Some viewers - well, a lot, actually - are detecting a noxious odour emanating from EastEnders. More than an odour, an unpleasant smell ...
More than a smell, a stink.
People aren't stupid, and most of the intelligent viewers who've watched the show for more than a decade know that something is rotten.
EastEnders has been bleeding viewers for a long time, and last week, it went positively anaemic. Friday night, Coronation Street beat the show by 2 million viewers, and EastEnders finished third behind Emmerdale.
Let's remind ourselves that it's now the beginning of December, the show should be hotting up toward a massive Christmas storyline, and they can't get 7 million bums on seats for the initial showing on any one cold autumn night.
Let's look at this in the cold, unflattering light. EastEnders is in crisis. No matter how much they try to smile and act positive, paper over the cracks with excuses, they must be shitting themselves; yet at the same time, they must be apologists like Digital Spy's dan2008 (who I think is Daniel Kilkelly, Soaps Editor for DS) and the ludicrous fanboi xTonix, who would splatter seminal juices all over the television screen if EastEnders did nothing more than show the test signal.
These latter are the people who always come up with the same old same old stock excuses to rationalise that EastEnders really isn't doing very badly at all, thank you very much. They're the ones who, now for some reason, believe 7 million viewers on average during the late autumn period - when nights are long and cold and people just want to cosy up to the telly for some friendly viewing - are OK. In fact, they're acceptable and indicative of a healthy show. Or they're the ones who say ratings and viewing figures don't matter - or that, taken all together, the original showing, the repeat showing and Iplayers viewings make up for healthy figures.
Bollocks.
The most important set of figures are the people who sit down at 7:30 or 8:00 pm to watch the show. Everything else is icing on the cake.
If that isn't bad enough, these people are the ones who insist that nothing is wrong with the progamme. (Indeed, I've never seen a comment by xTonix that would indicate that everything about the show isn't peach-keen-perfect.) If they do admit a problem, it's all down to Bryan Kirkwood, reiterating that we're sure to see a good turn of corner next year when Sweet Lorraine takes over properly.
Sweet Lorraine has been acting EP since March, and full-time EP since June. Even she stated in her recent Digital Spy interview that when Bryan Kirkwood's name ceased to be on the masthead, her work actually began. If that's the case, viewers have a right to be concerned. Newman also stated in her interview that perception of the programme by viewers was positive.
Really, Lorraine?
I am concerned, because this attitude sounds either like she's suffering from ostrich syndrome ...
or she's given up on the long-term viewer (per se, the older viewer) altogether and is just channeling the positive feedback she gets from the tween brigade or the fanboi shippers, who don't have the best interests of the show at heart).
It wouldn't be the first time. Louise Berridge was well-known for trawling the old extinct BBC EastEnders' forum page for semi-literate positive feedback from teenaged fans - mostly of the variety of "Jamie iz fit" or "I luv Spencer" or "Shannis 4evah." It's easier to disregard the ofttimes cogent criticism from people who have watched the show from the beginning than to dwell on the positive feedback from certain tranches of viewers who either haven't watched all that long enough to understand the true feel of the show or who are only investing in a particular type of female character.
The truth is watching a soap is almost like being a voyeur, in a nice way. It's supposed to be like observing the lives of people whom we deem to be realistic enough in which we are able to relate to them and to their lives foibles. This involves investing emotionally in various characters, and this is true of any soap, especially the ones here in the UK. People who watch Corrie know Ken and Deirdre better than they know their next-door neighbours. They watched Steve McDonald, Leanne Battersby and Nick Tilsley grow up. They remember when Maria was a tomboy, when Tracey Barlowe was nice.
It's the same with EastEnders. Long-term viewers remember Ian and Sharon as adolescents. We warmed to the compassion of Pat and laughed at the gentle, often skewed humour of Dot. We rejoiced with her marriage to Jim. We watched Ricky elope with Sam, were spellbound at the Grant-Sharon-Phil triangle known as Sharongate. We watched Ian grow from gawky adolescent into young entrepreneur, watched him marry Cindy and watched her deceive him twice. We understood why he turned into a spiteful bastard, just like those of us who watched Janine arrive as a very young and very disturbed child whose father thought her more of a nuisance than a blessing watched her grow into the someone who masked her vulnerability with a hard-edged bitchiness. And who can forget Ian's Milennium non-wedding, how he lied about Lucy having cancer in order to keep Mel onside?
We invested in these people. Emotionally. We cared about them.
People complain about the length of storylines these days? Sharongate ran for two years. Saskiagate for 18 months. Frank and Pat cheated on Peggy and Roy for six months before being discovered. Longer storylines then didn't matter. The writers were proficient enough hold the viewers' interest over a period of time - writers like Tony McHale, Tony Jordan and Sarah Phelps, people who understood the characters and the show.
The most consistent complaint I've read from viewers turning off or about to turn the programme off at the moment is that there are simply no characters left on the programme they care about. Most of the ones thrust to the forefront are eminently unlikeable. The other complaint is practically the same, although worded differently, and that complaint is that EastEnders doesn't seem like EastEnders anymore. It's not familiar.
This is one of the reasons we continuously return to such programmes. It's why Coronation Street, which is in the doldrums, itself, at the moment, but which is currently managing to garner 8 to 9 million viewers in a sitting, is keeping ahead of EastEnders in viewers. Corrie goes through bad patches, sure. Any soap does. But Coronation Street retains that bit of familiarity about it. However bad it is, we know it's Corrie. We know Ken and Deirdre are there. And Rita. And even though the woman who used to be Cindy in EastEnders is now Stella, we know her long-lost daughter is Leanne, and we know and have invested in Leanne.
Look at EastEnders. Pauline is dead. Peggy has gone. Dot and Janine are away on breaks. The Mitchells had been decimated and reduced to Phil, his murdering son, the runts of the Mitchell litter (Roxy and Billy), a mouthy, little chav who didn't know she was a Mitchell one year ago, and two faux Mitchells (Shirley and Jay). The Brannings were multiplied, moved to the forefront and thrust down the viewers' throats as the family ascendant on the Square. A family, essentially, of selfish, entitled losers.
Pat died at the beginning of the year, and her death was subjugated to the Branning dominance. Derek bullied her on her deathbed. Max and Tanya, who'd never spoken to her in all their years on the Square, used her death as a reference for Tanya's cancer cold.
Dot left the Square on a break, and her house has been taken over by Cora the Bora, a Branning satellite. Joey Branning, on the invitation of a lodger about whom Dot knows nothing, has moved into the house as well.
Ian had a nervous breakdown and disappeared for six weeks. Max and Tanya helped Alfie to find him, and Tanya persuaded Max that Ian didn't need to see a doctor. Ian's entire recovery has been shoved somewhere onto the backburner, whilst some other Branning storyline moves to the forefront. We haven't seen him in weeks. We hear of him all the time, always babysitting for Sharon's son, enabling Sharon - an iconic character returned - to fuck Jack Branning or drink wine and giggle with Tanya.
Yes, Sharon, daughter of Den Watts, ex-wife of Grant Mitchell and widow of Dennis Rickman, has now been relegated to the secondary position of a Branning acolyte - sleeping with Jack on her first night back in the Square, moueing and cooing her way into his bed in exchange for a place to live, literally begging Tanya for friendship and crumbs from her wedding table. Her big secret was a painkiller addiction, which was done, dusted and cured by a confession to Jack Branning in a couple of episodes. Then Jack tried to seduce her by plying her with wine. Go figure.
The storyline surrounding Lexie's paternity and custody has taken a back seat to the Branningapalooza Christmas. Janine has left Michael and her daughter. When we last saw him, he was struggling with dealing with Scarlett and had begged Roxy to move in with him. We haven't seen him or heard of the baby in weeks.
Even the Shaggerman storyline concerning Alfie and Kat, arguably the one storyline which could beat the Ferreira kidneygate and the worst storyline to date on the programme, concerns a Branning, and drones on and on. As a commentator on Digital Spy pointed out, this storyline is a particular favourite of Lorraine Newman, and she's having difficulty understanding why the public hate it so much.
She's even having difficulty fathoming that the general public now have a singular distaste for the character of Kat, herself, and want the character gone. Time after time after time, various people in commentary have said that she is beyond redemption as a character. That she is spent. That there is no way back for her. That she is ruined.
That the same people who created her ruined her is beyond a doubt. Lorraine Newman, as Series Producer, signed off on Kat returning to the Square, pregnant with her husband's cousin's baby. Such is the shallowness of the sort of viewer whom TPTB appease that this sort actually thought it was OK for Kat to sleep with Michael Moon as she and Alfie weren't together, Alfie being in prison. Go figure that one.
Kat returned slapping her way around the Square, encouraging Stacey to break up yet another marriage, publically assaulting Alfie, verbally humiliating him, eventually cheating on him, yet again, because he wouldn't comment on the way she was dressed, and tying all this shit up in the victimised package labelled "I'm A Dirty Girl."
No one knew this Kat Moon, and now when the latest sex-for-a-lark infidelity whodunnit happens, the viewer is asked to root for Kat, laugh at her antics and at men who'd formerly never glanced in her direction, literally hung off her nipples in eager anticipation. We were supposed to root for Kat and condemn Alfie the doofus husband who was too stupid to realise what was under his very eyes.
And that was alien to the viewers' perception also.
The Square's matriarch dies, and we're presented with a whiskey-sodden, fag-ridden, drunken old lag with an attitude problem and an ASBO and asked to accept her as the font of all wisdom - a woman who tells the resident single mother to bang on the doors of Social Services until her child is returned. Failed advice. A grandmother who boozes up her already drunken granddaughter in order to bad-mouth the daughter she suddenly hates.
We've been suffering storylines which are circular consisting of repetitive scenes which go round and round in circles. How many times do we have to see Alice beg Derek and Joey to find peace? Bianca's back - another iconic female character ruined - and she's still poor and loud.
Quality characters played by quality actors are consigned to the background. Ian disappears. Max is suddenly the least important of the Branning mix. Carol is consigned to the ranks of professional Mother Hubbard, forbidden to be seen unless surrounded by gaggles of children. Denise has become Kim's straight man.
This is no longer EastEnders. It's now The Branning Show, where retconning reigns supreme. Retconned backstories are changed from year to year to accommodate whatever storyline is in play. Derek has gone from being Carol's oldest brother to her younger brother back to the oldest one again. Max and Jack were both older than she, and now they're the babies of the clan. Rainie started out as Tanya's older sister. Now she's younger. The "Auntie Debs" sister who got a mention back in 2007 is now Ava, the unknown biracial-who's-really-black long-lost sister. Tanya didn't get a backstory, herself, until 2011.
A show who gave us such fantastic, positive, determined and ambitious young people like Michelle, Ian, Kelvin, Sonia and Jamie - kids who perservered and achieved against all sorts of odds - now ask us to invest in the lazy, entitled likes of Lauren, Whitney, Lucy, Tyler and Joey. Whitney is the embodiment of the self-victimising character who refuses any responsibilities for her actions. Lauren is lazy, insolent, drunken and entitled, with no ambition. Lucy, Tyler and Joey are played by catalogue models with no acting experience. None of the three speak intelligibly; two are mouth-breathers. The so-called actress who portrays Lola is a reality television graduate. She was presented pejoratively as a chav with a mouth and no morals, who got pregnant by a distant cousin on a whim and who elected to have the baby in order to obtain benefits. Her pregnancy afforded her licence to behave appallingly and then whine that she couldn't pay the consequences because she was "fifteen and pregnant." Wah-wah-wah.
When asked specifically to list the cardinal faults presented by the show in its present form, most critics cite too many Brannings and too much emphasis on the teen element, both of which severely outweigh the more traditional elements of the show.
To top everything off, at a time when the BBC has been involved in the cover-up of a high-profiled personality who happened to be a rampant paedophile, followed by the mistaken accusations by the corporation concerning a former Tory politician, EastEnders hypes the pisspoor Romeo and Juliet association of two first cousins - Brannings, of course. The "romance" happened suddenly and grew apace within a week. One fuck and spoiled, little Lauren and unintelligle Joey cannot live without each other. Give me a break. And, besides the teen element, who cares?
That's the reigning question of the day: Who cares? Who cares about Lauren and Joey? Who cares about Kat's Shaggerman, whom we know is Derek? Who cares about Max's secret, whatever it is?
For all the brave, united front the show is showing to the public at the moment, after last week's viewing figures, they must be concerned about Christmas, which is why they're throwing everything but the Branning kitchen sink at the Christmas and New Year's shows, sacrificing Derek at the altar, in hopes of beating out the likes of Coronation Street and Downton Abbey; but the question remains whether or not whatever viewer heist is accomplished during the holiday period can be maintained?
The likes of Steve McFadden, Shane Richie and Adam Woodyatt will be off-screen much of January and February, due to pantomime commitments, which means bank on seeing Brannings, their satellites and teens, teens, teens. The short answer about sustenance is "no."
It's "no" because the show's been bleeding out for the past decade, starting in earnest with Berridge's ineptitude. Santed staunched it, but only temporarily - by the quick-fix means of bringing back old characters into the fold (Ricky, Bianca and Carol worked; Clare didn't) and sensationalist storylines whose repercussions were forgotten. Tanya tried to kill Max by burying him alive and then spent the next year fucking Jack under his nose and taunting him. Today the trio treat the whole era as a family joke.
Kirkwood continued the same old-boys-sensationalist theme. Kat and Alfie are brought back in the form of a monster and a wet blanket. They're immediately dipped into a horrifying storyline concerning a cot death and a babyswap. Santer started and Kirkwood continued the tradition of well-educated professionals in positions of trust going apeshit - Dr May, Stella and Yusef come to mind. One wonders what Newman plans to impose upon Ava Hartman.
All of this is compounded by lazy, inept writing with poor research, enacted by certain actors who can only be described nicely as deadwood.
My guess is that all the eggs are in the Christmas basket. If EastEnders falls behind Corrie or Downton or even Emmerdale in the Christmas escapade, there will be hell to pay. When viewers drop off Corrie, they seem to return in a matter of months or a year at most. When viewers leave EastEnders, they don't return; and the longer this is left not sorted, the more difficult it is to sort.
My estimation is that if things aren't good at Christmas, Ms Newman may be gone by spring. We were told she knew the score for EastEnders. I'm not so sure she does.
More than a smell, a stink.
People aren't stupid, and most of the intelligent viewers who've watched the show for more than a decade know that something is rotten.
EastEnders has been bleeding viewers for a long time, and last week, it went positively anaemic. Friday night, Coronation Street beat the show by 2 million viewers, and EastEnders finished third behind Emmerdale.
Let's remind ourselves that it's now the beginning of December, the show should be hotting up toward a massive Christmas storyline, and they can't get 7 million bums on seats for the initial showing on any one cold autumn night.
Let's look at this in the cold, unflattering light. EastEnders is in crisis. No matter how much they try to smile and act positive, paper over the cracks with excuses, they must be shitting themselves; yet at the same time, they must be apologists like Digital Spy's dan2008 (who I think is Daniel Kilkelly, Soaps Editor for DS) and the ludicrous fanboi xTonix, who would splatter seminal juices all over the television screen if EastEnders did nothing more than show the test signal.
These latter are the people who always come up with the same old same old stock excuses to rationalise that EastEnders really isn't doing very badly at all, thank you very much. They're the ones who, now for some reason, believe 7 million viewers on average during the late autumn period - when nights are long and cold and people just want to cosy up to the telly for some friendly viewing - are OK. In fact, they're acceptable and indicative of a healthy show. Or they're the ones who say ratings and viewing figures don't matter - or that, taken all together, the original showing, the repeat showing and Iplayers viewings make up for healthy figures.
Bollocks.
The most important set of figures are the people who sit down at 7:30 or 8:00 pm to watch the show. Everything else is icing on the cake.
If that isn't bad enough, these people are the ones who insist that nothing is wrong with the progamme. (Indeed, I've never seen a comment by xTonix that would indicate that everything about the show isn't peach-keen-perfect.) If they do admit a problem, it's all down to Bryan Kirkwood, reiterating that we're sure to see a good turn of corner next year when Sweet Lorraine takes over properly.
Sweet Lorraine has been acting EP since March, and full-time EP since June. Even she stated in her recent Digital Spy interview that when Bryan Kirkwood's name ceased to be on the masthead, her work actually began. If that's the case, viewers have a right to be concerned. Newman also stated in her interview that perception of the programme by viewers was positive.
Really, Lorraine?
I am concerned, because this attitude sounds either like she's suffering from ostrich syndrome ...
It wouldn't be the first time. Louise Berridge was well-known for trawling the old extinct BBC EastEnders' forum page for semi-literate positive feedback from teenaged fans - mostly of the variety of "Jamie iz fit" or "I luv Spencer" or "Shannis 4evah." It's easier to disregard the ofttimes cogent criticism from people who have watched the show from the beginning than to dwell on the positive feedback from certain tranches of viewers who either haven't watched all that long enough to understand the true feel of the show or who are only investing in a particular type of female character.
The truth is watching a soap is almost like being a voyeur, in a nice way. It's supposed to be like observing the lives of people whom we deem to be realistic enough in which we are able to relate to them and to their lives foibles. This involves investing emotionally in various characters, and this is true of any soap, especially the ones here in the UK. People who watch Corrie know Ken and Deirdre better than they know their next-door neighbours. They watched Steve McDonald, Leanne Battersby and Nick Tilsley grow up. They remember when Maria was a tomboy, when Tracey Barlowe was nice.
It's the same with EastEnders. Long-term viewers remember Ian and Sharon as adolescents. We warmed to the compassion of Pat and laughed at the gentle, often skewed humour of Dot. We rejoiced with her marriage to Jim. We watched Ricky elope with Sam, were spellbound at the Grant-Sharon-Phil triangle known as Sharongate. We watched Ian grow from gawky adolescent into young entrepreneur, watched him marry Cindy and watched her deceive him twice. We understood why he turned into a spiteful bastard, just like those of us who watched Janine arrive as a very young and very disturbed child whose father thought her more of a nuisance than a blessing watched her grow into the someone who masked her vulnerability with a hard-edged bitchiness. And who can forget Ian's Milennium non-wedding, how he lied about Lucy having cancer in order to keep Mel onside?
We invested in these people. Emotionally. We cared about them.
People complain about the length of storylines these days? Sharongate ran for two years. Saskiagate for 18 months. Frank and Pat cheated on Peggy and Roy for six months before being discovered. Longer storylines then didn't matter. The writers were proficient enough hold the viewers' interest over a period of time - writers like Tony McHale, Tony Jordan and Sarah Phelps, people who understood the characters and the show.
The most consistent complaint I've read from viewers turning off or about to turn the programme off at the moment is that there are simply no characters left on the programme they care about. Most of the ones thrust to the forefront are eminently unlikeable. The other complaint is practically the same, although worded differently, and that complaint is that EastEnders doesn't seem like EastEnders anymore. It's not familiar.
This is one of the reasons we continuously return to such programmes. It's why Coronation Street, which is in the doldrums, itself, at the moment, but which is currently managing to garner 8 to 9 million viewers in a sitting, is keeping ahead of EastEnders in viewers. Corrie goes through bad patches, sure. Any soap does. But Coronation Street retains that bit of familiarity about it. However bad it is, we know it's Corrie. We know Ken and Deirdre are there. And Rita. And even though the woman who used to be Cindy in EastEnders is now Stella, we know her long-lost daughter is Leanne, and we know and have invested in Leanne.
Look at EastEnders. Pauline is dead. Peggy has gone. Dot and Janine are away on breaks. The Mitchells had been decimated and reduced to Phil, his murdering son, the runts of the Mitchell litter (Roxy and Billy), a mouthy, little chav who didn't know she was a Mitchell one year ago, and two faux Mitchells (Shirley and Jay). The Brannings were multiplied, moved to the forefront and thrust down the viewers' throats as the family ascendant on the Square. A family, essentially, of selfish, entitled losers.
Pat died at the beginning of the year, and her death was subjugated to the Branning dominance. Derek bullied her on her deathbed. Max and Tanya, who'd never spoken to her in all their years on the Square, used her death as a reference for Tanya's cancer cold.
Dot left the Square on a break, and her house has been taken over by Cora the Bora, a Branning satellite. Joey Branning, on the invitation of a lodger about whom Dot knows nothing, has moved into the house as well.
Ian had a nervous breakdown and disappeared for six weeks. Max and Tanya helped Alfie to find him, and Tanya persuaded Max that Ian didn't need to see a doctor. Ian's entire recovery has been shoved somewhere onto the backburner, whilst some other Branning storyline moves to the forefront. We haven't seen him in weeks. We hear of him all the time, always babysitting for Sharon's son, enabling Sharon - an iconic character returned - to fuck Jack Branning or drink wine and giggle with Tanya.
Yes, Sharon, daughter of Den Watts, ex-wife of Grant Mitchell and widow of Dennis Rickman, has now been relegated to the secondary position of a Branning acolyte - sleeping with Jack on her first night back in the Square, moueing and cooing her way into his bed in exchange for a place to live, literally begging Tanya for friendship and crumbs from her wedding table. Her big secret was a painkiller addiction, which was done, dusted and cured by a confession to Jack Branning in a couple of episodes. Then Jack tried to seduce her by plying her with wine. Go figure.
The storyline surrounding Lexie's paternity and custody has taken a back seat to the Branningapalooza Christmas. Janine has left Michael and her daughter. When we last saw him, he was struggling with dealing with Scarlett and had begged Roxy to move in with him. We haven't seen him or heard of the baby in weeks.
Even the Shaggerman storyline concerning Alfie and Kat, arguably the one storyline which could beat the Ferreira kidneygate and the worst storyline to date on the programme, concerns a Branning, and drones on and on. As a commentator on Digital Spy pointed out, this storyline is a particular favourite of Lorraine Newman, and she's having difficulty understanding why the public hate it so much.
She's even having difficulty fathoming that the general public now have a singular distaste for the character of Kat, herself, and want the character gone. Time after time after time, various people in commentary have said that she is beyond redemption as a character. That she is spent. That there is no way back for her. That she is ruined.
That the same people who created her ruined her is beyond a doubt. Lorraine Newman, as Series Producer, signed off on Kat returning to the Square, pregnant with her husband's cousin's baby. Such is the shallowness of the sort of viewer whom TPTB appease that this sort actually thought it was OK for Kat to sleep with Michael Moon as she and Alfie weren't together, Alfie being in prison. Go figure that one.
Kat returned slapping her way around the Square, encouraging Stacey to break up yet another marriage, publically assaulting Alfie, verbally humiliating him, eventually cheating on him, yet again, because he wouldn't comment on the way she was dressed, and tying all this shit up in the victimised package labelled "I'm A Dirty Girl."
No one knew this Kat Moon, and now when the latest sex-for-a-lark infidelity whodunnit happens, the viewer is asked to root for Kat, laugh at her antics and at men who'd formerly never glanced in her direction, literally hung off her nipples in eager anticipation. We were supposed to root for Kat and condemn Alfie the doofus husband who was too stupid to realise what was under his very eyes.
And that was alien to the viewers' perception also.
The Square's matriarch dies, and we're presented with a whiskey-sodden, fag-ridden, drunken old lag with an attitude problem and an ASBO and asked to accept her as the font of all wisdom - a woman who tells the resident single mother to bang on the doors of Social Services until her child is returned. Failed advice. A grandmother who boozes up her already drunken granddaughter in order to bad-mouth the daughter she suddenly hates.
We've been suffering storylines which are circular consisting of repetitive scenes which go round and round in circles. How many times do we have to see Alice beg Derek and Joey to find peace? Bianca's back - another iconic female character ruined - and she's still poor and loud.
Quality characters played by quality actors are consigned to the background. Ian disappears. Max is suddenly the least important of the Branning mix. Carol is consigned to the ranks of professional Mother Hubbard, forbidden to be seen unless surrounded by gaggles of children. Denise has become Kim's straight man.
This is no longer EastEnders. It's now The Branning Show, where retconning reigns supreme. Retconned backstories are changed from year to year to accommodate whatever storyline is in play. Derek has gone from being Carol's oldest brother to her younger brother back to the oldest one again. Max and Jack were both older than she, and now they're the babies of the clan. Rainie started out as Tanya's older sister. Now she's younger. The "Auntie Debs" sister who got a mention back in 2007 is now Ava, the unknown biracial-who's-really-black long-lost sister. Tanya didn't get a backstory, herself, until 2011.
A show who gave us such fantastic, positive, determined and ambitious young people like Michelle, Ian, Kelvin, Sonia and Jamie - kids who perservered and achieved against all sorts of odds - now ask us to invest in the lazy, entitled likes of Lauren, Whitney, Lucy, Tyler and Joey. Whitney is the embodiment of the self-victimising character who refuses any responsibilities for her actions. Lauren is lazy, insolent, drunken and entitled, with no ambition. Lucy, Tyler and Joey are played by catalogue models with no acting experience. None of the three speak intelligibly; two are mouth-breathers. The so-called actress who portrays Lola is a reality television graduate. She was presented pejoratively as a chav with a mouth and no morals, who got pregnant by a distant cousin on a whim and who elected to have the baby in order to obtain benefits. Her pregnancy afforded her licence to behave appallingly and then whine that she couldn't pay the consequences because she was "fifteen and pregnant." Wah-wah-wah.
When asked specifically to list the cardinal faults presented by the show in its present form, most critics cite too many Brannings and too much emphasis on the teen element, both of which severely outweigh the more traditional elements of the show.
To top everything off, at a time when the BBC has been involved in the cover-up of a high-profiled personality who happened to be a rampant paedophile, followed by the mistaken accusations by the corporation concerning a former Tory politician, EastEnders hypes the pisspoor Romeo and Juliet association of two first cousins - Brannings, of course. The "romance" happened suddenly and grew apace within a week. One fuck and spoiled, little Lauren and unintelligle Joey cannot live without each other. Give me a break. And, besides the teen element, who cares?
That's the reigning question of the day: Who cares? Who cares about Lauren and Joey? Who cares about Kat's Shaggerman, whom we know is Derek? Who cares about Max's secret, whatever it is?
For all the brave, united front the show is showing to the public at the moment, after last week's viewing figures, they must be concerned about Christmas, which is why they're throwing everything but the Branning kitchen sink at the Christmas and New Year's shows, sacrificing Derek at the altar, in hopes of beating out the likes of Coronation Street and Downton Abbey; but the question remains whether or not whatever viewer heist is accomplished during the holiday period can be maintained?
The likes of Steve McFadden, Shane Richie and Adam Woodyatt will be off-screen much of January and February, due to pantomime commitments, which means bank on seeing Brannings, their satellites and teens, teens, teens. The short answer about sustenance is "no."
It's "no" because the show's been bleeding out for the past decade, starting in earnest with Berridge's ineptitude. Santed staunched it, but only temporarily - by the quick-fix means of bringing back old characters into the fold (Ricky, Bianca and Carol worked; Clare didn't) and sensationalist storylines whose repercussions were forgotten. Tanya tried to kill Max by burying him alive and then spent the next year fucking Jack under his nose and taunting him. Today the trio treat the whole era as a family joke.
Kirkwood continued the same old-boys-sensationalist theme. Kat and Alfie are brought back in the form of a monster and a wet blanket. They're immediately dipped into a horrifying storyline concerning a cot death and a babyswap. Santer started and Kirkwood continued the tradition of well-educated professionals in positions of trust going apeshit - Dr May, Stella and Yusef come to mind. One wonders what Newman plans to impose upon Ava Hartman.
All of this is compounded by lazy, inept writing with poor research, enacted by certain actors who can only be described nicely as deadwood.
My guess is that all the eggs are in the Christmas basket. If EastEnders falls behind Corrie or Downton or even Emmerdale in the Christmas escapade, there will be hell to pay. When viewers drop off Corrie, they seem to return in a matter of months or a year at most. When viewers leave EastEnders, they don't return; and the longer this is left not sorted, the more difficult it is to sort.
My estimation is that if things aren't good at Christmas, Ms Newman may be gone by spring. We were told she knew the score for EastEnders. I'm not so sure she does.
Thank you - I'd completely forgotten about the old EE forum and I couldn't for the life of me remember where all the pre-teen posters on the forums suddenly appeared from years back. Those were dark days.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post with first class analysis.Newman will be toast in the first half of 2013 of that I feel very sure.Shes not even steadying the troubled EastEnders ship but rather acting rather puzzled and dazed and notionless as the water seeps in sinking slowly the ship even more.Far too much emphasis is placed on winning the christmas ratings by EastEnders -one factor amongst many that is detrimental to the shows quality.Lots of decisions that should have been taken this year will now if they are taken be crammed into next year.I think at least a third of the cast never mind the writers need to go and it will probably create total chaos and huge resentment amongst those in the cast and the backroom writing who thought they were onto a cushy number.
ReplyDeleteFew of the current cast were present for the last big crisis and boy oh boy are some people going to have their bubble burst followed by a shock to the system.
Lorraine Newman would have daydreamed for years about the possibility of becoming EP and now its all gone...well its not gone too well shall we say!There are STILL idiots on soap forums saying what were seeing onscreen isnt Newmans work despite Lorraine herself saying it is!
This blog is doing a great service for the mindful EastEnders fan-Please Please continue.I believe DS and Walford Web owe you an apology.
I was waiting for your analysis of the recent ratings decline and overall crisis that's now looming. As always you're bang on the money and haven't disappointed.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the review and keep up the good work.
I love it, another blog post singling about posters and mocking their opinions!
ReplyDeleteNot only that. Read the thing. A lot of the fanbois and low-information viewers like yourself, who are clearly incapable of critical thinking (google that phrase, if you haven't been taught how to do that - should have learned the function in your secondary school education) are much of what's to blame about EastEnders, considering that the production staff are too coccooned in their little media bubble and too thin-skinned to think that whatever they're churning out just might be shite. EastEnders used to be able to take criticism on board and act upon it. They haven't been able to do that since Louise Berridge. Grow up and learn to think and then post some intelligent comment on my blog.
DeleteDS is full of so many loony fanbois. Dan2008 is the worst. He actully claimed in one thread that the reason EE was so low is because its viewers are more likely to attend Xmas Parties that the viewers of Corrie!! he is deluded. Its the likes of Dan2008 that are to blame for the mess EE is in because its clear the likes of Kris Green - who is only at EE for audience feedback, only listen to the praise and ignore all the concerns of real viewers.
ReplyDeleteCan't agree with you more regarding dan2008 and xTonix! They actually do my head in on DS and put me off even going on the forums there. Will be reading this from now on. At least you seem to know what you're talking about.
ReplyDelete"People complain about the length of storylines these days?"
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference in the stories of old you're citing and what's being put out now. I'd wait 18 months for a good reveal (like Sharongate), if the story is well-crafted and compelling. I dislike waiting any length of time in order to see something a)shite or b) completely unsurprising and uninspired. Like Kat's Shagger. Less time than Sharongate, and still shite.