This is what I mean by inconsistency.
Last night's episode very closely approached what EastEnders used to represent in terms of watchability, in writing, and in continuity, as well as acting performances. It was even peppered with a sprinkling of multi-layered nuance (an experiment which failed judging by the reactions of some of the participants on Digital Spy Soaps' Forum, but then, no one thinks critically these days).
Then, today, it's back to the less-than-ordinary. Back to mediocrity.
Yes, yes, yes ... two tabloids have dared to speak of the show being in crisis. I'm sorry, they're right. OK, The Mirror article was badly written and badly researched, taking a gaggle of quotes from viewers totally out of context. The Sun was more accurate, but they both got a very important fact wrong.
EastEnders isn't failing because of various and sundry cast members leaving - and leaving of their own volition. None of the names mentioned in either article were sacked. EastEnders is failing because of poor and lazy writing, a total disregard for the show's history and character continuity, inexperienced actors being given maximum airtime, total destruction by a lazy and ineffectual writing room of several iconic (female) characters, disregard and disrespect for long-time viewers, and unconvincing acting by professionals who should know better.
I used to wonder if TPTB mischievously sought to bring the show to the worst point possible just to see how far the shippiest shippers - your dan2008s, your xTonixs, your *Betty*s and such would go before they'd utter a valid criticism against the tripe they were being served on their/their parents' licence fee. Now I'm not so sure.
I used to think they would throw out these better-than-average episodes (which look good against the shit they normally dish) out as a ploy to convince viewers that the show still had what it takes to be edgy and relevant; now, I'm certain that they can't do a good show more than once a fortnight, much less a week, because they lack the confidence to rock the boat naturally, without breaking wind and veering off into sensationalism, Yet again.
So they settle for safe mediocrity. An episode that's neither pukeworthingly dire nor breathtakingly good. They play it safe, and they play it safe with what could be, in the West End, a drag queen review, featuring Shoulder Pad Sharon, Curvaceous Kim, Cora the Bora, Katshit DeLuxe, Shameless Shirl and - the newest member of the troupe - Ava the Rava (imagine Billy's reaction when he finds out she's a man ... They could take inspiration from The Crying Game for Billy's reaction when Ava reveals her little secret ...)
Since 2010, TPTB have managed to fuck up (in this order) Kat, Bianca and Sharon. Should we expect anything different when Janine returns? She'll just be one more formerly iconic female character Lorraine Newman will beg us to have patience while she repairs her.
Anyway, we've had our weekly flash of brilliance from EastEnders' writing room this week. Time to return to the comfy co-dependence of mediocrity, like Max Branning when he slithers back to Tanya.
This song resonates whenever TPTB return the show to its mediocre state:-
It's good to be back home again ... where mediocre reigns supreme.
Hypocrisy Complete: When Thunder Thighs Meets Big Belly.
Tanya is a rich hypocrite, and she reached the nadir of her hypocrisy tonight, scared shitless in the sober light of day of having spent the night, sharing a bed with Phil Mitchell. Worse, not remembering what went on in that all-too-neat-and-pristine bed, after having blacked out from too much drink.
Aren't black-outs a surefire sign of alcoholism? I can tell you now, the richest, most hypocritical scene of the night came when Cora was lecturing Tanya on the wages of sinning (with Phil Mitchell) at the Salon - first implying that Tanya could have caught some sort of sexually transmitted disease from Phil. After all, I mean, since 2007, Phil's been with Stella, Dawn (a couple of times) and Shirley. Stella was a bluestocking, Dawn, the Roxy Mitchell of her day in that most everyone chose not to watch and think properly and labelled her a slut, when she'd only ever slept with Rob Minter, Jase and Garry Hobbs whilst in Walford, and - besides the Polish builder and Vinnnie Monks, Shirl had only slept with Kevin Wicks.
However, since 2007, Tanya's slept with Max, Sean Slater, Jack Branning, Greg Jessop and Max again. Max and Jack, alone, with their rampant horniness and the number of women bedded indiscriminately, would send any sensible woman sprinting to the STI clinic.
I'd say Tanya was more apt to infect Phil than the opposite.
Secondly, Cora is appalled that Tanya, of all people, would be so stupid as to sleep with an alcoholic, much less bring him into her children's lives. Please. They both should look in the mirror. Cora and Tanya are rampant alcoholics, and Lauren's a budding one. At least if Phil lived with Tanya, he'd dictate that no booze be brought into the house. It could be the salvation of them all. Cora and Tanya are hypocrites in denial about their alcohol dependency. Rainie's the real hero there in seeking help professionally, yet they look down their noses at her.
Also, it's brilliant to know just how much Tanya's children totally disrespect and disdain her now. That was evidenced in the scene where she tried to convince them that (a) she wasn't "in a relationship" with Phil Mitchell and (b) she didn't sleep with him.
As Abi opined, couldn't they just go back to chalking this up as yet another incredibly stupid thing their mother had done and just get over it? Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. You know you're a shit mother when your kids tell you so obliquely and you understand what they are saying. Tanya should feel ashamed - for giving her children such a fine role model. It's no wonder Lauren is so incredibly selfish, self-centred and self-obsessed to the point that she doesn't give a rat's arse about anyone but herself. She learned that behaviour pattern at the foot of her yummy mummy.
And by the way, in all of this, where was Oscar?
He wasn't at home the night before - not when Max stormed in and not when Phil arrived. He wasn't at breakfast this morning, and he couldn't have been taken to school yet (unless by Max or Jack) because the two madams were making every effort to burn the kitchen down, while Granny Goodwitch was away in La-LaLand with the fairies.
Maybe Tanya just locks Oscar in his room most of the time and doesn't remember him until he starts to bang on the door and growl, "Tarn-YERRRR."
The highlights of that French farce were Phil appearing at the Branning breakfast table and appropriating Lauren's fry-up, even licking the brown sauce and grease from the fork, followed by Sharon's sudden "concerned" appearance, with Lexi in tow, knowing she'd discover Phil tucked in at her BFF's breakfast table.
Mission accomplished. No wonder Phil was smiling. He'd achieved everything he wanted without having to pork Tanya to get it. Plus, he'd proven to the high and mighty Brannings, especially the socially aspirant Tanya, that they were nothing more than scrubbed-up white trash. The sooner Abi realises this, the better she'll cope with getting pregnant by Jay - because that's what little trailer trash girls do. Lauren's well on the way to white trash city now.
But the veritable piece de resistance in this vignette came when Tanya took the moral high ground (or tried to) with Sharon, and that scene revealed a lot about the two of them, especially how little Sharon knew about Tanya. There's Tanya, getting all morally high and mighty about Sharon kissing her ex-lover Phil, bleating a threat about Sharon leading poor, pitiful Jack on because Jack was fairmly, when ...
Previously, I'd thought Ava was going to be the token Angry Black Lady because her forbidding countenance reminded me so much of Aunt Esther ...
But the more I looked at her furrowed brow as she spoke with her unlikely admirer, Billy (and how did she even know his name or is his reputation as The Walford Loser so wide?), I kept seeing her morph more and more into the resident Klingon in that EastEnders of the future, Star Trek. I'm talking about Mr Worf ... Spot the resemblance ...
Can you imagine if Billy scores and he wakes up the next morning to findMr Worfe Ava shaving off her facial hair in his bathroom?
Beam me up, Scotty.
The Chuckle Brothers Meet the Wrath of Dot. Not.
It's obvious that Liam and his Gangabanga "bruvvahs" trashed the launderette. The only good thing about that pointless vignette was a good moment of community between Dot, Masood and Jean, and later, Dot's interaction with Jack, after he fitted the new lock on the launderette.
Jack is great when interacting with his siblings or his step-mother. As much as Ian and Ricky were the sons Pat never had, Jack is more of a son to Dot than Nick. It was sweet of him wanting to walk her home, so one wonders why Dot doesn't confide in him what has been going on with the council and how Cora stitched her up.
On the other hand, why are they trying to make Masood and Ajay funny? And why isn't Ajay at work? Do they take turns working a different day at the Arches - Jay on Mondays, Ajay on Tuesdays and Cock on Wednesdays etc? What was the point of that stupid cake? Tamwar is missing his mother, he hates his job, he's suffering from depression and low self-esteem and he thinks his father is acting like a juvenile. Maybe he should talk to the Branning girls.
Then again, maybe not.
Back to mediocrity.
Last night's episode very closely approached what EastEnders used to represent in terms of watchability, in writing, and in continuity, as well as acting performances. It was even peppered with a sprinkling of multi-layered nuance (an experiment which failed judging by the reactions of some of the participants on Digital Spy Soaps' Forum, but then, no one thinks critically these days).
Then, today, it's back to the less-than-ordinary. Back to mediocrity.
Yes, yes, yes ... two tabloids have dared to speak of the show being in crisis. I'm sorry, they're right. OK, The Mirror article was badly written and badly researched, taking a gaggle of quotes from viewers totally out of context. The Sun was more accurate, but they both got a very important fact wrong.
EastEnders isn't failing because of various and sundry cast members leaving - and leaving of their own volition. None of the names mentioned in either article were sacked. EastEnders is failing because of poor and lazy writing, a total disregard for the show's history and character continuity, inexperienced actors being given maximum airtime, total destruction by a lazy and ineffectual writing room of several iconic (female) characters, disregard and disrespect for long-time viewers, and unconvincing acting by professionals who should know better.
I used to wonder if TPTB mischievously sought to bring the show to the worst point possible just to see how far the shippiest shippers - your dan2008s, your xTonixs, your *Betty*s and such would go before they'd utter a valid criticism against the tripe they were being served on their/their parents' licence fee. Now I'm not so sure.
I used to think they would throw out these better-than-average episodes (which look good against the shit they normally dish) out as a ploy to convince viewers that the show still had what it takes to be edgy and relevant; now, I'm certain that they can't do a good show more than once a fortnight, much less a week, because they lack the confidence to rock the boat naturally, without breaking wind and veering off into sensationalism, Yet again.
So they settle for safe mediocrity. An episode that's neither pukeworthingly dire nor breathtakingly good. They play it safe, and they play it safe with what could be, in the West End, a drag queen review, featuring Shoulder Pad Sharon, Curvaceous Kim, Cora the Bora, Katshit DeLuxe, Shameless Shirl and - the newest member of the troupe - Ava the Rava (imagine Billy's reaction when he finds out she's a man ... They could take inspiration from The Crying Game for Billy's reaction when Ava reveals her little secret ...)
Anyway, we've had our weekly flash of brilliance from EastEnders' writing room this week. Time to return to the comfy co-dependence of mediocrity, like Max Branning when he slithers back to Tanya.
This song resonates whenever TPTB return the show to its mediocre state:-
It's good to be back home again ... where mediocre reigns supreme.
Hypocrisy Complete: When Thunder Thighs Meets Big Belly.
Tanya is a rich hypocrite, and she reached the nadir of her hypocrisy tonight, scared shitless in the sober light of day of having spent the night, sharing a bed with Phil Mitchell. Worse, not remembering what went on in that all-too-neat-and-pristine bed, after having blacked out from too much drink.
Aren't black-outs a surefire sign of alcoholism? I can tell you now, the richest, most hypocritical scene of the night came when Cora was lecturing Tanya on the wages of sinning (with Phil Mitchell) at the Salon - first implying that Tanya could have caught some sort of sexually transmitted disease from Phil. After all, I mean, since 2007, Phil's been with Stella, Dawn (a couple of times) and Shirley. Stella was a bluestocking, Dawn, the Roxy Mitchell of her day in that most everyone chose not to watch and think properly and labelled her a slut, when she'd only ever slept with Rob Minter, Jase and Garry Hobbs whilst in Walford, and - besides the Polish builder and Vinnnie Monks, Shirl had only slept with Kevin Wicks.
However, since 2007, Tanya's slept with Max, Sean Slater, Jack Branning, Greg Jessop and Max again. Max and Jack, alone, with their rampant horniness and the number of women bedded indiscriminately, would send any sensible woman sprinting to the STI clinic.
I'd say Tanya was more apt to infect Phil than the opposite.
Secondly, Cora is appalled that Tanya, of all people, would be so stupid as to sleep with an alcoholic, much less bring him into her children's lives. Please. They both should look in the mirror. Cora and Tanya are rampant alcoholics, and Lauren's a budding one. At least if Phil lived with Tanya, he'd dictate that no booze be brought into the house. It could be the salvation of them all. Cora and Tanya are hypocrites in denial about their alcohol dependency. Rainie's the real hero there in seeking help professionally, yet they look down their noses at her.
Also, it's brilliant to know just how much Tanya's children totally disrespect and disdain her now. That was evidenced in the scene where she tried to convince them that (a) she wasn't "in a relationship" with Phil Mitchell and (b) she didn't sleep with him.
As Abi opined, couldn't they just go back to chalking this up as yet another incredibly stupid thing their mother had done and just get over it? Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. You know you're a shit mother when your kids tell you so obliquely and you understand what they are saying. Tanya should feel ashamed - for giving her children such a fine role model. It's no wonder Lauren is so incredibly selfish, self-centred and self-obsessed to the point that she doesn't give a rat's arse about anyone but herself. She learned that behaviour pattern at the foot of her yummy mummy.
And by the way, in all of this, where was Oscar?
He wasn't at home the night before - not when Max stormed in and not when Phil arrived. He wasn't at breakfast this morning, and he couldn't have been taken to school yet (unless by Max or Jack) because the two madams were making every effort to burn the kitchen down, while Granny Goodwitch was away in La-LaLand with the fairies.
Maybe Tanya just locks Oscar in his room most of the time and doesn't remember him until he starts to bang on the door and growl, "Tarn-YERRRR."
The highlights of that French farce were Phil appearing at the Branning breakfast table and appropriating Lauren's fry-up, even licking the brown sauce and grease from the fork, followed by Sharon's sudden "concerned" appearance, with Lexi in tow, knowing she'd discover Phil tucked in at her BFF's breakfast table.
Mission accomplished. No wonder Phil was smiling. He'd achieved everything he wanted without having to pork Tanya to get it. Plus, he'd proven to the high and mighty Brannings, especially the socially aspirant Tanya, that they were nothing more than scrubbed-up white trash. The sooner Abi realises this, the better she'll cope with getting pregnant by Jay - because that's what little trailer trash girls do. Lauren's well on the way to white trash city now.
But the veritable piece de resistance in this vignette came when Tanya took the moral high ground (or tried to) with Sharon, and that scene revealed a lot about the two of them, especially how little Sharon knew about Tanya. There's Tanya, getting all morally high and mighty about Sharon kissing her ex-lover Phil, bleating a threat about Sharon leading poor, pitiful Jack on because Jack was fairmly, when ...
- Tanya hadn't been married to Greg five minutes before she was sucking Max's face at A & E in Walford General. She fucked Max upstairs in his and Vanessa's bedroom while Vanessa and Greg were downstairs.
- She romped the beds with Jack, herself, for a year, humiliating Max and planning to take his children out of the country, and
- Prostituting herself to Sean Slater in order to get help her drug and bury Max alive.
That was bad enough, but to see her call Max out, allegedly,for him taking the moral high ground was eminently laughable. This woman has no shame, and in a different way, she's as bad as Katshit in her narcissism and selfishness.
However she leaves, I hope she doesn't leave happy or on a positive note. She totally deserves to have her little attempted murder caper with Max brought to the fore. Perhaps he'll tell Kirsty and she'll accidentally let it slip.
Yummy mummy milf, my arse. Slut, most definitely.
Final Observation: It's now obvious why TPTB clothe Sharon in those flowing tops, covered by chunky jackets - to hide her ever-increasing girth, especially when she wears skinny jeans; but really, they should keep Tanya away from leggings altogether. Abi could store her schoolbooks on her mother's shelf-like enormous arse, and Tanya's thighs are lethal weapons, akin to that woman in the Bond film who could use her thighs to crush men between them. Maybe that's why Max prefers Kirsty in bed. Or maybe Tanya's arse really isn't that big - maybe that's Oscar stuffed down the back of her leggings, papoose-style.
The Resurrection of Heather.
It's Jean!
Shirley now has a purpose. Her new role in the show will be to pal around with Jean, insult her naive sincerity, give her the rough side of her tongue in belittlement and abandon her when a man she fancies comes along - inbetween carping at Phil.
Heather has returned to us, and I wonder how long it will be before Jean's sharing biccies and tea with Dot in the launderette and offering up New Age words of wisdom in garbled messages that mean nothing, whilst misunderstanding the simplest of messages as portents of gloom.
I'm off - Don't call.
Didn't sound like a suicide note to me. It sounded as though whoever wrote it was going off someplace - like, maybe, a library - and didn't want to be disturbed.
Jean has become Skinny Heather - from her simpleton philosophy, her innate goodness down to her poor self-esteem and insecurity. She's just the sort of object waiting for Shirley to control. Now that she heartily disapproves of Kat for wrecking her own marriage, she can focus all her energies onto Shirley, who she thinks is in desperate need of her ministrations.
I used to get freaked out at the Kat-giving-Jean-a-bath scenes. Can you now imagine what we have in store with Jean and Shirley bathing one another whenever one has a breakdown or gets rip-roaringly drunk?
Eeeeeuuuuuuuwwwwww.
Is Liam the Missing Link?
Or is this the latest never-bloody-ending story?
Yep, that about sums it up ...
And so it goes, and so it goes, and so it goes, and so it goes
And where it's going, no one knows ...
Well, the writers sure don't, not with this "cutting-edge" gangabanga story, anyway.
Liam's run away - again, says Bianca. (When, pray tell, did he run away before?) He's fourteen (well, he's supposed to be), and even though he's got a flat head and is built like a brick shithouse, Bianca's worried. Well, you do, when your fourteen year-old doesn't come home at night. In fact, most normal parents would be ringing the phone off the hook at the local copshop.
But not Bianca. She doesn't even want to contact Uncle Jack now. (It always strikes me as strange that 36 year-old Bianca refers to 40 year-old Jack as "Uncle" Jack. Or even 43 year-old Max as "Uncle" Max. There was even the odd occasion when she's referred to her paternal uncle, Ian Beale, as "Uncle Ian." These people are contemporaries. I wonder if Lola refers to William and Janet, her uncle and aunt who are toddlers as "Uncle William" and "Aunt Janet?")
Bianca wants to do things her way. Even Carol is against calling the police at first, and "Uncle" Jack doesn't think this is serious at all, because - hey - all kids run away. Isn't that what kids do? Errrr ... no, not all kids, and here again, the writing reflects the writer's ignorance. But the magic word is "gang" and that sends Jack and It's-A-Shame-About-Ray scurrying to the Byron estate in the misbegotten belief that they might happen upon Liam.
(Cue laughter ... the West Side Story boys would see these two numpties coming a mile off, and they'd be off to practice their dance routine, which is why Liam didn't make it to Tiff's concert - he knows that that little wotsit knows that he's a better dancer than she is a singer, and she'd cry).
Witness:-
Tiffany's a pain in the ass, even when the writers try to make her nice and cute. Look, she's pushing twelve and looks it. She's past cute and she's rude. Bianca's the prime reason her kids have turned out the way they have, including Mowgan Le Fat, who happened to be stuffing his face with an enormous roll when Liam dropped his "stolen" gift for Tiffany through the letterbox.
You know, it's rare that EastEnders makes me sit up and take notice of something, and that something occurred in this storyline, when it dawned on me that Whitney was the only one in that gaggle of people at the Butchers who was even approaching talking common sense, and she gets yelled at and accused of all sorts by Bianca.
Someone seriously needs to smack her ... and Kat, who now has graduated to thinking that she's going to make Michael pay up for Tommy, as Alfie's refused to pay for a deposit on a flat she wants. This is exactly why Alfie is right to get a contact order for his son, because all it would take is for this immature slut to throw a wobbly over the smallest thing and refuse him access. Good luck with getting Michael to pay up. He's already told her no, in no uncertain terms, and he doesn't have a pot to piss in. He already pays MyAlice in IOUs, but maybe whoever is renting that flat will take an IOU of a grand off Kat, coupled with a flash of her tits and a knee-trembler down the alleyway. Slut.
And her conversation with Bianca on the stall just goes to show how really good mates they are. Kat bleats on and on about her circumstances whilst Bianca mulls over her own. Friends communicate. They share good times and bad. These are two gobby mares thrown together on a market stall who bully vulnerable people. It's time both of them got a resounding smack in the face.
Where's Peggy when you need her?
Is Ava Morphing Into Worf?
It would appear so ...
Previously, I'd thought Ava was going to be the token Angry Black Lady because her forbidding countenance reminded me so much of Aunt Esther ...
Can you imagine if Billy scores and he wakes up the next morning to find
Beam me up, Scotty.
The Chuckle Brothers Meet the Wrath of Dot. Not.
It's obvious that Liam and his Gangabanga "bruvvahs" trashed the launderette. The only good thing about that pointless vignette was a good moment of community between Dot, Masood and Jean, and later, Dot's interaction with Jack, after he fitted the new lock on the launderette.
Jack is great when interacting with his siblings or his step-mother. As much as Ian and Ricky were the sons Pat never had, Jack is more of a son to Dot than Nick. It was sweet of him wanting to walk her home, so one wonders why Dot doesn't confide in him what has been going on with the council and how Cora stitched her up.
On the other hand, why are they trying to make Masood and Ajay funny? And why isn't Ajay at work? Do they take turns working a different day at the Arches - Jay on Mondays, Ajay on Tuesdays and Cock on Wednesdays etc? What was the point of that stupid cake? Tamwar is missing his mother, he hates his job, he's suffering from depression and low self-esteem and he thinks his father is acting like a juvenile. Maybe he should talk to the Branning girls.
Then again, maybe not.
Back to mediocrity.
No comments:
Post a Comment