The Branning Bitchfest Overkill Show - Review 25.01.2013

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new theme song for what used to be and is no more EastEnders:-

Who are the people who write this stuff? Who is Katie Douglas? She sounds like some pithy little girl writing for the high school review, judging by this episode?

Oh, and hands up, who's bloody fed up with the Branningfest we've been forcibly fed four times weekly since November? Honestly, there hasn't been one episode - one flaming episode - in which a Branning or a Branning satellite hasn't appeared. 

I know there are shippers (xTonix - hyuck hyuck hyuck), professional plants (dan2008) and obsessives (Mormon Girl) who worship the ground the Brannings walk on and see nothing wrong with EastEnders in its current state. I suppose people who've watched the thing long-term simply don't matter anymore, which tells me that EastEnders either isn't worried about losing its brand or employs a demographic of people who don't understand and don't want to understand the brand of EastEnders. Characters' histories mean nothing to these people, in part because there aren't many characters left on the show who can be termed "long-term".

Ian has been there since the beginning, growing up on the show, and he's now relegated to being beholden to his daughter and babysitting Sharon's demon sprog on the spot. I would imagine the a vast demographic of viewer fails to remember when Phil was actually the nice, cerebral brother or knows the circumstances under which Janine suffered as a child, which resulted in her becoming the woman she is today. Dot's still there, the last real matriarch standing, which makes her invaluable considering that we've lost both Pat and Peggy within the past three years. And don't even mention Sharon. Under their auspices, they've brought back a stranger. Bianca is the class clown; Carol is Mother Hubbard; Billy hasn't progressed at all.

Don't make any reference to Kat and Alfie. I don't consider them properly long-term, but they were brought back tainted and rotten.

The other reason I think the show is losing its brand and itself is down to the fact that the people responsible for churning out the storyline ideas are millenials who don't give a rat's arse about the history of anything. Honestly, if it happened before they were born, they don't want to know about it. With this attitude, it gives them a leverage to churn out whatever storylines they fancy, without any regard for what's gone before in certain characters' lives. If they have a story to pitch, doesn't matter what a character's history is, they'll just change it. Thus, Sharon can still turn out to be Cora the Bora's daughter.

Sometimes, especially when I get served a prime piece of steaming stinking shit like tonight, why I bother.This show has the stench of Brookside about it. Maybe it should be called "Branningside."

Now ... Tonight's main gripes:-

The "Babe" Thing.

Let's play "Spot the Babe." Which one of these images is the real Babe?

This one:-

This one:-

Or this one:-

The answer is obvious. "Babe" is a cute, cuddly, little animal. The second image is a serious leading lady and the third image is Miss Piggy, or rather - the current Miss Piggy.

Earlier this week, we had a "babe" overload during the seminal (pun intended) episode where Max told Tanya the truth and she couldn't take it. The Brannings use "babe" as the ultimate endearment - usually pronounced "bybe."

They think it sounds cool, but for me, it sounds so Seventies. It was the casual endearment thrown at close friends by university students of the day, of which I was one. I suppose the same could be made to be applied to the Brannings, as casually as they exchange relationships, both within and without the family boundaries.

Sharon is disgusting with Jack, and it's disgusting that she has been returned and relegated to the B-list position of Branning consort and, officially, the Branning Satellite of Lurrve ...

It's funny how, with Jack or in the presence of Her Serene Highness Queen Tanya of the Alcohol Cabinet, Sharon looks blowsy, cowsy, heavy-jawed and, quite frankly, like mutton dressed as lamb. She looks cheap, like a desperate middle-aged mother in frantic search for a man to keep her. 

This isn't Sharon, the one who's about to become one of Bianca's "big'appy fairmly". (Aside: Isn't it creepy the way 37 year-old Bianca refers to 41 year-old Jack as "Uncle" Jack?)

Quite recently, Sharon was pointedly telling Tanya that Jack, her "bybe" and she had no secrets from each other. I beg to differ. For example, has Jack told her that, if she marries him, she will be a stepmother to his son, whose mother is her former sister-in-law and whose uncle is Phil Mitchell? Short answer? No, but tonight it was revealed that Jack has been keeping another secret from her ...

Shock, horror ... that he's been teaching DamienDen how to box, and the demon sprog only went and bopped MOWgan Le Fat, son of Bianca, in the schoolyard. This, of course, unhinges the great orifice known as Bianca's mouth for some hearty home truths levelled at Sharon, who immediately assumes that MOWgan Le Fat hit DamienDen first,

It just couldn't be true. Sharon's son has been raised not to use his fists under any circumstances, delivered in her best middle-class matronly voice, swelling up like a cross between a bullfrog and Queen Victoria, and coicidentally standing outside the pub, itself.

Contrived enough scene for Bianca to point out that Sharon shouldn't give herself airs and graces, that she grew up in the pub and is no better than Bianca ...

(Er, sorry, Bianca, but she is - by virtue of the fact that, even in her Bimbo status, she has at least one extra braincell on you, and she's never been to prison or, knowingly, broken the law, amongst a plethora of other things).

For all her discovery of Jack's "treachery" and for all her storming off with DamienDen back to the B and B, Jack didn't seem to fussed. Why should he? He's lost a middle-aged playmate for the night.

Question: Jack Branning has a one-bedroomed flat. I know that for a fact because when he and Roxy slept together, Amy slept in Jack's bedroom. So now that Max is inhabiting Jack's couch, does that mean Sharon, Jack and DamienDen share Jack's kingsized bed?

Eeeeeuuuuuwwww ... Brannings and incest, there you go.

Observation: Jack telling Sharon tonight that she didn't pay enough attention to her own son because she was too busy worrying about Lexi was more than a bit of pot meeting kettle. Jack's playing babydaddy to Denny at the expense of ignoring Amy, who lives just across the Square - seriously, when was the last time you saw Jack with Amy - and Penny in France, whom he rarely sees, and Richard in Portugal, whom he hasn't seen since he was born. Who isn't paying attention to their own children, Jack?

Teachers Don't Say "Ain't".

I knew it. I was right. Ava the Rava is really Aunt Esther.

Fast forward to the 22-minute mark and clock Ava's look at Max.

 Now compare her to Aunt Esther, from the American 70s sitcom Sanford and Son:-

I can almost hear Ava the Rava saying, I know what you're up to, Max Branning, you ole HEATHEN!

She's almost in Aunt Esther mode now, as Ava is not only a wonderful role model to teachers everywhere, but to students whom she should be endeavouring to instruct how to speak proper grammatical English.

As she said to her son tonight, the Little Cock:-

This AIN'T our home.

No,Ava, it isn't your home, and you've no right telling the Little Cock he should keep to working in Dalston, when you've managed to procure a job at Walford Primary School, and in the middle of a term as well. 

Hmmmm ... dodgy English grammar, the stereotypical angry black woman (who'd go reasonably well with Ray's angry black man), and yet another racial stereotype in her streetsuss little Cock of a son ...

Something's not right about Ava, and the least of that is her propensity to judge Max and his situation without either knowing his side of this and without properly knowing either Tanya or their shared scumbag of a mother. Maybe Max has something on Ava when he remarked that she was her mother's daughter. A teacher, a deputy head, that quick to render judgement on a person is bad news.

I just wonder if she and Cora the Bora  and pissbag Lauren, who was playing the silent treatment with Max tonight, will ever get to hear the tale of how poor, sweet victim martyr Tanya drugged Max and attempted to bury him alive? The old grey hag would probably laugh at that, but maybe it wouldn't phase Ava the Rava. Just remember she's supposed to be a professional, which means ...

Anyway, not impressed, either with the newest Mommy Dearest or the Little Cock who's supposed to be her son.

Three Generations of Drunks in a House.

Three generations of drunks in a house
Three generations of drunks,
You lay one down and knock her up ...

Four generations of drunks in a house ...

Here's how they'll pass their time ...

Now that there's no more Max and no more arguing (cough cough), Tanya, Cora the Bora and Lauren can get down to serious drinking.

Max was right when he observed to Jack that Tanya wasn't coping, as evidenced by the state of her the night before. Max knows that whenever there's a crisis at hand, Tanya turns to drink. Specifically: Whenever there isn't a man in Tanya's life, she turns to drink if there isn't someone who - if he isn't Max - is gormless, has a big dick and a fat wallet on the horizon.

Cora the Bora may have got Tanya to visit the hospital for a nurse's chat - it was never a check-up, but an assessment of how she was coping emotionally and psychologically in the aftermath of cancer - but her suggestion afterward was the real reason for her encouragement. She was hoping to be rewarded with a shopping trip "up West." Considering that Cora has no home and was supposed to be on launderette duty this afternoon (either she's now jobless or widdle Katie Douglas forgot that important piece of dialogue from Thursday's episode and Numptie Newman signed off on it), one assumes that any purchases Cora the Bora will make will be made on Tanya's credit card, which shouldn't be viable much longer since it appears as though only Poppy was on duty today at the salon.

Way to massage your rancid daughter's ego, Cora, and - of course - over drinks, because you lot can't do anything unless you're fueled by the firewater: tell her she's got three lovely kids (yeah, a budding alcoholic who's shagging her cousin; a sixteen year-old who acts like she's twelve; and a five year-old who gurns) and that she's a successful businesswoman.

Pardon me while I puke. And the most pukeworthy line of all was Cora telling Tanya they'd get through the cancer cold and Max together. 

Actually, there was one moment when I wanted to slap Cora, and that was when she asked Tanya what she could possibly see in - as she put it - a second-hand car salesman? Well, there's no legislating with whom a person falls in love. Tanya's idea of love - which is good sex - came in the shape of Max, who wasn't a second-hand car salesman when she left him, but a barrowboy insurance agent with a white shirt and a company car. Tanya's idea of love is also financial security. With Max, she has good sex and financial security, and to her, that's love. With Greg, she had mediocre sex and lots of money, and it wasn't enough. She wants Max. As for Cora the Bora saying that, she wants to remember Ava's father, who abandoned her when Cora thought luurrrve was living in the Caribbean, and Tanya's father, who drew Cora's picture and whisked her off to live on a council estate.

The giving away of Max's clothes was just proof positive that Tanya, as a character, hasn't progressed from the Stax reveal. This is the sort of thing she did then, and throughout the whole of 2008 - denying Max access to his children, whisking them away on a lujo holiday with Uncle Jack who was happy then to be playing babydaddy with the deep pockets. Only this time, Jack is played by Cora - and we all know how skewed Cora's advice is. In actual fact, the only reason Cora convinced Tanya to let Max go is so there would be room enough for the skanky old skag to stay there.

But it seems that the Branning house has grown bedrooms. Originally there were three bedrooms - Max's and Tanya's and one each for the two girls. When Oscar was born, Lauren was made to move in with Abi. The other night, Cora the Bora cadged a room and seemed to disappear. And Abi looked as though she had her own room again, especially as Joey seems to be living there as well, and it's obvious he isn't sleeping on the couch.

I'm still creeped out at the obvious ease with which Tanya, Cora and the rest of the white trash brigade have just accepted Joey and Lauren's sudden urge to fuck each other. However, I have encountered something infinitely more stupid and that's Jacqueline Jossa's Digital Spy remarks about the storyline, about how they wanted to show that incest wasn't bad.

Sorry? Did she say that?

First of all, there's incest and there's incest. Nat and Georgia Simpson, siblings from the ill-fated Brookside (there's that stench again), who fucked each other and ran away together ... that's incest. It even drove their family to a raw therapy sesson ... (Pssst ... this is when Brookside was good and was wiping the floor with EastEnders and Corrie):-

Then there's Joey and Laurens clusterfuck. Yes, Jacqueline, it's legal to marry your first cousin, even to fuck him, but there's such a thing as consaguinity. That means "close blood." The closer the connection, the more chance there will be of having a disabled, physically or mentally, child. Or a child who will encounter congenitive disease disorders later in life. That is fact. 

So preach on about "incest not being bad," Jacqueline, and you'll be proving that life really does imitate art. The old grey hag might have been three sheets to the wind, but she had a point tonight when she remarked that sometimes she thinks Lauren has nothing between her ears. It appears that Jacqueline Jossa is also lacking in common sense.

And once again, this was all about coddling and cooing poor pitiful Tanya.

A word about Joey, and I'm still no fan. I'm wondering why TPTB opted for portraying Son of Derek as a Cockney. I would imagine that Witts's acting skills are limited at the moment, but they may improve - as did Matt di Angelo's. However, it's a given that some actors cannot portray certain types. I don't suppose Dan Stevens, late of Downton Abbey, could play an East End spiv. I doubt Perry Fenwick could do Hamlet. However, Witts seems to be a nice, modest and remarkably posh (and more than a bit camp) young man, who's been forced into playing some sort of steroidically-enhanced manipulative love machine ...

... who has to act like Derek and attemp to talk like Max.

Simply, why did Derek's son have to speak Cockney? It was evident when Witts arrived that he was having trouble with the accent, because he effected a rapidly mumbled Beppe di Marco whisper, before learning how to "imitate" the way Jake Wood spoke and coming out unintelligible. Hearing him being interviewed on Daybreak earlier this week and his impromptu acceptance speech at the NTA's, I was impressed with his delivery and his eruditon, as well as his enunciation and his Home Counties accent.

Bradley arrived speaking better than Max. Peter Beale spoke better than Ian, and Libby spoke better than Denise. Alice is well-spoken. Penny was well-spoken. Alice, Joey and Penny, like Bradley, were all raised by mothers who'd escaped the pejorative of being associated with a Branning father.

Joey, as is, and especially in this non-relationship that is nothing more than an elaborate fuckfest with a character who's easily the most unpopular juvenile in the history of the show, is going nowhere fast. TPTB should do a "reverse Vicky" on him, let him speak in his normal voice and move him the hell away from toxic Lauren.

He may improve then.

Lola's Foiled Again by Common Sense and She's Too Stupid To See It.

Whatever Phil's motives are concerning Lexi, I don't know. Some say he wants her as a "replacement" for Ben, some that he wants her in order to redeem some of the harm he did Ben. Does he trust Lola? No, he doesn't, but then Lola hasn't earned his trust, even though she hasn't intended to do wrong. She's young and silly and has yet to prove herself responsible enough for Phil and Social Services to allow her to have her daughter.

Phil wants to take the baby on holiday for three weeks to visit Peggy in Cornwall, and Lola's kicking a stink, marching into his house shouting the odds about a solicitor. Phil calmly tells her that if he's not allowed to take Lexi on holiday, then she goes back into care. Billy is enlisted, but Phil, whose demeanor was one of exasperated impatience mingled with distrust regarding Lola, suddenly appears calm and rational. He's just taking Lexi to the seaside to meet her great-grandmother. He's doing the things for his grandchild that Billy would do if he had the means. Billy agrees enough to inform Lola that Peggy is one of the good people Lexi will want to have in her life, and when the Little Cock agrees that he would have loved to have had someone to give him material goods in his life, then Lola the chav is won over.

This storyline is only made interminable because it's playing second fiddle to the Branning shit.

Observation: Notice how they've toned down Lola's hair colour? It's no longer that brass almost white yellow with dark roots. Now it's a more natural shade of blonde edging close to Roxy's colour. When they wanted to emphasize that they were moving Roxy away from the ageing partygirl image, they gave her more modest extensions and toned the colour down. Now they're doing the same to Lola. It's all part of TPTB's efforts to make us forget that she's a petty little criminal from a care home with the morals of an alleycat and the mouth of a sewer, with a severe attitude problem - let her have a baby in public and tone down the hair.

Forget it.

The Misadventures of the Masoods.

This is a cartoon caper. Certainly, Zainab and Ajay are caricatures of the stereotypes they are supposed to be.

Zainab has come full circle. Nina Wadia is, once again, the comic competitive Asian mother she portrayed years ago in Goodness Gracious Me. Spot the Zainab:-

And Ajay is just an older, more mellower and lazier version of one of the two "Innits" from years ago on the same show. (Spot the younger Ajay and the precursor to Fatboy in this one):-

If this is Nina Wadia's leaving line, she deserves better. It's a welter of unfunny situations - when will EastEnders stop trying to do bad sitcom? - coupled with either Zainab sniping at Denise or Zainab sniping at Ajay and ending with Ayesha making a subtle sexual move on an uncomfortable Mas?

I hear Ajay and Bianca are supposed to become an item. Previously, I was appalled at this coupling, because he's as feckless and immature as she is, and he hates kids. Believe me, Ajay is not something Bianca needs. However, he is something she deserves. And he deserves her.

Appalling episode to the end of the week. Does anyone seriously believe that we are supposed to sit around for the next six months and watch Cora the Bora and Tanya bait, humiliate and sabotage Max and Kirsty?