Another debate is raging at the moment on Digital Spy about Sharon's return, with several people feeling decidedly underwhelmed by the events surrounding this.
This sort of feeling, frankly, is to be expected, considering they hype the BBC PR department put out about it. Quite succinctly, we could be forgiven for believing that TPTB thought, from the onset, that the return of one of the original characters - and an iconic one at that - would have solved all the problems from which the show has been suffering of late.
That's simply not the case. To be honest, there's more wrong with Eastenders at the moment than is right, and it's been that way for a long time. The last really decent Executive Producer the show had was actually John Yorke, whose tenure lasted from 2000 until 2002, but even he introduced practices which were less than salubrious for the show's future.
He introduced the Slater family, devoted an entire programme to their introduction and then proceeded to interject at least one of them into every active storyline or familiar venue on the Square. We were overdosed with Slaters to the point of saturation until the writers came up with a contingency plan (the "You're Not Mah Muvvah" storyline) which scored a hit. But Yorke hired a gaggle of inexperienced actors, some of whom were unable to cope with the pressures of instant fame, who then proceeded to alienate several of the show's more established stars.
The spiral has been downward since Yorke's tenure: Berridge, who made Den Watts a Lazarus figure and gave us the intricacies of the Ferreiras' kidneygate; Hutchison, who famously tore up six months' worth of scripts and consigned Dirty Den to the depths of the grave once more; and Harwood, who gave us Saint Stacey Slater and killed Dennis Rickman. Diederick Santer turned the thing into The Ronnie-and-Stacey Show, and it's hit rock bottom with the tit-and-ass teenfest and retcon vehicle created by Bryan Kirkwood.
Turning around this mother isn't going to be easy, and it isn't going to happen overnight.
Coupling the second return of Sharon with the revelation that Ben killed Heather will get bums on seats, but within two weeks this ship will have sailed again, and we're left with the Shagger storyline until autumn. And nobody's liking that.
Look, summer is always a downside period for the soap genre. Days are longer, the weather's nicer, people are outside or on holiday, and the viewing figures decrease. Eastenders' problem is that the viewing figures have been steadily decreasing for sometime. Yes, they made it up to 7.8 million for Sharon's return, but that's what Coronation Street hauled in on a normal night, and Corrie pulled in more viewers than EE for their second showing that evening.
Of course, bringing Sharon back isn't going to magically rid Eastenders of everything that's wrong with it. We don't even know if Sharon's return is going to be successful. At the moment, I'm a doubter. Rather than integrate her into a frame with characters with whom she's familiar and introduce her to their situations (Phil, Ian and also Janine). TPTB seem intent on establishing a foundation for her with the Brannings, imbedding (pun intended) her with them in a cack-handed effort to establish the Branning family as a bona fide elite part of Albert Square. Here's the plan: first we marry Dot off to the patriarch, but when he's carted off to the care home, we make it more permanent by effecting the union of Walford's original Princess with the Brannings' very own Clown Prince of Cockdom, HRH Jack.
As Digitial Spy's Scrabbler concedes, there's a lot of work to be done in tarting Eastenders up to scratch again. First and foremost, the show needs a Research and Continuity Department back again. No more retconning. People notice this, and whilst a lot of the younger and newer viewers are intellectually lazy enough to accept this shit, many of the long-term ones aren't. Get away from tacking on long-lost family members and create some new blood.
Then, tighten up the writing team and do some bloody research. The Tanya cancer storyline was a bloody disgrace and an insult to anyone who's ever suffered from cancer. Rule One: You cannot cannot cannot cannot drink when you have chemotherapy. It really isn't rocket science.
Finally, before any new characters can be introduced, there has to be some serious paring of the deadwood which is inhabiting the Square at the moment in spades - and this is occurring at all levels.
In my opinion, these are the characters who are axable at the moment:-
This sort of feeling, frankly, is to be expected, considering they hype the BBC PR department put out about it. Quite succinctly, we could be forgiven for believing that TPTB thought, from the onset, that the return of one of the original characters - and an iconic one at that - would have solved all the problems from which the show has been suffering of late.
That's simply not the case. To be honest, there's more wrong with Eastenders at the moment than is right, and it's been that way for a long time. The last really decent Executive Producer the show had was actually John Yorke, whose tenure lasted from 2000 until 2002, but even he introduced practices which were less than salubrious for the show's future.
He introduced the Slater family, devoted an entire programme to their introduction and then proceeded to interject at least one of them into every active storyline or familiar venue on the Square. We were overdosed with Slaters to the point of saturation until the writers came up with a contingency plan (the "You're Not Mah Muvvah" storyline) which scored a hit. But Yorke hired a gaggle of inexperienced actors, some of whom were unable to cope with the pressures of instant fame, who then proceeded to alienate several of the show's more established stars.
The spiral has been downward since Yorke's tenure: Berridge, who made Den Watts a Lazarus figure and gave us the intricacies of the Ferreiras' kidneygate; Hutchison, who famously tore up six months' worth of scripts and consigned Dirty Den to the depths of the grave once more; and Harwood, who gave us Saint Stacey Slater and killed Dennis Rickman. Diederick Santer turned the thing into The Ronnie-and-Stacey Show, and it's hit rock bottom with the tit-and-ass teenfest and retcon vehicle created by Bryan Kirkwood.
Turning around this mother isn't going to be easy, and it isn't going to happen overnight.
Coupling the second return of Sharon with the revelation that Ben killed Heather will get bums on seats, but within two weeks this ship will have sailed again, and we're left with the Shagger storyline until autumn. And nobody's liking that.
Look, summer is always a downside period for the soap genre. Days are longer, the weather's nicer, people are outside or on holiday, and the viewing figures decrease. Eastenders' problem is that the viewing figures have been steadily decreasing for sometime. Yes, they made it up to 7.8 million for Sharon's return, but that's what Coronation Street hauled in on a normal night, and Corrie pulled in more viewers than EE for their second showing that evening.
Of course, bringing Sharon back isn't going to magically rid Eastenders of everything that's wrong with it. We don't even know if Sharon's return is going to be successful. At the moment, I'm a doubter. Rather than integrate her into a frame with characters with whom she's familiar and introduce her to their situations (Phil, Ian and also Janine). TPTB seem intent on establishing a foundation for her with the Brannings, imbedding (pun intended) her with them in a cack-handed effort to establish the Branning family as a bona fide elite part of Albert Square. Here's the plan: first we marry Dot off to the patriarch, but when he's carted off to the care home, we make it more permanent by effecting the union of Walford's original Princess with the Brannings' very own Clown Prince of Cockdom, HRH Jack.
As Digitial Spy's Scrabbler concedes, there's a lot of work to be done in tarting Eastenders up to scratch again. First and foremost, the show needs a Research and Continuity Department back again. No more retconning. People notice this, and whilst a lot of the younger and newer viewers are intellectually lazy enough to accept this shit, many of the long-term ones aren't. Get away from tacking on long-lost family members and create some new blood.
Then, tighten up the writing team and do some bloody research. The Tanya cancer storyline was a bloody disgrace and an insult to anyone who's ever suffered from cancer. Rule One: You cannot cannot cannot cannot drink when you have chemotherapy. It really isn't rocket science.
Finally, before any new characters can be introduced, there has to be some serious paring of the deadwood which is inhabiting the Square at the moment in spades - and this is occurring at all levels.
In my opinion, these are the characters who are axable at the moment:-
- Kat: As the DS forum member felixrex stated, that ship sailed long ago. The big meme at the moment on the programme, especially amongst certain female characters is a propensity not to accept responsibility for their actions. It's time the writers/producers followed suit. Kat wasn't broken, but someone (i e Bryan Kirkwood) decided she needed fixing, and in doing so, broke her irrevocably. Quite simply, she can't be fixed. Time for TPTB, in the shape of Ms Newman, to find her balls and wield the axe. It's a sad thing to do, but Kat's unwatchable at the moment and the viewers dislike her. She should leave at the end of this lamentably bad storyline or, at the latest, at Christmas. And she should leaave in disgrace.
- Jack: Created for Ronnie and now Ronnie's gone. He's impregnated her, her sister and her cousin. Sharon is not a substitute Mitchell. Scott Maslen's a nice man, but he's wooden, and he brings down every actress who's asked to share a scene with him. From dark and moody bent copper to broody, rejected husband to priapic walking penis, he's an epic failure. He needs to go spend time with his various children around the world.
- Bianca: Quite honestly, Newman should never consider asking this actress to return. She treats the programme like an ATM, using it only as a means by which she can pay her au pair and the various private schools who tutor her growing brood. She never intended to return the last time and blindsided the inadequate producer into an unworkable contract designed to give her half a year off and to ensure that she's featured heavily the other half year she's working. She's slagged the show off repeatedly, and on her last hiatus, stated that she didn't miss it in the least. Send her to bloody Coventry and don't have her back. Ricky never worked without Bianca, and it goes without saying that Bianca won't work without Ricky.
- Bianca's Brood: All of them. No dozy Liam, no Morgan and no Tiffany. I honestly don't think the show could stand the double dose of obnoxious that not only includes Tiffany but now includes DamienDenny Rickman.
- Whitney the Witless: To paraphrase an old song, they made us love her, we didn't want to do it ... and we didn't. A more annoying, self-righteous little slapper never ever walked the pavements of Walford. She's had more men than the Blackwall Tunnel's had cars on a bad day. Go. Go now. She is not sympathetic, just another self-obsessed victim.
- Tyler Moon: A character who was created without purpose or direction, merely to double as a juvenile sex symbol, played by an inexperienced "actor" (using the term loosely) hired only because the EP thought he was pretty. Can't act, can't speak, can't even get a job imitating a wooden Indian. Bye.
- Lauren: This girl needs to go to a proper drama school, hopefully where they'll teach her that film actors don't need to gurn now in order to emote. That's been the purpose of sound in film for 80 years. And please send her to school as well. If her Facebook page is genuine, she's functionally illiterate. In the meantime, she can always get a job as a prison visitor - at least, she'll get to see her father more.
- Lucy: Epically bad recast. Marginally better than the one-note actress who played her before, this girl is too posh and too pretty. And she needs a square meal. Send her away to be fattened up. Back to Nana Bev in Dorset to glug a load of cream.
- Derek (AKA Delboy): Good actor, bad character and totally retconned. The reason he's not connecting with the audience is that he's basing his characterisation on people who lived in the East End forty or fifty years ago. Move on. Back to prison or to the graveyard.
- Joey (AKA Rod-Knee): Please stop hiring beefed-up underwear models with no acting experience. His chief claim to fame is walking around shirtless, thrusting his tongue in his cheek for emphasis and hanging his mouth open. He can't manage an East End accent so he whispers, thinking this sounds, variously, sexy and threatening. It actually sounds dumb. Plus, he's hateful, manipulative and unattractive. Axe, please.
- Lola: She's not charming, she's not endearing and having a baby doesn't make us think she's cute. Punk Mary was a single mother of dubious means and she had more going for her than this pitiless, loud-mouthed little chav. She can run away at Christmas with the inbred Mitchell sprog.
- Fatboy: The poor man's Ali G routine is boring.
- Big Mo: In twelve years, this character has never had a major storyline. Hired because she's the sister of a major Hollywood star. Face it, Gary Oldman's never going to do a cameo.
- Jean: At worst, creepy and annoying; at best, barely tolerable. Someone ventured the suggestion that TPTB are trying to turn her into the new Dot, which, worryingly, makes me think June Brown isn't returning. Dot could be dippy, but she was never pig-shit thick - and that's got nothing to do with Jean's medical condition. She can bugger off with Kat and they can give each other baths someplace.
Comebacks:-
- Carly and Dean Wicks: Shirley's abandonment of her children and her role as a mother has never been sufficiently examined. They're also the right age demographic which is lacking on the show at the moment. Plus, Dean's stint in prison has given him that hardman with a vulnerable core mien which has always worked so well on Eastenders in the past. We need to see a new direction for Shirley and we need to see her address her role as a real mother and grandmother.
- Grant-Fucking-Mitchell: Sharon's back. Phil's back. Loads of mileage left in resolving Sharongate. Need I say more?
- Courtney Mitchell: Child of Tiffany, the original Material Girl; granddaughter of Peggy. Potential friend for Abi Branning. Let the games begin.
Although I'm averse to introducing long-lost family members and any other people who have a connection on the Square, I'd make exceptions for the following:-
- Frankie Moon: But only if she's played by Denise Van Outen. If Jack stays, he's got another blonde he can snog. She can buy the Salon off silly Tanya, have a tongue sharp enough to silence Cora, and share a laugh with Alfie in the Vic. And let her be the only one who knows the score of Michael Moon, her brother.
- John the Jilted Groom: I've wanted Jesse Birdsall in Eastenders for years. A rougher version of Steve Owen and a beefed-up version of Jack Branning. Potential snogger for Frankie Moon; would scare the piss out of Sharon and be a worthy foe for the Bruvs. And make him rich, sinister, tough and with a soupcon of goodness.
And do not bring back:-
- Any Slater Sister: On pain of death.
- Stacey Slater: The only exception for her return would be if she's punished for murdering Archie Mitchell.
- Anthony Moon: Simply because he wants to return.
- Nick Cotton: He's overstayed his welcome.
That should just about do the trick, but that's only the beginning.
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