The Voice - Review:- 11.02.2014

EastEnders, at the moment, reminds me of that old fable of the Emperor's New Clothes.

Oh well, I thought since the current crew at EastEnders seems to be aiming the show at overgrown children's tastes, you might as well enjoy the real story, but here's the con.

More and more people, especially these past few weeks, are recognising something we all recognised before when DTC was Santer's subordinate ... that the new and improved EastEnders is really yet another papering over of cracks.

Oh, he was clever enough to inundate the place with Carters right when three of the show's major male stars were off making money on panto, and most of those episodes were good, except for Shirley's overt redemption and the propensity to throw Carters into every storyline imaginable, but now it seems we've been done by Carter overkill, and a lot of the episodes we've seen lately have been filler gumpf the likes of which, had Lorraine Newman produced them, she would have been being royally slated.

Aye, but EgoBoy has a cunning plan: Take the episodes where nothing happens, and inject a little hint of Stacey into the recipe. After all, she's coming back. There's a glimpse of her on the horizon. Whet the appetite of the fanbois.

(I always found it interesting that Stacey is defended by a legion of fanboi bullies who are blind to the character's faults as much as they are blind to the fact that the actress is a one-trick pony to the point that they start throwing their toys out of their prams if anyone dares to criticise that eminent talent that isn't Lacey Turner; whilst Ronnie is defended by a gaggle of teenaged girls who aren't averse to issuing death threats against any criticism. Is EastEnders now targeting the mentally ill market or just overtly immature children?) If it be the latter, then this country is on a hiding to nothing, if those people are the future.

And so the public is being fed Stacey in dribs and drabs. Last Friday, we got a glimpse of her walking along the street. (Pant, pant ...) Monday we were on the edge our seats, with Kat's fevered excitement,and last night, we heard a disembodied voice say Hello, whilst Max growled Got her!

And a plethora of teenaged and teenaged-minded fanbois achieved sexual climax with their hands shoved down the front of their pants.

If that isn't sensationalism, well ... the word is synonymous with Treadwell-Collins.

Hello It's Me ...

You know, it isn't as if Stacey hasn't been in touch with her family. She has. Back in June 2012, when Michael was marrying Janine and scamming Jean out of all sorts of money (and she was embezzling from the Vic to provide him with sums). Michael played a sick joke and called the undertaker to come to the Vic, saying Jean summoned him to deal with the funeral of Stacey Slater.

Jean went more loco than usual and started to cry, only to be told by Big Mo that Stacey "was on the phone" for her upstairs.

Yet Kat is even more obsessed with finding Stacey to the extent that she's sneaking around and enlisting Max Branning's aid, under the nose of his younger daughter, in a "Let's Find Stacey" boys-own adventure. All secret from Alfie, of course.

When Alfie gets his timelines crossed and is late for the hospital scan of the twins, whom does he find there with Kat but Max Branning? I'd have done my pieces, were I he; but no, because Alfie has a secret from Kat as well. As he told Billy, he'd "done something bad" in Australia.

Well, we know he's now got two texts from this mystery person - the first saying I miss you and the next saying Why are you ignoring me?

On first sight, it's easy for the numpties to assume that Alfie's been the one to cheat on Kat whilst he was away, and I'm sure that's the red herring TPTB want the viewers to bite. 

Except that Alfie Moon is not a cheater.

He is, however, a con man. And I think the texts relate to some sort of scam he initiated in Australia; and on second reading, I don't think these texts are from a woman.

On face value, it's easy to think that they would be the pinings of a woman Alfie charmed; but scratch the surface, and  they could easily be the passive-aggressive reminders of something that went wrong sent to Alfie by a man or men he crossed.

If Alfie cheated, it would make him no better than Kat, and if DTC has gone that puerile route, then someone needs to smack him. What is frustrating is watching Alfie and Kat find a whole new level of deception within their relationship, and now we know from the spoilers that Stacey is going to put a strain on their relationship.

And really, what is there to do with Stacey that hasn't been done before? She's had romance, she's been married, she's broken up two marriages, she's had a baby, she's suffered from bi-polar syndrome and she's killed a man. I'll tell you what they'll do. They'll take all of the above and throw out variations of what went on before. Example? She'll settle down with Max, as they are both single, and soon, it will be Stacey who'll cheat on him. And her adoring public will laud DTC as being original.

One thing is a constant, however ... whatever bad Stacey may do, nothing will ever be her fault.

The show's beginning to stink already.

The Strong Arm of the Law(yer)

Arguably, the most interesting vignette and character of the piece in this episode was Ms Shelley Cramm, Janine's solicitor.  She appears from out of nowhere at the Beale abode in early morning, making sure Ian is notified of the fact that Janine is selling her share of the restaurant - that is to say, Janine is selling the restaurant, full stop, because she owns the place.

Second stop is Butcher's Joints, only to find a naked Danny having slept with Bag o'Bones Beale on the premises during the night. Kinda reminds you of the time when Sean Slater fucked Chelsea Fox on the tanning bed of Booty's. Who said DTC doesn't do re-hash?

Suddenly, Danny the Embezzler and Juicy Lucy are out of a job. But not before Lucy snatches the all-important cashbox. Danny wants to take his embezzled funds and invest in a project with a friend; Lucy wants to run a property development agency from the Beale house, where she wants Danny to live.

But she doesn't know that Danny is The Walford Wonder, who's stalking Johnny on a gay cyber dating site.

What a shower the Beales have become! Old Lou was as straight as die, but there's Ian who's started a business on 10 grand lifted from a dead man. He, also, has been regularly embezzling from Janine. His daughter is now doing this also. And his brother founded his business on money blackmailed from Janine. What a pity Anna Wing died! Had she not, DTC, with his penchant for retconning, could retcon Lou Beale back as a ghost and have her collectively beat the shit out of Ian, David and Lucy in the middle of the Square.

Of course, mixed up with all this is Gary Lucy's leaving line. Lucy, an experienced actor, was hired for the show to play the first bi-sexual predator character - a moral reprobate who did what he needed in order to get what he wanted. Instead, he languished in the background until it was time for him to go - read: he got the axe because he wasn't DTC's gay character - and now they're virtually inundating him with storylines. At the end of the day, I don't care about him or Lucy. I do care that they may set Billy up for an almighty fall, but I'd like nothing better than to see that stick insect carted off to Holloway.

He Said She Said 

Tamwar's got a nasty little secret. (Yes, another one). So he inadvertantly tells Shabnam that the market is closing.

Hold that thought.

Shabnam has a degree. More to the point, she has a science degree. I'm sorry, but I seem to remember that Shabnam may have had a degree, but it was never established that she had a science degree, and she was made, by her mother, to assist her in the local post office, when she wasn't partying down and pole dancing.

Now, apart from acquiring a fundamentalist outlook, she's also channelling Zainab to the point that she's almost sounding like her. Assuming she'll get a high-powered graduate job ,she's beneath trawling through the paper like any normal unemployed person ... so she ends up telling Denise about the market closure and getting a job in the Minute Mart, just like her Ma.

One observation: When Shabnam left Walford in 2008, the Minute Mart was fronted by Patrick and Yolande, not Denise, who was married to Kevin at the time.

So this is the set-up for the next big storyline - the market protest, with Ian surreptitiously bribing Aleks with a promise that he could insure a calm closure of his family's heritage.

Yawn.

Max Columbo.

Of course, leave it to Max to find Stacey, courtesy of a stolen salon client list. The mere sound of Stacey's voice at the end of that episode made up, for the fanbois, for 30 minutes of boredom.

Crap episode. If Newman had produced this, there'd be hell to pay. Stacey stinking up the place again.