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.