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 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.
Like you I've watched this show from the beginning, but I'm not sure I can take much more of it. There was a point when I gave up watching Brookside, and the announcement that it was to end was made about six months later. This whole Ava thing where she goes from being professional middle class to being a super hero living on a sink estate could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Utter garbage!
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