It looks as though Palace are entering, yet again, into another rerun season, when former characters are taken out, dusted off and brought back to Walford. Recently, the diehard and dying-fast fanbase were treated to the news that the Ice Queen, Ronnie Mitchell, returneth for a six-month stint. Already, people are wondering if this is a prelude to a longer, more permanent stint.
We're also awaiting the "return" of Danny Pennant, the catalyst who spurred the departure of Chryed, only this time, the investment banker is returning on a permanent basis. As it was presumed Pennant was gay the first time around, having shagged Syed in order to tempt him into making what turned out to be a bad investment, many fans with a gay agenda are hoping that Pennant turns out to be this year's only gay in the village.
I think they're about to be disappointed.
And then, there are the continuing rumours of David Wicks's impending return, at first reported as a definite happening, since walked back to speculation status, but not actually denied.
And of course, there's the newer, beefier, hunkier, prettier version of Peter Beale to behold.
The irony in all of this can be traced back to Newman's comment in two early interviews about no returning characters during her tenure, that she wanted to stop the revolving door of character leavings and returns, and moving forward with new characters was the only way she wanted to go. Yet with the show in obvious free-fall, she's borrowing from the Santer playbook, and bringing back familiar characters (some with new faces), in the hopes of bagging more bums on seats.
Still, fans are worried, and they have a right to be. Under the dubious tenure of Bryan Kirkwood, we saw the returns of Alfie, Kat and Sharon. We saw Santer's Bianca leave for a prison sentence the first time, and then we witnessed Kirkwood's Bianca return from that same imprisonmnent having suffered some sort of brain injury, so retarded and immature was this strange woman.
In all four cases, we've seen characters who look like Kat, Alfie, Sharon and Bianca, sound like them, but clearly are Kirkwood's and his writing room's ideas of what these iconic characters should be like.
The Kat who left at Christmas 2005 would never dream of being unfaithful to Alfie; the Alfie who left with her simply wouldn't have allowed it. Instead, we saw returning a shrewish, bitch of a woman who slapped her way around the Square, physically and mentally abused her husband and never ever assumed responsibility for anything she did. We saw Alfie morph into the drippiest of doormats, whimpering and crying that Kat could sleep with whomever she liked as long as he didn't know. What the fuck was that?
Bianca, who'd formerly been a successful stallholder and a responsible mum during her first tenure, became a raucous chav, unable and unwilling to discipline her children and allowing her bitter mother to dictate when and under what terms she should end her marriage. Perennially poor, she chose to go into debt to buy a state-of-the-art television rather than put food on her children's table. In the end, she went back to prison, after alienating the only relatives willing go give her work (Ian and Janine), instead resorting to theivery and assault in unnecessary desperation.
Then there's Sharon, the most heralded return of all. The woman who stood up to the Mitchells in the 90s and floored Chrissie Watts a decade ago, stumbled into Walford a blubbering man-dependent wreck, so desperate to be loved and wanted she slept with Jack Branning on her first night back, prostituted herself to him for a place to live and begged crumbs from Tanya's shallow table in a hideous plea for friendship. Topping that, she's addicted to painkillers! She's now reduced to begging Phil Mitchell to take her back.
Instead of giving us back the characters we know and love, TPTB are giving us their version of these characters to fit their awful storylines.
No wonder the natives are restless.
I don't think we'll see the same problem with Sam Womack's Ronnie. Unlike long-absent characters like the Moons and Sharon, there are still enough writers and storyliners about who remember Ronnie from her previous stint, which ended almost two years ago. Clearly, Womack's return is meant to shake up the doldrums. She's back for six months, and it wasn't rocket science to figure out that she's going to be the factor in splitting Alfie and Roxy and enabling a Kat and Alfie reunion. That this couple would reunite and find their lovestory again against the backdrop of the unlikely return of the woman who kidnapped and kept their child for four months is more innovative, at least, than having them have yet another affair, even if, this time, it's with each other.
I was never the biggest Ronnie fan. I found her too cold, too manipulative, too obsessive and too damned psychopathic to inspire any sort of sympathy in me, so I'm not really welcoming her return. Besides, whenever she's around, things tend to turn the piece into The Ronnie Show, and I can see that happening. Still, I'm willing to give her the benefit of a doubt, as long as she only stays for six months, does what she has to do - i.e., reunite Alfie and Kat, see Jack on his merry way, have some sort of mixing in with Janine and Michael Moon, say her good-byes and trots off back to Ibiza (where else?), giving closure to her character.
I can't quite see her leaving Roxy, her other controlling obsession behind, so I'm wondering if Rita Simons's exit is yet another well-kept secret in the increasingly secretive world of EastEnders. And I can't wait to see how TPTB get around the obvious and deliberately mentioned exclusion of Ronnie from Walford and the surrounding area, imposed on the probation authorities by Kat's statement. When EastEnders are deliberate enough to have Kat admit this preclusion not only to Jack, but also to Alfie, they need to realise that, as in the case of Lister and Bianca, Ronnie can't come near Walford unless Kat applies to the authorities to have her ban lifted.
We'll see.
David Wicks is another character who's stayed away from Walford for a very long time, last seen regularly in the 1990s. A legion of new fans were re-introduced to him during his two-week stay when Pat died at the beginning of 2012, but even that was Kirkwood's rose-tinted version of something that never was.
Sorry do disillusion all you numpties, but David Wicks and Carol Jackson were never this generation's Frank and Pat. They were nothing more than a quick teenaged shag behind the bike sheds, a groping which resulted in the direness that is Bianca. Wicks has a commitment phobia, was always a player of the Max Branning variety and a dodgy businessman, having done time in prison for fraud. In fact, David Wicks was the precursor of a Branning bruv, booted and suited and not above sleeping with either of his brothers' wives. He left Walford the last time in disgrace, having slept with Cindy Beale, and when he turned up at Pat's deathbed, he'd been caught in bed in New Zealand with Simon's wife.
If Newman, in her quest for love and warmth, puts him in a cardy and slipper and settles him down with Carol to play grandad, then she should be smacked. Besides, even though he's fiftysomething, David Wicks looks ten years younger and is attractive to attractive younger women. Were it not for him hearing Phil Mitchell's voice in the kitchen, he'd have shagged Roxy upstairs, and the woman who's most his type happens to be the current Mrs Max Branning. Carol's nice, but she looks like a granny, even though she behaves like a sexual version of the Blackwall Tunnel.
Besides, that's not the only thing that should be drawing David to Walford. He has a brother, a niece and two nephews to consider. It's time he and Ian buried the hatchet alongside Cindy's corpse. As it appears Danny Pennant might be a nemesis of Ian's, then maybe he can hunker down and give Ian some advice. I can see him bonding with the twins, because he's one of a few people left in Walford who can give them some positive feedback about their mother. I can especially see him relating to Lucy. And then he also has a step-sister, Janine, who, herself, is now a wealthy businesswoman, something which could whet David's greedy whistle.
Scores of potential for this returnee, if they remember his backstory and are true to his character.
I'm surprised we didn't see Peter Beale coming a mile off. Most people who complained of there being too many feckless, self-entitled and pointless youth on the programme, when asked who the character was they most wanted to return, responded with Beale's name - even though Peter Beale is nineteen and the pretty entitled son of Ian Beale. Yet another youth to add to that contingent. I knew, if he ever returned, he'd be hunked up and sexed out, and sure enough, we get a pumped-up version of a poor man's Leonardo di Caprio. Still, at least the actor who plays him has LAMDA credentials and acting experience, even if looking like the requisite beautiful person Lorraine Newman likes to gush about was probably 80% of the reason behind why he was cast.
He's suppose to cut a swathe through all the ladies - meaning Lauren and Whitney, with both of whom he has form, and no doubt along the way, he'll cut a spark with Alice and even Lola too. My only hope is that with his return, we see someone of the youth contingent - Tyler or Joey or both - leave. From what I've read, Ben Hardy has more acting experience than the pair of those mumbling dolts together, so let's see what they do with him - only please, don't put him with Whitney and please don't reunite him with the godawful Lauren, which is what I presume Newman is going to do as both he and
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTENDERS
fit Newman's requisite criteria for being yet another beautiful couple - which, in her view, is all that matters.
And finally, there's Danny Pennant.
This is going to be interesting, because this is the way EastEnders used to cast characters. Often, a character would be introduced in a guest or recurring spot - Nigel Bates and Tiffany Raymond Mitchell. Depending on how positively the audience responded, they may have been asked to return, subsequently, in a permanent capacity.
And with them would come a backstory and a character arc, something that's woefully lacking these days with many of the recently added characters in the past two years - e.g., the Moon brothers, the Magic Negro and her son the Little Cock.
Considering that it's been roughly six months since we've last encountered Danny Pennant, let's hope TPTB have given him a backstory and have some idea of what his character is going to achieve.
I'm going out on a limb and say that I hope he isn't the only gay in the village. That would limit his scope entirely to bringing some sad soul out of the closet - most probably Joey. Instead, considering his behaviour around Syed the last time, I'd hope he'd at least be bi-sexual. The show hasn't had a real bi-sexual character since Tony Hills, back in the late 1990s.
Even more provocative would be Danny being a real, a bona fide moral reprobate, someone who's willing to do anything with anyone in order to obtain his goals - a ruthless, assertive power-broker, someone to make everyone in Walford sit up and take notice.
But, I ask, do TPTB have that much integrity?
We'll see.
What is certain, however, is that everyone's eggs are riding in these characters' collective baskets, and there are signs that some damage limitation is actually being done after Letitia Dean let her feelings be known to TPTB about how much they'd botched up her character.
Let's hope his show has, at long last, turned a corner, and that, after the Ice Queen goeth, they can maintain their momentum.
Oh, and a final word to the unwise knicker-creamers on Digital Spy who are in near-orgasmic frenzy at the anticipation of Ronnie's return: Prison isn't a fucking holiday camp, and you shouldn't expect anyone to come out of prison, having had a spate away from where they'd committed a major crime, feeling "refreshed." Any sort of light-hearted and flirtatious behaviour in the face of the Moons and their relatives will only prove to exemplify what a psychopath Ronnie is. Maybe she and Michael Moon can leave and go off obsessing and manipulating together.
We're also awaiting the "return" of Danny Pennant, the catalyst who spurred the departure of Chryed, only this time, the investment banker is returning on a permanent basis. As it was presumed Pennant was gay the first time around, having shagged Syed in order to tempt him into making what turned out to be a bad investment, many fans with a gay agenda are hoping that Pennant turns out to be this year's only gay in the village.
I think they're about to be disappointed.
And then, there are the continuing rumours of David Wicks's impending return, at first reported as a definite happening, since walked back to speculation status, but not actually denied.
And of course, there's the newer, beefier, hunkier, prettier version of Peter Beale to behold.
The irony in all of this can be traced back to Newman's comment in two early interviews about no returning characters during her tenure, that she wanted to stop the revolving door of character leavings and returns, and moving forward with new characters was the only way she wanted to go. Yet with the show in obvious free-fall, she's borrowing from the Santer playbook, and bringing back familiar characters (some with new faces), in the hopes of bagging more bums on seats.
Still, fans are worried, and they have a right to be. Under the dubious tenure of Bryan Kirkwood, we saw the returns of Alfie, Kat and Sharon. We saw Santer's Bianca leave for a prison sentence the first time, and then we witnessed Kirkwood's Bianca return from that same imprisonmnent having suffered some sort of brain injury, so retarded and immature was this strange woman.
In all four cases, we've seen characters who look like Kat, Alfie, Sharon and Bianca, sound like them, but clearly are Kirkwood's and his writing room's ideas of what these iconic characters should be like.
The Kat who left at Christmas 2005 would never dream of being unfaithful to Alfie; the Alfie who left with her simply wouldn't have allowed it. Instead, we saw returning a shrewish, bitch of a woman who slapped her way around the Square, physically and mentally abused her husband and never ever assumed responsibility for anything she did. We saw Alfie morph into the drippiest of doormats, whimpering and crying that Kat could sleep with whomever she liked as long as he didn't know. What the fuck was that?
Bianca, who'd formerly been a successful stallholder and a responsible mum during her first tenure, became a raucous chav, unable and unwilling to discipline her children and allowing her bitter mother to dictate when and under what terms she should end her marriage. Perennially poor, she chose to go into debt to buy a state-of-the-art television rather than put food on her children's table. In the end, she went back to prison, after alienating the only relatives willing go give her work (Ian and Janine), instead resorting to theivery and assault in unnecessary desperation.
Then there's Sharon, the most heralded return of all. The woman who stood up to the Mitchells in the 90s and floored Chrissie Watts a decade ago, stumbled into Walford a blubbering man-dependent wreck, so desperate to be loved and wanted she slept with Jack Branning on her first night back, prostituted herself to him for a place to live and begged crumbs from Tanya's shallow table in a hideous plea for friendship. Topping that, she's addicted to painkillers! She's now reduced to begging Phil Mitchell to take her back.
Instead of giving us back the characters we know and love, TPTB are giving us their version of these characters to fit their awful storylines.
No wonder the natives are restless.
I don't think we'll see the same problem with Sam Womack's Ronnie. Unlike long-absent characters like the Moons and Sharon, there are still enough writers and storyliners about who remember Ronnie from her previous stint, which ended almost two years ago. Clearly, Womack's return is meant to shake up the doldrums. She's back for six months, and it wasn't rocket science to figure out that she's going to be the factor in splitting Alfie and Roxy and enabling a Kat and Alfie reunion. That this couple would reunite and find their lovestory again against the backdrop of the unlikely return of the woman who kidnapped and kept their child for four months is more innovative, at least, than having them have yet another affair, even if, this time, it's with each other.
I was never the biggest Ronnie fan. I found her too cold, too manipulative, too obsessive and too damned psychopathic to inspire any sort of sympathy in me, so I'm not really welcoming her return. Besides, whenever she's around, things tend to turn the piece into The Ronnie Show, and I can see that happening. Still, I'm willing to give her the benefit of a doubt, as long as she only stays for six months, does what she has to do - i.e., reunite Alfie and Kat, see Jack on his merry way, have some sort of mixing in with Janine and Michael Moon, say her good-byes and trots off back to Ibiza (where else?), giving closure to her character.
I can't quite see her leaving Roxy, her other controlling obsession behind, so I'm wondering if Rita Simons's exit is yet another well-kept secret in the increasingly secretive world of EastEnders. And I can't wait to see how TPTB get around the obvious and deliberately mentioned exclusion of Ronnie from Walford and the surrounding area, imposed on the probation authorities by Kat's statement. When EastEnders are deliberate enough to have Kat admit this preclusion not only to Jack, but also to Alfie, they need to realise that, as in the case of Lister and Bianca, Ronnie can't come near Walford unless Kat applies to the authorities to have her ban lifted.
We'll see.
David Wicks is another character who's stayed away from Walford for a very long time, last seen regularly in the 1990s. A legion of new fans were re-introduced to him during his two-week stay when Pat died at the beginning of 2012, but even that was Kirkwood's rose-tinted version of something that never was.
Sorry do disillusion all you numpties, but David Wicks and Carol Jackson were never this generation's Frank and Pat. They were nothing more than a quick teenaged shag behind the bike sheds, a groping which resulted in the direness that is Bianca. Wicks has a commitment phobia, was always a player of the Max Branning variety and a dodgy businessman, having done time in prison for fraud. In fact, David Wicks was the precursor of a Branning bruv, booted and suited and not above sleeping with either of his brothers' wives. He left Walford the last time in disgrace, having slept with Cindy Beale, and when he turned up at Pat's deathbed, he'd been caught in bed in New Zealand with Simon's wife.
If Newman, in her quest for love and warmth, puts him in a cardy and slipper and settles him down with Carol to play grandad, then she should be smacked. Besides, even though he's fiftysomething, David Wicks looks ten years younger and is attractive to attractive younger women. Were it not for him hearing Phil Mitchell's voice in the kitchen, he'd have shagged Roxy upstairs, and the woman who's most his type happens to be the current Mrs Max Branning. Carol's nice, but she looks like a granny, even though she behaves like a sexual version of the Blackwall Tunnel.
Besides, that's not the only thing that should be drawing David to Walford. He has a brother, a niece and two nephews to consider. It's time he and Ian buried the hatchet alongside Cindy's corpse. As it appears Danny Pennant might be a nemesis of Ian's, then maybe he can hunker down and give Ian some advice. I can see him bonding with the twins, because he's one of a few people left in Walford who can give them some positive feedback about their mother. I can especially see him relating to Lucy. And then he also has a step-sister, Janine, who, herself, is now a wealthy businesswoman, something which could whet David's greedy whistle.
Scores of potential for this returnee, if they remember his backstory and are true to his character.
I'm surprised we didn't see Peter Beale coming a mile off. Most people who complained of there being too many feckless, self-entitled and pointless youth on the programme, when asked who the character was they most wanted to return, responded with Beale's name - even though Peter Beale is nineteen and the pretty entitled son of Ian Beale. Yet another youth to add to that contingent. I knew, if he ever returned, he'd be hunked up and sexed out, and sure enough, we get a pumped-up version of a poor man's Leonardo di Caprio. Still, at least the actor who plays him has LAMDA credentials and acting experience, even if looking like the requisite beautiful person Lorraine Newman likes to gush about was probably 80% of the reason behind why he was cast.
He's suppose to cut a swathe through all the ladies - meaning Lauren and Whitney, with both of whom he has form, and no doubt along the way, he'll cut a spark with Alice and even Lola too. My only hope is that with his return, we see someone of the youth contingent - Tyler or Joey or both - leave. From what I've read, Ben Hardy has more acting experience than the pair of those mumbling dolts together, so let's see what they do with him - only please, don't put him with Whitney and please don't reunite him with the godawful Lauren, which is what I presume Newman is going to do as both he and
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTENDERS
And finally, there's Danny Pennant.
This is going to be interesting, because this is the way EastEnders used to cast characters. Often, a character would be introduced in a guest or recurring spot - Nigel Bates and Tiffany Raymond Mitchell. Depending on how positively the audience responded, they may have been asked to return, subsequently, in a permanent capacity.
And with them would come a backstory and a character arc, something that's woefully lacking these days with many of the recently added characters in the past two years - e.g., the Moon brothers, the Magic Negro and her son the Little Cock.
Considering that it's been roughly six months since we've last encountered Danny Pennant, let's hope TPTB have given him a backstory and have some idea of what his character is going to achieve.
I'm going out on a limb and say that I hope he isn't the only gay in the village. That would limit his scope entirely to bringing some sad soul out of the closet - most probably Joey. Instead, considering his behaviour around Syed the last time, I'd hope he'd at least be bi-sexual. The show hasn't had a real bi-sexual character since Tony Hills, back in the late 1990s.
Even more provocative would be Danny being a real, a bona fide moral reprobate, someone who's willing to do anything with anyone in order to obtain his goals - a ruthless, assertive power-broker, someone to make everyone in Walford sit up and take notice.
But, I ask, do TPTB have that much integrity?
We'll see.
What is certain, however, is that everyone's eggs are riding in these characters' collective baskets, and there are signs that some damage limitation is actually being done after Letitia Dean let her feelings be known to TPTB about how much they'd botched up her character.
Let's hope his show has, at long last, turned a corner, and that, after the Ice Queen goeth, they can maintain their momentum.
Oh, and a final word to the unwise knicker-creamers on Digital Spy who are in near-orgasmic frenzy at the anticipation of Ronnie's return: Prison isn't a fucking holiday camp, and you shouldn't expect anyone to come out of prison, having had a spate away from where they'd committed a major crime, feeling "refreshed." Any sort of light-hearted and flirtatious behaviour in the face of the Moons and their relatives will only prove to exemplify what a psychopath Ronnie is. Maybe she and Michael Moon can leave and go off obsessing and manipulating together.
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