Automatic for the People (good choice of screen name) is a recent returnee viewer for EastEnders and a newish contributor to the Walford Web kindergarten.
He wonders exactly how much has been retconned in the show, especially since he left off watching earlier in the decade.
Sey, another contributor who really does know his stuff, is quite right in saying that - prior to recently - the only thing that had been retconned in EastEnders was adding a year to Ian Beale's age back in the 80s. Within the last decade, however, retconning has been used to such a degree that it's now become a way of life on the programme - so much so that there were people lobbying for Sharon's entire backstory to be wiped away in order to arrange for her to be revealed as Cora's secret daughter!
Retconning is just a euphemism for lazy writing and lack of imagination. And on a show which used to pride itself in gritty realism, EastEnders really needs to get a grip before it becomes a joke in and of itself.
It goes without saying that the Brannings brought retconning as an art to the fore in the programme. The very order of their birth is one big retcon, done to suit the story of the day.
Example?
When Carol returned to Walford with Alan and her gaggle of kids in the mid-Nineties, and David discovered that Bianca was his daughter, he remarked, in front of his mother Pat and his aunt, Pauline, and in front of Carol, that the price he'd paid for impregnating a teenaged Carol Branning was to get beaten up by her three older brothers.
OK, we knew then that Carol had 3 brothers, so that would have made Derek, Max and Jack older than Carol, right?
Wrong.
Fast forward a couple of years to when Carol's older sister April put in an appearance, and we got to meet the Branning crew. Carol was then thirty-three, but she referred to a thinner, balder Derek as being thirty-two, although the two skin-headed racist thugs, identified as her brothers Max and Jack, did look older than she. Indeed, the sibling order of the Brannings was originally as follows (based on the wedding that wasn't):-
April
Max
Jack
Carol
Derek
Suzy
Zoom forward to the next century and Max's arrival in Walford, later followed by Jack. It was obvious from Max's age that he was younger than Carol, so the age order, with Suzy's arrival became:-
April
Derek
Carol
Suzy
Max
Jack
Only to be altered once again and finally to accommodate Derek as the oldest son:-
Derek
April
Carol
Suzy
Max
Jack
Enough to make your head swim.
It's not just Max's side of the family either. When Max and Tanya arrived, Tanya repeatedly made reference, in conversation with Lauren and Abi about having a sister ... "Auntie Debs." One year later, up pops Rainie, Tanya's older drug-addled sister. No further mention of Debs, but five years down the line, and Rainie is suddenly Tanya's younger sister.
Go figure.
Sey was right in remembering one of the biggest retcons yet as of 2012. Back in 2008, when Tony King was released from prison, both Pat and Ricky were confused because he was said to be Morgan's father. Morgan is biracial, where Tony was decidedly a white man. This led to Bianca's painful confession of her lifestyle in the wake of Nathan Dean's death- a series of drunken one night stands, with men whose names she never knew. Suddenly she found herself pregnant, but couldn't imagine who the father would be.
Heavily pregnant and on a rainy night out with the kids, the wheel on Tiffany's pushchair broke. From out of the mist and rain stepped Tony, who mended the wheel and moved in with the family. When Bianca confessed that she didn't know her latest kid's father, he offered up his name to go on the birth certificate. Even when Morgan was born, Bianca simply had no idea whom his father could be.
By January 2012, it seems that not only did Bianca know who fathered Morgan, she had his telephone number in her address book. Whitney contacted Ray, whom she remembered. In Kirkwood's world, Bianca knew Ray long enough to have had a protracted affair where she succeeded in nicking 500 quid off him. If that wasn't enough, Ray knew Tony King and introduced him to Bianca.
(Cue Dragnet theme)
In October 2009, Ian Beale visited Sharon Rickman in Florida, where she lived, in order to celebrate her 40th birthday. He returned weeks later, raving about how much of a Southfork spread her home was and how well she was doing. In the next few weeks, we're about to find out that Sharon's been in the UK for four years - so I guess Ian must have thought the blonde woman in the big house in Florida was Sharon ... talk about Southern hospitality!
Retcon.
The talk of making Sharon Cora's long-lost daughter was daft in the least, although several people tried to pretend that "Carol Hanley" really was "Cora Anderton," or even that Carol kept the baby for Cora. This is almost as surreal as the ubiquitous combination of coma and witness protection which surfaces from time to time surrounding Kathy Beale.
Now, there's the current retcon demand by the lowest common denominator of fanboy and girl that Lauren is actually Derek's daughter. We've had people reckoning Tanya was raped by Derek or that she cheated on Max with Derek, when last year, we had two very different and very similar stories of when and whom Tanya met in Max's family when they were just starting out as a couple. Here they are:-
Summer 2011: Carol confirms Jim and Max fell out over Tanya. When Tanya was pregnant and Max had left Rachel, he took his pregnant girlfriend home to meet Jim and Reenie. Carol was visiting at the time. Jim blew a gasket that Max had literally abandoned his wife and child for a teenaged floozy he'd got up the duff. They quarrelled, and Max left the area with Tanya.
November 2011 (Branning Week): When Derek Met Tanya: When Derek arrived in Walford and renewed his acquaintance with Tanya, Rainie and Cora, he pointedly remarked that he and Jack were the only members of Max's family to attend Max and Tanya's wedding. Lauren was born in March 1994; Max and Tanya married in August 1994, when Lauren was five months old. Derek remarked that the wedding was the first time either he or Jack had met either Tanya or Rainie or Cora. So, no, Lauren is not Derek's daughter - even via rape, because who the hell would imagine Tanya carrying a rapist's child to term?
Viewers and writers both need to get a grip, because one fuels the others' laziness.
He wonders exactly how much has been retconned in the show, especially since he left off watching earlier in the decade.
Sey, another contributor who really does know his stuff, is quite right in saying that - prior to recently - the only thing that had been retconned in EastEnders was adding a year to Ian Beale's age back in the 80s. Within the last decade, however, retconning has been used to such a degree that it's now become a way of life on the programme - so much so that there were people lobbying for Sharon's entire backstory to be wiped away in order to arrange for her to be revealed as Cora's secret daughter!
Retconning is just a euphemism for lazy writing and lack of imagination. And on a show which used to pride itself in gritty realism, EastEnders really needs to get a grip before it becomes a joke in and of itself.
It goes without saying that the Brannings brought retconning as an art to the fore in the programme. The very order of their birth is one big retcon, done to suit the story of the day.
Example?
When Carol returned to Walford with Alan and her gaggle of kids in the mid-Nineties, and David discovered that Bianca was his daughter, he remarked, in front of his mother Pat and his aunt, Pauline, and in front of Carol, that the price he'd paid for impregnating a teenaged Carol Branning was to get beaten up by her three older brothers.
OK, we knew then that Carol had 3 brothers, so that would have made Derek, Max and Jack older than Carol, right?
Wrong.
Fast forward a couple of years to when Carol's older sister April put in an appearance, and we got to meet the Branning crew. Carol was then thirty-three, but she referred to a thinner, balder Derek as being thirty-two, although the two skin-headed racist thugs, identified as her brothers Max and Jack, did look older than she. Indeed, the sibling order of the Brannings was originally as follows (based on the wedding that wasn't):-
April
Max
Jack
Carol
Derek
Suzy
Zoom forward to the next century and Max's arrival in Walford, later followed by Jack. It was obvious from Max's age that he was younger than Carol, so the age order, with Suzy's arrival became:-
April
Derek
Carol
Suzy
Max
Jack
Only to be altered once again and finally to accommodate Derek as the oldest son:-
Derek
April
Carol
Suzy
Max
Jack
Enough to make your head swim.
It's not just Max's side of the family either. When Max and Tanya arrived, Tanya repeatedly made reference, in conversation with Lauren and Abi about having a sister ... "Auntie Debs." One year later, up pops Rainie, Tanya's older drug-addled sister. No further mention of Debs, but five years down the line, and Rainie is suddenly Tanya's younger sister.
Go figure.
Sey was right in remembering one of the biggest retcons yet as of 2012. Back in 2008, when Tony King was released from prison, both Pat and Ricky were confused because he was said to be Morgan's father. Morgan is biracial, where Tony was decidedly a white man. This led to Bianca's painful confession of her lifestyle in the wake of Nathan Dean's death- a series of drunken one night stands, with men whose names she never knew. Suddenly she found herself pregnant, but couldn't imagine who the father would be.
Heavily pregnant and on a rainy night out with the kids, the wheel on Tiffany's pushchair broke. From out of the mist and rain stepped Tony, who mended the wheel and moved in with the family. When Bianca confessed that she didn't know her latest kid's father, he offered up his name to go on the birth certificate. Even when Morgan was born, Bianca simply had no idea whom his father could be.
By January 2012, it seems that not only did Bianca know who fathered Morgan, she had his telephone number in her address book. Whitney contacted Ray, whom she remembered. In Kirkwood's world, Bianca knew Ray long enough to have had a protracted affair where she succeeded in nicking 500 quid off him. If that wasn't enough, Ray knew Tony King and introduced him to Bianca.
(Cue Dragnet theme)
In October 2009, Ian Beale visited Sharon Rickman in Florida, where she lived, in order to celebrate her 40th birthday. He returned weeks later, raving about how much of a Southfork spread her home was and how well she was doing. In the next few weeks, we're about to find out that Sharon's been in the UK for four years - so I guess Ian must have thought the blonde woman in the big house in Florida was Sharon ... talk about Southern hospitality!
Retcon.
The talk of making Sharon Cora's long-lost daughter was daft in the least, although several people tried to pretend that "Carol Hanley" really was "Cora Anderton," or even that Carol kept the baby for Cora. This is almost as surreal as the ubiquitous combination of coma and witness protection which surfaces from time to time surrounding Kathy Beale.
Now, there's the current retcon demand by the lowest common denominator of fanboy and girl that Lauren is actually Derek's daughter. We've had people reckoning Tanya was raped by Derek or that she cheated on Max with Derek, when last year, we had two very different and very similar stories of when and whom Tanya met in Max's family when they were just starting out as a couple. Here they are:-
Summer 2011: Carol confirms Jim and Max fell out over Tanya. When Tanya was pregnant and Max had left Rachel, he took his pregnant girlfriend home to meet Jim and Reenie. Carol was visiting at the time. Jim blew a gasket that Max had literally abandoned his wife and child for a teenaged floozy he'd got up the duff. They quarrelled, and Max left the area with Tanya.
November 2011 (Branning Week): When Derek Met Tanya: When Derek arrived in Walford and renewed his acquaintance with Tanya, Rainie and Cora, he pointedly remarked that he and Jack were the only members of Max's family to attend Max and Tanya's wedding. Lauren was born in March 1994; Max and Tanya married in August 1994, when Lauren was five months old. Derek remarked that the wedding was the first time either he or Jack had met either Tanya or Rainie or Cora. So, no, Lauren is not Derek's daughter - even via rape, because who the hell would imagine Tanya carrying a rapist's child to term?
Viewers and writers both need to get a grip, because one fuels the others' laziness.
Got to agree with you there Emilia.
ReplyDeleteContinuity has never been a strong point of EE writers though....