EastEnders' Future Might Be CBBC

Lorraine's latest PR stunt in her quest to show the programme as warm, fuzzy and friendly, was to engage the show's two resident hunks sex symbols unintelligible planks of wood who were hired for their looks and not their talents in posing as The Easter Bunny and an Easter Chick with a warm, fuzzy and friendly Easter message for what viewers remain. This was then tweeted to the world, with this picture:-

Judging from this picture, it seems the show is now trying to appeal to the 6 to 14 year-old age range. At least Lorraine has correctly sussed that the only people shipping this programme as positive have that intellectual maturity level.

Can you imagine the likes of Nick Berry and John Altman or Michael French and Martin Kemp or - goodness forbid! Steve McFadden and Ross Kemp in their prime cutting a stunt for the PR department like this? Can you even imagine Nigel Harman doing this?

All of the above would have responded to the request with a polite "Thanks but no thanks" in reply.

But this is the new EastEnders. These are the male ingenus the show is trying to promote as the next generation of the show. In reality, these are two underwear models, one of whom worked as a fish porter, who struck a bit of luck.

Well, it's time for their luck to run out, along with Lorraine's ... before the show's luck runs out overall.

EastEnders' Reverse Misogyny

In a recent thread on Digital Spy, there's a valid discussion raging about the character of Bianca, whom several commentators think is - to quote them - "vile" (the most common adjective used to describe this character.)

I am inclined to agree, and I am a woman.

I'm also inclined to agree that the six most unlikeable characters on the programme at the moment are women:-

(In no particular order):-

• Kat
• Tanya
• Bianca
• Lauren
• Whitney
• Sharon

This is yet another shortcoming of today's pale version of EastEnders - the lack of valid, strong female characters. None of the above can be considered strong. Sure, Sharon and Kat were in their previous stints on the show, but during Sharon's second coming (the insipid Shannis years), she showed signs of morphing into a precursor of Ronnie as the Tragedy Queen.

The rest don't even come within a shout of strength. They are weak, entitled, self-victimising wraiths depended on men or booze or both in order to validate themselves.

 Bianca is a different kettle of fish, however. She was the original gobby mare, shouting the odds around the Square without any sort of consideration of others. She was the only person who mattered. When she lost her infamous temper, anything in her way got destroyed. When she was called up, she opened her foul gob further and cried.

Believe me, there's only one iconic redhead in television history who could do an open-mouthed weep. She wasn't Bianca, and she did it for comedy:-

(Google "Lucille Ball", Luddites).

However, there's always someone who crawls out of the woodwork, who thinks to shame people making valid points with some textbook feminism, which she thinks makes her sound intelligent. I give you the appropriately-named Digital Spy commentator Salome who opines self-righteously:-

I find the gratuitous scapegoating of female characters really vile. After Kat and Tanya, Bianca is next in line with the predictable conflation of actress and character.
Maybe you should ask yourself why a fictional character is such a threat to you. Because she doesn't fit your expectations of perfect femininity? Too loud, too aggressive, too poor, too unhappy? What a terrible crime.

This observation would be laughable, if it weren't so pathetic. I'm nothing less than an advocate for gender equality, having grown up and come of age on the cusp of real feminism,but this is preposterous. I'm the first to "scapegoat" the women she mentions and more, because they deserve it. There's been an overzealousness in the EastEnders' writing room during recent years to dumb down and weaken the man at the expense of the woman; but the women they present us are nothing less than weak, pathetic creatures, themselves.

Kat is the textbook abuse victim who became the abuser, physically and emotionally abusing a husband who's done nothing but love her. Coronation Street gave us the brilliantly-penned Kirsty Soames, who redeemed herself in the end of her storyline by coming clean and confessing what she'd done to Tyrone. She'll be tried and imprisoned, but maybe she'll receive psychological help in dealing with her demons. 

On the other hand, EastEnders' viewers are asked to laugh at Alfie's abuse and now, after gratuitous infidelity the reason for which we've yet to be told, we're asked to view "poor Kat" not only as a victim, but as a heroine. Yet when someone like Max Branning gratuitously cheats on a partner, he's the villain of the piece.

Tanya is an amoral hypocrite, a marriage-wrecker before she hit twenty, selfish to the hilt, not above committing murder if it helps her case, materialistic, and the most abysmal mother going. She is also a drunk, whose very emotional and material existence is dependent upon a man. Remove a man from her horizon and she hits the bottle.

This version of Sharon flits from man to man, prostituting herself to cop a roof over her head and a home for her son. She's a neurotic pill-popper. We're asked to believe that a woman who always took responsibility for her mistakes and rose above any sort of abuse has spent the last six years dipping in and out of promiscuity in the eternal grief for a fey, effete pretty boy who looked more like her son than her lover and who, in reality, was her legal brother.

Whitney, like Kat, is the eternal victim, using her past sexual abuse as an excuse for inappropriate behaviour and refusing to accept responsibility for any of her actions. She's another who has to have a man in her life in order to validate her existence.

Lauren is the epitome of selfish, self-centred, lazy, entitled youth. She is all about herself and no one else. She considers herself an adult, yet she insists that her parent support her financially. She treats her imperfect father like a piece of shit, but knows who holds the purse strings when she needs money.

As for Bianca, she was the precursor of the loud, obnoxious, shouting woman whom, somehow,  the writing room at EastEnders thinks represents "strength, " a view which took firm hold of the writers' minds with the arrival of Stacey Slater, who shouted, screamed, screeched, cried, bullied and demolished her way around the Square. It helped that she had a conflated sense of entitlement and a firm belief that any and everything she did and its ensuing consequences were "nuffink ter do wiv'er." Nothing was ever Stacey's fault, even murder; and she didn't deserve any sort of punishment for her deeds because either Max made her do it (Stax), Bradley took money from Max (her affair with the appalling Callum Monks), she was bipolar (everything else), Archie was mean to Danielle (his murder), Lily needed her (the reason why she shouldn't be prosecuted for murder), and she was simply entitled (to Max and Ryan - other women's husbands - or to Bradley, because he was a dependable bloke who never tired of picking up the pieces of her latest trail of emotional destruction.

All of the above characters are insults to the likes of Angie Watts, Kathy Beale, Peggy Mitchell and Pat Evans, women who held their own - flawed, but strong.

The only vestige left of a strong woman in today's EastEnders is Janine, who is capable of holding her own because she's had to do so all her life, who's wary of trusting anyone because she's been let down so many times, who actually suffers from relationships with truly weak men (Ryan, Michael) and who, unlike the other screaming banshees mentioned above, rarely raises her voice. (Yes, I know Sharon doesn't as well, but Sharon's breathless whisper is meant to entice a man; we see traces of the old Sharon when she confronts Phil Mitchell as his equal, but  those moments are few and far between).

Even today, there's always the danger of reverting to pre-Kirkwood Janine who was regularly depicted as an evil pantomime character, and I'm not above thinking this lot will regress her to that state yet.

The commentator Salome would do well in her self-promotion of feminism to remember that the Biblical character whose name she's taken was someone who wasn't above using sex and sexuality (a half-naked dance in front of her aroused step-father) in order to procure the head of a prophet - another woman who needed a man to achieve her goal.

She'd be well at home in Walford today.

Negativity, Saint Tanya & The Peanut Gallery

The time approaches for someone to depart. Come May (we hope), loads of fangirls and bullybois who dream of suckling her, will have to bid farewell to the toxic Lady Madonna that is Tanya.

Let's say good-bye now ... You can just imagine the yoof of EastEnders warbling this as her fat, bottle arse climbs into the ubiquitous black cab.

As the time approaches for her departure, many a fangirl, especially on Digital Spy, is launching thread after thread bemoaning the loss of such an important character. Not. The most recent whine is this thread, wondering why so many people dislike Tanya now.

I can remember a time, five years ago, when if anyone uttered a word of criticism against Yummy Mummy, you were condemned as charged. Now, it seems, since her return in 2010, people have, at last, seen Tanya for what she is - a hypocritical piece of poor white trash, an amoral woman who wasn't above breaking up Max's first marriage, who married Greg Jessop for material reasons and cheated on him with Max almost immediately, an entitled trollop, a selfish woman who puts her own wants and desires before those of her children, an attempted murderer, who never ever accepts responsibility for anything she's done. A drunk. A totally unlikeable character wrapped in a sick and co-dependent relationship based entirely on sex and comfort. A bitch.

Nice to know some people have woken up and smelled the coffee - or in Tanya's case, the booze.

People have also turned on Tanya because, more than any one character, she represents the hopeless myriad of pointlessly circular storylines for which the show has become famous. She and Max break up only to make up. Again. And again. And again. And each break-up is always Max's fault. Never Tanya's. And after each break-up for which Max is blamed, his daughters - his fucking daughters, I ask you - order him to leave Walford forever. Don't come back ... until Tanya gets so desperate in her inability to cope that he's begged to return.

Tanya is yet another aimless and dependent character who never learns from her mistakes. Like Kat. And Bianca. And scores of others. And who never takes the blame for her actions. She's yet another female character who has been, at various times, described as "feisty" and "strong," when she's neither.

She is venal, hypocritical, shallow and mean. And good riddance to her fat arse when she leaves.

And leave she will. Soon.

She's leaving. Going. Gone. Enough of this "taking a break" euphemism, because that's what it is. Here's the history of that phrase, which is EastEnders' PR spin used when a popular character decides to leave.

In 2005, most of the A-list actors in the soap signalled their intention to leave. That year saw the departures of Tracy-Ann Obermann (Chrissie), Shane Richie (Alfie), Jessie Wallace (Kat) and Nigel Harman (Saint Dennis). Letitia Dean was leaving too. Actually, she'd already left the previous year, at Christmas 2004, but TPTB kept that one quiet. She left on the understanding that she would return for one episode, to be aired in February 2005, which saw the absolute end of Den Watts; then she would return later in the year for the discovery of Den's body, her marriage to her brother (let's be honest, that's what it was) and to facilitate Harman's leaving.

There was no way TPTB could disguise that Sharon was leaving after Dennis was killed, but with so many other big names departing in what looked like a cluster, And with Walford's original Princess scarpering too, it might have whetted the appetites of the tabloids who lived for anything negative to print about EastEnders.

So, to keep the press at bay and to soothe the frazzled nerves of the millions of fangirls who creamed their knickers nightly at the thought of Shannis, the spin department announced that Letitia Dean wasn't exactly leaving EastEnders. Instead, she was "taking a break" - a break which lasted six years. 

Similarly, when Natalie Cassidy left the show, it was also announced that she was "taking a break." Oh, and Samantha Womack is currently "taking a break" too.

In Eastiesland, "taking a break" means someone's chosen not to renew their contract. Let's see if I can explain it simply. Say you get a job at McDonalds to serve at the drive-in counter for one year. You sign a contract in September 2012, which will end in September 2013. You do a good job, but you're not happy. You can make more money at Sainsbury's across the road. So at your annual appraisal, when your line manager offers you a new contract for another year and you say "No thanks," you've chosen not to renew your contract.

You can't just walk into the branch three months after leaving, when there was no wonder job at Sainsbury's and say you're ready to come back at McDonalds. There's no guarantee they'd even have a job for you. In the interim, your manager's hired a plethora of clued-up Romanian kids who'll work for half the price you did, so that's your tough luck.

Unusually, it was first announced on Digital Spy that Joyner was leaving in an article published last May. Not surprisingly, DS used the ubiquitous "taking a break" angle, so as to assauge the fears of many of Jo's fangirls on the forum who suffer from naturalised lobotomies.

In fact, bit DS and The Daily Star (from which the article is taken) both say that Joyner told TPTB that she wanted to go next year (that's this year now) when her contract expires. The articles go on to say that she will return sometime in the future. 

What is left dangling is when in the future and if she is needed. Again, this turn of phrase is spin issued to quell the nerves of the Joyner cheerleading squad.

The truth is, the actress cannot dictate when she will return. That's down to whatever Executive Producer is in charge and if he or she decides she's relevant. 

What is also obvious is that, however much they talk about a break or however much Joyner rambles something about "six months" or Jake Wood reckons a year, it's not a specified time - not the sabbatical of one year Steve McFadden took in 2003 - stated definitely at one time - nor is it the six-month stipulated breaks that the likes of Charlie Brooks, Patsy Palmer and June Brown took last year. We knew that they would be gone for six months and they were.

There is no such thing as a break of unspecified length. Joyner's either on gardening leave or she's left, opting not to renew her contract. We know she's not been suspended indefinitely because of gross misconduct or something more serious (which is gardening leave such as Corrie's Michael Le Vell is under at the moment), so that leaves the latter option: She's going.

When her contract expires, she will no longer be a part of the EastEnders' establishment. She can stay at home with her kids or take a part in something on ITV or just spend her time eating. It's not down to her when or even if she returns to EastEnders. It's down to whoever is at the helm.

So all the Peanut Gallery usuals expostulating on Digital Spy and elsewhere about Yummy Mummy's departure can order up a big glass of wine and cry into it for the loss of Saint Tanya. 

My guess (and hope) is that she won't return.

EastEnders: Innit - Review 29.03.2013

OY ... know wot terday is?

Isss Good Froiday ... INNIT?

As in The Long Good Friday - 'member vat film wot wuz abaht dem gangstas ...

'Ere ... vat woz inna East End'n all ... innit? And ... I reckon vat Bob 'Oskins geezer is wot vat Kane'll be one day ... innit? Well'ard 'e woz ... innit?

Bob 'Oskins, I mean.

Now vat Kane bro n 'is bruvvahs'n vat Liam Butcha ... well, vey Wellard is more well'ard van vey is ... 'n 'e's a dog. And dead ... like wivva fingah loik a gun loik wot vat Kane bro' did ... POW ...

Innit?

Er ... actually, no. In fact, it's ridiculous, the whole patois thing, especially when it's written by writers who wouldn't recognise their arses from their elbows regarding gang culture, who've watered it down and peeceed it up to such an extent that it actually becomes offensive - offensive to the viewers because it assumes an ignorance that's only assumed in the condescending minds of the luvvies from the leafy white suburbs who write this cack, it's offensive to the people it seeks to depict.

Yes, most gangs in the EastEnd are black or Asian in make-up, but this is a gang of ethnic idiots led by an even more idiotic Caucasian idiot portrayed by, arguably, one of the worst actors ever to be depicted in the programme. That's an insult to all Afro-Caribbean and Asian people because it portrays their underclass as so low in intellect that they have to be led by a white manchild whose intellect hasn't even reached Neanderthal level yet and who thinks it's terrifying to gurn. (Oscar Branning, take note: Keep gurning, and you're face will freeze like Kane's).

Maybe EastEnders wanted Kane to be scary, so they sought an actor with the most natural physical approximation to the mask from the film Scream, and they found Harry Rafferty. For good measure, the actor is just as intellectually stimulating as the character he portrays. He certainly talks the talk, if his Twitterfeed is anything to go by.

Life imitates art, even down to the knife.

Even worse, is the frightful grammar and syntax used by the show's new Magic Negro character, Ava the Rava - worse still, is the inveterately arrogant spammer who consistently tries to post a response to my criticism of the show's depiction of an educated professional who speaks like a guttersnipe.

The purpose of education is to uplift and enlighten. I am not talking about accents and received pronunciation. A person can come from the East End and speak with an East End accent and still speak using correct grammar and syntax. Barbara Windsor was a great example of how that was achieved. Any teacher or, indeed, any educated professional in a position of authority or trust who seeks to speak like the most ignorant and illiterate and uneducated member of society is neither relevant nor au courant. That person is a panderer and a fool, and the people he seeks to inspire know that.

Furthermore, any person who believes in such pop sociological claptrap is a bigger fool.

As far as that watered-down mother's meeting depiction of a gangabanga designed to scare adolescents away from such a culture, it probably made them laugh derisively, because this is what they see as the inspiration for Liam's "bruvvahs" (and it's probably where the EastEnders' writers got their inspiration):-

Innit?

Actually, this was a very meh episode, with bits of even more mediocrities than normal, apart from yet another random pairing (which Lorraine Newman seems to love, especially of the rainbow variety) surrounding what was supposed to be a dramatic moment of high tension - Liam's stabbing ...

Wait a moment, didn't that happen to Jay a few years ago?

Liam wiv de Feds'n in da House ... Innit?

Liam has a head shaped like a raindrop with a flat back and a pointed top. He can't help it, but it does aid in the general air of gormlessness surrounding the character, who also looks to be tremendously embarrassed to be a 17 year-old portraying a 14 year-old. 

Ne'mind, Liam ... Mary Pickford was playing 11 year-old girls when she was twenty-seven ...

And the actor who plays Little Cock, your avenging angel and Magic Negro-in-Training, is actually 26 and has to hang out with the younger adolescents and act as if he finds sixteen-going-on-eleven Abi interesting.

Still, Liam has to look at Kane's face and that's enough to scare anyone into submission.

The "Feds" have Liam and his newly-adopted bruvs, and Mother of the Year Bianca has to sit in on the police interview with her son, who isn't talking ... innit? Because he doesn't want to grass his bruvs, innit? And that means Mommie Dearest plays her usual party piece - shouting the odds about Liam's innocence to the police (when Liam's supposed to be the one who's talking) until she gets on everyone's nerves so much that even Liam the Lunk asks her to leave.

Poor Bianca ... so misunderstood. Nothing is ever her fault, especially as people like Carol and Ava the Rava, Magic Negro Class A, keep telling her she's a wonderful mum. Well, maybe she is, by Carol's standards, which - as a mother - are woefully low. I mean, this is the mother who cut off all contact with her eldest son because he traced his birth father and found out that Carol kicked him out of her life on the day of Robbie's second birthday and her youngest daughter because she chose to give her baby up for adoption because she wanted the child to have a better life than she could give her. But Ava doesn't know jack shite about Bianca's parenting skills.

She doesn't know how she egged her children on to be rude to neighbours, how her anger got the better of her through a lie told by Whitney and how she assaulted a man and injured him badly. She doesn't know how she summarily exiled her husband from his home and forbade him unlimited access to his children. And next week, when Liam wants to go live with Ricky, Bianca talks him out of it.

Of course, we all know why Ava the Rava, Magic Negro Class A's, man is out of Little Cock's life. He's too busy experiencing the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, boldly going where no man has gone before ... or no Klingon ...

So now we know Ava the Rava's secret. She lost her heart to a starship trooper, and Little Cock is half-Klingon ...

Maybe she could explain this to Billy Mitchell ...

Because silly Liam wants to protect his bruvvahs, who seem to be up to all sorts - robberies, assaults, you name it, all of the little wankspittles go free; and Liam runs right off to find his boyfriend BFF Kane and put things right with him.

Just an observation but: does anyone recall that Liam was selling Derek's knock-off gear and for whom? His very own Uncle Michael Moon. (Please don't forget that Michael is the Butcher kids' uncle and that Scarlett is their cousin, a fact which has been conveniently forgotten by the writers). Michael had him selling knock-offs, and he would have had him getting rid of the dodgy cash too, if he could have done so.

Anyway, Liam runs off, Bianca follows, and there's a fight ... where? In a flaming kids' playground on the Byron Estate. That's right. They fight amongst the swings and the sliding board and the roundabout ... The Magic Roundabout ... innit?

Just like the West Side story gang, the Jets. They start out on a playground ...

... and it all escalates into a brilliant ballet routine. Shit, Carol and Bianca spoil it all, and the iconic shriek of 

RICK-AAAAAAAAYYYYYY

has been replaced with 

LIAMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

Instead of a brilliant series of Kane's arabesques, Liam's plies and Little Chris's pirouettes, Liam gets scratched stabbed. Just like Jay back in 2008 or so. So off we go to the hospital, where (assumes serious demeanor) it's very touch and go, they stopped the bleeding, and Liam's young (harumph harumph) ... all the bog-standard, common-and-garden fucking cliches one hears in the worst sort of amateur soap operas. The sort of medical lines that make you cringe in embarrassment for the writer and moreso for the poor asshole who has to utter these lines.

As Jamie Foreman said, very easy to write tripe, very difficult to perform it.

Liam's epiphany comes when the investigating CID bloke delivers a public service method about  gives a nice message to Bianca about the police wanting to help her and her family but only if Liam helps them.

Cheesiest lines of the night:-

Carol (tentatively): Then ... you'll ... protect us.

DS Plod (seriously): We're the only one who can.

Why was I immediately transported back to the days of my childhood? Because DS Plod reminded me of that incorruptible straight-as-die classic detective from the Dragnet of my childhood.

Sgt Joe Friday, assuring the nervous lady that only the police can protect them and then hushing her doubts by saying tersely, "Just the facts, ma'am."

Well, Liam the Lunk wanted to be treated like an adult, so the screaming banshee, in a reflective moment, hands the game to him. He got himself into this mess, now he can get himself out. Just call her Pass-the-Buck-Bianca. Liam told two weeks ago that she was the reason he'd turned out the way he had - no structure, no discipline, no guidance, regular incarcerations in prison whilst the kids are left with their equally feckless grandmother and their put-upon and now-absent father.

No, none of this is Bianca's fault, because she's always  the sodding victim.

Hit's a bleedin' melodrama ... innit?

The Magic Negro Meets The Village Idiot ... Innit?

Ava the Rava, Walford's Magic Negro, Christ-figure and Pope-in-Training receives a written threat, presumably from the West Side Story gang.

Teach R I P

Sounds like a death threat - sorry, deaf fret - to me. Anyway, shit like that needs to be reported to the "Feds," cos hit's like ... illegal, innit? But when you're the Magic Negro, you stand and fight, which explains why a well-educated Deputy Head on upwards of £60k per annum doesn't move off the council estate in which she lives (even though the council should have politely suggested that she no longer qualifies for subsidised housing), because she believes in standing and fighting the urban chav oppressors who took her poor, defenceless half-alien son into the bosom of their badness.

The Magic Negro is not only a sociologist and a priest, she's also a street fighter - and as she's joined the ranks of actresses who distinctly look like drag queens on the show, it's safe to assume she may be a street-fightin' man ...

(Gee, do you think Ava might do a turn at Glastonbury? Just think what that could do for EastEnders' flagging viewing figures, now below seven million).

Anyway, Little Cock is standing out amongst his peers, because he's taken the Mummy's Boy baton from Phil Mitchell. I mean, what twenty year-old lad would want to go on holiday with his mother? I ask you.

But Ava the Rava is destined for better things ... a romance with Billy Mitchell. How to bring the mighty down to earth.

Wait a moment, Billy would be well-advised to take a leaf from Phil's book, referencing the time Phil got involved with a well-educated professional in a position of trust. Watch Ava morph into Stella - the Mitchells have that sort of effect.

However, Billy gave the absolute most hysterical line of the entire episode tonight, when he was pandering to Ava the Rava in telling her how it couldn't be easy for poor pitiful single mums like Ava the Rava or Bianca - well, Bianca made herself a single mum and then made a pig's ear of raising her kids; and Ava's partner is off partying down someplace in the universe with a Knight of the Realm (well, Captain Picard is really Sir Patrick Stewart).

Yes, Billy, single mums do have it hard. Just ask Honey the next time you see her, sometime this year. Because Billy's ex-wife, a single mum, has to make do on her own because Billy, who's unemployed but somehow had enough money to fork out for a tea for Ava, is all up the arse about looking after his granddaughter (rather than his special needs daughter and his son) and her child. So, yeah, Billy, single mums do have it hard.

And what is it with Lorraine Newman and bonding scenes? Creepy Steve and Carol bonded over a dead child. Then Carol bonded with Masood over the fact that her grandson's mates mugged Masood's son - so now she's another one who's using Masood as a spur-of-the-moment unpaid babysitter. I wonder if Tiff will sing again for Ajay?

Billy and Ava bond over the fact that Billy was brought up in care. So they're poor little lambs who were rejected by their birth families ... baaa baaa baaas. Oh, how appropos. 

Hit's Easter, innit?

Hit's a Bloomin' RomCom ... Innit?

Oh, the story of the non-contest to see who bakes the cake for the non-wedding? Competition between Ian and Jean entertwined with unfunny romantic comedy.

Why, oh why does everyone lumber Denise with shit like this which does her no favours and certainly does Ian Beale no favours.

Last episode, Ian turned sneaky and weasly again in an effort to outsmart Jean (no difficult task), but this episode, it's a full-on romcom, with all the ingredients (pun intended).

There's the female romantic interest (Denise) and the gormless, blundering male (Ian Beale).

Add the snarky side-kick (Kim), the ditzy lady who means well (Jean) and the dictating figure of authority to be pleased (Fat Barbie Sharon), and you've got yourself a distinct and pathetically unfunny piece of tripe.

Ian and Denise plan a lunch date in the Vic, except Sharon wants Ian's and Jean's cake samples in the cafe by one o'clock, which distracts Ian and panics Jean (cue shrieking and arm-waving). Ian and Jean inadvertantly meet up in the Minute Mart, which sells everything anyone could ever want, and they wrangle over icing sugar or something.

Then Ian pulls out his masterpiece, and appeals to the thing which bonds him and Jean (there's that word again). Their mental health situations. They've both had it rough, and making this cake would set Ian on track again. Give him a confidence booster. Ian admits he hates being an employee of his daughter (so, doofus, get a good lawyer and get the businesses back off her). Doing this, successfully, would make Lucy proud of him again ... after all, Jean likes doing things that make Saint Stacey Slater, murderer, proud of her.

So ... surprise surprise ... Jean deliberately makes a substandard cake so Ian wins the prize, and Ian rewards her by asking her to be his second-in-command in catering the entire event, which won't happen anyway, we all know that. But in all this excitement, he's forgotten his date with Denise.

As Kim says, Denise has been stood up by Ian Beale - scraping the barrel much? Well, yes, by Denise's standards, so ... cue bog-standard comedy scene of Denise pushing cake in Ian's face, which prompts a soliloquy by Ian to Denise, with Jean and Kim witnessing him admitting that he gets things wrong, that he messes up, that he's not "good with these things." Basically, admitting that he's an inferior man, who's little more than a dummie - just like all the other ineffectual men there are on the soap - Masood, who's chasing after various women and still gets left holding someone else's babies; Alfie, who's a doormat; Billy, who's the Village Idiot; Max, who can't be without a woman in his bed and another in a lovenest; Jack, who's a control freak; Ricky, who was gormless, and who's now passed that baton to Tamwar; Ray, who's a commitment-phobe and misogynist; and Ajay, the resident Peter Pan. Add to that list Joey, Tyler and Cock, who are unintelligible and Jay, who's still wet behind his ears and elsewhere.

This is Ian Beale, we're talking about now. Newman has finally achieved what Kirkwood wanted to do: de-ball Ian Beale.

If he and Denise get together, how long before she's having an affair?

The clock starts ... now.

Innit?

EastEnders: Fractured Fairy Tales - Review: 28.03.2013

Jesus Christ ... Just when you think it couldn't get any worse.

EastEnders and Perrie Balthazar are incongruous. There's still too much of the Hollyoaks writer in this woman to understand the ethos of EastEnders.

Last night, I caught up with this week's offering from Coronation Street. I'm one of a bevy of long-time EastEnders' fans, those of us who've watched from Day One, who never thought they'd ever live to see the day when we'd say that Corrie is out-stripping EastEnders in writing, in performance and direction, plot and quality in general. 

I've heard that Corrie's writing room is small, and its writers have been on the Coronation Street scene for a long time. I was certainly surprised to see Carmel Morgan, one of the best scriptwriters in the country, is still on staff there. Morgan, at one time, wrote simultaneously for Corrie, Brookside and The Royle Family. In fact, along with Caroline Ahearne and Craig Cash, Morgan was part of the triumvirate who developed that award-winning sitcom.

Anyone like that in the EastEnders' writing room?

Nope.

Instead, that place is dominated by the Branning apologist, Simon Ashdown, and the millennial history-hating wunderkind Emer Kenny, who dismisses any established character history if it doesn't fit the storyline she's planning.

EastEnders certainly deserves better; but the sad situation is that its sinking slowly, stewing in its own juices. At the particular time, we poodle along from day to day, where nothing's happening and the intended comedy isn't funny. The major plotline at the moment, Liam's gangabanga, is badly acted, poorly researched, and embarrassingly bad.

This is not EastEnders' finest moment. The abject and awful truth is that the show has been bleeding viewers for the past decade and began to go into freefall with Bryan Kirkwood's tenure. But where Kirkwood raped the soul of the programme, EastEnders' own Lorraine Newman is guilty of planting her head firmly and so far up her arse that she refuses to see the cesspit the show's become and ploughs along blindly, continuing Kirkwood's ethos.

I smell the stench of Brookside, and as I'm pessimistic about what's on the horizon - meaning I fear Janine will be as fucked up by these bozos as Kat, Bianca and Sharon have been - we may as well enjoy the fractured fairy tale that this once flagship show has become ...

Chapter One: The Magic Negro, the Little Cock and the Chav Queen.

Sorry, but Ava is Lorraine Newman's Moon Goons. She is a perfect example of someone destined to be a temporary guest character, but who's made a permanent fixture, on casting, by the Executive Producer in question, simply because she liked her.

No backstory, no character arc, no plans for how she's supposed to fit into the Square. Ava is supposedly an educated professional, who changes schools and jobs, unrealistically, in the middle of a school-term. She is a teacher who doesn't seem ever to teach. She's lived on and brought her son up on a terrible sink estate, living at the nicer end of its boundary, yet she seems to patrol its area almost relentlessly, for some unknown reason.

So well known is she to the residents that she's called "Teach." 

Really.

She's like a self-appointed vigilante, who trolls the estate dispensing wisdom and light to all who will listen. That someone of her education and social background would care to bring her son up in that environment or even remain in such a vicinity - to begin with, her income would preclude her from living in public housing - is beyond belief. In fact, it's simply an obvious plot device.

At other times, she's popped up at odd hours at various places on Albert Square - during the day, when she's supposed to be at her job, during the evening at the pub, commenting on the white trash family she's been shocked to find are her own blood. 

Within minutes of meeting Queen of the Chavs Bianca, on a professional basis, the two are on first-name terms, and without ever laying eyes on Bianca's oldest child, who attends a secondary school, she immediately recognises him as he's being attacked by his new "bruvs" and calls him by his name.

That's omniscience.

Ava really is the Magic Negro.

She quells the violence of the gang with words of peace, love and harmony; and she faces down the indescribably ugly face of one of the worst actors ever to grace EastEnders' screen, Harry Rafferty (aka Kane, who's essentially playing his dumbassed, unintelligible self, if his Twitterfeed is anything to go by - producer, my ass). She ministers to the injured Liam, takes him into the bosom of her home, where she and her son and disciple Little Cock tell Liam of the evils of the gangabanga with whom Liam has become involved.

So strong is Ava's influence, that all it took was her tender love and words of wisdom for Little Cock to stop his wicked ways and become a devoted mummy's boy. (Shame, she didn't teach him how to speak properly, but she can't do so herself.)

The dynamic of Ava and Bianca is a strange one, considering they are relatives of a sort, both being Branning satellites. (The Brannings, it seems, are always with us). They are the opposite ends of the Branning spectrum - Bianca is the Brannings' own village idiot, whilst Ava is the tribe's sage, their very own Magic Negro.

The fact that she's the non-white member of a family of known racists, the only one who has achieved academic and professional success and that she's ministering to the lowliest, poorest and most unsuccessful (at the same time the most arrogant) member of the family speaks volumes for this Magic Negro ... she is Jesus.

Forget the Easter Bunny. The Magic Negro has found and rescued the missing Chav Prince.

But, alas, he escapes her prison, but not before getting a lecture in love from Ava the Rava ... who knows about Liam's dad "not being around, " and who automatically sympathises and likens this to her own son's situation - he, whose father - in the son's words - deserted the family.

Inaccurate, and once again, we're being allowed to have history re-written as the Gospel according to Bianca. Liam's dad "isn't around," because Liam's putrid mother bullied him out of Walford, encouraged by his grandmother, for no other reason than Nana Carol was dumped by Grandaddy David. There. 

Maybe, after The Magic Negro sorts Liam out and single-handedly dismantles the gangabanga, she can turn her attention to dealing with the arrogance, the ignorance and the attitude of Liam's mother, because - as he said - her stints in prison have affected him, and they were unnecessary. The first assault was done out of uncontrolled anger, and she targeted a man who was offered sex on a plate by Whitney Dean, the eternal victim; her second crime could also have been avoided by a bit more common sense and some humility.

Liam is the failing son of a failure mother.

But ne'mind ... Walford has a new guardian angel and avenger ... Ava the Rava, the Magic Negro ...

Truly, Newman's instinctive decision to elevate a prop fixture for a mini-storyline intended to flesh out and humanise a particulary crotchety and hateful, old, drunken hag (Cora the Bora) to permanent character, and then to splice one character's trajectory (Jay) in order to appease the creation of a son for Ava the Rava, thus adding yet another pointless "yoof" to the equation (although the actor who plays Cock is 26 years old), is proving a problem.

This is what happens when you plop a character into a dynamic with no arc, no direction and no real backstory. We've had odd references to "family" and to a partner/husband etc who left. She  earns a substantial wage, yet lives on a sink estate. She appears to loathe her blood family (with reason, they're every adoptee's worst nightmare). But it seems that TPTB don't know what to do with Ava, so, they're figuratively throwing her character up against other established ones just to see where she sticks.

And to date, they've thrown her up against the show's two resident village idiots - Bianca Butcher and Billy Mitchell. With Bianca as a mate (surely a conflict of interest on a professional basis as two of Bianca's brats attend the school where Ava is the Deputy Head) and Billy as a love interest, Ava the Rava's fate is sealed as the Magic Negro. She'll being light and uplifting guidance to both.

Chapter Two: The West Side Story Wannabes Go Biblical.

Kane lives up to his name, albeit one spelled a different way.

I am mah bruvva's keepah ... 'Sin da Bible, innit?

Actually, that misquoted quotation involved the Biblical Cain, he who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy and was marked by God. When God asked Cain about Abel, Cain replied to the effect, "How should I know? Am I my brother's keeper?" (In Kane-speak: Nuffink to do wiv me, guv.)

Yep, Kane is a real off-shoot of the Biblical Cain, the first murderer, right down to the simulated gun signal this atrocious and ugly actor effected at the end of the programme.

Of course, Kane, like Kane, is a liar. So Cain was the first liar also.

And the mark of Cain on this troglodyte is surely his misshapenly ugly face and his lack of acting talent. Having said that, it's just like EastEnders to mistake him for being someone the viewers love to hate. Please, God, stop it now.

Tonight, however, after Liam's initiation, it seems as though the gangabanga wanted to practice The Jets Song ...

Like the song says, Liam's got bruvvahs, he's a family man. He's never alone, he's never disconnected. And just like the Jets, this gangabanga has a girl member - Ali is "Anybody's" (and she probably is too).

I still find it insulting, presumptuous and the height of white privilege that the gang is depicted as a gang of white and biracial youth, led by a white skinhead, who effects ghetto-speak in the worst possible imitation thereof.

EastEnders must have cleaned up a year from Sylvia Young's drama school, if the middle-class teenaged girl with braces (cosmetic dentistry is purely private health) affecting a bad cockney accent becomes Liam's Angel Gabriel, recognising him from school and telling him that the gang are a bunch of losers - something he'd been told by his mother and his Magic Negro regularly, but something he wouldn't ignore from a peer - bless his low-browed, flat-sided little pinhead.

Ironic, that the end-of-party scene showed the innate misogyny that's growing inordinately amongst the ignorant and not-so-ignorant today in British society, when the show, itself, shows women in general as pathetic, loud, weak-willed creatures who abscond any responsibility, instead promoting their victimhood, and being almost totally dependent on a man's presence.

The gang is bad, but not in a Michael Jackson way. They just suck. As does this circular storyline, created only to enhance Patsy Palmer's screeching techniques which many people mistake for acting talent.

Chapter Three: Masood the Magic Postman.

Masood is all over the place. Carol thinks she deserves a treat and knowing that the sure way to a man's heart is via his stomach - especially if he's done the cooking, himself. She invites Masood over to eat food he has cooked.

Masood works his magic through candy and sweets and a bedtime story for a pre-pubescent Tiffany and Mowgan Le Fat (who probably gobbled the sweets whilst listening to the story),and then settles down to gobble a bit with Carol, only to find out that Liam was one of the gangabanga who attacked Tamwar. A fit of anger, followed by some tears from Carol, results in  Masood and Carol locked in an embrace.

Another example of Newman's efforts at forcing single characters together ad hoc, in this instance, even creating yet another potential love triangle, with creepy Steve on the periphery, just to see what, if any, pairing fits.

Masood is a practicing Muslim, who takes his faith seriously. His standing in his religious community has taken a big dent with his acceptance of his son's homosexuality and his embracing of Syed's husband, Christian.

Carol is the feckless mother of four different children by four different men, only one of whom she married. She comes from a family where adultery, lying, cheating and promiscuity are the norms. She is an infidel, and in Masood's world, she is faithless.

Masood has sealed his fate in his community if he effects a relationship with Carol, who - since her return - has had liaisions with Lewis, the married recruiting officer; Connor, Billie's friend; David Wicks, and Eddie Moon. If Cora the Bora is the ASBO Granny, then Carol is the Horny Nana.

Of course, the idea of whether Masood or Steve "sticks" to Carol is sorta kinda yucky, but maybe that's what Newman wants us to believe. Poor Carol. The show's resident female fiftysomething who's relegated to storylines reminiscent of Old Mother Hubbard or those of a horny menopausal woman.

Chapter Four: Fat Barbie and The Magic Wedding Cake Competition.

Ian and Sharon are the show's two remaning original characters. To deem them iconic would be an understatement.

But if this silly wedding cake competiton between Jean and Ian is the best the show can come up with for the likes of Adam Woodyatt, then the writing room needs to be cleared.

That it isn't funny is one thing; that it exploits a woman who suffers from bi-polar syndrome as well as a man who's still in the early days of recuperation from a nervous breakdown - and uses them as an ineffective comedy tool - is quite another.

In 2010, EastEnders asked us to laugh at female-on-male domestic violence. Now they ask us to laugh at two psychologically fragile people fighting to create the wedding cake of the century for Walford's version of Fat Barbie.

Ian's back in sneaking weasel mode, and an Jean's back with her jerky jiggery-pokery, punctuated by sudden shrieks and unexpected arm movement.

Ian was right. He's made cakes and catered for Sharon before. She knew him. She knows nothing of Jean, whose expertise arises from magazine articles. Of course, this means Jean will win the competition. This is EastEnders, after all.

Ian should have reminded Sharon of the fact that he is her lifelong friend, but the EastEnders' writing room seem to have forgotten that.

Chapter Five: The Wrath of Dot and The Magic Suitcase.

Arguably, the worst non-story in the history of the programme. A tool for June Brown's dubious cartoonish pantomime audition, complete with bobbing head, Olive Oyl-ish running movements,  phony crying and oozing with Dot's abrasive self-pity and martyrdom.

Silly Poppy, a pointless Pollyanna-ish character and Arthur Fatboy Chubb, provide a diversion for Dot from her worries about losing her home. The magic suitcase's owner yielded an expensive watch, the sale of which will provide Arthur and Poppy with enough money to secure the deposit on a rental flat. Since a rental deposit is usually one month's rent in advance, and since Fatboy reckoned the Rollex to be worth a grand, then that means somehow, Fatboy (on his wages from the Vic) and Poppy, from her sometime wages at the salon (where days off are regularly declared by the proprietor for the purpose of getting drunk) will need to find £1000 per month for flat rental.

I used to wonder where the Moon Goons and Fatboy found enough money between the three of them to cough up a grand a month for Big Mo, but, it seems Bryan Kirkwood's words about EastEnders' accounting talents ring true - they're really not very good with figures.

It looks as though Fatboy's found his own guardian angel in the ageing form of the Philadelphia Cream Cheese lady.

He's lucky she let him have the watch and not a year's supply of cream cheese.

Question: Was June Brown late into wardrobe the day this was filmed? What is it with that awful henna-coloured wig she's wearing now? Dot always had black hair with a hint of henna. I also know that Brown used to have her own hair back-combed and teased, but lately has been wearing a wig, only tonight the wig in her first scene was all to obvious. It was crooked, looked wonky and you could catch glimpses of her hair beneath it. And that colour.

Dot doesn't do trousers. Or the dangly earrings. And the expensively manicured nails are another thing. Also, if Dot owes over four grand in back rent, the expensive Smart car she seems to have acquired in place of Jim's Morris Minor could easily be sold to cough up the funds Cora the Bora neglected to pay.

Another pisspoor episode with no redeeming qualities.

EastEnders: Another Fine Mess - Review 26.03.2013

Tomorrow night, I'll catch up on Corrie this week, as it pulls further and further ahead of EastEnders in the viewers' stakes. The more EastEnders bleeds viewers, the more the usual apologists on Digital Spy and the bullybois on Walford Web spit out excuses in a desperate attempt to convince people that there's no problem with the programme at all, that 7 million viewers and dropping fast is the norm this time of year, in an exceptionally cold and wintry early spring when there's no sunshine or Easter heatwave in which to bask.

Try as they might, they can't convince the people who know that this show has been on a downward spiral for the past ten years, starting with that jump-the-shark moment when Den Watts rose from the canal waters. Diederick Santer managed to staunch the flow briefly, using short-term methods like bringing back old characters and sensationalist plotlines (Max Branning being buried alive, Mad May).

We're two years off the thirtieth anniversary, and I'm wondering if we'll make it that far. There's no denying that the show is suffering. It's regressed to the point of the same old same old going round and round with whatever is the main plotline, caricatured cartoon characters and little bits of syrupy sweet nothings.

This is supposed to be the flagship show of the BBC, the programme designed to draw in viewers to BBC 1 on most weeknights. It's flagging. It's failing badly, and that's the fault of Simon Ashdown and the pathetic excuse for a writing room - part and parcel of the production that needs replacing urgently. As for the Executive Producer, the following images spring to mind ...

Lorraine Newman

Shout ... Shout ... Bianca's Back in Town

Shout, shout, let it all out. These are the things I can do without (like Bianca's voice)

Come on. I'm talking to you, come on ...

This could be Bianca's theme,really. 

Ok, I'm going to come right out and say it. For all the fanbois and various women who should know better are praising her to the hilt, Patsy Palmer is a one-trick pony. She has two party tricks - shouting the odds with her awfully screechy voice at fever pitch, and crying. 

Give her any serious storyline, and she always ends up doing one or the other. She even did as much during Pat's death storyline, wreaking vengeance on Ricky for a one night stand when she romped the beds freely years ago with Dan Sullivan. Unfortunately, the lowest common denominator of EastEnders' fan sees screaming and crying (Palmer, Lacey Turner, Jessie Wallace) as the mark of a good actress, when it's not. It's just screaming and crying. We all do it, some more than others.

Let's put it this way - these are three women with godawful voices, who scream and cry and make a lot of money out of it. It's not endearing. It's not sympathetic. It's just bloody loud and awful.

Bianca is an abysmal mother, one of the worst in the bad lot who inhabit the Square. Liam spoke the truth the other week when he told her she was the reason he was the way he was. And he was right. Bianca never restrained her children in anything. She takes constructive criticism of them as something personal. She fights authority of any sort, because she's Bianca and she knows best. It was far more important to buy the latest television rather than put food on the table. When she had an extra tenner, she bought cake mix and they had a party. I really do wonder sometimes if this Bianca isn't borderline retarded, the way her behaviour knows no boundaries.

I heard plenty of wailing when Phil Mitchell covered up his son's serious criime, but nothing when Bianca concealed Tamwar's money bag and lied to the police, first time around when the bizzies came calling. What Bianca did is called "perverting the course of justice, " and it could mean, if discovered, she'll go back into prison. Really, for me, that can't come soon enough, and I hope Palmer's ubiquitous "working mum's contract" (specially developed for her and only her) kicks in within the next couple of months and that she leaves Walford forever.

For all the fanbois who proclaim that this storyline is "all about Bianca," well, of course it is, dumbasses. Hell, the Whitney child abuse storyline was all about Bianca - Bianca's reaction, Bianca's shouting, Bianca crying ... same old same old.

Liam is in trouble. Of course, he's in trouble and boiling up and witholding information from the police is just stupid - as stupid as that first policeman's attitude that it's so normal that fourteen year-olds just disappear from home for days on end. I can assure you, it's not. And that dialogue, particularly from the policeman, sucked shit. Rob Gittins, should bloody know better, or maybe he's past the point of caring and knows that he's got to appeal to the intelligence quota of the likes of xTonix (very low), so he effectively writes shit. When a writer doesn't respect the entity for whom he has to write, things are at a pretty pass.

Yes, Widdle Wiam's in twouble, and if PC Plod isn't aware of it, then the lady detective certainly was, and she knows the score with Bianca witholding information too.

Carol, Bianca's mum, was another arrogant and feckless mother in her time, but Brer Jack the Peg brought her around to the sense of involving the police -which is sorta what you do when a crime is involved. Yet Whitney the Omnisciently Arrogant thinks Carol is grassing Liam, when Bianca is essentially doing the same thing. So, I guess the rule of thumb is that it's OK to grass your own kid, but it's not OK for the kid's grandparent to do it.

Ne'mind about the police getting involved, because Bianca has a secret weapon ...

The Magic Negro.

OK, shut up all you bullybois, whining "racism" on Walford Web ... That means you, *Betty*. 

What is the Magic Negro, you ask? Watch the video and be prepared to learn something. You'll see the analogy afterwards ...

Here are several examples of The Magic Negro in film and literature ...

Bagger Vance

Lennie Kravitz's character in The Hunger Games (NO, THAT IS NOT JACQUELINE JOSSA WITH HIM! THAT'S AN ACADEMY AWARD WINNING ACTRESS!)

Mammy from Gone With the Wind

The Magic Negro is a phrase coined by director Spike Lee, describing the unsubstantiated (and slightly white privilegist) belief by white people that black people are really magic, and bring luck, wisdom and courage to the noble white man. (Then why, do you ask, do EastEnders have the mostly all-black gang led by a white kid, who is so stupid he doesn't know his arse from his elbow? More of that later).

Bianca's secret weapon is The Magic Negro, Ava the Rava, because that's the way EastEnders seem to be using a character who's becoming increasingly more pointless. She's a teacher who never teaches, an educated professional who sounds as though she's recently emerged from the gutter, a professional who earns roughly £85K per annum, yet she lives among the lowly (like the lovechild sprung from the celibate loins of Jesus and the Pope) on a council estate. Her son wears bling. She wears cornrows. And her mission in life is to offer hope, encouragement, optimism, sage advice and an awkward hug to scummy, little chavs like Bianca.

She's here ... she's there ... she's every bleeding where ... Ava the Rava. Dot will probably find her in church. She prowls Walford at all hours of the day or night, seeking lost souls lying face down in the gutter like Sister Ludmila from The Jewel in the Crown. Her brow is furrowed like that of the Klingon Mr Worf ...

Her wrath, judgement and disapproval are greater than those expressed by Aunt Esther ...

 If you're down, out and a resident of Chav City, you don't even need to call Ava the Rava ... she'll be there. Maybe, as a rejected spawn of the stinky old grey mare and her scrubbed-up, formerly racist satellite family, she realises that Bianca is the Branning's village idiot, the relative who never quite made the jump from poor white to trailer trash, and so Ava the Magic Negro seeks to enlighten Bianca and bring culture and understanding to her brood.

Good luck with that one.

Oh, by the way ... Ava got the "Short Sharp Shock" wrong. That's a phrase which came about in America in the 1980s, when law enforcement officials took deliquent youths and let them spend a day with hardened criminals in prison. For a short sharp shock about what, within reason and supervision, goes on there.

Spanky and Our Gang Do West Side Story ...

It's no exaggeration that most EastEnd gangs are either Afro-Caribbean or Asian. It's also no exaggeration that most of these kids are involved in smoking and selling cannabis (and possibly cocaine) moreso than they are into snitching liquor and food fights. It says something of EastEnders' arrogance and also their white privilege, to show a gang of primarily black, Asian and mixed race youths being dominated by a white skinhead with all the markings and makings of a British National Party supporter. All that's missing from Sir Kane of the Deformed Face is a swastika on his low brow. (I truly cannot believe this "actor" is also a model What does he model? Hallowe'en paraphernalia?)

That Kane is the master of his "bruvs" says a lot - massa givin de orders on de ole plantation, or sahib giving instructions for the day to his faithful carrier. Either way, it's wrong, totally wrong, and it simply reflects, yet again, the total ignorance and lazy research of the EastEnders' writing room.

Besides, the gang, itself, is too choreographed, too scripted in dialogue which no one ever uses. Liam's initiation of walking a roof ledge and vandalising a car, then the totally dumbass shoplifting incident from the off licence - I mean, who the hell shoplifts and then waves the stolen item about in the air right in front of the store? Duhhhhh ... The getaway scene of the gangabanga scarpering, along with the arty-farty cinematography and overhead shots reminded me of this, which leads me to believe that these guys are all wannabe dancers waiting for another production of West Side Story ...

The abysmal scene of the gang kicking a turnip around the Square before choosing Liam's "victim" to rob led to probably what was the best scene in the show, when he confronts Shirley, and she gives him a tenner to leave and takes the knife he drops. 

Hey, the white people have a fairy godmother too. Let's call Shirley The Magic Guttersnipe - she brings wisdom to Bianca as to what to do about Liam, she brings confidence to Skinny Heather Jean, she brings bother to Phil. Maybe she should team up with Ava the Rava as a branch of Walford's own superhero club.

And, please ... the "feds?" The more I look at this gangabanga, the more they look less like a scary mob and more like Spanky's He-Man Woman-Haters Club ..,

Liam can be Alfalfa. He resembles him.

The Real Liam Butcher

The Belle of Albert Square.

Why, Carol, of course ... being pursued to her doorstep by weird Steve, the probation officer, followed by Food Masood. Carol's attracted to Steve - I mean,they bonded over dead children, but she doesn't trust him with her troubles because he's a figure of authority, see ... like Jack the Peg. 

And she can bond with Masood over the fact that her grandson was part and parcel of the gang who mugged (well, tapped, really) Masood's son.

And what is it with Masood, anyway? Is he having a testicular reaction to being without a woman for the first time in thirty years? He goes from almost leaving with a woman young enough to be his daughter, to lusting hornily after a yoga instructor, and now he's back with someone he thinks is comfy Carol.

Run, Masood, run!

Fat Barbie and Thunder Thighs Make Up.

Sharon just can't have another cupcake, she coos. She has to watch her waistline, you know, she simpers as Tanya comes into the pub for a noontime alcohol fix. After all, she's getting married. To the man of her dreams.

Well, one thing is true. She certainly does have to watch her waistline, and that much was evident when Jean cornered her in Jack's flat to witter on about making her wedding cake. Sharon has no waistline left. She is buxom and blowsy, and she grabs two more cupcakes just to sit down with her new BFF Tanya and renew their rock-solid friendship.

Jesus, who am I kidding, a more forced friendship in the history of EastEnders, I have yet to see, and the way they've remade Sharon in Tanya's shallow and hypocritical image is insulting to Julia Smith.

Phoniest line of the night:-

I 'ate it when I'm at loggerheads wiv you.

Oh, puke-a-buzzard! Please, pass the sick bucket. These two aren't friends, and Sharon doesn't love Jack anymore than Tanya isn't jealous as sin of Sharon.

This whole escapade is just the opening round to yet another remarkably exciting EastEnders storyline ...

Ian and Jean Compete to Make Sharon and Jack's Wedding Cake.

I mean ... aren't you just breathless in anticipation about a storyline which, at best, will be totally unfunny and at worst will be embarrassing. Poor Adam Woodyatt.

There should be no competition. Ian should make the cake, and Sharon shouldn't even have to consider. He's her childhood friend. Jean's a stranger and a flake. End of.

The Non-Story.

Poppy, Fatboy and the Tale of the Errant Suitcase. OMFG ... this is included in an episode of EastEnders, including a character actress whose face is familiar as someone who always played a ditzy upper-class woman doing the same ditzy upper-class woman, who finds out her husband is planning a divorce through the innocent auspices of the too-innocent Poppy.

And Dot's involved too. And a bone china tea service. And Jean's damned cupcakes, which were the fucking star of tonight's episode.

Give me strength ... and give EastEnders Tony Jordan as EP.

Final Observation: The stench of a dying Brookside was strong in that "public service announcement" scene between Ava the Rava and Bianca - the one which ended in an awkward hug, which looked as though Bianca didn't want Ava to hold her. The minute Brookside started inserting public service infomercials as dialogue into the storyline (cf: the dishy doctor lecturing Max outside Ron Dixon's hospital room about healthy eating and heart disease), the show was dying. I feel EastEnders is entering terminal status now, and the BBC had better damed sight do something.