Here's a song to welcome Dominic Treadwell-Collins into the fold - don't get any ideas from the song, Dom!-
Well, he's not the Messiah. Nor is he a very naughty boy. Because we know now from the spoilers that Poopy-La-Dim is leaving next week or so, which means that Newman was probably responsible for her demise as a character. These actors have to get and give reasonable notice - like about six months or so. It's in the nature of the show's plans and in their ability to organise their own professional lives. It's also in tandem with the Kirkwood-Newman regime of not advising who was leaving until they'd actually finished filming - like Zainab and Jean, remember?
So, it's probably safe to say that Rachel Bright has known for sometime that her contract wouldn't be renewed. In fact, it was about - yep - six months ago when she took the blurb about EastEnders down from her Twitter description. Chucky Venn did the same thing, as did Matt Lapinskas - months before their departures were announced. That's the sure-fire way of finding out if a character is leaving.
Equally, I'd also say Jasmyn Banks has known a long time about her departure as well. At least, probably since Steve John Shepherd announced his departure. And since Ajay is featuring more and more, you can probably bet Newman handed him his P45 as well. Daniel Coonan, late of the RSC, was probably on a six-month contract, and for weeks now, Kierston Wareing has been hinting she's not for the long-haul. With a budding indie film career on the rise, this stint was only ever going to last a year.
So that probably means that DTC's real axings were Clare Perkins and Cornell S John, and that - being true to form in EastEnders 2.0 - he opted to keep the "yoof" factor and go with the stereotypical urban black yoof (with no ethnic friends) in that singular non-talent that is Khali Best. Hey, the young viewers have to keep the seats warm for all those deserting long-term viewers who've jumped ship.
Let's just hope that Mr Treadwell-Collins remembers that EastEnders did not begin with John Yorke and that Archie Mitchell and his daughters were DTC's one retcon he's allowed. More importantly, that since he's gone on record as saying that Sharon is his favourite character, that he remembers that, were it not for Sharon, he'd never have been able to create RoNostril Mitchell.
Digest those thoughts. In the meantime, this episode was absolutey piss poor.
Fathers and Sons.
The storyline isn't worthy of the song, because ... really ... Ava, Sam and Dexter, who cares?
This was cheesy, especially the contrived bonding moment in the Vic kitchen between Dexter and Sam, complete with an attempt at what was supposed to be a poignant conversation between a son and his long-lost daddio. Instead, it was cliche'-ridden and maudlin, even including symbolic language ...
And there was light.
That butt-clinchgingly embarrassing line symbolised Dexter's supposed epiphany being shot down by his noble savage father, who wanted to save his son suffering. (Cue Cornell S West's bad impersonation of Billy Dee Williams) ...
West can't act to save his arse, and one wonders why he is being allowed to stay on whilst his equally embarrassing parents are leaving. I suppose Ava's confrontation with Sharon was too much for her delicate constitution, because - according to Sam - the Magic Negro wasn't working that day, but here's some neat pieces of retcon which didn't really answer the story of Ava's background.
Sam told Dexter that he left him and Ava because he (Sam) was too weak to be a father and a husband. OK, does that mean Sam and Ava were married? Ava was also 28 when Dexter was born, which meant she would have been teaching some six years. So, based on what Sam said, he and Ava were married and in their late twenties when Dexter was born. Ava was a teacher; Sam was a builder. Sounds pretty much middle-class and affluent to me, some twenty-one years ago.
So what was all this shit about living in a squat in Croydon when Dexter was born?
Please, EastEnders, stop, stop, stop pandering to low-brows and the xTonix's of this world - the people who need to keep a dictionary to hand when watching this show to the extent that they think "matriarch" and "patriarch" are made-up words, much less actual concepts.
Next, we have the irony of the best scene in the programme being the one which made the least sense - the garage scene between Jay and Dexter.
Succinctly put, that was the biggest load of codswollop ever turned out by a young male character on the programme. It serves to reinforce the fact that Jay is both not very bright and extremely narrow-minded, but we've known that since his scene during Teen Week with Abi the Dough-Faced Girl. The cafe scene was pretty naff as well, bringing the Anodyne Gang into theh situation concerning Dexter's dilemma. Once again, that only served to make Jay's ignorance glaringly obvious.
Jay doesn't think someone can live with only one kidney? Well, we know he's wrong. But his speech to Dexture was an amorphous mixture of ignorance, arrogance and cowardice. What? Don't get to close to your parents because they'll die? Why not approach it from a parent's angle as well - don't get too close to your children because they might die as well? Think how well that attitude would sit with people like Max Branning, Carol Jackson or Patrick Trueman.
Only a few months ago, Jay was castigating Dexter for his rejection of Sam, reminding him that he, himself, would give his right arm for five minutes with Jase Dyer, and now he's saying that if Jase needed a life-saving kidney transplant and Jay were a match, he wouldn't step up to the plate, because that would bond him too close to Jay, who was only going to die someday anyway, so why waste the emotion?
Look, people die - sometimes before their time, but they do. That's no reason for anyone associated with these people to step back from getting involved emotionally. That's life. That's the risk you take. Anyway, the bond, the love between a parent and a child is supposed to be unconditional. Jase wouldn't have hesitated to donate an organ for Jay. He must be turning in his grave to know his son is such an ignorant little ingrate.
Maybe it's time Jay took a walk away from Walford.
Alice Magdalene.
Can't you just hear Alice singing this?
Obviously, this is the beginning of the end of Michael Moon, and so he's setting the snare for Alice as his unwitting accomplice.
Now this is bizarre.
Because, as I said previously, Alice went to bed with a hangover and woke up to be fully "groomed" by Michael Moon. Not several weeks ago, she was pushing for a relationship with Tamwar, of all people, and now she's jumping to Michael's beat - ignoring Tamwar, treating him like shit, just on the say-so of this psychopath.
She really is mentally unstable. But then she's supposed to be.
The always watchable Charlie Brooks (didn't she look fabulous?) nailed it when she accused Michael of "grooming" Alice. Janine is no fool this second time around, and I wanted to smack Alice's smug face when Janine warned her, in no uncertain terms, about what it's like to be sucked into Michael's dark side. No one will be a winner there, much less this silly girl.
I decided, when I watched this episode that I was really glad to see Jasmyn Banks go, if only to be shot of those awfully ill-fitting veneers, which look more like a set of dentures. They make her character look sillier than she is supposed to be, but maybe that's the idea.
I feel sorry for Himesh Patel, with the hatchet job they've done on Tamwar's character. Is he emotionally insecure and socially gauche? Yes, but they've taken this to extremes, especially with Mas's flippant observation - by no means literal - that women mean the opposite of what they say. Bad advice, Mas. Advice like that, taken ver batim, could lead to a rape accusation. Still, I was glad SillyKnickers found that Michael had been "screening" her phone calls and messages. He's obsessing over and manipulating Alice now, because he needs her to get the other "object" he wants - Scarlett.
I'm glad the show is ridding itself of one of its two resident psychopaths. I just hope it rids itself of the female of the species.
Seen and Not Heard.
This is for that awful pair of stageschool kids, Bobby and Tiffany.
OMIGOD, I just realised he reminded me of Harry Hickles in ten years in that video!
Denny, Bobby, Tiffany, whoever ... the less seen of any of them, the better. Tonight's garbage was a contrived scene to have Carol swoon over Masood's paternal wisdom to theh awful Tiffany, who appears to be on the cusp of puberty at ten, when the actress is really twelve.
Of course, all this is a subtle heralding of David's return and the retcon Kirkwood created of their undying eternal love story that wasn't.
Just get Sam Mitchell back and sniffing around David and we'll see how much he wants to be with Granny Carol.
Same shit, different day.
Well, he's not the Messiah. Nor is he a very naughty boy. Because we know now from the spoilers that Poopy-La-Dim is leaving next week or so, which means that Newman was probably responsible for her demise as a character. These actors have to get and give reasonable notice - like about six months or so. It's in the nature of the show's plans and in their ability to organise their own professional lives. It's also in tandem with the Kirkwood-Newman regime of not advising who was leaving until they'd actually finished filming - like Zainab and Jean, remember?
So, it's probably safe to say that Rachel Bright has known for sometime that her contract wouldn't be renewed. In fact, it was about - yep - six months ago when she took the blurb about EastEnders down from her Twitter description. Chucky Venn did the same thing, as did Matt Lapinskas - months before their departures were announced. That's the sure-fire way of finding out if a character is leaving.
Equally, I'd also say Jasmyn Banks has known a long time about her departure as well. At least, probably since Steve John Shepherd announced his departure. And since Ajay is featuring more and more, you can probably bet Newman handed him his P45 as well. Daniel Coonan, late of the RSC, was probably on a six-month contract, and for weeks now, Kierston Wareing has been hinting she's not for the long-haul. With a budding indie film career on the rise, this stint was only ever going to last a year.
So that probably means that DTC's real axings were Clare Perkins and Cornell S John, and that - being true to form in EastEnders 2.0 - he opted to keep the "yoof" factor and go with the stereotypical urban black yoof (with no ethnic friends) in that singular non-talent that is Khali Best. Hey, the young viewers have to keep the seats warm for all those deserting long-term viewers who've jumped ship.
Let's just hope that Mr Treadwell-Collins remembers that EastEnders did not begin with John Yorke and that Archie Mitchell and his daughters were DTC's one retcon he's allowed. More importantly, that since he's gone on record as saying that Sharon is his favourite character, that he remembers that, were it not for Sharon, he'd never have been able to create RoNostril Mitchell.
Digest those thoughts. In the meantime, this episode was absolutey piss poor.
Fathers and Sons.
The storyline isn't worthy of the song, because ... really ... Ava, Sam and Dexter, who cares?
This was cheesy, especially the contrived bonding moment in the Vic kitchen between Dexter and Sam, complete with an attempt at what was supposed to be a poignant conversation between a son and his long-lost daddio. Instead, it was cliche'-ridden and maudlin, even including symbolic language ...
And there was light.
That butt-clinchgingly embarrassing line symbolised Dexter's supposed epiphany being shot down by his noble savage father, who wanted to save his son suffering. (Cue Cornell S West's bad impersonation of Billy Dee Williams) ...
West can't act to save his arse, and one wonders why he is being allowed to stay on whilst his equally embarrassing parents are leaving. I suppose Ava's confrontation with Sharon was too much for her delicate constitution, because - according to Sam - the Magic Negro wasn't working that day, but here's some neat pieces of retcon which didn't really answer the story of Ava's background.
Sam told Dexter that he left him and Ava because he (Sam) was too weak to be a father and a husband. OK, does that mean Sam and Ava were married? Ava was also 28 when Dexter was born, which meant she would have been teaching some six years. So, based on what Sam said, he and Ava were married and in their late twenties when Dexter was born. Ava was a teacher; Sam was a builder. Sounds pretty much middle-class and affluent to me, some twenty-one years ago.
So what was all this shit about living in a squat in Croydon when Dexter was born?
Please, EastEnders, stop, stop, stop pandering to low-brows and the xTonix's of this world - the people who need to keep a dictionary to hand when watching this show to the extent that they think "matriarch" and "patriarch" are made-up words, much less actual concepts.
Next, we have the irony of the best scene in the programme being the one which made the least sense - the garage scene between Jay and Dexter.
Succinctly put, that was the biggest load of codswollop ever turned out by a young male character on the programme. It serves to reinforce the fact that Jay is both not very bright and extremely narrow-minded, but we've known that since his scene during Teen Week with Abi the Dough-Faced Girl. The cafe scene was pretty naff as well, bringing the Anodyne Gang into theh situation concerning Dexter's dilemma. Once again, that only served to make Jay's ignorance glaringly obvious.
Jay doesn't think someone can live with only one kidney? Well, we know he's wrong. But his speech to Dexture was an amorphous mixture of ignorance, arrogance and cowardice. What? Don't get to close to your parents because they'll die? Why not approach it from a parent's angle as well - don't get too close to your children because they might die as well? Think how well that attitude would sit with people like Max Branning, Carol Jackson or Patrick Trueman.
Only a few months ago, Jay was castigating Dexter for his rejection of Sam, reminding him that he, himself, would give his right arm for five minutes with Jase Dyer, and now he's saying that if Jase needed a life-saving kidney transplant and Jay were a match, he wouldn't step up to the plate, because that would bond him too close to Jay, who was only going to die someday anyway, so why waste the emotion?
Look, people die - sometimes before their time, but they do. That's no reason for anyone associated with these people to step back from getting involved emotionally. That's life. That's the risk you take. Anyway, the bond, the love between a parent and a child is supposed to be unconditional. Jase wouldn't have hesitated to donate an organ for Jay. He must be turning in his grave to know his son is such an ignorant little ingrate.
Maybe it's time Jay took a walk away from Walford.
Alice Magdalene.
Can't you just hear Alice singing this?
Obviously, this is the beginning of the end of Michael Moon, and so he's setting the snare for Alice as his unwitting accomplice.
Now this is bizarre.
Because, as I said previously, Alice went to bed with a hangover and woke up to be fully "groomed" by Michael Moon. Not several weeks ago, she was pushing for a relationship with Tamwar, of all people, and now she's jumping to Michael's beat - ignoring Tamwar, treating him like shit, just on the say-so of this psychopath.
She really is mentally unstable. But then she's supposed to be.
The always watchable Charlie Brooks (didn't she look fabulous?) nailed it when she accused Michael of "grooming" Alice. Janine is no fool this second time around, and I wanted to smack Alice's smug face when Janine warned her, in no uncertain terms, about what it's like to be sucked into Michael's dark side. No one will be a winner there, much less this silly girl.
I decided, when I watched this episode that I was really glad to see Jasmyn Banks go, if only to be shot of those awfully ill-fitting veneers, which look more like a set of dentures. They make her character look sillier than she is supposed to be, but maybe that's the idea.
I feel sorry for Himesh Patel, with the hatchet job they've done on Tamwar's character. Is he emotionally insecure and socially gauche? Yes, but they've taken this to extremes, especially with Mas's flippant observation - by no means literal - that women mean the opposite of what they say. Bad advice, Mas. Advice like that, taken ver batim, could lead to a rape accusation. Still, I was glad SillyKnickers found that Michael had been "screening" her phone calls and messages. He's obsessing over and manipulating Alice now, because he needs her to get the other "object" he wants - Scarlett.
I'm glad the show is ridding itself of one of its two resident psychopaths. I just hope it rids itself of the female of the species.
Seen and Not Heard.
This is for that awful pair of stageschool kids, Bobby and Tiffany.
OMIGOD, I just realised he reminded me of Harry Hickles in ten years in that video!
Denny, Bobby, Tiffany, whoever ... the less seen of any of them, the better. Tonight's garbage was a contrived scene to have Carol swoon over Masood's paternal wisdom to theh awful Tiffany, who appears to be on the cusp of puberty at ten, when the actress is really twelve.
Of course, all this is a subtle heralding of David's return and the retcon Kirkwood created of their undying eternal love story that wasn't.
Just get Sam Mitchell back and sniffing around David and we'll see how much he wants to be with Granny Carol.
Same shit, different day.
This Ava/Sam/Dex storyline is boring me to tears.
ReplyDeleteSharon was never meant to be anything other than ordinary. She was a chubby teenager with a poodle perm who wore pink. The glamour doll at that time was Cindy Williams. This was EastEnders' trademark - that the handsome young dude, Simon Wicks, would choose Sharon over Cindy, who was pregnant with his kid. Cindy then sought Ian, who relished trophy women as a reinforcement of his masculinity and as an ego booster.
ReplyDeleteWhen Simon dumped her for Cindy (whom he subsequently dumped), Sharon got involved with Grant Mitchell, and the Mitchell brothers were no oil paintings, themselves. That was the beauty of EastEnders at that time - its characters were people who looked like people you'd pass in the street - Michelle Fowler, Ruth Fowler, Connor Flaherty, even Annie Palmer were anything but the high end of ordinary. Coronation Street used to be that way also.
The Sharon whose characterisation Louise Berridge took over was nothing like the original Sharon, and this Sharon is nothing like either.
I'd rather have people who age naturally than people who look like alien Chucky dolls like Womack or people whose facelift has their features solidified in a dumbwat expression like Bev Callard.
Sharon's fat. So what. So are a lot of people. The actress admits she has a problem with her weight. Does Sam Womack admit her history as a homewrecker, which was pretty lurid during the 90s and how she acquired her current husband, whose wife was pregnant when she broke that one up? I don't think so.