lorraine Newman, whereas this year, people are making excuses for the same crap being served up by The Messiah.

Excuses like ...

The viewing figures have stabilised. (They're no different than last year's).

We're growing a core of viewers who'll be loyal to the show. (Some people watch paint dry. Whoever thought to bring back Ronnie and Stacey, imagining that these two would get more bums on seats, should be taken out and smacked. Their fans never left, because they knew these two would be back sooner, rather than later).

Corrie's going through a bad patch; we're catching up and will soon overtake it. (Corrie, too, has a loyal base, and it's not lost its brand. True, it's got a pretty shitty EP, but he's also the type who seems to be able to make lemonade from lemons).

We're beating Emmerdale now. (But not on head-to-head. Emmerdale's recent hour-long episode beat EastEnders back below six million, and in a week and an episode where Ronnie returned.)

And then there's the usual ...

Things will pick up when Dean comes back/Stacey's back properly/Lucy's killed/whenever/whatever.

A fish stinks from its head, and too much slack is being cut this particular con artist.

A Killer in the House.

Ronnie's back, and, quite frankly, she looks weird. This isn't the make-up department at Elstree; something seriously happened when Womack was on leave - something like a Harley Street botox clinic and some collagen enhancement to her lips.

The result is her face being near as damn it immobile, her mouth too wide and, for some reason, side shots show her chin and jawline sagging noticeably. It's as if someone had a facelift, but forgot to do the neck. Whatever happened, she just looks even more weird and alien than before.

And with her non-nose and Stacey's ellipse-shaped porcine nostrils, it's clear that 2014 is The Year of the Nostril on EastEnders.

This was quite a significant episode for Ronnie and the direction in which TPTB are taking her. First, the red herring of the police knocking at the door because of Lola's theft was the foreshadowing of an obsession with Lola which Ronnie is developing. The line about Lola becoming "an honorary Mitchell sister," coupled with Ronnie's encouragement of Lola lying to Billy and Peter, as well as egging Phil on to allow her to stay the night at Mitchell Manor, with her child being looked after elsewhere was nothing short of strange.

With Roxy's loyalty in dubious shape now, is Ronnie preparing to envelope Lola in her obsession with control? Note the singularly baby-like way she spoke with Lola, using endearments and speaking to her as if she were a child - much the same as what she does/did with Roxy.

This whole business of Lola was so obviously contrived - now we've got Lola the single and skint mother, yelling OwmIgonnafeedmahkid when she lives with someone who draws a decent wage from being a market gardener. Surely, she could have hit Peter for a loan to buy Lexi some nappies, or - as he indicated last night - Phil? Instead, we're treated to a regressed Lola knicking from the market.

Of course, last night was the night that Roxy discovered Ronnie had killed Carl, and that was pretty creepy too. Rita Simons played a blinder, especially the scene where the show finally addressed the elephant in the room - that Ronnie is sexually attracted to Roxy and wants her all for herself. Simons brought that out beautifully, reminding Ronnie that she had wantonly interfered in every relationship Roxy had had as an adult, and some of those relationships were with perfectly respectable, viable men - Damien, Sean, Alfie ...

At the moment, it appears that the Sugly Blisters are doomed, and I certainly hope that Roxy sticks her guns and shuns Ronnie, instead of forgiving her five minutes down the line.

Arguably, the most memorable scenes were with Phil and Sharon, where Sharon acknowledged why she sought sole directorship of the pub - it's the old trust issue again. She wants something that's exclusively hers in the event that she and Phil split. As I said, the Sharon-and-Phil-Lack-of-Trust-Show goes back two decades. Now, he can't believe he's finally got her, and both are waiting for the other one to throw them under the bus.

Observation: Just how big is the Mitchell house? At one time, it held Shirley, Phil, Ben, Jay, Roxy, Amy, Heather and George. Two per room, that's four bedrooms. As of now, it's housing, Phil, Sharon, Denny, Amy, Jay, Ronnie and Roxy. Amy appears to have her own room. Phil and Sharon obviously share. Does Jay share with Dennis? It was implied that Dennis has his own room. With the sisters sharing, that makes five bedrooms, but I cannot imagine for a moment that Roxy would share with Ronnie.

Yet another Tardis house on the Square.

Feuding, Fussing and Fighting.

Who cares about Cindy? It's difficult to empathise with a prissy little ladyboy who looks and sounds like a spoiled, entitled drama school brat.

The constant sulking, the rudeness to Ian, someone whom she conned into taking her in, the defiance. Someone like that is too immature to even contemplate having a child. As for Honker's assessment of Cindy the Greek being frightened and alone, she's not. She's a wanton little bitch who did exactly what her mother did - sleep with one boy, who got her pregnant, then slept with another, for goodness-knows-why. Her mother did so with Ian, in order to make him believe he'd got her pregnant.

And Liam's ignorant lament about She can't be pregnant, we only did it the once was reminiscent of what happened to Honker after having slept with Martin that one time, when she was crying about an Italian exchange student who'd dumped her. Once was all it took to create the eerily quiet Rebecca, who shouldn't even be there in the first place. And why the hell is Honker so rude to Ian? He is, after all, her husband's closest relative and a relative of her child; yet she continues to speak to Ian as if he were a piece of shit.

The so-called punch thrown between Liam and TJ was an embarrassment. The actor who plays TJ bears an uncanny resemblance to David Scaroboro, who played the original Mark Fowler, but I'm wondering where all the praise for the luglike James Forde is coming from. I realise Lia is supposed to be rather stolid and lumbering like his father, but - Lordy - the actor's monotone delivery is nothing short of comatose. How any girl, even a hirsute quasi hermaprhodite like Cindy the Greek would fall for Liam is beyond my ken.

Also, the whole shouting shabang between Ian and Bianca was awful as well. These two are relations, yet they speak as though they were total strangers. Bianca's double-edged insults about sausage rolls and the like were gross, and how did Ian get to be Cindy's guardian? Presumably, Bev came up with the necessary notarised documents? And David mentions the fact that Ian is his brother.

Ah, David ... yet more retconning, during the ubiquitous talk with Terry, about having no one to talk to when he got that miserable Carol up the duff. David didn't waste time thinking about her pregnancy. He just lied to his dad, Pete Beale, got the 200 knicker and gave it to Carol, who pocketed the cash and sicced her three older brothers on his arse. Derek beat the shit out of him and he left the area, spending the next twenty years thinking that Carol had had an abortion.

I can't buy David-the-father to the increasingly emotionally and intellectually retarded Bianca, not when Patsy Palmer looks as old as Michael French and Lindsey Coulson looks as though she's French's mum. But the scene where he's fighting Bianca to stay in the house was another embarrassment.

Carol's got the BRCA2 gene. It's not a fucking death sentence, and it doesn't mean you have to whack off your boobs our disembowel your ovaries. It means you're monitored, regularly, with scans every three months; but it will probably mean Honker having the gene, lobbing off Pinkie and Perky and her ovaries, which will make offscreen Martin (which equals BAD Martin) reject her and then she can play the butch to Tina's bitch.

So predictable - just like it's so predictable that Ronnie will, most likely, be the person to kill Lucy Beale, although we'll go the better part of the year thinking it's Aleks (or, the numpties will), because this will be Ronnie's trump card in breaking up the incipient couple that will become Roxy and Aleks (Roleks). It's so obvious because of the major impact it will have on two of the Square's most important families - and that doesn't include the Carters.

Predictable episode of EastEnders 2.0, where Ian Beale is treated like a piece of shit and Sharon is relegated to the importance of being Ronnie.

The Real Pig Problem

The arrogance of Millennials knows no bounds. So much so that some dumbass on DS poses the question for suggestions on how to "fix" Sharon.

I'll admit that, via the ignorance of Lorraine Newman, a lazy bunch of Millennial writers and a snooty upper-middle-class Oxford graduate whose ego is bigger than his shoe size (nudge nudge wink wink) have contributed to Sharon being written atrociously this time around, but the real problem isn't Sharon, it's the viewers.

The show is now a hotbed welter of manboi/fanbois and cheerleaders to whom the concept of history (and good grammar) mean nothing. If their lives depended on it, they could neither think critically nor understand the concept of nuanced characterisation.

Their only form of criticism is to name-call people as animals, pejoratively.

Maybe the repeat showing of EastEnders should be the next day on CBBC. That's the element to whom The Messiah is aiming this tripe. 

Pun intended.

Trust and Obey - Review:- 04.03.2014

God aside, that's the ethos of EastEnders - trust and obey. The irony is that no one in the show either trusts or obeys. But the lowest common denominator of viewer - the type who insists on posting childish comments on the blog, including threats of violence and death against my family and me (which is against the law, by the way) - trusts and obeys the con artist in charge of this palaver.

P T Barnum was right. There's a sucker born every minute.

The Great Retcon Continues.

Christopher Reason wrote this episode tonight, a writer who's been with the programme since God was a boy, and he should know better. Yes, it featured three long-standing families on the Square, two of whom are blood-related; but he wasn't beyond retconning a situation that he knows damned well couldn't have existed and damned well didn't exist in two particular characters' pasts. 

In fact, he got so twisted in the continual retcon that engulfs the Branning/Jackson family that he actually went back to the future and told the truth for once.

Confusing?

Pay attention. It's all about the 90s, which the rude, foul-mouthed and eternally puerile Millennials absolutely hate.

This is David Beale Wicks:-

The trendy Shoreditch eatery where David took Carol used to be a teenage hang-out cafe in days of yore. In fact, Carol went into great detail about how she caught David kissing some girl whose surname was Dobson in the joint forty years ago.

Stop, stop, STOP all this fucking retconning!

Carol and David were barely into their teens when they bunked up behind the bike sheds at school. Whatever today's emotionally and intellectually immature fanboi/manbois might think, most fourteen year-old boys look like twelve year-olds, and most fourteen year-old girls who are interested in sexual activity don't look for it from fourteen year-old boys. If they hung about a cafe at all back in 1973, he was more than likely some spotty pre-pubescent loser sat in the corner nursing an orange squash.

So there the writing team goes, retconning a past for Carol and David that didn't exist past the one-off on the schoolgrounds that resulted in Bianca.

I hate this romcom played out against the OTT drama of a cancer storyline - original in its presentation, but badly researched and played out for the scare tactic that would never be the real recommendation of the National Health Service.

David doesn't have a clue in hell how to approach the fact that Carol carries the BRCA2 gene. Neither does Carol, because (and do I need to shout this?) even though she carries the gene and has breast cancer, her cancer hasn't spread to her lymph nodes or her second breast. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

I'll tell you. It means she has simple common-and-garden Grade II cancer. Serious? Yes, all cancer is serious; but terminal? No. Hardly. The procedure to follow is chemo, followed by a lumpectomy and excision of cancerous flesh around the tumour.

EVEN WITH THE BRCA2 GENE, THIS WOULD ONLY MEAN CLOSE FOLLOW-UPS REGARDING THE HEALTH OF THE SECOND BREAST AND THE OVARIES.

Get the picture? The NHS and NO medical profession would ever condone removal of healthy organs, even as a health precaution. The self-mutilating surgeries performed on such high-profiled people like Angelina Jolie were done electively and privately.

This is all incorporated into this storyline for one purpose and one purpose only - sensationalism. But then, that's a trademark of this producer, but his acolytes love it - especially because it's all about Carol, who's gone from being the distinctly bad-tempered background bitch of the 90s to being the equally bad-tempered, horny middle-aged selfish bint this time around.

When David remarked to Max how selfless Carol was, always putting others first, I wanted to puke. Selfless? Selfish is the better word. Throughout this whole ordeal, it's been hard to have any sympathy for this woman because she's played the diva card to perfection. Why is it in this particular soap opera, that anyone diagnosed with cancer immediately goes into self-pity overdrive, pushing people away and being even more of a general bitch than she usually is?

I don't know what David thought to prove by lying to Bianca and Honker, except that it, once again, contrived a situation whereby there will be great wailing and screaming and gnashing of teeth when the truth comes out.

The other big mistake Reason made occurred in the scene between Max and David, where David, for some reason (and I'll bet Reason is laughing himself silly over inserting a tip to the viewers from the 90s who still remember the truth of the situation) volunteered to tell Max of Carol's result and to advise him to have the test, himself.

David: Who'd have thought it, eh? It wasn't that long ago the Branning boys were beating me up and running me out of town.

FUCKING-A-BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you, Christopher Reason. Anyone who watched the reveal, over twenty years ago, enacted in the launderette, between Carol, David, Pat and Pauline, which established the fact that David was Bianca's father, will remember this ...

That Carol's three older brothers beat Max up and effected Pat's departure from the area.

Got that? Carol's three older brothers. That would be Derek, Max and Jack.

But when Max turned up in 2006 and Jack in 2007, it was established that they were Carol's younger brothers. So much younger that, had they participated in beating up David at that time, they'd have each been gnawing at his ankles. In fact, it was re-established in 2011, that it was Derek who did the beating, because Max would have been six and Jack four.

Back to the future, with Mr Reason's clever tip-off to the long-term viewer that he remembers the truth as well. In the days before producers' egos got bigger than their brains, memories and appreciation of a show's history and heritage. It got past the production crew. 

Who's zooming whom?

EastEnd Hillbillies.

The more I see Honker, the more I'm beginning to detest her character. In her own way, she is as vile as Bianca. I thought the remark about Honker's "chesticles" and the tale of Pinky and Perky neither funny nor tasteful, especially since I recally Natalie Cassidy's much-publicised boob job back in 2005, and how she joined the bevy of pumped-up women, from Chrissie to Zoe and others, who paraded around the market in bleak midwinter, with their coats open and their cleavage growing goose-bumps in the cold.

I seem to recall several people remarking that Honker post-boob job bore an uncanny resemblance to Big Brother's first transgender housemate, Nadia.

Another thing which surprised me was that Honker, who's supposed to be an educated and intelligent health professional, chose to trough up processed chicken nuggets to the horde of urchins around the Butcher-Jackson-Beale table, including her own illegally-obtained daughter, at Bianca's request.

I appreciate that Bianca is the Village Idiot in all this, but Honker, who appeared to be feeding her ill-gotten sprog responsibly when we last saw her, has now begun to worship at the altar of chavdom.

You couldn't help but feel sorry for Lola, whom Bianca deftly got out of paying for babysitting the skiving plain-faced Ches-neh Tiff, who was reduced to nicking nappies from the market. Why didn't she just ask Peter to help out? Why approach Jay? Or is the Peter-Lola association another one DTC wants to phase out because it isn't his creation nor are the characters his babies?

In watching all this interaction between Ian and the Butchers, after Ian's surmised that Liam just might be the father of little ladyboy Hairy Cindy the Greek's child, I couldn't help but thinking that Ian had best hope this not to be. Why? Because Cindy the Greek is no relation to Ian. He has no responsibility on this entitled and spoiled child who's imposed himself herself on his family. But if Liam were the father, then the child becomes blood of Ian's blood - his great-niece or nephew and the great-great granchild of Pete Beale.

If I felt anything, I felt sadness tonight for TJ, who appears to be a serious student, showing his father his paper with a high grade, and telling Terry that his teacher thought TJ had a good shot at A-Levels and university. It was also telling that TJ wanted Terry to tell Nikki, his mum, but not Bianca; TJ is astute enough to know Bianca's ignorance would have no appreciation for his academic achievement, and the kid, himself, knows that such ambition is all for nought with the ticking time bomb sat across the Square. 

I'll bet that hairy little bitch does a runner and leaves him with the baby. I'd like to see that, because it would mean seeing less of a pointless character.

Still, the other good thing to come from this incident, was Sharon and Ian talking, Ian confiding in Sharon about Cindy's pregnancy, and Sharon talking to Ian, to a certain degree, about her problems with Phil. 

I'm not sure what she was saying, though, when she referenced Arthur and Pauline being unable to turf Michelle out when she got pregnant, in comparison to how she keeps going back to Phil and then comparing the two with Ian's circumstances with Cindy. The most truthful remark came from Ian when he told Sharon that having Cindy the Greek around was just another painful reminder of her mother.

Ian should just call Social Services and leave her to it.

The Bitchell Blisters.

Right, so now we know about Phil's feelings toward Sharon. Neither one trusts the other, and if Phil thought about it, and maybe he did, he'd realise that Sharon's mistrust of him goes right back to the wake of Sharongate, when Phil threw her under the proverbial bus for casting the blame on her for their affair. And he doesn't trust her, not because of the latest scam, but because he knows, from what she ultimately pulled with Grant, that she's capable of unpredictability.

He also knows that she has a high moral code, and, as he admitted, like Pat and Peggy, she's one of a handful of people who could and will stand up to him and dish him his own shit back. In short, he respects  her. That's why he backs her up in her request that Ronnie leave the house.

And that's down to Phil's own interests too. As he said tonight, the moment a body pops up and presents itself at Phil's door, she's on her own. As well, he hates people who rip him off. He does things. Sharon tried to rip him off, and he coerced her into signing a joint contract. He knows Ronnie ripped him off by stealing the money he got from the sale of the Vic and buying the gym; Phil is also astute enough to know that Ronnie is fronting this one out. From Roxy's tales of her behaviour in Eye-BEE-fer, he knows she's putting up a front.

(Put a blonde wig on it and what do you have?)

Phil's worried about his own hide, because Ronnie left a clever trail right to his door - the phone, the car which would have had a logbook issued to the Arches, Phil's DNA all over the bag containing the money, as well as Carl's blood. And even though Ronnie says there's no body, there is. It's rotting in the boot of a half-crushed car, and it won't take long for flies and bodily fluids and a noticeable stench to make itself known. Anyway, she's spooked about the phone and spooked enough that Sharon knows.

The other interesting worm to turn is Roxy, whose conversation with Jay on the swings at the playground was highly symbolic. Roxy has been treated like a child all her life, not because, as some sage soul purporting to be a psychologist on a well-known bullypen suggested, Ronnie loves Roxy. Ronnie is a psychopath. Psychopaths love only themselves. They do, however, obsess about other people - as Michael obsessed about Scarlett, so Ronnie obsesses about controlling Roxy, keeping her childlike and dependent on her.

But Roxy's beginning to twig Ronnie's game and wants her independence - as far as buying back Janine's house, which used to be Archie's.

NuAmy talks. Please, can we have the old one back?This one reminds me of a brat version of the awful kid who fronted Little House on the Prairie.

A mini version of the awful Melissa Gilbert.

Would you all shut up, I'm trying to watch television!

Well, at least she's Roxy's daughter.

I'll stake a guess and say that Ronnie will leave Walford before Sharon and in a box.

Smoke, Mirrors and Mardis Gras - Review:- 03.03.2014

The Messiah's off partying at Mardis Gras, a five-star holiday on the public's remit, probably garnering over the top ideas from the partyfest in New Orleans. We'll know that's so if Dean Wicks or Charlie Cotton pops up and Ian or Dot or Max or someone asks the ubiquitous question, Who dat?

Maybe Ronnie will start sticking pins in voodoo dolls or Stacey will return speaking in a sultry Southern accent. Why not replace the EastEnders' theme song with that of Gone with the Wind?

In the midst of what is supposed to be good storytelling, we've been presented with a past fortnight, which threw the ensemble motif to the wind, as we were all meant to bow from the waist at the return of a lying pig-faced little skank of a murderer who comes up with any and all kinds of justification for doing what she did, short of accepting the responsibility, herself. We've seen characters who've been redeemed under the piss poor tutelage of Newman (Kat, Billy) revert to their 2010 vile personages (Kat) or their quasi-comic 2008 persona of a loser (Billy Mitchell). All for nought.

The only magic DTC's accomplished is doing a Bobby Ewing on the past three years of the show, and reverting us to 2007 status. Shabnab has re-appeared as Zainab, except Zainab's homophobia has been replaced with good old-fashioned racism. And Ronnie and Stacey are calling the shots, with Shirley, arguably the most divisive character in the programme, is now being touted as the Queen of the Square.

And Sharon? After so many Twittered promises from Boy Wonder, she takes a backseat to the rest.

Well, as EgoBoy said, himself, this is the end of an era. And the end of a brand.

Blonde Ambition.

So Phil caught Sharon naming herself sole director of the new bar, and now he sulks because he doesn't trust her? Does he wonder why she did what she did? It just may very well have something to do with the fact that he finally admitted his (indirect) part in the death of her husband. He certainly should remember how he was consumed with guilt at the time.

Take a look at the two-minute mark. That's one helluva guilty man trying to assauge his conscience.

Of course, The Messiah will ensure that the Mitchells will always come out on top and especially with regard to Sharon. Those of us remember his tweet about bringing Sharon back big-time; then he'll have to put his ego elsewhere for the benefit of the show's history and remember that the Mitchells were created for Sharon and not the other way around.

In the mid-1990s (a period the Millennials hate referenced), Sharon walked away from Grant and affected him so much that her unseen presence hung over his second marriage like Banquuo's Ghost.

Indirectly or directly, Sharon always managed to get the better of the Mitchells,and for years, unknowingly, she had the better of Phil because Phil knew exactly why Dennis went to see Jonnie Allen that night, and in a fit of honesty, he told Sharon.

So why is he surprised and disgruntled that she would fanagle a piece of real estate and a position directorship from him? At the end of the day, Phil's influence on her immature husband deprived her son of a father. And set her on the road to perdition. Phil's actions have a domino effect.

Of course, tonight saw the return of the Blisters. It seems that Roxy, in her haste to leave Eye-BEE-fer, has picked up the wrong child. Amy looks different, but she still isn't speaking and she's still being carried around like a toddler. Allegedly, she speaks later in the week. Let's hope it tops her predecessor's effort last summer:-

Bad man come.

(Hardly the vocabulary of a five year-old. Let's hope they can remember that she's in the entry class at Walford Primary and not at nursery).

Roxy brings good tidings of great joy - well, DTC does have a Messiah tendancy - and that message is what we all knew - that Ronnie is a functioning psychopath. This has nothing to do with her background of abuse and everything to do with what she's been like since she was born. Psychopathy is ofttimes an inherited trait - cf: Michael Moon.

It seems now that the Blisters can never go back to Eye-BEE-fer now, because Ronnie glassed an off-duty Spanish policeman in the face. (Remember, Ronnie loves glassing people too - like, her own sister). She spent a night in the cells and returned, smiling, as if nothing had happened.

Another titbit of information - that Amy is now scared shitless of her. Are we to infer that DTC has been following the infamous career of Joanne Dennehy, in making Ronnie the man-emasculator of the Square? Add to the fact that Ronnie just looks weird this time around, even more of an alien than before. The creepy bag of presents she brought, including the lippy for Sharon. I don't blame Sharon for her ultimatum, especially after Ronnie snapped about Dennis's toy getting on her nerves. Sharon is looking after her child's safety.

And I was right about Aleks being attracted to Roxy. Rumours are out about how Ronnie's behaviour becomes even more erratic and controlling, especially toward Roxy and whom she can and cannot see. I'm sure that Ronnie's in line for being one of the suspects for the killing of Lucy Beale. If she doesn't kill Lucy, she'll probably kill Aleks, a loner without family or antecedents and expendable ... and a man.

I'm also amazed that RoNostril has managed to buy the boxing gym with the £20k she lifted from the money Phil got for the Vic. The only good thing about this transformation of a deeply unpleasant and unlikeable character, who has an unhealthy following amongst the lower spectrum of stupid teenaged girls, is that taking her down the villain trail means she has a definably short shelf life. But then I remember that DTC is a manchild who likes over-egging the icing in order to overdose on marzipan.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire.

It's now official. Kat is obtuse and stupid. It's Alfie's birthday, his 50th birthday, and she doesn't understand that he's more than a little upset that she's told a major lie to the police about Alice's part in Michael's murder.

Look, I'm not saying Alice is innocent. She's far from innocent. She's guilty of conspiracy to murder and kidnap. She's guilty of assault. But actual murder? Nope. Yet Kat is willing to sacrifice a young girl whom she mentored to more than a decade in prison just so Skanky Slater can come back to Walford and skank around once more. 

After all, Skanky Slater is the real star of the show.

And she's blind to a point Alfie raised: how is she going to explain herself to Carol and to Bianca when they find out what she's done?

What's interesting me more is the letter from Australia Alfie received. I don't think it's from a woman. Watch this space.

The Retconned Couple, Cancer and Shoreditch.

It's really hard to feel any sympathy for Carol, she's such an unpleasant human being to begin with. And now that she's been diagnosed with BRCA2, we can expect more diva antics, beginning in the consultant's office with Carol dramatically wondering about a double mastectomy as well as having her ovaries removed. She's even wondering if her daughters will have to do the same.

Over-egg over-egg over-egg ...

Stop this!

If you're BRCA2 positive, you do NOT have to have a double-mastectomy or have your ovaries ripped out if you don't have cancer. If you're diagnosed with the gene and you haven't suffered cancer yet, it just means the medical authorities monitor you more closely. You have to attend regular check-ups and assessments, ensuring that any diagnosis is an early one. As for Carol, there was a lump found with a cancer cluster that had not spread either to her lymph nodes or to her second breast. Depending on the success of the chemotherapy, a mastectomy may not be necessary, especially if the cancer has not spread to the lymph nodes. 

What the fuck am I saying? I've had breast cancer. I know.

There is no mastectomy if the cancer hasn't spread to the nodes. Not ever. Not even with BRCA2. But this is Dominic Treadwell-Collins here, and we're going to see poor pitiful Carol, a prickly unpleasant character to begin with, hardly suffering from the effects of chemo and with only minimal hair loss, gallavanting around Walford, drinking, working - and oddly, not puking (chemo does that to you), and one feels the over-egged tragedy of BRCA2 is done for the same reason the cancer cold was given to Tanya - to make people like her, to add to the great myth of the love story that never was and make all the Millennials go awwwwwwwwww at David and Carol and their midlife crisis teenaged love affair.

It's a load of bullshit. It's an opportunity for Natalie Cassidy to do that tragic stricken martyr look that's become so boring, and we know she'll be the one who'll get the gene and who'll opt, for a totally impossible elective operation on the NHS to remove her boobs and her ovaries so she can skip over to Tina's house and make the court jester her bitch.

In fact, I'm waiting for Cassidy's Sidney Carton moment.

Can't you just hear Sonia, picture her with those sad tragic eyes gazing forelornly into the distance as she says,

Hit is a far far be'urgh fing Ah do van Ah have ever done. Gettin' me boobs whacked off means vey won't ever'ave ter sag. Innit?

Does she ever work?

At least we got a glimpse of the Shoreditchification of Walford tonight in the trendy cafe where David took Carol after her diagnosis.

And how stupid is Bianca, buying processed tripe food for her chavvy kids only to have daddy David encourage the overly pubescent Tiffany to google what goes into chicken nuggets and then blame the jobless Lola for enticing Tiffany not to eat. Bianca really is the Village Idiot, just as Billy Mitchell's reverted to the total loser who thinks nothing of stealing from his employer.

Speaking of which ...

Another Fine Mess.

Ian Beale is another to suffer at the hands of the Messiah.

Why wouldn't any owner of a business be annoyed that someone who isn't even employed by him taking responsibility for buying dodgy produce for his cafe. Yes, we know that Sonia is distracted by Carol's problem, but she is also a trained and educated professional and should have enough common sense to know that you don't buy hand-peddled knock-off fish fingers from the likes of Billy Mitchell or Big Mo to sell to the public. Ian was well within his right to tick her off. Yes, Carol is ill, but Sonia's decision could have resulted from the entire Square who partook of fish fingers on Ian's premises being taken ill with ptomaine poisoning. The Department of 'Elf'n Safety would then be called in, the cafe would be shut down, Carol would be out of a job and Ian (and Sonia) would be prosecuted.

Not only is he an ogre in that sense of the word, he's being touted as the big bad wolf in the boring pregnancy storyline.

Hands up, anyone who feels sorry for that entitled little ladyboy scrote Hairy Cindy the Greek. Hark, is that an Adam's apple I spied in her throat? The voice indicates that the testes have dropped, and TPTB should really stop the close-ups because the razor stubble is going to start soon.

This is a totally unnecessary character who's only interacted in a pejorative way with other characters, who's only been on the scene a matter of minutes and who's pregnant by another piss-faced youth about whom we know nothing. Do we care? This child inveigled herself into Ian's household because she didn't want to move to Plymouth with her grandmother and her aunt, her legal guardians. And to the assholes on various fora whining that just because Bev Williams and Gina are her guardians they don't necessarily love the little bitch ...

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Cindy was a much-loved child, whose aunt and grandmother wanted to raise her as she's the child of their dead sister and daughter. Gina Williams begged Ian for the opportunity to raise the child. The fact that they are re-locating to Portugal and want her with them is out of love and concern for her.

And he attitude toward Ian sucks. She's lucky he was a soft-touch enough to allow her to stay in his home. That must have taken some talking around Bev and Gina. And she literally got away with a theft of £10K from Phil Mitchell. That's grand theft larceny. Had he gone to the Old Bill, her hairy arse would have been locked away in some young offenders' prison. As was, Ian did nothing; instead, she got a holiday to visit her grandmother and aunt, coming back to badmouth them.

It's clear she expects to pop the sprog and then to have Ian assume all sorts of financial obligation to a child of another child, both of whom have nothing to do with him. Ian all too well remembers the consequences of Cindy's mother's actions against his own life. He owes her the skin off her arse.

And Ian could very well ensure she goes back to her grandmother. A phonecall to Bev and Gina and an appearance by either or both of them would do the trick. Cindy is a minor and cannot decide her fate. If she refused either to return to Plymouth or to go with her guardians, were I Ian, I'd call Social Services. Let her go into care.

Mimi Keene is no better, and certainly no worse than Hetti Bywater. If Cindy's daughter by Ian is being killed off, then her daughter by Nick Holland should scarper as well.

As I said before, this little toerag is no Michelle Fowler. She isn't even a Lola Pearce.

Good, only because the Mitchells are back, but not good in that it's now morphing into The RoNostril Show ... or The Twilight Zone.

The Stench of Brookside in the Morning

Bryan Kirkwood didn't hesitate to kill off the matriarch of Albert Square, Pat Evans.

But Dominic Treadwell-Collins, that elfinesque Peter Pannish manchild, who's got his ego's desire and is whipping up the fanbois' frenzy as EP of EastEnders has done worse.

Hot off the presses with his intent to kill off the daughter of one of the last two remaining original characters on the show, who's an important legacy character in her own right, comes the news that the show's original villain, Nick Cotton, is going to be killed ... and killed off-screen.

I'll be the first to admit that Nick outstayed his welcome ages ago, and really should have left as a recurring character twenty years ago, after he tried to poison Dot, but the idea of Nick Cotton being out there in soapworld someplace is still a tribute to the show's heritage.

Before we even saw Dot, we had Nick. Until the eternal victim, Stacey Slater, brained another retconned character, Archie Mitchell, and constructed a tissue of lies to explain away a guilt she'll never feel, Nick was the only EastEnders' character to get away with murder - twice.

Nick was responsible for the murder of the man featured in the very first scene of the very first episode on the show, Reg Cox. He later killed failed Vic landlord, Eddie Royle. For both murders, even though he confessed to one and we saw him commit the other, he was never punished - although he did see his child killed before his very eyes.

But for all of this, unlike the porcine Stacey, being pushed down the viewers' throats as some sort of heroine, Nick didn't give a rat's arse about his crimes. Even in his last pantomime appearance on the show, he was hiding behind a demon child, trying to kill his mother.

In the end, he was a joke, and his appearances were pure pantomime and made June Brown's head-bobbing panto act more apparent; but Nick was, indeed, an important part of the show's heritage, and along with the killing of Lucy Beale, this becomes obvious that Mr Treadwell-Collins is intent upon turning this programme into some sort of Millennial EastEnders, with his Shoreditchery and Sharon bitchery and pretty girl murderers running rampant and unpunished.

As soon as DTC almost gleefully announced that Lucy Beale's death would symbolise "the end of an era," I smelled the acrid stench of Brookside rotting amidst a welter of artificial tits, arse and pretty people behaving badly and acting amateurishly, with whole dollops of history strewn aside in order to fit unbelieveable storylines. 

Brookside lost its brand, and the same is happening to EastEnders, and when that happens, the rot sets in quickly.

I'll leave the last word to one of the few sensible viewers left who dare to comment on a forum and express an honest opinion of the state of the show, C Harper, who says:-

DTC seems to be shitting on the history of the show in order to make his mark by shocking us for a brief second. He's worse than Santer.

Ben Mitchell killed off for the 30th anniversary anyone?

No, not Ben. It wouldn't surprise me if it were Phil. One thing for certain, the "end of the era" remark means characters such as Ian, Sharon, Phil and Dot (few remaining) will be shunted into the background. Bianca has been turned into the chavs' representative of the Village Idiots' Union,and that 90s plot device, David Wicks, and someone who was essentially a background character with no morals, Carol Jackson, have been retconned as the Millennials' answer to Pat and Frank. As bloody if.

Welcome to the pretty world of Tiki Bars, divisive butch-bitch women and men born without balls ... Millennial EastEnders, EastEnders 2.0 ... designer made for the fanbois who hide their bullying tendencies behind Stacey avatars. No wonder the whiner Jay Lee fears ITV's aggressive scheduling. ITV smells the stench of Brookside in the morning also - emanating from Elstree. 

The Right Thing at the Wrong Time - Review:- 28.02.2014

I hate to start a blog this way, but this is to the person who anonymously left me a threat of slamming a brick in my face, please realise this - and this is not Dominic Treadwell-Collins making up the law to suit a storyline - any threat against a person or that person's property is against the law. Any threat of violence is against the law as well, whether in person or on the internet. Just for your information, I have alerted the police to the comments made on this blog, and whoever was clever enough to make that threat, which went directly into spam content to make tracking IP identities easier for the authorities, just might be having a visit from the bizzies shortly.

Did it make you feel big to threaten? Do you think it scared me? The obvious irony of this situation is that I am told that I am the one who intimidates. Some people really need to realise what intimidation, and reverse snobbism in defending those who intimidates, really means - and that goes for people who work for and in tandem with police authorities.

This hasn't been a very good week for EastEnders, although the cheeky, chirpy kid with a new toy, Dominic Treadwell-Collins, would never admit it. The prolonged return of the star of the show, Stacey Slater, has been one big epic fail. The ratings haven't moved one whit, no matter how hard DS's perennial cheerleader dan2008 or their resident court jester (hyuck hyuck) the insipidly stupid xTonix big it up. 

Last night's didn't even top 7 million, and it was still 2 million viewers off a very poor Coronation Street. Stacey's return didn't result in bums on seats. If anything, her return has been annoying to most people except the StaceyGirls, that select group of Millennial manbois, found in particular places over cyberspace who make it their life's aim to hide behind avatars of Lacey Turner as Stacey and passive-aggressively bully anyone offering criticism of the show, itself, its Messiah DTC or the Holy Self-Perpetuating Virgin Victim, Saint Stacey.

You know who you are, and you're free to say what you want, but others are not, no matter how much certain people might preach tolerance and freedom of speech, these people are always the first to deny it - most likely due to their own insecurities.

It's Yesterday Once More.

Felt like it, didn't it? Boy, I reckon all the StaceyBois and their DS cheerleader dancing.queen felt just like it was the good old days, which for them, would mean 2007. Apart from Alfie and Kat, almost everything was in place, the prime movers being Stacey and Max.

You see this was the the sole aim of this week. It was DTC's own personal media orgasm - to have the week culminate in Max and Stacey on screen together. a Stax supporter's wet dream.

But you know what this whole thing was? Rehash. Nothing but pure, unadulterated rehash. 

I'd known from the moment he hopped back into Elstree, that this manchild in the promised land had just the remit he wanted to turn back the hands of time. Characters returning, some with new heads and new personalities to match - cf: Shabnam the religious bigot - as well as familiar faces who existed prior to the watches of Kirkwood and Newman, are getting airtime in abundance now.

Yep, last night, we got yet another scene of Stacey weeping, her porcine little eyes looking all sad and worried, that grimace on her face which doubles for a worried, pained look as well as a smile and those demonic, flared nostrils. All that was missing was the yellow post-it pasted to her botoxed forehead proclaiming I am a victim. None of this is my fault. Love me.

I can say this now without impunity. Lacey Turner looks awful. She's lost so much weight that her face looks hazard and rather than looking like a young woman in her mid-twenties, she looks well past thirty, with bags under her eyes to boot. Gone are the chipmunk cheeks and also the bugs bunny front teeth. Well, at least she didn't have the same cosmetic dentist that poor Jasmine Banks had.

And once again, there was a contrived set-up for Alfie to be cast as the bad guy. 

But the focal point was the bedroom scene - actually a platonic reminiscence of all things past - between Max and Stacey in her old bedroom at the Slater Arms. This followed a ridiculously maudlin scene of Stacey being convinced that Luke had gone to the police to report her murder of Archie. (Jeez, does this mean she would have actually confessed? Because the only way Stacey can not actually be prosecuted for Archie's murder is if she confesses to the deed, herself). 

No such luck. An insistent banging at the door of the Slaters' convinces her and the ludicrously stupid Kat that the police are on the threshold, which prompts a craven bid by Treadwell-Collins and Co to get some pitiful sympathy for Stacey as she calls her five year-old-playing-a-three-year-old daughter into the foyer to tell her how much she loves her. Cue Hearts and Flowers ...

All that, for the entrance of Big Mo. (Hey, it's supposed to be an injection of comedy, dontcha know? Har-dee-har-har-har ... Well, Dominic laughed.)

But it's not long before the Big Max arrives, as Stacey scurries upstairs to cry some more, and Max forces himself past Kat, who's shown nothing since her return but concern for Stacey.

As Alfie told her in the kitchen, he's a mug, and he's been a mug for her from the getgo, but not anymore. He stayed up all night, worried about her, and when he hears what Janine's proposal was, he's adamantly against it - that Kat should lie and say that Alice killed Michael so Janine would walk free and Stacey could return to Walford as herself.

After Alfie reminded Kat that Janine had killed - well, technically, she was accused of killing - Michael, his cousin and Tommy's father, he lowered the double-edged sword of a comment that was intended to make sure Kat sat up and took notice ...

Nobody deserves to get away with murder, Kat.

No, they don't. Not Janine. Not Ronnie. Not whoever will kill Lucy Beale. And certainly not skank-arsed Stacey Slater.

But Kat doesn't see that, and she sneaks away, lying to Alfie yet again after swearing never to lie anymore, in order to give a false statement to the police about Alice murdering Michael.

Meanwhile, upstairs, we have a trip down the Stax Memory Lane ...

First, there was the ubiquitous mention of Bradley, who's become almost Christlike in Max's mind for having died for Stacey's mortal sin ...

Max misses Bradley. Bradley's death has left a void in Max's life. But he doesn't miss him as much as he loves Stacey, which was the purpose of this entire reminiscence. Max loves Stacey more than anything, which is why he goes about the goofy, dorky retcon of his romantic history since she left.

• Vanessa dumped him. (Wrong, he dumped her).
• Tanya dumped him (only when she found he was married).
• And Kirsty dumped him (finally true, but only after he dumped her.)

This was nothing more than a subtle nudge nudge wink wink to Stacey that he was now single, footloose and fancy free. In fact, Max has been doing some strange things by his own standards, ever since he found out Stacey was about.

Some of what he's done is long overdue and good - like kicking those doss house freeloaders, Cora the Bora and Dexter, out of the house. We got that warning the other day, with the state of the kitchen looking like a rancid bomb site. We got a hint of it the second day, when Max began to clean the place, himself; and we got the ultimatum, when he confronted Cora, after binning Dexter's rubbish, reminding her that she was no longer related to him, and Dexter never had been. He wanted them evicted by the end of the day.

One wonders if this would ever have come about, had Skanky Slater showed up. Probably not, but Max puts Stacey's brief bout of guilt to one side by assuring her that Bradley wanted to die for her. Bradley the Sin-Eater. Pardon me, but did he willingly jump to his death? And who could live with one person's assumed guilt as well as his death around their neck? Well, Stacey, obviously, because she was ready to land on her feet with Luke.

And now she has to leave again, this time to go to see Screaming Jean, which - again, doesn't make sense - because Jean is living with a retired member of the Metropolitan Police Force, and you can bet your bottom dollar that old Ollie won't take kindly to a murderer sleeping under his roof.

But here's the rub about why this episode showed the right thing at the wrong time - Jake Wood played a blinder last night. The old, complicated, nuanced Max Branning was back, even though he didn't surface until the very last scene.

DTC has ruined Kat and Alfie yet again, undoing all the work Lorraine Newman had done in repairing the couple from Bryan Kirkwood's nightmare, to make Kat not only unlikeable but supremely stupid once again.

Returning to the Square just in time to see Stacey leaving in a cab, she wails that she's made good her promise. She's confessed that she's seen Alice murder Michael.Now Janine will drop her charges, and poor pitiful Stacey can come home. For her. For Kat.

But then it's shoved in her face that this isn't just about Kat. It's about other factors as well, as - once again - Alfie is allowed temporary custody of his testicles in order to remind Kat that he now knows where he and their children stand in her pecking order. Stacey comes first, and he implores Max to say something, as she's just condemned Alice to a life behind bars.

But Max tells Kat she's done the right thing!

Eh?

Look, I'm no defender of Alice, and she's far from innocent in this as she did plot to kill Janine and to take her baby; plus she did stab Michael. But Max is putting a skank whore like Stacey in front of his family. Here's the man who was ready to walk out on his children in 2010 to be with Stacey, who's thrown his son's reputation away for this little whore, and who would do the same to either of his daughters. (Max was no less than honest in telling Stacey that he couldn't look after Lily, if she went to prison; he couldn't even look after his own children.) On the one side, you have Carol, cancer-ridden and fighting for Alice's freedom, and on the other, you have Max, willing to throw her under the bus for a real murderer.

Max is a dick, and so is Dominic Treadwell-Collins for pushing this tripe on the public at the public's remit. He'd do well to remember that most of the StaceyBois don't pay a licence fee; it's their parents.

MarketGate and Cindy the Greek.

When you faint, you fall whatever way you fall, and sometimes, it's not attractive. Cindy the Greek, the teenaged boy in drag, whose balls are in serious danger of dropping and who looks as though she could start shaving at any moment, lay gracefully on the floor, suffering from alcohol poisoning after six pints of lager.

Boo-hoo. She's got to go to Portugal with Nana Williams and Gina, who happen to be her legal guardians. Ian owes her nothing. She wormed her way into staying in the house and she's done nothing but abuse his hospitality, which entitles her to sympathy from the resident Court Jester, Tina - hardly, the role model to inspire something from teenaged pregnancy ...

It also proved a vehicle for involving Honker, who - I suppose - feels it her place to lecture Ian on his parenting abilities of a child who's no relation to him at all and for whom he bears no responsibility, based solely on the fact that Ian actually does consider Honker family, as she's married to his cousin.

But from the getgo, Honker is speaking to Ian as if he's a piece of dog doo on her shoe, which is the manner in which she treats her husband as well. 

It's obvious they're heading us in the direction of Honker and the increasingly annoying retard that is Tina becoming a lesbian couple, mindless of the fact that Honker was at her most self-righteous and deplorably unlikeable worst when she was involved in the lesbian affair with Gnomi. So I guess, she'll be found to carry the BRCA2 gene, get her wobbly bits whacked off and then take Tina as her bitch.

Oh, and I hated the tip to the past regarding Rebecca's adoption for two reasons - one, because there is no way in hell under British law that a birth parent can get an adopted child back, and second, it hinted broadly at the possible return of Zsa Zsa into the Carter mix. I'm tired of Tina proclaiming to the world that she was, at one and the same, a lesbian and a mother bad enough to leave her child on the Underground. And that was a hardy-har-har moment too.

And speaking of regression, Billy Mitchell's back stealing from someone who's given him a job - and that someone is the father of the boy who's his granddaughter's fella. Peter will be impressed when Billy gets caught. Again. And Ian is not as benevolent as Janine.

Tripey episode totally deserving of the low viewing figures it received. As for the StaceyBois objecting to the fact that not everyone is glad to see Stacey back, I say this:

Look at the viewing figures, sunshine. You might be part of a very small discussion forum which pays lip service to promoting discussion but who really promotes incessant passive aggressive bullying of anyone who disagrees with your thoughts, but people are voting with their remotes, and they are turning off. The world doesn't revolve around the sunlight you think is emanating from your entitled Millennial arses.