Even an Emmerdale reject (Paul Quiney) couldn't save this programme. It's back to the same old same old - that is to say, total awfulness.
This is the biggest problem with this show at the moment - it's only consistent in inconsistency. We are so used to such episodes as tonight's, an example of everything that's bad with the show, that when we're thrown a few crumbs of mediocrity, we grasp them like last straws and convince ourselves how good things are and how the corner's being turned.
Three episodes last week, which - in another day and time -would have been middling passing, are hailed as good. Then the week is finished off with mediocrity again.
Ava, a pointless character, is hailed as a godsend; the fabled "new family" is awaited with baited breath. Peter Beale returns looking like a poor man's Leonardo di Caprio and thousands of teenaged girls and Mute Banana on Walford Web's Bully Emporium, cream their collective knickers in anticipation.
Save the premature ejaculations. This show is bad. Thursday night didn't even cap 6 million viewers. EastEnders is no longer being compared with Corrie - and Corrie isn't at its best at the moment; it's being levelled with Emmerdale, so maybe Paul Quincey was doing his old soap a favour tonight; because this episode was high on the old fertilizer (which is a euphemism for being full of shit).
Sad to say it, but it isn't working, Lorraine. Such high hopes when you came in, to stauch the flow of viewers streaming away from Kirkwood's stuffing.
Nothing's changed, like the song says ...
First the bad bits ...
The Redemption of a Slut at the Expense of a Chav.
Let's take a drive through the old town
Back past the place where we met
Some things are hard to remember
Some things you never forget
Lorraine Newman has worked on EastEnders for over twenty goddamned years. Does he have a memory problem, because I'm beginning to believe that some things are hard for her to remember - like Bianca used to run a market stall on her own. Shit, she even referenced it tonight.
She not only had that market stall, she ran it, herself, when she was little older than Lauren, and she was successful at it. She even incorporated some of her own designs on the stall and left to go to fashion college. Hard to believe it this time around, but Bianca used to be a pretty plausible businesswoman, as far as market trading goes. Now, she's presented as a near-retard, totally rude and behaving in an extremely unacceptable way with the public and any customer she might have. It's as if she is totally ignorant and stupid beyond belief.
On the other hand, Mother Superior Kat is the soul of discretion on the stall, with sales' and social skills anyone would envy, confident in her banter, a paragon of professional virtue. Here's a clip from Octorber 2010, when Kat the Queen Bitch returned with Little Bitch Stacey, and how they doused the Market Inspector, which enabled Stacey to lose/quit her stall.
Ah, but you see, that was Bryan Kirkwood's Kat; this is Lorraine Newman's redeemed Kat - ne'mind, we still don't know why she slept with Derek; ne'mind, that she's never taken responsibility for that venture, instead blaming everyone from Derek to Roxy to Alfie, himself; ne'mind, she's behaved like a totally immature, spoiled, skanky little bitch when she hasn't got her way around him; ne'mind that she's about to enter into a shitsucking scheme with Michael to deprive one woman of her child, even after another woman tried to deprive Kat of hers; ne'mind, that Kat actually played a monumental part in breaking up this woman's previous marriage as well.
This is Saint Kat, the Kat we're all supposed to love, the Kat some dumbass punters on Digital Spy like
among others, seem to think it's au fait to restore a character to some magical point where she was twelve years ago. You can't go home again, and that is not character progression, that's regression. Kat's no longer the tart with a heart woman in her early thirties; she's a single mother, and an abysmal one, an eternal victim, who whines when she gets caught in a caper which is never her fault, but always someone else's. She's a fortysomething woman, who dresses like a streetcorner whore and looks like a man in drag. The way she was dressed tonight, on the stall, on a working day in a cold spring with her tits half hanging out all over the place was disgusting.
We've had many people comment, and rightly so, about how various characters like Roxy are being sacrificed at the alter of Saint Kat's Redemption, and now we can add Bianca to the list. Bianca sacrifices what weary brain cells she has left to become a rude, aggressive chav-like retard, just so Kat can shine in a superior way.
Spare me this bullshit, please.
Two Fat Ladies.
One of the biggest problems this show has endured is the fact that probably the most iconic female character in its history, Sharon, has returned; but the writing for her has been worse than abysmal.
Why?
Because there appears to be no one in the writing room who "gets" Sharon. Sarah Phelps understood Sharon's character impeccably, but she's not there anymore. Tony Jordan perfectly understood her character, but he's not around either.
Christopher Reason and Rob Gittins were certainly around when Sharon was living on the Square in the 80s and 90s, as well as during the pithy Shannis years. But they don't seemto get the episodes which feature her.
Simon Ashdown definitely does not understand the character, or else he wouldn't have plopped her amidst the Branning family, with Jack for a fella and Tanya as her new BFF.
Once again, the question must be asked:
Why hasn't she even mentioned the names "Vicky" and "Michelle?"
As many have pointed out, this character looks like Sharon and sounds like Sharon, but she isn't Sharon. She's a completely new character.
Now we are about to begin a major storyline that first surfaced back in the autumn - Sharon's addiction to painkillers. I'm not talking about Tylenol or paracetamol. I'm talking about heavy-duty prescription drugs.
There are two things which worry me about this storyline. First of all, for someone to get addicted to painkillers, usually, you experience pain which initiates your dependency. So, this means, Sharon must have been experiencing some sort of physical pain, severe enough to mean that some doctor, someplace, prescribed drugs for her malaise. This means something like back pain, or pain from some sort of injury. These aren't muscle-relaxants which double as drugs used to calm nerves (like valium). These are hardcore painkillers.
Secondly, the fact that Tanya used these drugs as her (her words) "cancer painkillers" is totally incongruous. Tanya had primary cancer, detected in its early stages. She took chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Yes, there are discomforts with these treatments - usually nausea with chemo, and some burning during radiotherapy - but pain, real pain, is only suffered during secondary cancer, and secondary cancer is terminal.
Pain for terminal cancer is managed by diomorphine - controlled heroin. So Tanya wouldn't really be suffering pain from her cancer at all. Once again, this is a fallacy propagated by Eastenders. Also, why does Tanya even keep these drugs in the house if she has no further use for them? Doctors and health specialists tell you that once you've finished your course of cancer treatment and have been given an all-clear, either destroy the left-over medication you have or give it back to your healthcare provider. Shit like that lying about is dangerous.
Am I the only one who found Sharon's desperation near comic? I know addicts aren't above using people close to them in any way as a means of funding their addiction. (We've all seen Dot buy heroin for Nick). But this goes a long way to show the viewer how false was the friendship between Sharon and Tanya. And is Tanya so weak that she couldn't have forcefully told Sharon to piss off when she forced herself into her kitchen with some shit story about a bake sale for the school? How clear does she have to make herself for Sharon to understand that she had other things on her mind - chiefly, that she's noticed some of her cancer drugs have gone and thinks, thanks to the old grey hag (another man in drag, along with Sharon and Kat), that Lauren is indulging.
It was highly ironic to listen to Tanya and Cora the Bora, both functioning alcoholics, discuss Lauren's drinking problem, and not understanding that excessive drinking does lead to black-out situations, where the victim doesn't remember anything that happened after drinking a certain amount. Actually, it wasn't that long ago that Tanya suffered a black-out episode from drinking too much and woke up next to Phil Mitchell. And yet, are they in such denial that they rationalise Lauren's inability to remember the events from the previous evening to her nicking Tanya's painkillers, when the real culprit is throwing eggs around the floor in Tanya's kitchen and ordering her to go out and buy some more.
Tanya was either too distracted or too stupid to notice Sharon's desperately manic behaviour, which was badly written and even worse performed. From the moment she was frantically rummaging through her handbag in the cafe, you knew which road this storyline was going to take.
Odd, how EastEnders can make Sharon a desperate addict, but totally ignores Tanya's and Cora the Bora's problems, and will probably cure Lauren the Lip in just a week's time.
The Worst Thing(s) About EastEnders at the Moment.
Worst. Actress. EVER. In. EastEnders.
NICE GUY, SHAME ABOUT THE LACK OF TALENT.
AND THE MOUTH-BREATHING.
The most astounding thing about the Lauren-Joey romance is the fact that no one in their family bats an eyelid at their close consanguinal relationship. They are first cousins, and even though that romantic association isn't illegal, it's still icky and closely related enough to produce children who are genetically messed up. Tanya and Max accept it without compunction, and you'd think someone of Cora the Bora's generation would be squeamish, yet when the old grey hag spotted Lucy "comforting" the utterly unintelligible Joey in the cafe (probably because she couldn't understand a word he was saying), she lambasted Lucy for meandering onto Lauren's "territory" when she ought to have been congratulating Joey for removing his dick from the family's collective gene pool, but then poor whites most generally do inbreed.
How long has Jacqueline Jossa been on the show? Almost three years, coming up this autumn; yet no one's thought to tell her that this is television, luv; let the camera take the subtlety. This isn't the stage, where you have to overpronounce every word in a voice that's projecting to the back of a theatre that isn't there - only the microphones provided and a television audience who are put off by over-exaggerated vocal expressions, larger than life movements of the arms to indicate some unknown emotion and obsessive gurning.
Line of the night from Lauren the lip, shrilly spoken to Joey ...
HIIIIIIIIIIII-EEEEEEEEEEEEE.
And its purpose? Who knows, but one thing Jossa knows and is totally aware of at all times, and that's the camera on her. I've never seen an actress with less talent love herself more. And don't think it didn't go unnoticed tonight that, although she was playing Lauren Branning, she was trying to look like Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in The Hunger Games.
It didn't work. You can look as much like an actress with talent as you want, if you don't have her talent, it's all worthless.
Go away. No one gives a shit about Lauren and Joey, and we give even less of a shit now about Lucy reverting to a type this actress doesn't fit and plotting with jealousy to break up a shitty relationship because she still has a thing for the wooden-headed prick of a male.
A few weeks ago, EastEnders actually insinuated something ingenuous - a budding friendship that just may have evolved into a relationship between Tamwar and Lucy. The most shallow-minded of viewers, who seem to be the favoured element of Lorraine Newman's audience, would have groaned at that, especially as they think Tamwar ugly and boring; but time was, this sort of slow-burning relationship would have worked and would have drawn audience support.
But Lorraine has made it abundantly clear that she likes pretty people together.
Queen of the Night to Prick of Darkness or Sociopath vs Psychopath.
Sociopaths and psychopaths share similar traits. The difference is that sociopaths are the way they are as a result of the environment in which they were nurtured, and psychopaths often inherit their condition. Sociopathy can be cured with treatment. Psychopathy cannot.
For all of you fangirls and bullybois being taken in by Michael's perceived devotion to Scarlett, she is just a means to an end. She is the object he needs to show Janine that he is the one who's still in control.
Of course, Janine is going to be uneasy around her child - she had it drilled into her head from the time she brought the baby home that she was an inadequate and unfit mother. Now, every time Scarlett cries, she is faced with this accusation. The moment the viewer saw Michael in McKlunkey's listening to Janine dealing wtih Scarlett, you knew Janine was going to find out about this situation, and you knew from Billy's look that she'd found the babycom.
That was as illegal as Jack forging Roxy's signature on Amy's passport application, only worse.
I'm glad Janine pointed out explicitly in the presence of her solicitor and Michael's the games he played with her, both after Scarlett's birth and when she brought the baby home. Billy Mitchell and Tiffany Dean sat with her at the hospital more than Michael ever did, and once, Janine sent Whitney back to Walford to find Michael who was late for an appointment with the consultant, only for Whitney to find him packing his bags to scarper. And it's totally true about him avoiding the house on a daily basis. He spent most of the days lying to her about where he was and spending her money on luxury items.
The truth is that during her absence, Michael palmed Scarlett off on all and sundry until he conned Roxy into moving into his house. Scarlett now is a means of him staying in a house for which she paid and which she maintains. He has no meetings he's missed because of Scarlett. He palmed her off on various babysitters and swanned around in the pub, drinking.
Janine was right. She was ill after Scarlett's birth and after dealing with a very sick baby for several weeks, on her own. He did nothing but chip away at her self-esteem and her integrity. His treatment was the worst form of psychological and emotional bullying I've seen for a long time in a soap - not since Charlie Stubbs in Coronation Street. Whatever mommy issues he has and whatever anger he's feeling toward his mother, he's projectin onto Janine. Scarlett is just an object - and I'll say it again: ANY ASSHOLE WANTING THIS PSYCHOPATHIC PIECE OF SHIT TO GET CUSTODY OF THAT BABY IS SICK. WHO THE HELL WOULD WANT SOMEONE OF THE ILK OF ARCHIE MITCHELL TO HAVE CUSTODY OF A BABY?
One thing Michael doesn't know - precious few people cross Janine and come out of that vat of shit smelling like roses.
(And notice when Janine produced Michael's "bugging device" how quick he was to blame the insipid and vapidly stupid Alice, whose smirk on her face gets more slappable each day. I am waiting for Janine to bitchslap Alice and Kat in totally royal fashion.
She was the best thing about a bad episode.
This is the biggest problem with this show at the moment - it's only consistent in inconsistency. We are so used to such episodes as tonight's, an example of everything that's bad with the show, that when we're thrown a few crumbs of mediocrity, we grasp them like last straws and convince ourselves how good things are and how the corner's being turned.
Three episodes last week, which - in another day and time -would have been middling passing, are hailed as good. Then the week is finished off with mediocrity again.
Ava, a pointless character, is hailed as a godsend; the fabled "new family" is awaited with baited breath. Peter Beale returns looking like a poor man's Leonardo di Caprio and thousands of teenaged girls and Mute Banana on Walford Web's Bully Emporium, cream their collective knickers in anticipation.
Save the premature ejaculations. This show is bad. Thursday night didn't even cap 6 million viewers. EastEnders is no longer being compared with Corrie - and Corrie isn't at its best at the moment; it's being levelled with Emmerdale, so maybe Paul Quincey was doing his old soap a favour tonight; because this episode was high on the old fertilizer (which is a euphemism for being full of shit).
Sad to say it, but it isn't working, Lorraine. Such high hopes when you came in, to stauch the flow of viewers streaming away from Kirkwood's stuffing.
Nothing's changed, like the song says ...
First the bad bits ...
The Redemption of a Slut at the Expense of a Chav.
Let's take a drive through the old town
Back past the place where we met
Some things are hard to remember
Some things you never forget
Lorraine Newman has worked on EastEnders for over twenty goddamned years. Does he have a memory problem, because I'm beginning to believe that some things are hard for her to remember - like Bianca used to run a market stall on her own. Shit, she even referenced it tonight.
She not only had that market stall, she ran it, herself, when she was little older than Lauren, and she was successful at it. She even incorporated some of her own designs on the stall and left to go to fashion college. Hard to believe it this time around, but Bianca used to be a pretty plausible businesswoman, as far as market trading goes. Now, she's presented as a near-retard, totally rude and behaving in an extremely unacceptable way with the public and any customer she might have. It's as if she is totally ignorant and stupid beyond belief.
On the other hand, Mother Superior Kat is the soul of discretion on the stall, with sales' and social skills anyone would envy, confident in her banter, a paragon of professional virtue. Here's a clip from Octorber 2010, when Kat the Queen Bitch returned with Little Bitch Stacey, and how they doused the Market Inspector, which enabled Stacey to lose/quit her stall.
This is Saint Kat, the Kat we're all supposed to love, the Kat some dumbass punters on Digital Spy like
We've had many people comment, and rightly so, about how various characters like Roxy are being sacrificed at the alter of Saint Kat's Redemption, and now we can add Bianca to the list. Bianca sacrifices what weary brain cells she has left to become a rude, aggressive chav-like retard, just so Kat can shine in a superior way.
Spare me this bullshit, please.
Two Fat Ladies.
One of the biggest problems this show has endured is the fact that probably the most iconic female character in its history, Sharon, has returned; but the writing for her has been worse than abysmal.
Why?
Because there appears to be no one in the writing room who "gets" Sharon. Sarah Phelps understood Sharon's character impeccably, but she's not there anymore. Tony Jordan perfectly understood her character, but he's not around either.
Christopher Reason and Rob Gittins were certainly around when Sharon was living on the Square in the 80s and 90s, as well as during the pithy Shannis years. But they don't seemto get the episodes which feature her.
Simon Ashdown definitely does not understand the character, or else he wouldn't have plopped her amidst the Branning family, with Jack for a fella and Tanya as her new BFF.
Once again, the question must be asked:
Why hasn't she even mentioned the names "Vicky" and "Michelle?"
As many have pointed out, this character looks like Sharon and sounds like Sharon, but she isn't Sharon. She's a completely new character.
Now we are about to begin a major storyline that first surfaced back in the autumn - Sharon's addiction to painkillers. I'm not talking about Tylenol or paracetamol. I'm talking about heavy-duty prescription drugs.
There are two things which worry me about this storyline. First of all, for someone to get addicted to painkillers, usually, you experience pain which initiates your dependency. So, this means, Sharon must have been experiencing some sort of physical pain, severe enough to mean that some doctor, someplace, prescribed drugs for her malaise. This means something like back pain, or pain from some sort of injury. These aren't muscle-relaxants which double as drugs used to calm nerves (like valium). These are hardcore painkillers.
Secondly, the fact that Tanya used these drugs as her (her words) "cancer painkillers" is totally incongruous. Tanya had primary cancer, detected in its early stages. She took chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Yes, there are discomforts with these treatments - usually nausea with chemo, and some burning during radiotherapy - but pain, real pain, is only suffered during secondary cancer, and secondary cancer is terminal.
Pain for terminal cancer is managed by diomorphine - controlled heroin. So Tanya wouldn't really be suffering pain from her cancer at all. Once again, this is a fallacy propagated by Eastenders. Also, why does Tanya even keep these drugs in the house if she has no further use for them? Doctors and health specialists tell you that once you've finished your course of cancer treatment and have been given an all-clear, either destroy the left-over medication you have or give it back to your healthcare provider. Shit like that lying about is dangerous.
Am I the only one who found Sharon's desperation near comic? I know addicts aren't above using people close to them in any way as a means of funding their addiction. (We've all seen Dot buy heroin for Nick). But this goes a long way to show the viewer how false was the friendship between Sharon and Tanya. And is Tanya so weak that she couldn't have forcefully told Sharon to piss off when she forced herself into her kitchen with some shit story about a bake sale for the school? How clear does she have to make herself for Sharon to understand that she had other things on her mind - chiefly, that she's noticed some of her cancer drugs have gone and thinks, thanks to the old grey hag (another man in drag, along with Sharon and Kat), that Lauren is indulging.
It was highly ironic to listen to Tanya and Cora the Bora, both functioning alcoholics, discuss Lauren's drinking problem, and not understanding that excessive drinking does lead to black-out situations, where the victim doesn't remember anything that happened after drinking a certain amount. Actually, it wasn't that long ago that Tanya suffered a black-out episode from drinking too much and woke up next to Phil Mitchell. And yet, are they in such denial that they rationalise Lauren's inability to remember the events from the previous evening to her nicking Tanya's painkillers, when the real culprit is throwing eggs around the floor in Tanya's kitchen and ordering her to go out and buy some more.
Tanya was either too distracted or too stupid to notice Sharon's desperately manic behaviour, which was badly written and even worse performed. From the moment she was frantically rummaging through her handbag in the cafe, you knew which road this storyline was going to take.
Odd, how EastEnders can make Sharon a desperate addict, but totally ignores Tanya's and Cora the Bora's problems, and will probably cure Lauren the Lip in just a week's time.
The Worst Thing(s) About EastEnders at the Moment.
Worst. Actress. EVER. In. EastEnders.
NICE GUY, SHAME ABOUT THE LACK OF TALENT.
How long has Jacqueline Jossa been on the show? Almost three years, coming up this autumn; yet no one's thought to tell her that this is television, luv; let the camera take the subtlety. This isn't the stage, where you have to overpronounce every word in a voice that's projecting to the back of a theatre that isn't there - only the microphones provided and a television audience who are put off by over-exaggerated vocal expressions, larger than life movements of the arms to indicate some unknown emotion and obsessive gurning.
Line of the night from Lauren the lip, shrilly spoken to Joey ...
HIIIIIIIIIIII-EEEEEEEEEEEEE.
And its purpose? Who knows, but one thing Jossa knows and is totally aware of at all times, and that's the camera on her. I've never seen an actress with less talent love herself more. And don't think it didn't go unnoticed tonight that, although she was playing Lauren Branning, she was trying to look like Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in The Hunger Games.
It didn't work. You can look as much like an actress with talent as you want, if you don't have her talent, it's all worthless.
Go away. No one gives a shit about Lauren and Joey, and we give even less of a shit now about Lucy reverting to a type this actress doesn't fit and plotting with jealousy to break up a shitty relationship because she still has a thing for the wooden-headed prick of a male.
A few weeks ago, EastEnders actually insinuated something ingenuous - a budding friendship that just may have evolved into a relationship between Tamwar and Lucy. The most shallow-minded of viewers, who seem to be the favoured element of Lorraine Newman's audience, would have groaned at that, especially as they think Tamwar ugly and boring; but time was, this sort of slow-burning relationship would have worked and would have drawn audience support.
But Lorraine has made it abundantly clear that she likes pretty people together.
Queen of the Night to Prick of Darkness or Sociopath vs Psychopath.
Sociopaths and psychopaths share similar traits. The difference is that sociopaths are the way they are as a result of the environment in which they were nurtured, and psychopaths often inherit their condition. Sociopathy can be cured with treatment. Psychopathy cannot.
For all of you fangirls and bullybois being taken in by Michael's perceived devotion to Scarlett, she is just a means to an end. She is the object he needs to show Janine that he is the one who's still in control.
Of course, Janine is going to be uneasy around her child - she had it drilled into her head from the time she brought the baby home that she was an inadequate and unfit mother. Now, every time Scarlett cries, she is faced with this accusation. The moment the viewer saw Michael in McKlunkey's listening to Janine dealing wtih Scarlett, you knew Janine was going to find out about this situation, and you knew from Billy's look that she'd found the babycom.
That was as illegal as Jack forging Roxy's signature on Amy's passport application, only worse.
I'm glad Janine pointed out explicitly in the presence of her solicitor and Michael's the games he played with her, both after Scarlett's birth and when she brought the baby home. Billy Mitchell and Tiffany Dean sat with her at the hospital more than Michael ever did, and once, Janine sent Whitney back to Walford to find Michael who was late for an appointment with the consultant, only for Whitney to find him packing his bags to scarper. And it's totally true about him avoiding the house on a daily basis. He spent most of the days lying to her about where he was and spending her money on luxury items.
The truth is that during her absence, Michael palmed Scarlett off on all and sundry until he conned Roxy into moving into his house. Scarlett now is a means of him staying in a house for which she paid and which she maintains. He has no meetings he's missed because of Scarlett. He palmed her off on various babysitters and swanned around in the pub, drinking.
Janine was right. She was ill after Scarlett's birth and after dealing with a very sick baby for several weeks, on her own. He did nothing but chip away at her self-esteem and her integrity. His treatment was the worst form of psychological and emotional bullying I've seen for a long time in a soap - not since Charlie Stubbs in Coronation Street. Whatever mommy issues he has and whatever anger he's feeling toward his mother, he's projectin onto Janine. Scarlett is just an object - and I'll say it again: ANY ASSHOLE WANTING THIS PSYCHOPATHIC PIECE OF SHIT TO GET CUSTODY OF THAT BABY IS SICK. WHO THE HELL WOULD WANT SOMEONE OF THE ILK OF ARCHIE MITCHELL TO HAVE CUSTODY OF A BABY?
One thing Michael doesn't know - precious few people cross Janine and come out of that vat of shit smelling like roses.
(And notice when Janine produced Michael's "bugging device" how quick he was to blame the insipid and vapidly stupid Alice, whose smirk on her face gets more slappable each day. I am waiting for Janine to bitchslap Alice and Kat in totally royal fashion.
She was the best thing about a bad episode.
(Janine Beats Alice in German)
When Sharon bent over and started shuffling about the kitchen looking for painkillers I almost pissed myself. She looked like my sister's portly bulldog when it starts chasing a fly on the floor.
ReplyDeleteGod am I glad to FINALLY see that someone else thinks the same as me about the Janine/Michael situation! I used to post every now and then on the Digital Spy forum, I still do but not in the Soap section anymore. Too many regulars are quick to shout down the opinion of occasional posters and at the moment a lot are treating Michael as some sort of Saint now that Janine is back. They seem to have forgotten about how he palmed off Scarlett's care onto Roxy, occasionally Kat before employing Alice as her full time Nanny. He has no interest in her at all and as you say, she is just a pawn in his game to totally break a still fragile Janine. His comment about their 'sham' marriage made me feel so bad for her this evening. She loved him, part of her still does and the marriage was definitely not a sham for her. I saw comments on DS calling Janine a 'bitch' tonight but hardly any castigation of Michael who acted like a total bastard tonight along with Alice who is dumb beyond words. I've been reading your blog for a while and this is my first comment, sorry for making it very long.
ReplyDeleteNo problem. I appreciate good sense. A single man with a child always attracts sympathy, but Billy Mitchell, Whitney Dean and TANYA were witness to the sort treatment Janine received. Billy and Whitney sat at the hospital with her more than Michael ever did, and Whitney actually caught him trying to leave.
DeleteMichael is a conman who's a psychopath. Shit, Archie Mitchell was a psychopath, as was his daughter and Ben Mitchell. They are controlling and able to charm their victims. Michael learned early on after driving Janine away that he could use Scarlett to get what he wanted out of people, and basically, that was to abscond his responsibilities. That people like Kat, Roxy and Jean are so able to forget the shit Michael dished them for a chance to get one over on Janine is beyond my ken, especially Roxy, whose own father was as lowlife as Michael was.
Funny, how the only woman on the show Michael remotely had any chemistry with was Ronnie, who was as psychopathic and controlling as he was.
Thanks for the reply! Between Kat, Lauren and the fake as hell Tanya/Sharon 'friendship' I am almost at the point of turning off. I admit that during the Stax reveal I was impressed with Jo Joyner's acting and rated her quite highly at the time but it's all been downhill since then. I didn't want Sharon back as I feared that she would be changed beyond recognition, which has happened. As for Kat....urgh and Lauren....sooner she is gone the better. All substance and no talent seems to be the key to joining Eastenders at the moment. It's turned into a nineties version of Hollyoaks but even worse. It seems the writers want to attract a younger audience and have forgotten about their core viewers. Heck I am only 26 but the focus on the younger crowd with no talent is ruining the show. I hope an asteroid hits the Square soon and clears out the dead wood soon.
DeleteThe younger crowd are cheaper, and getting actors from that demographic who have had no experience or who are products of part-time drama groups/lesser "talent" schools cost less than the Sylvia Young/Anna Scher/Olivia Conti graduates.
DeleteIf you read some of the mindless shit that is posted on the fora, FB and Twitter, you'll see that rather than being concerned that the longer-term viewers are deserting, they are pandering to the lowest common denominator of near-retard in the teenaged gene pool. Look no further than the brain-damaged xTonix on Digital Spy, who found Kat's and Bianca's bullying antics just SO FUNNY last night and you've got your viewer profile.
The show is beginning to smell like Brookside in the throes of death.