There's a discussion thread on Digital Spy at the moment, started by someone who is 17 years old and who's trying to sound like he has all the answers to the problems prevalent on this show.
He doesn't. Instead, he's the typical arrogant millenial, who doesn't give a rat's arse about any of the inherent history in this show, who probably only began watching the show regularly from 2006 and who foments the typical millenial attitude that if anything happened before he was born or before he could remember, it simply doesn't matter.
This kumquat reckons Sharon no longer has a place in EastEnders, that she doesn't fit into EastEnders as it is today, which is the biggest load of horseshit I've ever seen on that forum.
This is a person whose viewing began with Stacey Slater's screeching and entitlement. This person also believes that Denise and Ian are the saving grace couple of the show.
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but most of the people who hate Sharon and Phil and who think Ian should go are people who only began watching the show during this Century. The older ones began under John Yorke's tenure, the younger ones came in on the tail-end of Kate Harwood. A lot of the older millenials are Shannistas.
They simply don't want to know that Phil Mitchell, once, was the nicer brother, that the MItchells were created for Sharon WATTS, to celebrate her passing from Den's spoiled princess daughter to Grant Mitchell's beleagured wife, a woman who always rose above adversity to walk away from trouble until she was able to meet it head-on and on her own.
Sharon, the clinging, simpering, pouting, needy bimbo didn't really begin when she returned in 2012; this began back under John Yorke, when she fell in love with a retconned character none of us had ever heard of before, Fireman Tom, who died trying to save Trevor Morgan. The clinginess and neediness, indeed the bitchiness, grew stronger with fey Dennis. She only really came into her own as old Sharon during her last stint when she joined forces with the Mitchells, sans Dennis, to snare Chrissie. In fact, even though Dennis had his suspicions about Chrissie's guilt, it was the Bruvs, who convinced Sharon.
The irony about the millenials' attitude to older, established characters doesn't include Dot, but - in their eyes - Dot has always been a Branning. These same people dare to believe that David Wicks and Carol Jackson are this generation's Frank and Pat. They're not. In truth - as anyone who was watching prior to 2000 will tell you - is that they were a quick bunk-up behind the bike sheds, and before he left Walford, when tastier morsels he'd sampled like Sam Mitchell and Cindy Beale had left, he turned to Carol - for another quick bunk-up before leaving.
Another thread started on Digital Spy is one which has a rather surprised tone, having discovered an interview from Walford Web with Matthew Robinson, arguably the best Executive Producer the show has had, whose tenure ran from 1998 until 2000. Robinson was a hardass who loved the show. He took over after a particularly bad period - a period in which the writers had offered up an insultingly stereotypical view of the Irish, an ignorant depiction of Italians played by actors who couldn't even pronounce their characters' names correctly and the departure of two enormously popular characters, Kathy Beale and Nighel Bates.
Immediately he took over, he ditched the characters of George and Annie Palmer, Lenny and Huw the student scroungers, Connor Flaherty (an Irish Fowler), Sanjay and Geeta, and Ruth Fowler, Mark's wife. He introduced Mel Healy and Steve Owen, Matthew and Michael Rose, Dan Sullivan, Lisa Shaw, Jamie and Billy Mitchell and re-introduced Jim Branning.
He ended Cindy off-screen, took an executive decision on ending Martine McCutcheon's character when she wanted to come and go as a character, and took the departures of Patsy Palmer and Ross Kemp and turned them into positive, must-see television.
Lorraine Newman was part of his production team.
And what we saw today is one of the main things that is currently wrong with EastEnders.
It's turning into a sitcom.
The Moral of the Story.
It costs nothing to apologise. Well, that's all Lucy wanted from Lauren, who's got off scot-free, again, with common assault and criminal damage. Instead, like those lovely, immaculately coiffured sitcom moms from the 1950s, like Donna Reed ...
... skipping down the stairs. Instead, we have the perfectly coiffured and fragrant Tanya, skipping into the kitchen to gently prod Lauren toward the cafe for breakfast, solely for the purpose of apologising to Lucy, who - after all - was generous enough not to press charges, after being passive-aggressively bullied by Lauren's father and hoping to keep in the good books of Lauren's cousin.
Thing is, once she's arrived, sullenly at the cafe, Lauren doesn't want or know how to apologise. This isn't ignorance; this is entitlement. She can't even say the words at first - not "apologise" and not even "sorry." Instead, she just wants to see if "they," meaning she and Lucy, are "all right."
Well, they are, but who would call a person a friend, after that person has knocked the living shit out of them and vandalised their place of business? Lucy has reason to be sore (in spirit and at the bruise on her face).
So Lauren skulks over to Grandma Dot. Grandma knows best, you see, for a dose of good, old wholesome Christian ethics - like telling Lauren that if she apologised to Lucy and really meant it, then Lucy would have to accept the apology, and if she didn't - well, then Lauren would still be seen to have done the right thing. In other words, Lucy would then look like the lemon. So Lauren starts on the right foot by apologising to Dot for taking her money. She even tells her why she wanted her money, and Dot gives her a lesson in Christian forgiveness, which prompts Lauren to apologise, again, to Lucy, but this time, loudly, sincerely and publically ... even offering to pay for the damage done to the window (which seems to have been miraculously and suddenly repaired, and which means that Max will probably pay). And - hey presto! - Lucy is forced into accepting.
Thereafter, she does penance with Whitney and Ian, even offering to help Ian out on his opening night by waitressing for free - but only after playing on his own human foible by asking if he'd ever done something he regretted. (I daresay he has).
Not only was this a moralistic sitcom, like the old Father Knows Best from America in the 1950s (only this time it was Grandma Dot Knows Best), this was sheer CBBC stuff, designed to instruct children and the more ignorant of adolescents how to behave properly in public and how to apologise sincerely when one's behaviour has been less than adequate. It's also a lesson in taking responsibility for one's actions, something which has had a bit of a backburner existence on EastEnders of late, especially with female characters, so - in this respect - it's turning a corner.
But it goes without saying, that this is the stuff of sitcoms and of child-and-adolescent-oriented sitcoms at worst.
Moonlighting with Mr Worf's Daughter.
I know this will mean little to the millenials, as it was a sitcom/detective series from the 1980s, and I also know that Sam the Sham and the Magic Negro don't even compare to Bruce Willis with hair or Cybill Shepherd.
For a start, Cybill Shepherd didn't spend her days trolling about the street. Today's the first day back at school after half-term. Bobby Beale is going to school. but the Deputy Head of Walford Primary is strolling about the Square, making over her twenty year-old little Cock, with no books, no bookbag, nothing to denote a professional person off to do a day's work. Oh, and she's constantly skipping out and back to the Square to have lunch, or - in this case - to meet Sam the Sham, her ex-whatever from 20 years ago, whom she's recently and secretly snogged.
Just to tell him she doesn't need him in her life. Again. Well, we all know what that means in sitcom romcoms. "No" means "yes."
For all he's the next pile of wood to be resident in Walford after Jack Branning departs ...
... Sam the Sham is actually quite a nice-looking man. Why he's attracted to such a sour-faced, Klingon like Ava the Rava is anyone's guess.
He doesn't. Instead, he's the typical arrogant millenial, who doesn't give a rat's arse about any of the inherent history in this show, who probably only began watching the show regularly from 2006 and who foments the typical millenial attitude that if anything happened before he was born or before he could remember, it simply doesn't matter.
This kumquat reckons Sharon no longer has a place in EastEnders, that she doesn't fit into EastEnders as it is today, which is the biggest load of horseshit I've ever seen on that forum.
This is a person whose viewing began with Stacey Slater's screeching and entitlement. This person also believes that Denise and Ian are the saving grace couple of the show.
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but most of the people who hate Sharon and Phil and who think Ian should go are people who only began watching the show during this Century. The older ones began under John Yorke's tenure, the younger ones came in on the tail-end of Kate Harwood. A lot of the older millenials are Shannistas.
They simply don't want to know that Phil Mitchell, once, was the nicer brother, that the MItchells were created for Sharon WATTS, to celebrate her passing from Den's spoiled princess daughter to Grant Mitchell's beleagured wife, a woman who always rose above adversity to walk away from trouble until she was able to meet it head-on and on her own.
Sharon, the clinging, simpering, pouting, needy bimbo didn't really begin when she returned in 2012; this began back under John Yorke, when she fell in love with a retconned character none of us had ever heard of before, Fireman Tom, who died trying to save Trevor Morgan. The clinginess and neediness, indeed the bitchiness, grew stronger with fey Dennis. She only really came into her own as old Sharon during her last stint when she joined forces with the Mitchells, sans Dennis, to snare Chrissie. In fact, even though Dennis had his suspicions about Chrissie's guilt, it was the Bruvs, who convinced Sharon.
The irony about the millenials' attitude to older, established characters doesn't include Dot, but - in their eyes - Dot has always been a Branning. These same people dare to believe that David Wicks and Carol Jackson are this generation's Frank and Pat. They're not. In truth - as anyone who was watching prior to 2000 will tell you - is that they were a quick bunk-up behind the bike sheds, and before he left Walford, when tastier morsels he'd sampled like Sam Mitchell and Cindy Beale had left, he turned to Carol - for another quick bunk-up before leaving.
Another thread started on Digital Spy is one which has a rather surprised tone, having discovered an interview from Walford Web with Matthew Robinson, arguably the best Executive Producer the show has had, whose tenure ran from 1998 until 2000. Robinson was a hardass who loved the show. He took over after a particularly bad period - a period in which the writers had offered up an insultingly stereotypical view of the Irish, an ignorant depiction of Italians played by actors who couldn't even pronounce their characters' names correctly and the departure of two enormously popular characters, Kathy Beale and Nighel Bates.
Immediately he took over, he ditched the characters of George and Annie Palmer, Lenny and Huw the student scroungers, Connor Flaherty (an Irish Fowler), Sanjay and Geeta, and Ruth Fowler, Mark's wife. He introduced Mel Healy and Steve Owen, Matthew and Michael Rose, Dan Sullivan, Lisa Shaw, Jamie and Billy Mitchell and re-introduced Jim Branning.
He ended Cindy off-screen, took an executive decision on ending Martine McCutcheon's character when she wanted to come and go as a character, and took the departures of Patsy Palmer and Ross Kemp and turned them into positive, must-see television.
Lorraine Newman was part of his production team.
And what we saw today is one of the main things that is currently wrong with EastEnders.
It's turning into a sitcom.
The Moral of the Story.
It costs nothing to apologise. Well, that's all Lucy wanted from Lauren, who's got off scot-free, again, with common assault and criminal damage. Instead, like those lovely, immaculately coiffured sitcom moms from the 1950s, like Donna Reed ...
... skipping down the stairs. Instead, we have the perfectly coiffured and fragrant Tanya, skipping into the kitchen to gently prod Lauren toward the cafe for breakfast, solely for the purpose of apologising to Lucy, who - after all - was generous enough not to press charges, after being passive-aggressively bullied by Lauren's father and hoping to keep in the good books of Lauren's cousin.
Thing is, once she's arrived, sullenly at the cafe, Lauren doesn't want or know how to apologise. This isn't ignorance; this is entitlement. She can't even say the words at first - not "apologise" and not even "sorry." Instead, she just wants to see if "they," meaning she and Lucy, are "all right."
Well, they are, but who would call a person a friend, after that person has knocked the living shit out of them and vandalised their place of business? Lucy has reason to be sore (in spirit and at the bruise on her face).
So Lauren skulks over to Grandma Dot. Grandma knows best, you see, for a dose of good, old wholesome Christian ethics - like telling Lauren that if she apologised to Lucy and really meant it, then Lucy would have to accept the apology, and if she didn't - well, then Lauren would still be seen to have done the right thing. In other words, Lucy would then look like the lemon. So Lauren starts on the right foot by apologising to Dot for taking her money. She even tells her why she wanted her money, and Dot gives her a lesson in Christian forgiveness, which prompts Lauren to apologise, again, to Lucy, but this time, loudly, sincerely and publically ... even offering to pay for the damage done to the window (which seems to have been miraculously and suddenly repaired, and which means that Max will probably pay). And - hey presto! - Lucy is forced into accepting.
Thereafter, she does penance with Whitney and Ian, even offering to help Ian out on his opening night by waitressing for free - but only after playing on his own human foible by asking if he'd ever done something he regretted. (I daresay he has).
Not only was this a moralistic sitcom, like the old Father Knows Best from America in the 1950s (only this time it was Grandma Dot Knows Best), this was sheer CBBC stuff, designed to instruct children and the more ignorant of adolescents how to behave properly in public and how to apologise sincerely when one's behaviour has been less than adequate. It's also a lesson in taking responsibility for one's actions, something which has had a bit of a backburner existence on EastEnders of late, especially with female characters, so - in this respect - it's turning a corner.
But it goes without saying, that this is the stuff of sitcoms and of child-and-adolescent-oriented sitcoms at worst.
Moonlighting with Mr Worf's Daughter.
I know this will mean little to the millenials, as it was a sitcom/detective series from the 1980s, and I also know that Sam the Sham and the Magic Negro don't even compare to Bruce Willis with hair or Cybill Shepherd.
For a start, Cybill Shepherd didn't spend her days trolling about the street. Today's the first day back at school after half-term. Bobby Beale is going to school. but the Deputy Head of Walford Primary is strolling about the Square, making over her twenty year-old little Cock, with no books, no bookbag, nothing to denote a professional person off to do a day's work. Oh, and she's constantly skipping out and back to the Square to have lunch, or - in this case - to meet Sam the Sham, her ex-whatever from 20 years ago, whom she's recently and secretly snogged.
Just to tell him she doesn't need him in her life. Again. Well, we all know what that means in sitcom romcoms. "No" means "yes."
For all he's the next pile of wood to be resident in Walford after Jack Branning departs ...
Plus
Equals
Beam me up, Scotty.
Summer Holiday.
Can't you just see Jay and Abi the Dough-Faced Brat and Cock and Lola setting off in a hijacked London bus for Four Go Wild on Holiday and Leave Lexi?
Once again, this is the stuff of sitcoms - two dozy boys trying to fix up a car and sell it, presumably on Ebay and waiting for the thousands of pounds they'll be sure to get so they can scoot off camping or caravaning or staying in a little hotel someplace. Jay will be seen to spend money on Abi the Dough-Faced Brat, who gets more materialistic and dire each time she's seen.
Abi and Jay make lurrrve. There are no wet spots, no sticky gook, no nasty smells and no discomfort when that union blessed by the gods occur. Everything is perfect as long as Jay spends money on Abi.
Whoever pointed out Lorna Fitzgerald's limited acting ability and her propensity to giggle and laugh her lines is right. She has the behaviour and mannerisms of a twelve year-old when she's about to turn seventeen. As well as the baby fat.
Time for Abi the Dough-Faced Brat to take a hike. A long one.
And the unintelligible Cock, who thinks he's Britain's version of Will Smith, can bugger off too. He serves no purpose and he has no direction. Just another in a long line of bores with daddy issues.
Prelude to Slapstick.
Oh, please ... this is the most hyped storyline of the week, which is meant to be supremely funny. It's the story of Dot, Poppy and Bobby Beale's snake.
I don't need to explain. You saw the basic ingredients of the beginning tonight, instigated by the clueless Poopy-Le-Dim. This is going to run all week.
EastEnders sank to a low with the Ferreiras' Kidneygate. June Brown must be inwardly seething at such crap.
Someone needs to tell NuBobby-the-Stage-School-Kid to slow his delivery down as well. I had to turn subtitles on tonight.
Now ... this is slapstick ...
Dot's excellent adventure with the Vicar and the Snake is not.
Ian Beale in NeighboursLand.
Ian's restaurant isn't going according to plan. The opening is Friday, the photographer from the Gazette is due to do a photoshoot, the electrician has done a bunk and nothing is going according to plan. (Not to mention the fact that Ian's been embezzling from his daughter's account).
He hasn't even sent out any invitations for the event, and reverts to old Ian the Weasel when he puts Denise in her place by firmly asserting that the invitations are only for the local business community; he wants no freeloading local yokels (like Cora the Bora downing the booze) on hand on Friday.
So off Denise goes with a flea in her ear, only to be put right by Sam. Things are spiralling downward and there's no chance Ian will be finished in time to open on Friday. So, here comes an example of Lorraine Newman's community spirit, love and warmth, with Patrick and Kim drafted in,not only to help tidy the place up, but also to assist with the publicity shots, with Whitney on hand to act as head waitress.
Now this is something straight out of Neighbours. Why, for a moment, Ian almost morphed into Harold Bishop. Keep a listen out to see if he starts referring to Denise as "Madge."
And, was it me, or was there a frisson of chemistry between Sam the Sham and Denise when she encountered him in the cafe?
The Sitcom Psychopath.
Poor, pitiful Alice, to whom Janine is being genuinely nice, is conflicted. Since Janine's return, she's heard nothing from Michael (and, I daresay, Kat) about what a heartless bitch Janine was. How she was evil and vengeful and without a heart.
Well, from where I'm sitting, the only vengeful, evil, bullying, passive-aggressive asshole I see is Michael Moon. And I sincerely feel sorry for any millenial female creaming her knickers on Digital Spy or elsewhere about wanting sexy Michael to manipulate, dominate and insult her. That's just sickness. Women suffered so bimbos like the numpties who drool over someone who looks like a walking corpse could have the freedom and opportunities previous generations never had. These women need to grow the fuck up and learn how to think critically.
On the one hand, Janine treats Alice with kindness. She appreciates her, gives her extra money and gifts, and - most importantly - she trusts her. Alice, with her newly-acquired porcelain teeth, is conflicted. She doesn't like to abuse Janine's trust, but the first scene she had today with Michael made it abundantly clear that he's bullying her. Psychologically and emotionally.
This is what Michael does best. And only to women. And only to women who are, in some way, vulnerable. Alice is naive. And rattled. And so rattled that she's taken to shoplifting as a means of easing tension and asserting control over her life. When she's almost caught by Poopy-Le-Dim at the Salon, she has a fit of conscience, returns the item and runs off.
When she's caught off-guard by Janine who wants to spend the afternoon with Scarlett, she mounts a good defence of Janine in front of Michael, who ends up sitting and sulking in the swings like the spoiled child he is ... or rather, the psychopath he is.
Michael won't commit suicide. It would be pretty dumb of EastEnders to take that route. Psychopaths don't commit suicide. They are too narcissistic. Besides, Michael is not, and never has been, the victim in all of this. As much as you all might hate to admit it, you'd best pry your sticky knickers down from the ceiling and man up ... Janine's the victim here.
Easily the best scenes in poor pickings tonight. Jasmyn Banks runs rings around
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTENDERS
... and Bag O'Bones Beale.
Not a brilliant beginning to the week.
Oh, and the badly photoshopped, recently taken photo of Janine, Michael and the doll was a hoot. Anyone with more than one braincell remembers that Charlie Brooks's hair was shorter and blonder, sporting dark roots when Scarlett was born last June. Instead, we get a totally incongruous photo - I mean, who would pose, smilingly, over a hospital cot of a sick baby - with Brooks's dark hair photoshopped a curious shade of blonde green.
Oh, and the badly photoshopped, recently taken photo of Janine, Michael and the doll was a hoot. Anyone with more than one braincell remembers that Charlie Brooks's hair was shorter and blonder, sporting dark roots when Scarlett was born last June. Instead, we get a totally incongruous photo - I mean, who would pose, smilingly, over a hospital cot of a sick baby - with Brooks's dark hair photoshopped a curious shade of blonde green.
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