And so it begins ... the beginning of the beginning of the Branningapalooza Christmas.
This:-
So these are the Brannings
Just look what they've done
Taken over EastEnders
Destroyed it, one by one ...
Or how about this one (to the tune of Turn, Turn, Turn) ...
For every scene
Gurn, gurn, gurn
We make our faces
Gurn, gurn, gurn
We have to
'Cause we're just not
Good actors.
We gurn when we smile
We gurn when we cry
Gurn when we emote
We gurn when we sigh
We even gurn when we sleep
With our mouths open
We must appear real deep.
Oh well ... usually Sharon Marshall's scripts are pretty good, and this is the last episode before a series of "big reveals" begin to peel off. I can only imagine that Sharon did the best with a bad group of actors and several ridiculous storylines, because the entire episode just had an air of "WTF" about it.
And this is what's made me very angry about EastEnders as we get closer to the festive season: We've had to suffer an entire year - and let's start from New Year's Day 2012, shall we? - starting from Pat's death, which Simon "Branningman" Ashdown managed to turn into a vehicle for a further introduction of Derek and to remind us of Tanya's cancer cold - one year of mediocre episodes, sprinkled with episodes that were just downright embarrassingly shameful, only to be confronted now with a Christmas of .... nothingness, with the only contrivance to get bums on seats being the reveal of three "secrets",which - on the face of things - aren't very interesting at all. In fact, they're annoying and trite.
Let's look at them in the context of tonight's episode.
Shaggerman
When the PR blurbs started about this storyline, which horrified literally every viewer, we were told that the affair would last the summer and then end in the autumn, with the reveal of Shaggerman's identity. TPTB made a full course meal of the storyline, almost making this interactive - encouraging viewers to make polls about the identity of Shaggerman, scores of slick publicity pics showing a leering, red-clad Kat surrounded by the Branning brothers, Michael Moon and Ray Dixon.
They did everything but return our licence fee in full as a bribe to get us to love this story.
For some reason, Lorraine Newman decided to extend the life of this storyling until Christmas and incorporate it into the Branningapalooza, which meant Shaggerman would be a bruv, which means - by simple conjecture - that Shaggerman is Derek.
The best thing about the past couple of weeks has been watching Alfie's suspiciions, mingled with hurt and disappointment, rise to the surface, as he discovers how entangled the web of Kat's lies are. They're also making Kat's situation ambiguous.
Is she still seeing Shaggerman? Or is she trying to avoid him? What happened that night Shaggerman turned stalker when Alfie was in Germany? Did Kat sleep with him? What about tonight?
Of course, tonight, we had the same old same old contrivance of Kat being in the same room as the three Branning brothers and squirming, especially when the stags were playing that car game where the toy car collides with the feet of the woman, where they then have to put their hands up if they've had sex with the woman. Then later the now-familiar scene of Kat disappearing upstairs, and "coincidentally" each of the roistering Branning brothers suddenly has to take out their phones. Of course, Kat's phone rings, and the scene morphs into what we think is the cellphone screen, showing a heart with Max's name ... only it's not. It's another red herring.
I suppose we're supposed to think it intriguing that Aflie has tricked Kat and follows her to the bedbug bedsit, where - on Thursday - we'll see him kick the door down and we'll watch Kat go into "poor-me-the-victim" mode again.
Because this is just the beginning of the kabuki theatre of the reunion of Alfie and Kat. We even got a foreshadowing of events: the replica wedding bouquet which Alfie had made for Kat, to which Jean added the willow (bends, but never breaks). Jean reminded Alfie that Christmas Day would be his and Kat's ninth wedding anniversary - which sets the stage nicely for them to reunite next Christmas, their tenth anniversary.
You heard it here first.
Highlights of this storyline tonight: Roxy's whimsical look and absent-mindedness, as Jean wittered on and on about being in love during the stag party.
Shock of the night: I knew Phil has slept with Tracy the barmaid. Back in that awful episode where the football team (and Phil) were taking the tube back to Walford, Phil got outed as having slept with Tracy. But Ian Beale? Seriously?
I'm hard put at Phil grabbing any port in a storm, but when Ian's between wives, he pays for his sex. (Glenda and Janine, anyone?)
By the way, almost all of us know that Shaggerman is Derek. Max has his other problems, and Jack the Peg is lusting after Sharon.
The stag party, really, was embarrassing. It was a gathering of anyone male, except the Masood men, who lived in Walford. The Branning brothers have no friends, just like the Mitchell sisters. Max used to be a quasi-friend of Phil's but that ended in 2009, when Max tried to swindle Peggy. Now you always see the bruvs together, bantering badly and in a manner which comes across as very forced and phony. So who do we see at Max's stag do?
Tyler Moon. Fatboy. Jay. Winston. Ian. And two blokes with no name whom we've never seen before. Oh, and Phil.
The most interesting thing about that stag do was the placemat picture of Jake Wood, taken about fifteen years ago, when Wood had hair. I was amazed at how much he actually resembled Charlie Clements, who played Bradley. For a few seconds, I kept wondering why they had Bradley's picture on the facemats, when I realised it was Max with hair.
The Dirty Little Secret Meets the Wedding of the Year
The more I see and hear of the umpteenth Branning wedding, especially if it's Max's and Tanya's. Could anything be any tackier - from the overdone rosebud cake, to the wedding dress hung in its zipbag with the note "No Peeking" attached. Tanya's getting married for the third time, the second time to Max. They have three children. What the hell is there to get excited about? Another expensive dress, a big do, with plenty of booze and a lujo holiday.
Same old same old Tanya. Someone with class would have gone for an understated wedding with just family in attendance, but not Tanya. It's the mememememememememe meme she's practiced all her life; and once again, we saw the personality trait link in the three generations of Cross women (kudos to Sharon Marshall for being astute).
Poppy is incongruous living in Dot's house (which she probably doesn't know is Dot's house), primping and prettifying herself and trying to witter on to that miserable old man-in-drag about he idealism. Poppy believes in lurve. And she's in lurve with Fatboy, when Cora the Bora set her straight.
Poppy, she said, wanted to look for a booted and suited man with a fat wallet. Just the sort of thing Tanya has done in the past. Another incongruity was Poppy sitting there making herself all fragrant and Cora the Bora blowing fag smoke all over her. Poppy's hair must smell like an ashtray when she arrives at the salon daily.
Attending Tanya's Hen Night (the 60th) were Sharon (her new BFF whom she's known all of five minutes and the manager of the venue where she had the do), Poppy (who works for her), her spoiled daughters, Bianca and Carol (relatives), Alice (enforced relative), Whitney and Bag o'Bones Beale and Kim. Zainab pulled babysitting duties for Oscar tonight, and one has to assume that DamienDen was left with Denise, because Sharon's usual babysitter, Ian, was at the stag do. That meant DamienDen was probably read his bedtime story by scary Auntie Shirley. Goodness knows where Bobby Beale was. He hasn't been seen in months.
Once again, the same old same old at the hen do - drinks, a Mr and Mrs (Again) extravaganza, with Sharon Marshall throwing a nod and a wink to fora who discuss Max's ass-et. You've seen one hen night, you've seen them all. Only this one featured Sharon in her new role as a Category B Branning satellite, worshipping at the altar of Queen Tanya.
The line of the night at this one was Cora's advice to Tanya, which has to rival Polonius's advice to Laertes from Hamlet. Cora reckons the same blood which runs in her veins courses through Tanya's and Lauren's ... i.e., alcohol. Except poor pitiful Lauren is weaker than Tanya, and that's what all tonight was about: Tanya protecting Lauren. When she told Derek she was a good parent, that made me puke.
This whole blackmail stunt is such a piece of shit. Tanya is seriously afraid Derek will snitch on poor pitiful Lauren's drunken driving. Well, let him. Lauren has never ever been punished for anything she's willingly and willfully done. The only reason she went to the hen do was because she knew Joey ...
would be there, so she could plump up her trout pout and tell him that she knew he loved her yadda yadda. She knew - jumping up and down - because he always tucks her hair behind her ear.
There he stood, in all his steroidically-enhanced, mouth-breathing, head-twitching lack of talent glory, just to tell her something she didn't understand.
She didn't understand because she couldn't understand a word he said. All I got when he left was this:-
Laurraghsovagorralivwafa.
Go. Just go. Go now. Do not pass GO and do not collect two hundred pounds. And take Gurn Girl with you. Honestly, who gives a rat's arse about this couple. Jossa is so amateur. She's incapable of emoting effectively enough to convince the audience of her pain upon being separated from someone whom we're supposed to believe is the love of her life. They're more like mates than lovers. She is so conscious of the camera, and so knowing of the fact that, to use a phrase coined by a Digital Spy commentator, she's the go-to girl on the show at the moment. Honestly, I can never before remember the show pushing an ingenue so desperately. She literally is in every episode.
You know what else I recall (and it isn't good)? Brookside tried to do the same thing with Clare Sweeney. They pushed the character of Lindsey Corkhill relentlessly. Lindsey was a poor beleagured but honest single mum, who rose to be a wannabe powerful businesswoman with dealings with gangstas and drugs. There wasn't anything "our Lindsey" couldn't do - except save the show. Jacueline Jossa is EastEnders' Clare Sweeney, with half the talent and just as much unlikeability. This bodes bad.
David Witts is just the worst actor, bar Tony Discipline, ever to appear on the show.
The Epitome of Ridiculousness
Derek.
Simply Derek. The way he's swaggering about calling the shots - manipulating and reorganising Tanya's wedding, scamming Max and then using the money to pay for the stag do, shagging Kat, needling Jack about Sharon's problems and generally reminding the viewers of why they wanted to see the end of him - as if we needed reminding.
This is seriously scary. We're one week away from Christmas, and all TPTB are offering us is the revelation that Derek's been shagging Kat (most of us figured that out), that Max probably has a lovechild he's been supporting (his problems always concern women), and that Derek will die accidentally on Christmas Day as the big episode of the year.
It's a week before Christmas
And EastEnders fans
Are wondering if
It will be good again.
Will we see fewer Brannings
Will Kat take a hit
Because at the moment
The whole show is shit.
First up to be revealed ... Shaggerman. Bring it on. (And let's end the worst storyline since the Ferreira's Kidneygate).
This:-
So these are the Brannings
Just look what they've done
Taken over EastEnders
Destroyed it, one by one ...
Or how about this one (to the tune of Turn, Turn, Turn) ...
For every scene
Gurn, gurn, gurn
We make our faces
Gurn, gurn, gurn
We have to
'Cause we're just not
Good actors.
We gurn when we smile
We gurn when we cry
Gurn when we emote
We gurn when we sigh
We even gurn when we sleep
With our mouths open
We must appear real deep.
Oh well ... usually Sharon Marshall's scripts are pretty good, and this is the last episode before a series of "big reveals" begin to peel off. I can only imagine that Sharon did the best with a bad group of actors and several ridiculous storylines, because the entire episode just had an air of "WTF" about it.
And this is what's made me very angry about EastEnders as we get closer to the festive season: We've had to suffer an entire year - and let's start from New Year's Day 2012, shall we? - starting from Pat's death, which Simon "Branningman" Ashdown managed to turn into a vehicle for a further introduction of Derek and to remind us of Tanya's cancer cold - one year of mediocre episodes, sprinkled with episodes that were just downright embarrassingly shameful, only to be confronted now with a Christmas of .... nothingness, with the only contrivance to get bums on seats being the reveal of three "secrets",which - on the face of things - aren't very interesting at all. In fact, they're annoying and trite.
Let's look at them in the context of tonight's episode.
Shaggerman
When the PR blurbs started about this storyline, which horrified literally every viewer, we were told that the affair would last the summer and then end in the autumn, with the reveal of Shaggerman's identity. TPTB made a full course meal of the storyline, almost making this interactive - encouraging viewers to make polls about the identity of Shaggerman, scores of slick publicity pics showing a leering, red-clad Kat surrounded by the Branning brothers, Michael Moon and Ray Dixon.
They did everything but return our licence fee in full as a bribe to get us to love this story.
For some reason, Lorraine Newman decided to extend the life of this storyling until Christmas and incorporate it into the Branningapalooza, which meant Shaggerman would be a bruv, which means - by simple conjecture - that Shaggerman is Derek.
The best thing about the past couple of weeks has been watching Alfie's suspiciions, mingled with hurt and disappointment, rise to the surface, as he discovers how entangled the web of Kat's lies are. They're also making Kat's situation ambiguous.
Is she still seeing Shaggerman? Or is she trying to avoid him? What happened that night Shaggerman turned stalker when Alfie was in Germany? Did Kat sleep with him? What about tonight?
Of course, tonight, we had the same old same old contrivance of Kat being in the same room as the three Branning brothers and squirming, especially when the stags were playing that car game where the toy car collides with the feet of the woman, where they then have to put their hands up if they've had sex with the woman. Then later the now-familiar scene of Kat disappearing upstairs, and "coincidentally" each of the roistering Branning brothers suddenly has to take out their phones. Of course, Kat's phone rings, and the scene morphs into what we think is the cellphone screen, showing a heart with Max's name ... only it's not. It's another red herring.
I suppose we're supposed to think it intriguing that Aflie has tricked Kat and follows her to the bedbug bedsit, where - on Thursday - we'll see him kick the door down and we'll watch Kat go into "poor-me-the-victim" mode again.
Because this is just the beginning of the kabuki theatre of the reunion of Alfie and Kat. We even got a foreshadowing of events: the replica wedding bouquet which Alfie had made for Kat, to which Jean added the willow (bends, but never breaks). Jean reminded Alfie that Christmas Day would be his and Kat's ninth wedding anniversary - which sets the stage nicely for them to reunite next Christmas, their tenth anniversary.
You heard it here first.
Highlights of this storyline tonight: Roxy's whimsical look and absent-mindedness, as Jean wittered on and on about being in love during the stag party.
Shock of the night: I knew Phil has slept with Tracy the barmaid. Back in that awful episode where the football team (and Phil) were taking the tube back to Walford, Phil got outed as having slept with Tracy. But Ian Beale? Seriously?
I'm hard put at Phil grabbing any port in a storm, but when Ian's between wives, he pays for his sex. (Glenda and Janine, anyone?)
By the way, almost all of us know that Shaggerman is Derek. Max has his other problems, and Jack the Peg is lusting after Sharon.
The stag party, really, was embarrassing. It was a gathering of anyone male, except the Masood men, who lived in Walford. The Branning brothers have no friends, just like the Mitchell sisters. Max used to be a quasi-friend of Phil's but that ended in 2009, when Max tried to swindle Peggy. Now you always see the bruvs together, bantering badly and in a manner which comes across as very forced and phony. So who do we see at Max's stag do?
Tyler Moon. Fatboy. Jay. Winston. Ian. And two blokes with no name whom we've never seen before. Oh, and Phil.
The most interesting thing about that stag do was the placemat picture of Jake Wood, taken about fifteen years ago, when Wood had hair. I was amazed at how much he actually resembled Charlie Clements, who played Bradley. For a few seconds, I kept wondering why they had Bradley's picture on the facemats, when I realised it was Max with hair.
The Dirty Little Secret Meets the Wedding of the Year
The more I see and hear of the umpteenth Branning wedding, especially if it's Max's and Tanya's. Could anything be any tackier - from the overdone rosebud cake, to the wedding dress hung in its zipbag with the note "No Peeking" attached. Tanya's getting married for the third time, the second time to Max. They have three children. What the hell is there to get excited about? Another expensive dress, a big do, with plenty of booze and a lujo holiday.
Same old same old Tanya. Someone with class would have gone for an understated wedding with just family in attendance, but not Tanya. It's the mememememememememe meme she's practiced all her life; and once again, we saw the personality trait link in the three generations of Cross women (kudos to Sharon Marshall for being astute).
Poppy is incongruous living in Dot's house (which she probably doesn't know is Dot's house), primping and prettifying herself and trying to witter on to that miserable old man-in-drag about he idealism. Poppy believes in lurve. And she's in lurve with Fatboy, when Cora the Bora set her straight.
Poppy, she said, wanted to look for a booted and suited man with a fat wallet. Just the sort of thing Tanya has done in the past. Another incongruity was Poppy sitting there making herself all fragrant and Cora the Bora blowing fag smoke all over her. Poppy's hair must smell like an ashtray when she arrives at the salon daily.
Attending Tanya's Hen Night (the 60th) were Sharon (her new BFF whom she's known all of five minutes and the manager of the venue where she had the do), Poppy (who works for her), her spoiled daughters, Bianca and Carol (relatives), Alice (enforced relative), Whitney and Bag o'Bones Beale and Kim. Zainab pulled babysitting duties for Oscar tonight, and one has to assume that DamienDen was left with Denise, because Sharon's usual babysitter, Ian, was at the stag do. That meant DamienDen was probably read his bedtime story by scary Auntie Shirley. Goodness knows where Bobby Beale was. He hasn't been seen in months.
Once again, the same old same old at the hen do - drinks, a Mr and Mrs (Again) extravaganza, with Sharon Marshall throwing a nod and a wink to fora who discuss Max's ass-et. You've seen one hen night, you've seen them all. Only this one featured Sharon in her new role as a Category B Branning satellite, worshipping at the altar of Queen Tanya.
The line of the night at this one was Cora's advice to Tanya, which has to rival Polonius's advice to Laertes from Hamlet. Cora reckons the same blood which runs in her veins courses through Tanya's and Lauren's ... i.e., alcohol. Except poor pitiful Lauren is weaker than Tanya, and that's what all tonight was about: Tanya protecting Lauren. When she told Derek she was a good parent, that made me puke.
This whole blackmail stunt is such a piece of shit. Tanya is seriously afraid Derek will snitch on poor pitiful Lauren's drunken driving. Well, let him. Lauren has never ever been punished for anything she's willingly and willfully done. The only reason she went to the hen do was because she knew Joey ...
There he stood, in all his steroidically-enhanced, mouth-breathing, head-twitching lack of talent glory, just to tell her something she didn't understand.
She didn't understand because she couldn't understand a word he said. All I got when he left was this:-
Laurraghsovagorralivwafa.
Go. Just go. Go now. Do not pass GO and do not collect two hundred pounds. And take Gurn Girl with you. Honestly, who gives a rat's arse about this couple. Jossa is so amateur. She's incapable of emoting effectively enough to convince the audience of her pain upon being separated from someone whom we're supposed to believe is the love of her life. They're more like mates than lovers. She is so conscious of the camera, and so knowing of the fact that, to use a phrase coined by a Digital Spy commentator, she's the go-to girl on the show at the moment. Honestly, I can never before remember the show pushing an ingenue so desperately. She literally is in every episode.
You know what else I recall (and it isn't good)? Brookside tried to do the same thing with Clare Sweeney. They pushed the character of Lindsey Corkhill relentlessly. Lindsey was a poor beleagured but honest single mum, who rose to be a wannabe powerful businesswoman with dealings with gangstas and drugs. There wasn't anything "our Lindsey" couldn't do - except save the show. Jacueline Jossa is EastEnders' Clare Sweeney, with half the talent and just as much unlikeability. This bodes bad.
David Witts is just the worst actor, bar Tony Discipline, ever to appear on the show.
The Epitome of Ridiculousness
Derek.
Simply Derek. The way he's swaggering about calling the shots - manipulating and reorganising Tanya's wedding, scamming Max and then using the money to pay for the stag do, shagging Kat, needling Jack about Sharon's problems and generally reminding the viewers of why they wanted to see the end of him - as if we needed reminding.
This is seriously scary. We're one week away from Christmas, and all TPTB are offering us is the revelation that Derek's been shagging Kat (most of us figured that out), that Max probably has a lovechild he's been supporting (his problems always concern women), and that Derek will die accidentally on Christmas Day as the big episode of the year.
It's a week before Christmas
And EastEnders fans
Are wondering if
It will be good again.
Will we see fewer Brannings
Will Kat take a hit
Because at the moment
The whole show is shit.
First up to be revealed ... Shaggerman. Bring it on. (And let's end the worst storyline since the Ferreira's Kidneygate).
Don't forget we have the ever so exciting reveal of Davids letter to Carol. Well at least it means more Carol.
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