You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
You can't get a man with a gun.
Conversely, you can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think.
There's a civilised debate on the new Walford Web Forum (no bullies allowed) about the current state of the programme now that the Saviour has arrived and taken over. All the soaps suffered during the Christmas period, and last night's episode found EastEnders trailing behind Emmerdale yet again - end the year as it started.
Digital Spy forum is overpopulated with the adolescent and adolescently-minded forum members wittering on about "loving the Carters," how the Carters have "automatically fitted in," and such malarkey.
The general census of opinion on the new WW is that this is a forced situation. DTC is serving up his own creation - the Carters, a vanity show if there ever was one - as something new and exciting when they're really just Kevin Wicks & Co under a new name.
Think about it.
May I be frank? I don't trust Treadwell-Collins. He may be a good storyteller, but he has his own agenda, he's lazy about research and not above retconning and he's partial to sensationalism.
In short, he papers over the cracks.
I hope I'm wrong, but I've already seen him going back on some of the things he said he'd never do - like re-hashing. With all the forced bonhomie of the Carters, and some of the diabolical dialogue we've had to suffer from them, amongst other things, it's a con and a ruse to lull us into a false sense of security before this becomes The Stacey, Ronnie and Shirley Show.
Like I said, I hope I'm wrong.
Happy New Year.
Roswell Ronnie.
Channel Four recently did a psychopath night. I hope they invited Roswell Ronnie, the resident alien of Walford Square.
Yes, Ronnie, this was the night you dumped your dead child in Kat's baby's crib. How fucking dare you smile at the Moons as they walk through the market with their son, after the shit you pulled on them, you plastic-faced whore?
Roswell feels left out. Roxy, the woman who makes Bianca look like a model mother, is out on the town yet again with Carl. Shit, she could be out on the town with Prince William, and Roswell would still be obsessing about getting her away from this man who was bad for her. Dayum, Jesus Christ would be bad for Roxy.
So what does Roswell do? She boo-hoos and uses her dead child as a manipulation device to get Roxy to come home. Meanwhile, Roxy is being the girl - sorry, immature child-woman that Ronnie has created and off whom she feeds, psychologically. She's arranging to go to Paris with Carl.
Odd, that when Roxy finally mentions this to Roswell, Roswell brings up every excuse to go to Eye-BEE-tha (please, someone tell these bimbos how to pronounce that name), she fails to remember one key person in her manipulation ...
What about ME? What about US? What about our fun in Eye-BEE-tha?
Er, sorry, but you bought a child's ticket also, so Amy's going along. But then, Amy's just a silent device with which to wring guilt and manipulate Roxy, who really doesn't care about the kid at all. As someone else said, the Bitchell Blisters would only lock her in a hotel room with a dvd whilst they went out to play Queen of Eye-BEE-Tha.
The bitch actually didn't really plan to visit James's grave - once again, that was just a control mechanism to get Roxy home. Instead, Lola, in her innocence, actually had to shame Roswell into going.
Phil made an interesting remark, when Roswell stormed into the Vic to try to force him into separating Roxy from Carl.
I sold this gaff because of one of her dodgy boyfriends, I ain't doin' nuffink for another. You want it sorted, you deal with it.
So, you see, Phil really doesn't give a rat's arse about these bimbo cousins at all, and I heard a note of regret at his having to sell the Vic.
Months ago, someone aptly remarked that, for all her perceived "toughness," Roxy actually couldn't deal with Carl. It took Phil to return to do that. And she still couldn't deal with him tonight. Interesting that Carl used the same phrase to describe Ronnie that Archie - symbolised by his signet ring - used to refer to Roswell ... "damaged goods."
She was lucky the champagne bottle was at hand. We all know what happens tomorrow night. Well, let's hope the little man with the big ego deals with this fucking murderer correctly.
The Jury's Back.
Yes, I see what DTC is trying to do - he's trying to evoke the 80s atmosphere in the Vic, the era of Den and Ange - full house, everyone there, everyone has a line etc.
I like Linda Carter. I like Johnnie Carter. But I resent being force-fed this family with the usual and obvious quirks and told that here are our saviours. It's all change. Here we are now, entertain us. This is now EastEnders 3.0, for all the teenyboppers and fanbois who missed out on or fail to remember Den and Ange, well ... here are Mick and Linda. Smells like teen spirit.
Much better than Oasis and more attuned to the Carters being in the Vic.
Nice attempt at re-creating the 80s era - but the banter behind the bar about Johnnie the Babe Magnet, his poor attempt to score with Whitney and Shirley morphing into the Carter matriarch made me want to puke. Especially the scene when long-lost auntie, whom he hadn't seen since he was four (she's been out of their lives for fifteen years) and probably doesn't remember, took him upstairs for the requisite chat, including the holding of the hand for comfort.
Linda's remarks about Shirley giving parenting advice was spot on, and I don't buy Mick's sudden devotion to his sisters as opposed to his wife.
In fact, I don't buy Mick. Alfie Moon had his shirts, Mick's got his waistcoat. He's just as dorky as Alfie, nobbling upstairs with the wife for a quick fuck the way Alfie and Kat used to do. Sorry, numpties, but Danny Dyer sucks. Another whispery-voiced man, implying that he speaks softly and carries a big stick in his trousers. The line to Carl about Carl fretnin his family was embarrassing. I find him difficult to hear and to understand. Yet another who could do with diction lessons, especially in the pronunciation of his surname. It is not Ca'urgh.
What annoys me the most about him is his habit of lowering his low-browed forehead and leering before he makes a particular remark, as much as these little retconned quirks about the Carters' favourite karaoke song.
And nice to know that Shirley says she was only interested in Phil when he owned the Vic and she could get unlimited free booze. Pardon me, but her brother is supporting Shirley and Tina, both of whom are fully able to work for their keep.
Another thing I couldn't understand were the scenes with Dot and the Carters, where Linda attempts, once again, to buy Dot's camaraderie with a sweet sherry and having the whole thing descend into the farce which saw Dot being thrown out of the pub for smoking. It took me awhile to fathom that Dot wasn't smoking her digital cigarette, but a real one and trying to pass it off as a digital. It also took me more than a moment to realise that Dot was drunk, actually drunk.
Did this happen with Sharon? Or did someone - Fatboy or Max - spike her drink?
I'm no fan of Dot's, but I thought it harsh that DTC and the writer, Sharon Marshall, who's usually excellent, had Dot ejected from the pub for smoking and for being intoxicated. I mean, she was in a pub, FFS! And note that the first cigarette that was taken from her was surreptitiously smoked by Linda, herself ... illegally and in the pub. Add to that the baiting of Dot by Cora, Big Mo (and they seem to be forging a friendship between Big Mo and Cora the Bora) and Billy's disclosure of Dot's arrest and caution from over a decade ago for unknowingly consuming cannabis, and you get the feeling that this was DTC's thumbing his nose at certain aspects of the old EastEnders, whilst trying to re-capture the magic of the Vic under Angie and Den. Dot didn't deserve that, but whilst reading of her discontent with the programme in the latest Sun interview, one wonders if this was Treadwell-Collins's attempt to stick it to June Brown if she's been letting her discontent be known around Elstree. Bryan Kirkwood ended Pat. Will DTC end Dot?
The Vic certainly was heaving, especially with the endless Carter karaoke, another retcon of the Carter family history, something, including the brother, whom she heretofore never mentioned. One wonders, however, if several of those people - the Beale twins, Fatboy, Lola, Lauren and the atrocious Dexter - would even contemplate an evening at their local watching the elderly perform karaoke.
Still, DTC filled the place with almost every storyline going and then some. A drunken Denise, another one who had previously been drinking with Sharon (who seemed to be drinking her way around the Square), sat whining and complaining about an absent Ian, who was nowhere to be seen - and on New Year's Eve. She eventually ended up coming onto Masood, who had only dropped into the Vic in his capacity as Carol's booze errand boy. Tina, the self-professed dyke of a Carter sister copped off with Billy in the absence of any suitable woman, but was seen ogling Roxy as she came into the pub. Jake and Sadie hugged, with Sadie wishing him a happy new year and he wishing Lauren a happy new year over Sadie's shoulder. Danny Pennant kissed Lucy Beale, the night after he kissed Johnnie Carter, who tried to ply Whitney with champagne. And Peter and Lola reconciled ... did he tell her about Phil's threat to Ian about breaking them up?
And Dexter was there, like a pervading bad smell.
It's all happening at the Vic. And it's being shoved in our faces.
NuOld Sharon.
I called it. I said that the only way DTC would redeem Sharon is simply to treat her immediate past, dating from her return in 2012, as if it had never happened. The Sharon we all knew and remembered - those of us who watched in the 80s and 90s and care to remember - seems to have awoken from the nightmare of being Zombie Sharon and is familiar to us once more.
I'm on board with this. Seriously, why wast weeks and months of time having Sharon do an apology trip around the Square, when she was written atrociously by some of the worst writers on the programme at the moment. Even Pete Lawson got it wrong about her last night.
In fact, had Newman gone with this approach in June 2012, when Jessie Wallace returned from her break, if she'd treated Kat's atrocious behaviour and cheating on Alfie dating from 2010 as if it had never occurred, if she'd eschewed the awful Shaggerman story, then I could have bought Kat's redemption from that moment.
I'm glad DTC has decided to bin all the inveterate shite written for and about Sharon up until this point, and I'm glad she's back in this form.
The scene with Dot established that Denny was settling down - as opposed to the demon child who terrorised Dot a few months ago; and there was even a reference to New Year's Eve being the anniversary of Dennis Rickman's death, something that wasn't even mentioned this time last year when Jack proposed. And Dot referenced Dennis's friendship.
Moving on, she's now civil enough with Denise to have a cosy drink and go on for a girls' night at the pub. We even found out that the curiously absent Kim has suddenly met a bloke in a kebab shop last week and had gone to Magaluf with him this week. Curious, because Tameka Empson just "disappeared."
No leaving line, no announcement, nothing.
Rumours have persisted online that she's ill or has personal problems, but someone posted a photo on Twitter recently of the actress out and about and looking happy and hearty with mates in London. One wonders if Kim wasn't DTC's Mo - surplus to requirements as a comedy figure now his own Tina Carter has beenretconned created - and that the actress was just dropped. Pretty piss poor if true.
It was interesting that Sharon discussed her relationship with Phil with Dot, who was of the opinion that Phil didn't deserve a second chance, but isn't this something like Phil's and Sharon's fourth chance?
I'm not sure if that one night with Sharon sparked Phil's interest in her again, but really, his interest should never have waned, and there's still no way he'd be interested in a brittle old bag like Shirley. I loved Sharon's description of Phil initially to his face as balding and ageing. Good one. But were I she, I wouldn't have been so quick to leave with him. I hope he's not playing her for the Creature from the Black Lagoon, because Hatchet-Face is jealous.
The Nice Part ...
Seeing Alfie and Kat cosied up on the couch at the Slaters' having a quiet New Year's Eve. Proof that you don't need the pub.
Watchable episode, but I don't need to be force-fed.
You can't get a man with a gun.
Conversely, you can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think.
There's a civilised debate on the new Walford Web Forum (no bullies allowed) about the current state of the programme now that the Saviour has arrived and taken over. All the soaps suffered during the Christmas period, and last night's episode found EastEnders trailing behind Emmerdale yet again - end the year as it started.
Digital Spy forum is overpopulated with the adolescent and adolescently-minded forum members wittering on about "loving the Carters," how the Carters have "automatically fitted in," and such malarkey.
The general census of opinion on the new WW is that this is a forced situation. DTC is serving up his own creation - the Carters, a vanity show if there ever was one - as something new and exciting when they're really just Kevin Wicks & Co under a new name.
Think about it.
May I be frank? I don't trust Treadwell-Collins. He may be a good storyteller, but he has his own agenda, he's lazy about research and not above retconning and he's partial to sensationalism.
In short, he papers over the cracks.
I hope I'm wrong, but I've already seen him going back on some of the things he said he'd never do - like re-hashing. With all the forced bonhomie of the Carters, and some of the diabolical dialogue we've had to suffer from them, amongst other things, it's a con and a ruse to lull us into a false sense of security before this becomes The Stacey, Ronnie and Shirley Show.
Like I said, I hope I'm wrong.
Happy New Year.
Roswell Ronnie.
Channel Four recently did a psychopath night. I hope they invited Roswell Ronnie, the resident alien of Walford Square.
Yes, Ronnie, this was the night you dumped your dead child in Kat's baby's crib. How fucking dare you smile at the Moons as they walk through the market with their son, after the shit you pulled on them, you plastic-faced whore?
Roswell feels left out. Roxy, the woman who makes Bianca look like a model mother, is out on the town yet again with Carl. Shit, she could be out on the town with Prince William, and Roswell would still be obsessing about getting her away from this man who was bad for her. Dayum, Jesus Christ would be bad for Roxy.
So what does Roswell do? She boo-hoos and uses her dead child as a manipulation device to get Roxy to come home. Meanwhile, Roxy is being the girl - sorry, immature child-woman that Ronnie has created and off whom she feeds, psychologically. She's arranging to go to Paris with Carl.
Odd, that when Roxy finally mentions this to Roswell, Roswell brings up every excuse to go to Eye-BEE-tha (please, someone tell these bimbos how to pronounce that name), she fails to remember one key person in her manipulation ...
What about ME? What about US? What about our fun in Eye-BEE-tha?
Er, sorry, but you bought a child's ticket also, so Amy's going along. But then, Amy's just a silent device with which to wring guilt and manipulate Roxy, who really doesn't care about the kid at all. As someone else said, the Bitchell Blisters would only lock her in a hotel room with a dvd whilst they went out to play Queen of Eye-BEE-Tha.
The bitch actually didn't really plan to visit James's grave - once again, that was just a control mechanism to get Roxy home. Instead, Lola, in her innocence, actually had to shame Roswell into going.
Phil made an interesting remark, when Roswell stormed into the Vic to try to force him into separating Roxy from Carl.
I sold this gaff because of one of her dodgy boyfriends, I ain't doin' nuffink for another. You want it sorted, you deal with it.
So, you see, Phil really doesn't give a rat's arse about these bimbo cousins at all, and I heard a note of regret at his having to sell the Vic.
Months ago, someone aptly remarked that, for all her perceived "toughness," Roxy actually couldn't deal with Carl. It took Phil to return to do that. And she still couldn't deal with him tonight. Interesting that Carl used the same phrase to describe Ronnie that Archie - symbolised by his signet ring - used to refer to Roswell ... "damaged goods."
She was lucky the champagne bottle was at hand. We all know what happens tomorrow night. Well, let's hope the little man with the big ego deals with this fucking murderer correctly.
The Jury's Back.
I like Linda Carter. I like Johnnie Carter. But I resent being force-fed this family with the usual and obvious quirks and told that here are our saviours. It's all change. Here we are now, entertain us. This is now EastEnders 3.0, for all the teenyboppers and fanbois who missed out on or fail to remember Den and Ange, well ... here are Mick and Linda. Smells like teen spirit.
Much better than Oasis and more attuned to the Carters being in the Vic.
Nice attempt at re-creating the 80s era - but the banter behind the bar about Johnnie the Babe Magnet, his poor attempt to score with Whitney and Shirley morphing into the Carter matriarch made me want to puke. Especially the scene when long-lost auntie, whom he hadn't seen since he was four (she's been out of their lives for fifteen years) and probably doesn't remember, took him upstairs for the requisite chat, including the holding of the hand for comfort.
Linda's remarks about Shirley giving parenting advice was spot on, and I don't buy Mick's sudden devotion to his sisters as opposed to his wife.
In fact, I don't buy Mick. Alfie Moon had his shirts, Mick's got his waistcoat. He's just as dorky as Alfie, nobbling upstairs with the wife for a quick fuck the way Alfie and Kat used to do. Sorry, numpties, but Danny Dyer sucks. Another whispery-voiced man, implying that he speaks softly and carries a big stick in his trousers. The line to Carl about Carl fretnin his family was embarrassing. I find him difficult to hear and to understand. Yet another who could do with diction lessons, especially in the pronunciation of his surname. It is not Ca'urgh.
What annoys me the most about him is his habit of lowering his low-browed forehead and leering before he makes a particular remark, as much as these little retconned quirks about the Carters' favourite karaoke song.
And nice to know that Shirley says she was only interested in Phil when he owned the Vic and she could get unlimited free booze. Pardon me, but her brother is supporting Shirley and Tina, both of whom are fully able to work for their keep.
Another thing I couldn't understand were the scenes with Dot and the Carters, where Linda attempts, once again, to buy Dot's camaraderie with a sweet sherry and having the whole thing descend into the farce which saw Dot being thrown out of the pub for smoking. It took me awhile to fathom that Dot wasn't smoking her digital cigarette, but a real one and trying to pass it off as a digital. It also took me more than a moment to realise that Dot was drunk, actually drunk.
Did this happen with Sharon? Or did someone - Fatboy or Max - spike her drink?
I'm no fan of Dot's, but I thought it harsh that DTC and the writer, Sharon Marshall, who's usually excellent, had Dot ejected from the pub for smoking and for being intoxicated. I mean, she was in a pub, FFS! And note that the first cigarette that was taken from her was surreptitiously smoked by Linda, herself ... illegally and in the pub. Add to that the baiting of Dot by Cora, Big Mo (and they seem to be forging a friendship between Big Mo and Cora the Bora) and Billy's disclosure of Dot's arrest and caution from over a decade ago for unknowingly consuming cannabis, and you get the feeling that this was DTC's thumbing his nose at certain aspects of the old EastEnders, whilst trying to re-capture the magic of the Vic under Angie and Den. Dot didn't deserve that, but whilst reading of her discontent with the programme in the latest Sun interview, one wonders if this was Treadwell-Collins's attempt to stick it to June Brown if she's been letting her discontent be known around Elstree. Bryan Kirkwood ended Pat. Will DTC end Dot?
The Vic certainly was heaving, especially with the endless Carter karaoke, another retcon of the Carter family history, something, including the brother, whom she heretofore never mentioned. One wonders, however, if several of those people - the Beale twins, Fatboy, Lola, Lauren and the atrocious Dexter - would even contemplate an evening at their local watching the elderly perform karaoke.
Still, DTC filled the place with almost every storyline going and then some. A drunken Denise, another one who had previously been drinking with Sharon (who seemed to be drinking her way around the Square), sat whining and complaining about an absent Ian, who was nowhere to be seen - and on New Year's Eve. She eventually ended up coming onto Masood, who had only dropped into the Vic in his capacity as Carol's booze errand boy. Tina, the self-professed dyke of a Carter sister copped off with Billy in the absence of any suitable woman, but was seen ogling Roxy as she came into the pub. Jake and Sadie hugged, with Sadie wishing him a happy new year and he wishing Lauren a happy new year over Sadie's shoulder. Danny Pennant kissed Lucy Beale, the night after he kissed Johnnie Carter, who tried to ply Whitney with champagne. And Peter and Lola reconciled ... did he tell her about Phil's threat to Ian about breaking them up?
And Dexter was there, like a pervading bad smell.
It's all happening at the Vic. And it's being shoved in our faces.
NuOld Sharon.
I called it. I said that the only way DTC would redeem Sharon is simply to treat her immediate past, dating from her return in 2012, as if it had never happened. The Sharon we all knew and remembered - those of us who watched in the 80s and 90s and care to remember - seems to have awoken from the nightmare of being Zombie Sharon and is familiar to us once more.
I'm on board with this. Seriously, why wast weeks and months of time having Sharon do an apology trip around the Square, when she was written atrociously by some of the worst writers on the programme at the moment. Even Pete Lawson got it wrong about her last night.
In fact, had Newman gone with this approach in June 2012, when Jessie Wallace returned from her break, if she'd treated Kat's atrocious behaviour and cheating on Alfie dating from 2010 as if it had never occurred, if she'd eschewed the awful Shaggerman story, then I could have bought Kat's redemption from that moment.
I'm glad DTC has decided to bin all the inveterate shite written for and about Sharon up until this point, and I'm glad she's back in this form.
The scene with Dot established that Denny was settling down - as opposed to the demon child who terrorised Dot a few months ago; and there was even a reference to New Year's Eve being the anniversary of Dennis Rickman's death, something that wasn't even mentioned this time last year when Jack proposed. And Dot referenced Dennis's friendship.
Moving on, she's now civil enough with Denise to have a cosy drink and go on for a girls' night at the pub. We even found out that the curiously absent Kim has suddenly met a bloke in a kebab shop last week and had gone to Magaluf with him this week. Curious, because Tameka Empson just "disappeared."
No leaving line, no announcement, nothing.
Rumours have persisted online that she's ill or has personal problems, but someone posted a photo on Twitter recently of the actress out and about and looking happy and hearty with mates in London. One wonders if Kim wasn't DTC's Mo - surplus to requirements as a comedy figure now his own Tina Carter has been
It was interesting that Sharon discussed her relationship with Phil with Dot, who was of the opinion that Phil didn't deserve a second chance, but isn't this something like Phil's and Sharon's fourth chance?
I'm not sure if that one night with Sharon sparked Phil's interest in her again, but really, his interest should never have waned, and there's still no way he'd be interested in a brittle old bag like Shirley. I loved Sharon's description of Phil initially to his face as balding and ageing. Good one. But were I she, I wouldn't have been so quick to leave with him. I hope he's not playing her for the Creature from the Black Lagoon, because Hatchet-Face is jealous.
The Nice Part ...
Seeing Alfie and Kat cosied up on the couch at the Slaters' having a quiet New Year's Eve. Proof that you don't need the pub.
Watchable episode, but I don't need to be force-fed.
Just got to say charlie brooks is not fat and ugly
ReplyDeletelike someone on ds reckons
its low
attacking an actress on her looks and weight
even lower attacking her mother and daughter on there weight alswell
and to tell charlie to stop eating
And that she looks obese and a minger is disgusting
and to hope she dies
ds keeps getting worse and worse
and all this cooming from a michael moon supporter
Michael was a villain who only thinks of himself just like ronnie
there a pair of sicopaths
michael moon fans just keep stooping lower and lower
That site needs closing down
Saying charlie needs to die and stop eating
And her daughter needs to go on a diet sick
but I guess having the likes of michael and ronnie as there hero it isn't surprising