The big news emanating from Elstree this week was the demise of Lucy Beale, to occur within about eight weeks' time and sparking a storyline that will run the rest of the year, only with resolution in February 2015, marking the show's 30th anniversary.
So now we know this much - that the 30th Anniversary special is going to centre around the same crux as the 25th Anniversary special did - the resolution of the murder of a member of one of the Square's important, long-term families. In 2010, the murderer of Archie Mitchell was revealed. Yes, Archie was a Mitchell, but a rather recent (and retconned) member of a long-serving family on the Square. This time, Ian Beale's daughter, Lucy, whom we've seen grow from an infant to a young woman, with various heads along the way, for the past twenty years. That this incarnation of Lucy has only been around for the past two years qualifies her as a rather recent face as well. Certainly, of all the Lucies, Hetti Bywater was probably the weakest actress to portray her.
In other words, the storyline for the 30th will be the same strain as that of the 25th, with different names substituted.
But, you see, that will work with the audience that Dominic Treadwell-Collins is targeting, an audience much like himself - a legion of manboi-fanboi Millennials with little more than a token respect for any history to do with the show, but with a strong penchant for sensationalism.
Considering the fact that the reaction of most of that target audience to the upcoming Beale murder has ranged from "ridiculously excited," "wonderfully delirious," and "deliciously dark" to the more watered-down "totes excited" (their words), I'd say DTC has achieved his aim - to get everyone talking about the programme again and to get bums on seats for the beginning of the storyline, right up to its grisly end.
Apart from lame-brained theories about Lucy "faking" her death - believe me, Lucy Beale has neither the nous nor the reason to do that, and, anyway, EastEnders learned a thing or two about jumping the shark when Zombie Den was brought back a decade ago - it's patently obvious that this storyline is being played out for two reasons, only one of which has been sinisterly stated.
First, it's sensationalism, pure and simple; and we know that this producer likes the creamy feeling over-egging a situation gives to his sensibilities. Secondly, and here's where he gives himself away for the fraud that he is, is - as he says - Lucy's death will mark the end of an era for the Beales. How?
Yes, an important legacy character, the daughter of one of two original characters left in the show, is being killed off, at a time when legacy characters from the 80s and 90s are thin on the ground. Ricky Butcher isn't returning. Janine will be gone for a long time, if not forever. One of Phil's children is in prison and the other one, still a child and somewhere with her mother. Denny Rickman is a small child. Ian's remaining children are a young adult son, the actor who plays him distinctly saying he's not in the role long-term, and a child. It may mean the end of an era in which the Beales (and the Mitchells and the Watts and the Butchers) played a significant part. They will now be relegated to the hinterlands of the Shoreditch end of Walford,whilst attention is paid to the pretty but gobby-ended lot who hang about the Vic. Or post-2006 characters, more succinctly.
The truth about Lucy Beale's demise is simply that Treadwell-Collins didn't like the actress portraying Lucy, so much so that he wasted no time in excitedly telling the media that he'd planned her demise the moment he took over the realm. This is the same overgrown manchild who pointedly told a real established television actress and a BAFTA nominee, Kierston Wareing, that her character was boring, and took as much pleasure in that act as if he were the cheeky kid at the rear of a classroom cutting a fart under the teacher's nose, which is a pretty apt description of the way this man-boy behaves.
He didn't like the actress and with another of the late Cindy Beale's boyishly Greek-looking sprogs on the Square and enceinte in a storyline (and we know this EP loves pregnancies and babies), Hetti Bywater was expendable.
When you get his excited fanbase making comments such as:-
And:-
You know the future of the show is on a hiding to nothing, because these people care nothing for anything that happened before they were born or were able to remember. That way, history can be changed to fit whatever storyline is on the horizon. And the fact that characters like Sharon, Phil, Ian and Dot define the original ethos of EastEnders, means nothing to them at all, which is surprising, since they are a generation which lives and dies by the ability to be defined and identified by a brand.
Get rid of the above, and EastEnders becomes just another sensationalist soap peopled by a gaggle of beautiful people trying to act as if they are the salt of the earth.
But then, there's something else about the death of Lucy Beale which reverberates across the entire level playing ground of the British soap genre.
With the announcement of the Beale murder, this spring, each of the three major English soaps - EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale - will feature a central storyline about the violent killing of a young woman. In all instances, the victim will meet her end at the hands of someone she knows, maybe even trusts, and there's a strong possibility that in each instance, the killer may, in fact, be another woman.
In Emmerdale's case, that is a certainty, and of all three examples, this programme seems the most responsably handled story. Two teenagers, Belle Dingle and Gemma Andrews, will get into a teenage catfight (the hair-pulling variety) over the affections of a boy. Belle will smack Gemma, she'll fall and hit her head, quickly come around and the two will reconcile, only for Gemma to collapse on her way home and be found dead in a ditch.
The crux of this storyline will centre on the aftermath - the reactions of and repercussions for Gemma's father (the family is being written out of the soap), the community, itself, and, more importantly, Belle and her family, because the Dingles are one of the premier families of Emmerdale. Had Belle been in Walford, she'd have been a Mitchell or a Beale. In fact, it's going to be a centrepiece for the Dingle clan, who - like the Mitchells - put fairmly above all else, but who, in this instance, want their child to own up to the responsibility of her actions and accept her fate for acting precipitously.
It's the story of a tragic accident with a moral.
However, with the other two soaps, there's a different agenda. Corrie's principal girl, Michelle Keegan, wanted to leave the soap, and killing off Tina, Coronation Street's Stacey and just as self-righteous and judgemental, seemed an apt revenge on the EP's part for an ingenue jumping ship. Take that ... now you won't be able to return.
For both soaps, it's a means to an end - getting bums on seats and getting the viewing figures up.
That's not only cynical, that's something else. Considering that, of the trio of producers, Kate Oates of Emmerdale, is the only woman, it's not surprising that she's looking at this storyline from the prospective of victim and perpetrator, with the perpetrator being considered as much an innocent victim as the child killed.
The producers of Corrie and EastEnders are men, and it's telling, insensitive and borderline misogynistic, that they're emphasizing the sensationalism of star characters, who happen to be women, meeting violent endings, enabling them to trail the storylines out over months into next year as a whodunnit.
It's not enough that, almost daily, we open newspapers or turn on televisions or radios to hear of yet another young girl being missing/found dead and killed in some horrifically violent manner. And it usually ensues that she was killed by someone to whom she was related or with whom she was involved - anyway, someone she knew, if not trusted.
Yet, here we have the two executive producers of the flagship programmes for BBC1 and ITV1 pitching their wares about the suspects for Tina's murder/Lucy's murder and how these stories are going to be game changers.
What's even worse, in EastEnders' case is the legion of fanboi-manbois who worship at the newly re-established altar of DTC, extolling how "incredibly excited" they are about this news. Of course, either of these storylines could happen in daily life. One wonders how these men-children would react if the victim of a violent crime had been their sister, cousin, aunt, mother, friend? Would they even wonder that such a headline-grabbing crime might be appropriated and turned into pulp fiction by a media person intent on his own personal success?
Michelle Keegan is leaving Corrie, but so is Chris Gascoigne, who plays probably the most important legacy character in British soap history, Peter Barlow. From Gascoigne's words, he isn't about to return. Why wasn't Peter killed? Why not kill Peter Beale, as Ben Hardy has indicated that EastEnders isn't his long-term goal?
It's insufficient for DTC's appeasers to say oh well, Bradley died for the 25th anniversary, let's do a girl character this time. I'm not saying these storylines shouldn't air, just that they should air in the ethos of Logie Baird's remit for the media of television - to instruct, inform and entertain. The impending deaths of Tina McIntyre and Lucy Beale are doing precious little to instruct the viewer of the motives behind these deaths or inform the viewer of how many young women daily meet a violent end; instead, they are seeking the cheap entertainment thrill of a whodunnit. And the fact that the victims are young women, neither of whom, ultimately, was that popular with the audience (one through over-exposure, the other through simple lack of talent), speaks volumes for both Stuart Blackburn's and Dominic Treadwell-Collins's insensitivities and egos.
What's even creepier is that, on various fora, the biggest Treadwell-Collins apologists are fanboi-manbois who hide behind an avatar of a female character who is an unpunished and unrepentant murderer, who's currently returned as the star of the show.
It should bother some viewers, in view of everyday occurrences in the news, that violence against women is being inadvertantly pushed and promoted as a means of getting bums on seats, a rise in the viewing figures and gongs at the BSAs.
So now we know this much - that the 30th Anniversary special is going to centre around the same crux as the 25th Anniversary special did - the resolution of the murder of a member of one of the Square's important, long-term families. In 2010, the murderer of Archie Mitchell was revealed. Yes, Archie was a Mitchell, but a rather recent (and retconned) member of a long-serving family on the Square. This time, Ian Beale's daughter, Lucy, whom we've seen grow from an infant to a young woman, with various heads along the way, for the past twenty years. That this incarnation of Lucy has only been around for the past two years qualifies her as a rather recent face as well. Certainly, of all the Lucies, Hetti Bywater was probably the weakest actress to portray her.
In other words, the storyline for the 30th will be the same strain as that of the 25th, with different names substituted.
But, you see, that will work with the audience that Dominic Treadwell-Collins is targeting, an audience much like himself - a legion of manboi-fanboi Millennials with little more than a token respect for any history to do with the show, but with a strong penchant for sensationalism.
Considering the fact that the reaction of most of that target audience to the upcoming Beale murder has ranged from "ridiculously excited," "wonderfully delirious," and "deliciously dark" to the more watered-down "totes excited" (their words), I'd say DTC has achieved his aim - to get everyone talking about the programme again and to get bums on seats for the beginning of the storyline, right up to its grisly end.
Apart from lame-brained theories about Lucy "faking" her death - believe me, Lucy Beale has neither the nous nor the reason to do that, and, anyway, EastEnders learned a thing or two about jumping the shark when Zombie Den was brought back a decade ago - it's patently obvious that this storyline is being played out for two reasons, only one of which has been sinisterly stated.
First, it's sensationalism, pure and simple; and we know that this producer likes the creamy feeling over-egging a situation gives to his sensibilities. Secondly, and here's where he gives himself away for the fraud that he is, is - as he says - Lucy's death will mark the end of an era for the Beales. How?
Yes, an important legacy character, the daughter of one of two original characters left in the show, is being killed off, at a time when legacy characters from the 80s and 90s are thin on the ground. Ricky Butcher isn't returning. Janine will be gone for a long time, if not forever. One of Phil's children is in prison and the other one, still a child and somewhere with her mother. Denny Rickman is a small child. Ian's remaining children are a young adult son, the actor who plays him distinctly saying he's not in the role long-term, and a child. It may mean the end of an era in which the Beales (and the Mitchells and the Watts and the Butchers) played a significant part. They will now be relegated to the hinterlands of the Shoreditch end of Walford,whilst attention is paid to the pretty but gobby-ended lot who hang about the Vic. Or post-2006 characters, more succinctly.
The truth about Lucy Beale's demise is simply that Treadwell-Collins didn't like the actress portraying Lucy, so much so that he wasted no time in excitedly telling the media that he'd planned her demise the moment he took over the realm. This is the same overgrown manchild who pointedly told a real established television actress and a BAFTA nominee, Kierston Wareing, that her character was boring, and took as much pleasure in that act as if he were the cheeky kid at the rear of a classroom cutting a fart under the teacher's nose, which is a pretty apt description of the way this man-boy behaves.
He didn't like the actress and with another of the late Cindy Beale's boyishly Greek-looking sprogs on the Square and enceinte in a storyline (and we know this EP loves pregnancies and babies), Hetti Bywater was expendable.
When you get his excited fanbase making comments such as:-
I'm not as concerned as some about the legacy thing. I don't have that kind of connection to the history of the show. I'm just excited that it seems a big story is coming and it gets rid of one of my least favourite.
And:-
Its great DTC is not scared to kill off characters. Sharon, Phil, Dot even Ian himself are all at risk under him now. That keeps people on their toes.
You know the future of the show is on a hiding to nothing, because these people care nothing for anything that happened before they were born or were able to remember. That way, history can be changed to fit whatever storyline is on the horizon. And the fact that characters like Sharon, Phil, Ian and Dot define the original ethos of EastEnders, means nothing to them at all, which is surprising, since they are a generation which lives and dies by the ability to be defined and identified by a brand.
Get rid of the above, and EastEnders becomes just another sensationalist soap peopled by a gaggle of beautiful people trying to act as if they are the salt of the earth.
But then, there's something else about the death of Lucy Beale which reverberates across the entire level playing ground of the British soap genre.
With the announcement of the Beale murder, this spring, each of the three major English soaps - EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale - will feature a central storyline about the violent killing of a young woman. In all instances, the victim will meet her end at the hands of someone she knows, maybe even trusts, and there's a strong possibility that in each instance, the killer may, in fact, be another woman.
In Emmerdale's case, that is a certainty, and of all three examples, this programme seems the most responsably handled story. Two teenagers, Belle Dingle and Gemma Andrews, will get into a teenage catfight (the hair-pulling variety) over the affections of a boy. Belle will smack Gemma, she'll fall and hit her head, quickly come around and the two will reconcile, only for Gemma to collapse on her way home and be found dead in a ditch.
The crux of this storyline will centre on the aftermath - the reactions of and repercussions for Gemma's father (the family is being written out of the soap), the community, itself, and, more importantly, Belle and her family, because the Dingles are one of the premier families of Emmerdale. Had Belle been in Walford, she'd have been a Mitchell or a Beale. In fact, it's going to be a centrepiece for the Dingle clan, who - like the Mitchells - put fairmly above all else, but who, in this instance, want their child to own up to the responsibility of her actions and accept her fate for acting precipitously.
It's the story of a tragic accident with a moral.
However, with the other two soaps, there's a different agenda. Corrie's principal girl, Michelle Keegan, wanted to leave the soap, and killing off Tina, Coronation Street's Stacey and just as self-righteous and judgemental, seemed an apt revenge on the EP's part for an ingenue jumping ship. Take that ... now you won't be able to return.
For both soaps, it's a means to an end - getting bums on seats and getting the viewing figures up.
That's not only cynical, that's something else. Considering that, of the trio of producers, Kate Oates of Emmerdale, is the only woman, it's not surprising that she's looking at this storyline from the prospective of victim and perpetrator, with the perpetrator being considered as much an innocent victim as the child killed.
The producers of Corrie and EastEnders are men, and it's telling, insensitive and borderline misogynistic, that they're emphasizing the sensationalism of star characters, who happen to be women, meeting violent endings, enabling them to trail the storylines out over months into next year as a whodunnit.
It's not enough that, almost daily, we open newspapers or turn on televisions or radios to hear of yet another young girl being missing/found dead and killed in some horrifically violent manner. And it usually ensues that she was killed by someone to whom she was related or with whom she was involved - anyway, someone she knew, if not trusted.
Yet, here we have the two executive producers of the flagship programmes for BBC1 and ITV1 pitching their wares about the suspects for Tina's murder/Lucy's murder and how these stories are going to be game changers.
What's even worse, in EastEnders' case is the legion of fanboi-manbois who worship at the newly re-established altar of DTC, extolling how "incredibly excited" they are about this news. Of course, either of these storylines could happen in daily life. One wonders how these men-children would react if the victim of a violent crime had been their sister, cousin, aunt, mother, friend? Would they even wonder that such a headline-grabbing crime might be appropriated and turned into pulp fiction by a media person intent on his own personal success?
Michelle Keegan is leaving Corrie, but so is Chris Gascoigne, who plays probably the most important legacy character in British soap history, Peter Barlow. From Gascoigne's words, he isn't about to return. Why wasn't Peter killed? Why not kill Peter Beale, as Ben Hardy has indicated that EastEnders isn't his long-term goal?
It's insufficient for DTC's appeasers to say oh well, Bradley died for the 25th anniversary, let's do a girl character this time. I'm not saying these storylines shouldn't air, just that they should air in the ethos of Logie Baird's remit for the media of television - to instruct, inform and entertain. The impending deaths of Tina McIntyre and Lucy Beale are doing precious little to instruct the viewer of the motives behind these deaths or inform the viewer of how many young women daily meet a violent end; instead, they are seeking the cheap entertainment thrill of a whodunnit. And the fact that the victims are young women, neither of whom, ultimately, was that popular with the audience (one through over-exposure, the other through simple lack of talent), speaks volumes for both Stuart Blackburn's and Dominic Treadwell-Collins's insensitivities and egos.
What's even creepier is that, on various fora, the biggest Treadwell-Collins apologists are fanboi-manbois who hide behind an avatar of a female character who is an unpunished and unrepentant murderer, who's currently returned as the star of the show.
It should bother some viewers, in view of everyday occurrences in the news, that violence against women is being inadvertantly pushed and promoted as a means of getting bums on seats, a rise in the viewing figures and gongs at the BSAs.
A nicely written article. I so disagree with the need to kill off Lucy. If they wanted to kill off a "long term" character, a young girl, they could have picked either Branning girl or Whitney. Killing off Lucy is as stupid as when they killed off Kathy.
ReplyDeleteThere is not much depth and history left on EE, and TPTB should realise that that is what makes the show what it is, not these "fly-by-nighters" that hang around for a few years and then disappear again.
Lucy was 4th generation. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
And if the Ben Hardy is not sticking round long term (and I do quite like him in the role), I hope he comes back with a new head after a suitable break. '
Its bad enough how the Beales have been weakened, without this.
Your post is a well considered piece and is certainly close to the mark in some aspects.
ReplyDeleteHowever you are stating that Lucy is murdered and that the ensuing weeks will be a "Who- Dunnit" up until a reveal of the "murderer" on the 30th Anniversary.
According to the BBC press releases (which are admittedly badly written) the ensuing episodes will be a "What-Dunnit" and this implies that the death will either be suicide or death by misadventure (drugs/alcohol poisoning etc) and not a murder in cold blood.
Let's see how this pans out. This won't be a suicide. EastEnders, even under the Messiah, doesn't have the balls to do a suicide as much as it doesn't have the balls to kill off a child character. Someone's going to be responsible for Lucy's death, and it won't be Lucy. It will, however, be someone who is expendable.
DeleteOK we will have to see how it pans out over the months:)
DeleteEnjoy your blog and I am missing your posts on the "new/new Walford Web"
p.s I'm not a millennial and have been a constant fan of E.E since the 1st episode...showing my age now!!
As always, Emilia, brilliant blog post. Thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to get out more. Grow up. It's a soap opera. You may like to think its early years were perfect or better but it was full of just as much ratings grabbing plots, bad acting and stupid decisions.
ReplyDeleteYou're looking at it with rose tinted glasses. Either that or you're going senile.
Stop playing with yourself.
ReplyDeleteWhile I generally agree with your points, I do disagree that Hetti Bywater's Lucy was the weakest, I think that dubious honour goes to Melissa Suffield, the non-intentionally and continuously deadpan, act-with-her-tits actress. She really was the pits. I think HB bought some depth to the role at first but the scripts beat her down. They had a chance to go interesting and they didn't take it. It's sacrificing characterisation for David Witts with his shirt off and that's what started screwing Lucy. Joey just finished the job literally and figuratively.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree totally on DTC. He always seems so utterly pleased with himself, so completely smug as though he is some great genius none of us can understand. He reminds me of the college know-it-all hippies parodied on South Park. He just has that air. A man who doesn't have the first clue about how storytelling works yet will sell you he's an expert.
Dan
He aims at the lowest common denominator, and he knows his audience. Stacey's storylines will be the same old same old, with new names substituting the old - for Bradley, read Dean; for Stax, read Stick. And his fans will fall over themselves to praise his originality. This is a major con, and I'm glad another person sees what I see in his interviews - the supremely smug little kid who thinks he's too clever for the teacher. Notice how Stacey's return hasn't made a whit of difference in the viewing figures?
DeleteIt hasn't, I didn't think it would either because the whole show simply doesn't have that wow factor anymore hence all the short-term sensationalist murder plots and yes, he does think he is too clever for teacher. My dislike of him started when he was discussing the Archie murder story, he couldn't sit still and had that big smirk on his face talking about how clever he was for his "amazing" characterisation and fooling the audience.
ReplyDeleteAnyone could see that the story failed because in not telling Lacey Turner that Stacey killed Archie, she didn't know how to portray Stacey in that few months. An actor needs to know everything about their character to get a picture of how to play it and Stacey seems completely emotionless regarding Archie's death and then had to completely 180 once it all came out with the endless guilt making it redundant.
But no, Dom is the cleverest kid in the class. He is the quintessential South Park hippie, a man whose belief that he knows what he is talking about is utterly unshakeable, who will tell you with a smile and shake his head at your lack of understanding but is not in possession of anything resembling a clue.
It's a shame because Santer has potential if he hadn't saddled himself with the Sultan of Smug.
Fantastic post.
ReplyDelete