Actually, this wasn't that bad tonight. I've seen worse, and I've seen better, but the main episode was salvaged by Denise. If nothing else, the episodes in December and January have been evidence of how terribly Diane Parish has been used by TPTB. It's nice seeing her stepping to the forefront and connecting, on one level, with one of the two remaining original characters left in the show.
On the face of this, tonight, this was a subtle filler episode - the sort where you used to watch lightly and think nothing happened, but on reflection, you realised it set up a lot of future action and storylines.
Could it have been better? Well, yes, but I think most perspicacious viewers will agree now that, across the board, EastEnders is sucking mightily at the moment, and there's no way that's going to end unless something nice and shiny is wielded around the writing room and amongst the cast - starting at the top.
After all, as the Greeks say, a fish stinks from its head.
Better by far, was the Red Button episode, for obvious reasons.
Baby Huey Bites the Brannings.
Abi Branning is the only character in the soap who hasn't aged at all in the six years she's been featured. She still looks and sounds like she's ten years old. She's the human embodiment of Baby Huey, the baby duck who stayed a duckling but grew and grew and grew.
On one level, Abi reminds me of Ruby Allen, another teenager who looked like a little girl. Granted, Numptie Newman isn't as tactless as her superior Kate Harwood was when she was EP and kitted Ruby, who was all of sixteen going on twelve, in a bustier and fishnet stockings and sprawled her on a bed in wait for Juley. Scores of paedophiles became EastEnders' fans that night.
Newman was more subtle. In an effort to make Abi look older, she bleached her hair blonde, sprayed her with fake tan and stuck false eyelashes onto her eyelids. It didn't work. She looked like some lost and lonely little girl playing dress-up, and she phoned in her performances.
I honestly thought Abi's epiphany - her discovery that nice people get kicked to the kerb and that it's easy to tell a few home truths - would be better and more immense. I wanted to see her realise how empowering it was, especially since, of all the Branning tweenagers, Abi seems to be the most sensible and normal.
I'm glad she sent that walking little cock, Dexter, with his bling-bling around his neck and his diamond stud in his ear on his way. He looks like a pimp-in-training, and he's another one who could do with some diction lessons. Elstree could run a special remedial course, Diction for Dicks, with star pupils Tony Discipline, David Witts and Khali Best. This kid is supposed to be twenty? He's another, then, in the Abi mould. I'd put him at about sixteen; and he's going to hang out with the Abi-Jay-Lola set, when his demographic is Jah-Wahhh, Lauren the Lip and MyAaaa-assss. Also, he has rat teeth. He's Connor minus the steroids and devoid of personality.
I thought it hilarious how all of the trailer trash mopin gabout the Branning front room, including the oldman in drag lager lout sprawled and scowling on the sofa, blamed Abi for the shit that hit the fan from the night before. Yes, Abi was naive in bringing RatBoy the Walking Cock home, when she didn't even know him. I mean, he could have been anyone; but she certainly wasn't to know that he was the son of Ava the Rava, soon-to-be resident professonal lunatic of Walford.
Remember ...
At least someone would be wielding an axe ...
Lest anyone forget what an inspiration Cora the Bora is, it might behoove Ava the Rava to realise that this is the type of person her birth mother is and her half-sister and her drunken niece:-
Lots of home truths in that clip from 2011, from Cora the Bora (fueled by the firewater) and from Tanya. But the truth is, this is Cora the Bora drunk at her best. She never wants anything better for the subsequent generation - because Tanya got up to worse at Abi's age, then Abi should do the same. She implied that the Cross women were hellraisers. And this is the woman they touted for matriarch?
No wonder Abi made a beeline for the Wrath of Dot.
(Notice also in the clip original Lauren Mach II - before the collagened upper lip, the enhanced boobs and the makeover into an imitation Jennifer Lawrence. Funny that, Jennifer Lawrence gets an Oscar nomination yesterday; Jacqueline Jossa gets Tony Discipline).
Still, at least Cora the Bora connected with her grandson tonight, who probably really is a hellraiser. I envision something akin to early Dot-and-Nick, with Cora the Bora indulging the little penis and excusing, even encouraging, his bad behaviour. He'll run rings around her, more's the pity.
At least Ava's still angry about the connection. Maybe she knows trailer trash when she sees it and knows how they'll affect Cock Jr. Still, that was the middle of the day, when Ava seemed to have taken the tube to Walford in search of her spawn, and miraculously found him immediately. I mean, isn't this woman supposed to have a job?
Something smells whiffy ...
Actually, I found Abi's rant to Jay rich, considering the way she's treated him when DickBoy was hanging about, stalking her. What a dumbass Dexter is. Is he so cock-sure of himself that he thinks he can come onto any girl he wants, regardless of the fact that she's his cousin. Yes, Abi, Dexter is your cousin, but you didn't know he was when you shoved Jay out of the frame on two occasions, and you were flirting and interested, ready to pounce for a blingy little chav who slipped you a tenner. Just. Like. Your. Mother.
She's a Cross, all right.
In my opinion, she overdid the rant to Jay and didn't rant at Max and Tanya enough. She ranted at Max about the disrespect he shows Tanya, but didn't think to remember that Tanya is deceitful, lying and selfish too. Tanya cheated on Greg, remember? And Abi well remembers the brouhaha with Sean Slater and also when Uncle Jack attempted to play babydaddy. So why spare Tanya? She's as bloody guilty as Max.
Max didn't tell her he was married. That was wrong. But Max was free to get married, because he was single and also because Abi was conned into colluding his departure.
A lot of people are wetting themselves over how good this was, but it was more or less meh and could have been so much more.
Here's a song for Abi:-
Ray Wants to Play Away Awhile.
OK, if Dexter is a little cock, then Ray is one big dick. Mighty dickheads from little nobs do grow.
Ray never intended to use Kim for anything other than the grope in the night when he felt the urge. Was he ever serious? Was he put off by her disregard for his children? Well, to be fair, the only time she ever looked after Morgan Le Fat, she got nits, and no one but her mother could ever have loved Sasha, and that was a dubious relationship, considering all the times she palmed her off on Ray - who seems to have nixed her, himself.
I just think Ray's a player, a commitment-phobe who'll flirt with any woman he thinks is offering it and available. He certainly flirted with Kat - Chucky Venn was disappointed that he wasn't appointed Shagger-in-Chief in that one, but maybe by then TPTB were still in "Ray's-a-Nice-Guy" mode and found it too distasteful that he'd be dick enough to betray his employer, who'd shown him nothing but kindness. He kissed Denise and threw her under the bus in the face of Kim. People wondered why he did that, especially since he wasn't at all serious about Kim. In fact, he'd been bitching to all and sundry about her since before Christmas.
It was because Denise had blown him off, and Kim was the only game in town at that point. What sparked his courage tonight to call it a day with Kim?
Simply put: One of the Fallen Madonnas with the Big Boobies.
Ray wouldn't pork Alfie Moon's wife, but he'd pork Max Branning's for the price of a sandwich and chips.
Put in some chips with that and I'm yours.
A small flirtation from Kirsty, and Ray is conceited enough to think he's actually on a promise.
His break-up with Kim was gauche, awkward and downright mean. He wanted it done and dusted as quickly as possible, and I'm glad Denise called him out for the coward he was. He knew that Kim's feelings for him were stronger than those he had for her and that she was more serious about him. All he wanted was to get the deed over with and get out, avoid the ugly stuff ... because he thought he he had something coming from Kirsty, who's only ever after Max. How on earth did he expect Kim to react, days after he'd given her what was nothing more than a guilt present?
I have a feeling this is the winding down of Ray, and here is what you get when you cross Ray Dixon with Jack Branning ... Theophilus B Wildebeeste.
I hope Ray isn't sacrificed at the altar of Branningdom this year, but it's clear that, half-way through the year, someone (as in Numptie Newman) got confused and couldn't fathom a direction in which to take his character. Ray's been there a year and arrived a nice, pleasant, positive man, determined to make good by his son. Yet within months, his son is whisked off someplace else to live, and he disintegrates into a stereotype.
Denise and Ian.
Please, don't be cheesy and make this Dian or even De-an. These characters deserve better. It took a breakdown for the viewing public to realise that Ian Beale can be and was, deep-down, a genuinely nice man, whose character in the past was a reaction to what happened around him.
Can Ian be nasty? Most definitely. But Ian, as an adult, was always defined by the necessity to prove himself, first to his father's memory and then to the community as a whole, as a success. Ian's biggest hindrance was that he inherited the pettiness and condescension his Auntie Pauline harboured. His confidence was knocked for six, certainly by his first wife, who deceived him into thinking his first son was his, when he was, in fact, her son by Simon Wicks (who could have been his brother); then she cheated on him with Ian's real brother, David Wicks. Every wife subsequent to Cindy was unfaithful to Ian - his trophies and his dowdies; but Ian could turn a hand to cheating as well - as we've seen with Janine and with Glenda.
He deserves a wife who has enough respect about herself to respect him, and on that accord, he and Denise are equals. She's had as rough a time, maritally, as Ian - married to a drug addict, who subsequently re-married her and tried to kill her, married to a drunk who beat her and tried to strangle her. She found a good man - oddly enough, a Wicks cousin - who died.
If EastEnders is doing something right at the moment, they've got it right with Denise and Ian - two middle-aged, lonely and emotionally fragile people tentatively reaching out to one another. Kudos to whoever had the common sense to know that they wouldn't fall into bed immediately with one another as a Branning or Bimbo Sharon or even Alfie in the wake of Kat's betrayal would.
This has to last.
The Slow Painful Death of the Masood Family.
What a load of codswollop! Why do I think that Zainab's imminent departure is going to be an epic fail?
Already, she's turned even more unlikeable than Lauren the Lip, and that's going some. From hero to zero in sixty seconds. The contrived failed sitcom within a soap tonight wasn't even funny. It was embarrassing.
Reading the letter or whatever it was that Ayesha, who comes across as simple-minded but deceitful, had written was naff and just emphasized what a horrible and interfering woman Zainab had become. I noticed in Thursday's episode and tonight, the way Zainab spoke to Ayesha, ordering her about as if she were a child or an imbecile. She is a houseguest, and Zainab is being less than polite to her. In fact, she's being awful.
And she's losing sight of her own fragile standing in her community. She's surreptitiously pushing Tamwar as husband material when - as he, himself, acknowledges - he isn't even divorced yet. More to the point, now that Zainab has fanagled her old job back at the Minute Mart, her son is unemployed and contributing nothing to the household, and she considers him better husband material than Rachid, who seemed nice and probably had a job, at least.
She gossips wantonly about her best friend, when she should be listening to her with understanding and kicks her out on the street on a whim.
The fact that she was nosy enough to send Ayesha, the latest candidate for Village Idiot, out an a walking tutorial in the history of the Post Office on a postal round that seemed to take all day - Mas seems to begin his rounds mid-morning instead of early on, because by the time he hit the Vic, it was 3pm (Kirsty was complaining about being hungry and the kitchen was closed) was too ludicrous.
A postal route is a postal route. The postman is supposed to deliver the mail and return to the sorting office, not meander around the Square and laze on a park bench eating an apple. It was also not only rude but more than a bit stupid for Ayesha to describe Tamwar, her host's son, as "weird" and ask if he were adopted. And if Max is lackadaisical in his acceptance of his oldest daughter bonking her first cousin, how about Mas laughing at Ayesha asking cheekily if Tamwar were adopted? Calling Fatboy an "idiot" is presumptuous too, and Mas should have been offended at that, because Fatboy is Tamwar's friend.
I truly don't know what they are trying to do with Tamwar, and I don't think TPTB know, themselves. If that's the case, why are they hanging onto Himesh Patel. His burns' story came to nought, and since Darren and Afia have left, he's reduced to delivering monotone lines about nothing and hanging around in the background morosely. He couldn't even raise enough spirit to be angry at his brother for fleecing him.
Then there's Ajay, whom they thought was the man after whom Ayesha is lusting. Actually, if this were the storyline, I could see the attraction. They look good together, and he's cute - if infuriating in his puerility. (I mean, just what we need, another manchild in the promised land. If Kat is Lola in twenty years' time, then Ajay is Fatboy that many years down the line).
The most ludicrous poor sitcom moment of that whole charade came when Ayesha was playing footsie with Mas under the table. Mas was sitting beside Ayesha, to her right, which meant that the left side of his left leg was being toe-fondled. Yet he thought it was Zainab, who sat two seats away from him, to his right and to the right of Ajay. There is no way in the world Zainab would be able to footsie the left side of Mas's left leg from that far away.
That was just writer's stupidity or arrogance in underestimating the intelligence of the viewing public.
I hope this Ayesha isn't a permanent fixture and fitting after Zainab's departure, but I'll make a prediction. One year from now, all that will be left of the Masoods will be Ajay and Tamwar, eking out the odd unfunny scene as this generation's Minty and Garry, each one cancelling out the other, but cheap for TPTB to employ.
The Red Button Special: The Wrath of Dot Returns
Schmalzy music apart, I actually liked this vignette. I don't know why there was background music at the beginning and the end, because that really isn't what EastEnders is all about, and this is what I mean by the show becoming unrecogniseable for long-term viewers as the brand it created. If that's the case, then the show really is in trouble - not that TPTB or the BBC would ever admit it. As long as EastEnders wins the Christmas ratings battle and captures the right gongs at the yearly awards' shows (multi-voted by all the fanbois and cheerleaders), then everything in the BBC garden is rosy.
I was under the impression that Dot was only visiting Dottie and her mother, but it looks as though she's put down roots and is working in some sort of home for the elderly or an elderly day facility.
The biggest surprise of all was the appearance of Brigit Forsyth, who made a cracking old bitch, but whom I last remember seeing as Thelma Ferris, Bob's socially climbing wife from Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads? She was a nicer, comedic version of a Northern Tanya:-
Final Observation: Liam is fourteen years old. There is no way he would be allowed to work as counter staff at a fast food place like McKlunkies. Minors - people below the age of sixteen - are not allowed jobs like that, and especially not working around the sort of machines associated with fast foods and the such as Shirley was cleaning.
The writers obviously are middle-class enough to think working class Britain is still Dickensian, judging by their depiction of Bianca's poverty and the fact that they still believe child labour is OK. They were along this train of thought five years ago, when we regularly saw the fourteen year-old Beale twins serving and frying fish in the chippie, when a couple of years prior to that, Ian Beale had been reported to Health and Safety because he was out one day and Darren Miller, who worked cleaning the place for him, at fourteen, stepped behind the bar to serve when Ian was out. He'd been begging Ian to let him do that, but Ian kept telling him it was against Health and Safety for anyone under sixteen to work serving food in a chippie or fast food place.
People should really do their research. Lazy writers.
On the face of this, tonight, this was a subtle filler episode - the sort where you used to watch lightly and think nothing happened, but on reflection, you realised it set up a lot of future action and storylines.
Could it have been better? Well, yes, but I think most perspicacious viewers will agree now that, across the board, EastEnders is sucking mightily at the moment, and there's no way that's going to end unless something nice and shiny is wielded around the writing room and amongst the cast - starting at the top.
After all, as the Greeks say, a fish stinks from its head.
Better by far, was the Red Button episode, for obvious reasons.
Baby Huey Bites the Brannings.
Abi Branning is the only character in the soap who hasn't aged at all in the six years she's been featured. She still looks and sounds like she's ten years old. She's the human embodiment of Baby Huey, the baby duck who stayed a duckling but grew and grew and grew.
On one level, Abi reminds me of Ruby Allen, another teenager who looked like a little girl. Granted, Numptie Newman isn't as tactless as her superior Kate Harwood was when she was EP and kitted Ruby, who was all of sixteen going on twelve, in a bustier and fishnet stockings and sprawled her on a bed in wait for Juley. Scores of paedophiles became EastEnders' fans that night.
Newman was more subtle. In an effort to make Abi look older, she bleached her hair blonde, sprayed her with fake tan and stuck false eyelashes onto her eyelids. It didn't work. She looked like some lost and lonely little girl playing dress-up, and she phoned in her performances.
I honestly thought Abi's epiphany - her discovery that nice people get kicked to the kerb and that it's easy to tell a few home truths - would be better and more immense. I wanted to see her realise how empowering it was, especially since, of all the Branning tweenagers, Abi seems to be the most sensible and normal.
I'm glad she sent that walking little cock, Dexter, with his bling-bling around his neck and his diamond stud in his ear on his way. He looks like a pimp-in-training, and he's another one who could do with some diction lessons. Elstree could run a special remedial course, Diction for Dicks, with star pupils Tony Discipline, David Witts and Khali Best. This kid is supposed to be twenty? He's another, then, in the Abi mould. I'd put him at about sixteen; and he's going to hang out with the Abi-Jay-Lola set, when his demographic is Jah-Wahhh, Lauren the Lip and MyAaaa-assss. Also, he has rat teeth. He's Connor minus the steroids and devoid of personality.
I thought it hilarious how all of the trailer trash mopin gabout the Branning front room, including the old
Remember ...
At least someone would be wielding an axe ...
Lest anyone forget what an inspiration Cora the Bora is, it might behoove Ava the Rava to realise that this is the type of person her birth mother is and her half-sister and her drunken niece:-
Lots of home truths in that clip from 2011, from Cora the Bora (fueled by the firewater) and from Tanya. But the truth is, this is Cora the Bora drunk at her best. She never wants anything better for the subsequent generation - because Tanya got up to worse at Abi's age, then Abi should do the same. She implied that the Cross women were hellraisers. And this is the woman they touted for matriarch?
No wonder Abi made a beeline for the Wrath of Dot.
(Notice also in the clip original Lauren Mach II - before the collagened upper lip, the enhanced boobs and the makeover into an imitation Jennifer Lawrence. Funny that, Jennifer Lawrence gets an Oscar nomination yesterday; Jacqueline Jossa gets Tony Discipline).
Still, at least Cora the Bora connected with her grandson tonight, who probably really is a hellraiser. I envision something akin to early Dot-and-Nick, with Cora the Bora indulging the little penis and excusing, even encouraging, his bad behaviour. He'll run rings around her, more's the pity.
At least Ava's still angry about the connection. Maybe she knows trailer trash when she sees it and knows how they'll affect Cock Jr. Still, that was the middle of the day, when Ava seemed to have taken the tube to Walford in search of her spawn, and miraculously found him immediately. I mean, isn't this woman supposed to have a job?
Something smells whiffy ...
Actually, I found Abi's rant to Jay rich, considering the way she's treated him when DickBoy was hanging about, stalking her. What a dumbass Dexter is. Is he so cock-sure of himself that he thinks he can come onto any girl he wants, regardless of the fact that she's his cousin. Yes, Abi, Dexter is your cousin, but you didn't know he was when you shoved Jay out of the frame on two occasions, and you were flirting and interested, ready to pounce for a blingy little chav who slipped you a tenner. Just. Like. Your. Mother.
She's a Cross, all right.
In my opinion, she overdid the rant to Jay and didn't rant at Max and Tanya enough. She ranted at Max about the disrespect he shows Tanya, but didn't think to remember that Tanya is deceitful, lying and selfish too. Tanya cheated on Greg, remember? And Abi well remembers the brouhaha with Sean Slater and also when Uncle Jack attempted to play babydaddy. So why spare Tanya? She's as bloody guilty as Max.
Max didn't tell her he was married. That was wrong. But Max was free to get married, because he was single and also because Abi was conned into colluding his departure.
A lot of people are wetting themselves over how good this was, but it was more or less meh and could have been so much more.
Here's a song for Abi:-
Ray Wants to Play Away Awhile.
OK, if Dexter is a little cock, then Ray is one big dick. Mighty dickheads from little nobs do grow.
Ray never intended to use Kim for anything other than the grope in the night when he felt the urge. Was he ever serious? Was he put off by her disregard for his children? Well, to be fair, the only time she ever looked after Morgan Le Fat, she got nits, and no one but her mother could ever have loved Sasha, and that was a dubious relationship, considering all the times she palmed her off on Ray - who seems to have nixed her, himself.
I just think Ray's a player, a commitment-phobe who'll flirt with any woman he thinks is offering it and available. He certainly flirted with Kat - Chucky Venn was disappointed that he wasn't appointed Shagger-in-Chief in that one, but maybe by then TPTB were still in "Ray's-a-Nice-Guy" mode and found it too distasteful that he'd be dick enough to betray his employer, who'd shown him nothing but kindness. He kissed Denise and threw her under the bus in the face of Kim. People wondered why he did that, especially since he wasn't at all serious about Kim. In fact, he'd been bitching to all and sundry about her since before Christmas.
It was because Denise had blown him off, and Kim was the only game in town at that point. What sparked his courage tonight to call it a day with Kim?
Simply put: One of the Fallen Madonnas with the Big Boobies.
Ray wouldn't pork Alfie Moon's wife, but he'd pork Max Branning's for the price of a sandwich and chips.
Put in some chips with that and I'm yours.
A small flirtation from Kirsty, and Ray is conceited enough to think he's actually on a promise.
His break-up with Kim was gauche, awkward and downright mean. He wanted it done and dusted as quickly as possible, and I'm glad Denise called him out for the coward he was. He knew that Kim's feelings for him were stronger than those he had for her and that she was more serious about him. All he wanted was to get the deed over with and get out, avoid the ugly stuff ... because he thought he he had something coming from Kirsty, who's only ever after Max. How on earth did he expect Kim to react, days after he'd given her what was nothing more than a guilt present?
I have a feeling this is the winding down of Ray, and here is what you get when you cross Ray Dixon with Jack Branning ... Theophilus B Wildebeeste.
I hope Ray isn't sacrificed at the altar of Branningdom this year, but it's clear that, half-way through the year, someone (as in Numptie Newman) got confused and couldn't fathom a direction in which to take his character. Ray's been there a year and arrived a nice, pleasant, positive man, determined to make good by his son. Yet within months, his son is whisked off someplace else to live, and he disintegrates into a stereotype.
Denise and Ian.
Please, don't be cheesy and make this Dian or even De-an. These characters deserve better. It took a breakdown for the viewing public to realise that Ian Beale can be and was, deep-down, a genuinely nice man, whose character in the past was a reaction to what happened around him.
Can Ian be nasty? Most definitely. But Ian, as an adult, was always defined by the necessity to prove himself, first to his father's memory and then to the community as a whole, as a success. Ian's biggest hindrance was that he inherited the pettiness and condescension his Auntie Pauline harboured. His confidence was knocked for six, certainly by his first wife, who deceived him into thinking his first son was his, when he was, in fact, her son by Simon Wicks (who could have been his brother); then she cheated on him with Ian's real brother, David Wicks. Every wife subsequent to Cindy was unfaithful to Ian - his trophies and his dowdies; but Ian could turn a hand to cheating as well - as we've seen with Janine and with Glenda.
He deserves a wife who has enough respect about herself to respect him, and on that accord, he and Denise are equals. She's had as rough a time, maritally, as Ian - married to a drug addict, who subsequently re-married her and tried to kill her, married to a drunk who beat her and tried to strangle her. She found a good man - oddly enough, a Wicks cousin - who died.
If EastEnders is doing something right at the moment, they've got it right with Denise and Ian - two middle-aged, lonely and emotionally fragile people tentatively reaching out to one another. Kudos to whoever had the common sense to know that they wouldn't fall into bed immediately with one another as a Branning or Bimbo Sharon or even Alfie in the wake of Kat's betrayal would.
This has to last.
The Slow Painful Death of the Masood Family.
What a load of codswollop! Why do I think that Zainab's imminent departure is going to be an epic fail?
Already, she's turned even more unlikeable than Lauren the Lip, and that's going some. From hero to zero in sixty seconds. The contrived failed sitcom within a soap tonight wasn't even funny. It was embarrassing.
Reading the letter or whatever it was that Ayesha, who comes across as simple-minded but deceitful, had written was naff and just emphasized what a horrible and interfering woman Zainab had become. I noticed in Thursday's episode and tonight, the way Zainab spoke to Ayesha, ordering her about as if she were a child or an imbecile. She is a houseguest, and Zainab is being less than polite to her. In fact, she's being awful.
And she's losing sight of her own fragile standing in her community. She's surreptitiously pushing Tamwar as husband material when - as he, himself, acknowledges - he isn't even divorced yet. More to the point, now that Zainab has fanagled her old job back at the Minute Mart, her son is unemployed and contributing nothing to the household, and she considers him better husband material than Rachid, who seemed nice and probably had a job, at least.
She gossips wantonly about her best friend, when she should be listening to her with understanding and kicks her out on the street on a whim.
The fact that she was nosy enough to send Ayesha, the latest candidate for Village Idiot, out an a walking tutorial in the history of the Post Office on a postal round that seemed to take all day - Mas seems to begin his rounds mid-morning instead of early on, because by the time he hit the Vic, it was 3pm (Kirsty was complaining about being hungry and the kitchen was closed) was too ludicrous.
A postal route is a postal route. The postman is supposed to deliver the mail and return to the sorting office, not meander around the Square and laze on a park bench eating an apple. It was also not only rude but more than a bit stupid for Ayesha to describe Tamwar, her host's son, as "weird" and ask if he were adopted. And if Max is lackadaisical in his acceptance of his oldest daughter bonking her first cousin, how about Mas laughing at Ayesha asking cheekily if Tamwar were adopted? Calling Fatboy an "idiot" is presumptuous too, and Mas should have been offended at that, because Fatboy is Tamwar's friend.
I truly don't know what they are trying to do with Tamwar, and I don't think TPTB know, themselves. If that's the case, why are they hanging onto Himesh Patel. His burns' story came to nought, and since Darren and Afia have left, he's reduced to delivering monotone lines about nothing and hanging around in the background morosely. He couldn't even raise enough spirit to be angry at his brother for fleecing him.
Then there's Ajay, whom they thought was the man after whom Ayesha is lusting. Actually, if this were the storyline, I could see the attraction. They look good together, and he's cute - if infuriating in his puerility. (I mean, just what we need, another manchild in the promised land. If Kat is Lola in twenty years' time, then Ajay is Fatboy that many years down the line).
The most ludicrous poor sitcom moment of that whole charade came when Ayesha was playing footsie with Mas under the table. Mas was sitting beside Ayesha, to her right, which meant that the left side of his left leg was being toe-fondled. Yet he thought it was Zainab, who sat two seats away from him, to his right and to the right of Ajay. There is no way in the world Zainab would be able to footsie the left side of Mas's left leg from that far away.
That was just writer's stupidity or arrogance in underestimating the intelligence of the viewing public.
I hope this Ayesha isn't a permanent fixture and fitting after Zainab's departure, but I'll make a prediction. One year from now, all that will be left of the Masoods will be Ajay and Tamwar, eking out the odd unfunny scene as this generation's Minty and Garry, each one cancelling out the other, but cheap for TPTB to employ.
The Red Button Special: The Wrath of Dot Returns
Schmalzy music apart, I actually liked this vignette. I don't know why there was background music at the beginning and the end, because that really isn't what EastEnders is all about, and this is what I mean by the show becoming unrecogniseable for long-term viewers as the brand it created. If that's the case, then the show really is in trouble - not that TPTB or the BBC would ever admit it. As long as EastEnders wins the Christmas ratings battle and captures the right gongs at the yearly awards' shows (multi-voted by all the fanbois and cheerleaders), then everything in the BBC garden is rosy.
I was under the impression that Dot was only visiting Dottie and her mother, but it looks as though she's put down roots and is working in some sort of home for the elderly or an elderly day facility.
The biggest surprise of all was the appearance of Brigit Forsyth, who made a cracking old bitch, but whom I last remember seeing as Thelma Ferris, Bob's socially climbing wife from Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads? She was a nicer, comedic version of a Northern Tanya:-
I remember when Dottie arrived on the Square and transitioned from a child plotting a murder to someone who really loved her grandmother. It was almost from that point that Dot withdrew (hurrah!) from the Brannings and wanted to deal with her own child and grandchild more.
(Point to question: As I recall, "Dottie" wasn't the child's real name. She and Nick just pretended that in order to flatter Dot's ego. "Dottie's" real name is ... get ready for this ... Kirsty. Looks Like Lorraine failed the continuity test yet again).
I'm glad Abi reached out to Dot. Reaching out to Cora the Bora only results in her giving you a shot glass and telling you to wrap your lips around that and shut up. Reaching out to Tanya only results in Tanya going on and on about herself. The same with Lauren, and you have to catch Max in the right mood.
Tonight's highlights were listening to Dot list the reasons she found Walford alien. Of course, it wasn't about Heather. It was about all the people Dot had lost to death in recent years.
And it was bloody about time that someone mentioned Bradley and Dennis, since no one else has cared to do so.
I don't know if Dot were porky pie-ing Abi about all the fun she'd been having with Dottie; maybe that happened before Christmas; but it was clear that Dot had spent Christmas alone (or with Jim) and Dottie and her mother were in Florida - proving yet again to Dot that her step-family cares more about her than her flesh and blood.
The scene is set for the old gray lag's eviction.
I'm trembling in anticipation of the Wrath of Dot.
Final Observation: Liam is fourteen years old. There is no way he would be allowed to work as counter staff at a fast food place like McKlunkies. Minors - people below the age of sixteen - are not allowed jobs like that, and especially not working around the sort of machines associated with fast foods and the such as Shirley was cleaning.
The writers obviously are middle-class enough to think working class Britain is still Dickensian, judging by their depiction of Bianca's poverty and the fact that they still believe child labour is OK. They were along this train of thought five years ago, when we regularly saw the fourteen year-old Beale twins serving and frying fish in the chippie, when a couple of years prior to that, Ian Beale had been reported to Health and Safety because he was out one day and Darren Miller, who worked cleaning the place for him, at fourteen, stepped behind the bar to serve when Ian was out. He'd been begging Ian to let him do that, but Ian kept telling him it was against Health and Safety for anyone under sixteen to work serving food in a chippie or fast food place.
People should really do their research. Lazy writers.
You're entitled to your views but the " Morgan le Fat" comment is cruel and bullying. The actor is a child, he's unlikely to be responsible for his own diet. You seem to really hate the young actors on the show and you should get some perspective.
ReplyDeleteOh, piss off, you sanctimonious and putrid git. How's that for name-calling? You're probably one of those people who bandy words like "slut" and "fish-lips" about for characters like Kirsty.
DeleteFACT: Morgan is F-A-T. And know something? His parents can do something about that and should be responsible enough to know about healthy diets for young children. He's more than fat, the child is obese. His parents should be aware of the danger of his contracting diabetes type I, which affects young people and stays with you for LIFE. Not only does this show his parents' ignorance, it totally belies the concept being promoted on the show of the poverty of Bianca, when Morgan is the size he is. There was an episode recently when he took an entire bowl of crisps off the table and scoffed them. Morgan is obese, and TPTB should be very concerne - not only about him - but also about the obvious anorexia of Hetti Bywater.
Now go play with yourself, troll.
P S ... to the coward who comes on MY blog and accueses ME of bullying, fuck off into your own fantasy of passive aggressive land, and don't come on here again unless you have the courage to USE YOUR NAME. I don't bully, but what YOU do is passive-aggressive bullying, just like you do in presenting YOUR opinions as facts on Digital Spy.
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