The Lowest Common Denominator

Hands up, anyone, who's sick as pig shit over the endless, endless Branning overload? Let me be more specific ... hands up, anyone who's watched EastEnders since before 2000 and who's sick as pigshit of endless drivel being fed us on a weekly basis about a dysfunctional white trash family masquerading as middle class, who are built on sharing each other's spouses, inbreeding and general sensationalism.

I can count on my right hand precisely how many of the Brannings are remotely interesting ... two: Max and Carol. Carol has been a familiar part of Walford since the early 1990s (that means when EastEnders was good) and Max is probably the last truly nuanced character introduced to the show. Besides, these characters are played by pretty good actors. I mean ... there's Jake Wood and Lindsey Coulson ... and then there's Jamie Foreman (caricatured Fifties'-style EastEnd gangster), Jacqueline Jossa (gurn, shout), Scott Maslen (nice guy, shame he's a plank of wood as an actor) and David Witts (mouth-breathing troglodyte who's bloody unitelligible).

There really is no comparison.

So Week 47 spoilers, just released, promise a BranningFest in BranningVille with the possibility of maybe an extra episode to celebrate BranningDay. That's the week that:-

• Tanya finds Ava
• Cora meets Ava
• Lauren and Joey (how about "Loey" as that describes the collective level of their talent) give into their passion (as if they know what it is - how about horniness?) and get found out.
• Derek gets annoyed by this
• The inevitable car crash where no one gets hurt

It's also the week where Poppy comforts Fatboy, who's been knocked back by Denise, and Poppy's younger sister, Tansy, arrives. (I have a dog named Tansy).

Do you get the picture? When we're not being overdosed on Branningalia, we're being subjected to Walford's own resident Brat Pack, ever-increasing - it seems - with the addition of Poppy's younger sister. Just for good measure, however, TPTB have throwh us a few crumbs of the storyline concerning Phil's attempts to gain custody of his granddaughter whilst getting into Sharon's knickers - easily the most interesting storyline on the go at the moment, because it doesn't concern latent adolescents or the Brannings or both.

Yes, it has been a boring bloody autumn. We've had to contend with the Shaggerman mystery (boring and just tacky), Janine's departure, and waving good-bye to Chryed, who can't leave soon enough. Now we've got Walford's own version of Star-Crossed Lovers.  If Romeo and Juliet were like Joey and Lauren, their parents would have killed them at birth. Instead of the Montagues and the Capulets, Joey and Lauren are more like Ernest T Bass and Charlene Darling ...

The poor white Cockney version, that is ... Ernest T and Charlene were better spoken and didn't gurn.

Anyhoo, some people are shallow enough to please easily, if the bairns in residence at the Walford Web kindergarten and on Digital Spy soaps' forum are anything by which to judge this phenomenon. Gone and forgotten are how atrocious the Branning family are, wiped from the mind is how nasty a little bitch Lauren is and obliterated is the fact that Joey is one bloody fucking awful character played by a bloody fucking awful imitation of an actor. 

Nope, the sheeple hear "forbidden love" and "car crash" and "new teen coming" and they begin to sound like a bit like this in eager anticipation:-

Actually, those dogs are probably a lot nicer than gurning Lauren and shitty Joey and a lot more attractive and talented than the actors who portray them.

Get a grip: When EastEnders is good, it's bloody brilliant, but when it sinks to depths like this, it's utter shite.