The DTC Debate

The Luddites in DigitalSpyLand have twigged that their latest Messiah, Dominic Treadwell-Collins, has tweeted that he returns to Elstree on Monday. 

And, thus, they've started an orgiastic thread where all the experts have crawled from the woodwork, either with wish lists or absolute certainties about what the newest Executive Producer is about to do.

First of all, I'm glad he's returning, and I wish him well. He really cannot do worse than his previous two predecessors have done. Plus,he's a proven storyteller, and the worst thing about the soap this year has been its absolute dearth of storylines.

However, I don't consider DTC to be the awaited Messiah or a miracle-worker. Like one of the best contributors to be found in the gnosh pit known as Digital Spy, Scrabbler, this is going to take time.

However, before the fanbois and semi-literates (someone, please, buy IceDragon1 a dictionary and a book of homynyms) began to fantasize about changing storylines, rewriting scripts, sacking or reinstating actors, they have to realise that this sort of shit materialising in their one collective braincell just isn't going to happen.

Realise the following and then cogitate upon it:-

• We're now watching August episodes.
• All of September's eps have now been filmed. The show doesn't film in date order, and it was only a couple of weeks ago that Phil's and Carl's crash and Ronnie's release were filmed. The crash happens on 3rd September, and she returns on the 9th. Barbara Windsor's episode has been filmed, and that airs on 20th September, and Scott Maslen has finished filming, so that means Jack leaves at the end of the month, as well as Michael French's return episode, also in September, having been filmed.
• If you'd bother to look either on the EastEnders' website or on Walford Web Bullying and Intimidation Forum, you'd realise, from the script snippets section, that they are well into filming October episodes now. By the end of August, October's episodes will be in the can.
• Daran Little tweeted last week that he's writing scripts now for the second week in December. This means that November's scripts have been written and are in the process of being approved. The first batch of scripts to be written/overseen by the DTC crew will be the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Think about that for awhile.

There will be absolutely no changing or storylines, nor will there be any tearing up of scripts. Actors are filming at the moment and also preparing to film further down the line. EastEnders have learned from Kathleen Hutchison's folly of tearing up six months' worth of scripts and changing storylines mid-flow. That's certainly not the way to win friends and influence people either with the cast or the crew.

DTC will probably take charge of filming the November episodes, for which scripts have already been written and approved. He won't change them in any way, although he may tweak dialogue or direction here or there if he doesn't feel something's quite right. December will see his scripts and Newman's storylines - as will, most likely, January and February. We won't see a 100% DTC EastEnders, probably until March 2014.

Forget all your flights of fancy about convincing Steve John Shepherd to stay or killing off Alfie at Christmas. That just simply will not happen. Changing storylines/scripts in mid-flow causes stress to everyone on on the production team, from writers to directors to actors, themselves.

SJS, like John Michie on Coronation Street, was never a long-term character anyway. He knew that when he started, and if he didn't, he was damned well made certain of it when Charlie Brooks took a six-month break.

Will there be sackings? Of course, there will. A new broom sweeps clean, and one of the first things DTC will be doing is having a word with cast members, and apprising certain ones of his plans for their character development or informing others that their services are no longer needed. Most probably, the first announcements of departures will be mid-September, and will involve characters departing in the new year.

I would reckon - and this is only an opinion - that the actors most vulnerable to having their contracts terminated would be anyone who was cast under the Kirkwood or Newman regimes. In fact, the first character departures, I would reckon would be Ava, Dexter and Sam. Claire Perkins's and Khali Best's contracts are up for renewal shortly, and Cornell S John will have completed six months. None of their characters have integrated with the community, nor are they popular with the viewers.

I would imagine DTC will also have to address the imbalance of emphasis on the young characters, whose dominance has been a detriment to the programme as a whole for a long while. In addition to Dexter, he's got to make the demographic smaller. I would expect to see Alice leave and Poppy and Fatboy. If he has the nerve, I'd love to see DTC drop the axe on Shona McGarty and Jacqueline Jossa.

Whatever way, I think DTC's chosen ingenue will be Danielle Harold's character Lola, and the Branning domination might be back-burnered. DTC likes the Mitchells, and Lola is a Mitchell. He's cognizant of the fact that when the Mitchells are weakened, the show suffers.

Sorry, to all you Mitchell-haters out there, but that's the truth. The Mitchells will be re-built, and central to their re-building will be the repair and redemption of DTC's favourite character, Sharon.

And as for the established characters, the staple characters, don't expect any of them to go, unless it's of their own volition. I'm talking about Phil, Sharon, Kat, Alfie, Max, Ian, Dot, Denise, Patrick and Janine. DTC is going to be in charge for the 30th Anniversary episode, and he'll want these people present - more than he'll ever want the insipid teens. This is why Jake Wood has been offered a two-year contract. As much as a lot of these characters have been unlikeable and damned near unwatchable of late, he'll also realise that this is more to do with inadequate writing as opposed to performanve and ability.

I'm interested in seeing what he has in mind for the newest arrivals - Carl, Sadie and Jake. At this present moment, I can see Carl and Sadie as long-termers. Jake, I can't see lasting at all. And as much as it pains me, I can't see the mouth-breathing Joey leaving anytime in the near future. This past week, it became obvious that Joey was being bumped up the ladder to "adult Branninghood," being the male Branning available for bonding with Max. Let's hope that DTC makes David Witts suitably scarce, because I also am confident that DTC realises that EastEnders isn't, nor has it ever been, a teen soap.