Top Knot Not - Review:02.01.2014

This was a Daran Little script, and I love his clever, subtle, little humourous one-liners he inserts in almost all of his work. It reminds me of another favourite writer of mine, who - like Daran Little - can mix humour with pathos and have you crying with laughter or laughing amongst your tears. Daran Little would remember her from his Corrie days - Carmel Morgan. Two of the best. Really.

It was a watchable episode, but - as usual with the beings that humans are - there were things I didn't like. Nothing to do with the writing, however.

Zara Phillips Does Walford.

Spot the difference:- 

Nancy Carter scrubbed up?

Zara Phillips scrubbed down?

The Carters dominated this episode, and with good reason, regarding the final scene, but, in reality, this episode didn't do anything in the way of endearing already dodgy new characters to me, and, if anything, it just served to introduce what has become a staple of EastEnders these recent years - the thoroughly despicable, unlikeable, entitled young person (usually played by a totally talentless actor).

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Zara Phillips Nancy Carter.

Lauren Branning has a rival.

First of all, Nancy is portrayed by an actress who obviously comes from a very upper-middle class background. Even the tightly-pulled top knot Croydon facelift hairstyle cannot disguise the fact that this girl's face oozes middle class, refined bone structure. And even though she tries (tries) to sound "proper common", dropping aitches et al, her vocal tones are smooth, mellifluous and ... well, upper middle class. Think Penelope Keith or Jennifer Saunders doing Cockney. They might master the accent, but the voice stays low-pitched and well-modulated.

Watch the clip of the real Zara Phillips above, and you'll hear the way the actress who plays Nance probably really sounds.

That's the actress, now the character.

Yet another mouthy, stroppy, loud and belligerant female. Just what the show needed. Not.

Someone who knows the dynamics of a family would surmise that Nancy is the middle child, the only daughter wedged between two much-adored boys - the hero hunk in the forces and the youngest who's going to university. She's an attention-seeker and does everything possible to grate against her mother's nerve in order to get some notice.

I've no doubt that she doesn't love Wayne, yet another offensive racial stereotype;but I would be willing to bet that the relationship with Wayne was done to fly in the face of her parents views on mixing races and darker hued races, in particular. 

But as Wayne wanes in the background, his willing replacement walks into the Vic and starts an altercation with her - Dexter.

Yes, he's still there, still rude, still gobby and still hanging around like a bad smell. So he and Nancy meet and bicker, and when he's accidentally knocked against her, she decks him, thinking he'd groped her.

Another EastEnders' staple of late - the so-called strong, prevailing woman, emasculating the hapless man. At last count, the only man with testosterone on the Square seems to be Malcolm John Smith Danny Dyer, which is probably why we got the lingering crotch shot on Boxing Day and the packaged pants shot on New Year's Day. As if size matters and as if the audience needs to be reminded in this way.

You can go to the bookies and put money on the fact that Nancy the Knot and Dexter will soon be a couple, and then let's see if the Carter peres are given more dialogue along the lines of "some of my best friends are black."

And here we were hoping and praying that Dexter would be dropped (hopefully from a high tower);now it seems there are other plans for the character, unfortunately. It's also obvious that Jay has now been reduced to playing Dexter's wing man, and that's insulting. When he eventually is given the axe, let's hope Nancy goes with him, but considering that she's a DTC creation and he's loathe to rid the show of waste he's created, she's probably a permanent fixture and fitting.

Actually, she's a child her parents could have done without, because she does her mother's character no favours.

Here I was enjoying Kellie Bright when she suddenly starts veering between a bad imitation of Anita Dobson with large dollops of Barbara Windsor. And, please, lay off calling the kid "sausage." Or shouting the odds about knowing everything about your kids. You don't. No parent does. So there you have it - the big coming-out introduction that everyone knew was going to happen, sooner rather than later. It was only thanks to the obvious and immediate appeal of Sam Strike, the actor who plays Johnnie, that people immediately became invested in the story.

Strike has the appeal and innocent insouciance of a young Jack Ryder and the haunting eyes of Jamie Borthwick - except when the Carters are in sitcom mode, I wish he would screw up his face in that constipated look that indicates that he can't believe what his parents are about to try next.

As for Malcolm John Smith Danny Dyer ... please. I know DTC is trying to evoke the Eighties and Nineties, but enough of the impersonations. First Angie with the hair curlers and doing the make-up at the kitchen table, then the Peggy bit behind the bar (how long before Linda screams Gerrourramypub!) and now we've been served Den Watts and Steve Owen on Boxing Day, Alfie Moon having a quickie with the missus upstairs and now landing two days' worth of full-on Frank Butcher on us.

For Frank growling sweeeee-taaahhhht, just cringe to Mick whispering boi-beee to the awful Nancy.

Dyer's finest moment last night came when he had that brief exchange with Max, when Max warned him off selling booze to Lauren. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Johnny apart, I feel the Carters are too much forced stereotypical Cockney on us, and with the ubiquitous Carter scenes every other scene in every episode, the family is wearing thing fast, and with the potential for expansion, how long before they become DTC's Brannings?

Dumb and Dumber.

This could be the Carters coming to Walford. Spot Tina.

So Shirley does no work at the Vic, but draws a wage? Generous of her brother, especially since he's sunk every red copper penny he has into the Vic. She sits at a table, listlessly wiping it before realising her boots needed a polish more than the table, all the while nattering away to her even more feckless sister, Tina, the latest in a long line of Village Idiots.

Tina the court jester, a woman approaching her forties, who wears her hair in bunches, dresses like a clown and skips around the neighbourhood, vicariously stealing - from her brother, from Billy and the various traders. She has no concept of responsibility and one wonders how she managed to raise a child.

This episode saw a continuous thread of a silly question-and-answer game, where the object seemed to be to ask a totally incongruous question of anyone and wait for a response. This led her to ask a question of Denise which was particularly, racially charged.

This incident has provoked a thread on the Digital Spy forum, which proves absolutely nothing regarding the remark made, except to prove that the majority of posters on that forum are either very young, very stupid or both - and most are infused with the worst case of white privilege ever seen.

White privilege is a euphemism for covert racism, and anyone who can't see why someone like Denise would be affronted when asked this question by a white woman:-

Do you ever wish you were white?

... is showing the height of white privilege and racial ignorance. But in the world of Digital Spy fora, the fact that Tina said she wished she were black makes everything all right. 

It doesn't.

It was stupid, senseless and tactless question asked by a woman who has no level of common sense. But then, this is Heather-Lite, the latest skinny Heather, the comic foil for Shirley.

I'd be surprised if Tina were ever handed a serious storyline beyond bantering with Shirley about senseless stuff and acting stupid. She's another one who's worn thin.

Don't You Want Me, Baby?

And Shirley's obsession with Phil is still hanging in there, and it's as bad as the retconned Sharon-the-Goldigger storyline.

Here I was thinking DTC planned on redeeming Sharon and restoring her to her level of importance enjoyed in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, but here we have her ruthlessly badgering Phil to spend money on her. I was pissed off at yet another pejorative depiction of Sharon until a long-term viewer reminded me that Sharon was raised by a man who threw money at her and gave her material treats to assauge his guilt at ignoring her and her mother in order to chase skirt. She married a man who did the same, including buying the Vic for her, so that she would be occupied and he could carry on with his dodgy dealings without her detecting.

In other words, Sharon equates showing love with showering one with material gifts and money, but somehow, the writing for this was all wrong, and it was the only niggle I had with Daran Little's script. As well, the Shirley-Sharon feud over Frank'n Furter Phil is ludicrous and incongruous.

Look, either Sharon and Phil become a couple or they stay good friends; but never in a million years would he choose Sharon over Shirley. Bryan Kirkwood, at least, got that one right. DTC needs to leave his favouritism re his own creations at the door and give us back our Sharon.

And if that means talking to Ross Kemp, so be it.

And Ronnie left Phil to clean up - or rather, clear Carl's things, as well as pass the word amongst Carl's nemeses that he won't be back. Or will he? These things come back to haunt us, and Carl's phone is left shoved under a tea towel in a kitchen drawer at Phil's house, just covered with Phil's DNA, as well as Carl's flat being covered with Phil's prints, because I didn't notice any gloves on his hands as he removed Carl's belongings. Did he notice the now-dried small pool of Carl's blood on the kitchen floor, and shouldn't he think about scouring the Arches?

Didn't think so.

Here's Hallowe'en 2014 on the Square, when Carl "returns":-

(He even returns with Roswell's nose!)

Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da Life Goes On.

No, Alfie shouldn't be on the market. No, he's not funny, and I hope he doesn't stay there. Someone needs to remind Sharon that she still owns the bookies and stick him in there. Line of the night goes to Billy (and this is what I mean by Daran Little's one-liners):-

All right, ladies, who wants to come inside and inspect my goods?

Well, I laughed.

Le Feud.

Dont. Just don't carry on with this silly Beale-Mitchell feud which means nothing. Stop extracting Ian Beale's spine bit by bit. Also, I thought DTC said something about not wanting to perceive parents through the eyes of their children, and that's exactly what he's doing in this instance, even if Peter Beale is twenty years old.

Hairy Cindy the Greek is coming back. Yuck.

Once again, a watchable episode, but the Carters needn't be so over-egged.