Just when you thought the show was improving, up pops Katie Douglas with not one, but two deeply mediocre episodes, just to remind us that the show is a long way from being safe.
Why this woman is still hanging about the writing room like a turgid, bad smell is anyone's guess. If ever there were a writer to make the viewer want to rip their eyebrows out and turn the show off in sheer frustration, it's Douglas.
If ever there were a writer who could take deeply unpleasant characters ensconced in situations which just might make them a smidgeon more acceptable, Douglas takes their individual situations and makes them worse.
Bad actors become worse under her stilted and over-dramatic dialogue. Good actors, such as remain, suffer.
Filler episode, Tuesday may have been, but it bordered on Newmanesque in its sheer drudgery and badness.
One good point, however ... shout-out to Walford Web's FM, Mr Branning, for a spirited, intelligent and enjoyable debate about this episode. We may not have agreed on everything, but we did son in a mature and very obliging manner.
Trapped.
Here's a song for David ...
Nancy Drew or The Gurning Girl.
Why this woman is still hanging about the writing room like a turgid, bad smell is anyone's guess. If ever there were a writer to make the viewer want to rip their eyebrows out and turn the show off in sheer frustration, it's Douglas.
If ever there were a writer who could take deeply unpleasant characters ensconced in situations which just might make them a smidgeon more acceptable, Douglas takes their individual situations and makes them worse.
Bad actors become worse under her stilted and over-dramatic dialogue. Good actors, such as remain, suffer.
Filler episode, Tuesday may have been, but it bordered on Newmanesque in its sheer drudgery and badness.
One good point, however ... shout-out to Walford Web's FM, Mr Branning, for a spirited, intelligent and enjoyable debate about this episode. We may not have agreed on everything, but we did son in a mature and very obliging manner.
Trapped.
Here's a song for David ...
Well, it seems like I'm caught up in your trap again
And it seems like I'll be wearing the same old chains
Good will conquer evil and the truth will set me free
And I know someday I will find the key
And I know somewhere I will find the key
And it seems like I'll be wearing the same old chains
Good will conquer evil and the truth will set me free
And I know someday I will find the key
And I know somewhere I will find the key
Well, it seems like I've been playing your game way too long
And it seems the game I've played has made you strong
But when the game is over I won't walk out the loser
And I know that I'll walk out of here again
And I know someday I'll walk out of here again
And it seems the game I've played has made you strong
But when the game is over I won't walk out the loser
And I know that I'll walk out of here again
And I know someday I'll walk out of here again
But now, I'm trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah
Now it seems like I've been sleeping in your bed too long
And it seems like you've been meaning to do me harm
But I'll teach my eyes to see, beyond these walls in front of me
And someday I'll walk out of here again
And I know someday I'll walk out of here again
And it seems like you've been meaning to do me harm
But I'll teach my eyes to see, beyond these walls in front of me
And someday I'll walk out of here again
And I know someday I'll walk out of here again
But now, I'm trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah, trapped
Ooh yeah
I know there are many Millennials who want to believe that David and Carol are the real deal, star-crossed lovers separated for years by various circumstances, but sorry, kids, it ain't necessarily so.
David and Carol were three things - first, a teenaged bunk-up behind the bike sheds that resulted in Bianca, second comfort sex when the going got tough,and now ... now, it's tea and sympathy.
David started out this stint living under his mother's roof in a house owned by his stepsister, for convenience. Now, he's got sucked into Carol's cancer situation, and, after using that as an excuse to further his business interests, he's now faced with a predicament totally alien to him that was brought home to him in Monday's episode.
Carol, who's spent the better part of this association, treating him like a piece of shit, now needs and relies on him to hold the family together.
For a man who has never done and won't do commitment, alarm bells are now ringing in David's head ...
Run, David, run! (And don't you think he doesn't want to do so).
Can you imagine the horror going through David's mind at the prospect of playing Grandad with someone who actually looks like a grandmother. I mean, Nikki Spraggan's about to become a nan and all, but knowing David and his "types", you know which side of whose bed he'd rather find himself. And the truth is, whilst Carol was good for a teenaged shag, that was about it. Everything they've ever discussed about dating and going to the cinema and parties is one big fat retcon and all done to try to obliterate the fact that, as a teenager, Carol's reputation lay somewhere beyond being either the Walford Mattress or the Walford Bike. She made Whitney look like a nun.
Now, he's looking down the barrel of a future of tea and biscuits in front of the telly with Carol, a houseful of screaming kids, a daughter for whom screeching is her natural element, Honker for a stepdaughter and her curiously weird, hairy and silent child.
Comfort sex actually matures into sympathy sex. Carol doesn't trust David and thinks putting a ring on it will ensure domesticity. It was his flirting - yes, flirting, not banter - with that nurse, which prompted her reaction and proposal. If she used her braincells, she'd remember that Lorraine Wicks putting a ring on it didn't stop David from walking away from her and two small children. David doesn't "do" commitment, and when the going gets tough, he'll get going - most likely with Nikki Spraggan. The brief look on Bianca's face at their announcement said everything about her mistrust of the situation.
The fact that a date has been set for this sympathy wedding, 27th May, means one thing - it will all end in tears, and actually, it better had end that way. David Wicks is the precursor of Max Branning and the closest thing to an Alpha male this show has, which means they'll probably go ahead with the wedding and follow it with a ritual castration on the pool table in the Vic, presided over by Queen Shirley.
The idea of Lauren Branning as a high-powered businesswoman, who'd only had two weeks' on the job in a makeshift lettings agency operated out of her front room, is a joke beyond belief. Max has a mortgage on that house. Usually, there are clauses in the mortgage agreement which prohibit running a business from the premises.
Secondly, her "determination" to take matters in her own hands harkens back to the bad olf days of incompetent Walford policing. Especially, the last scene, which was laughably amateurish in its direction and execution - Lauren pacing back and forth in stage-mannered indication of indecision, before writing the fateful e-mail. Well, we can guess from whom the e-mail was, and its purpose: Jake and it was all about showing her the snap of Max and Lucy snogging.
And she's back gurning and using that innie Mouse funny voice which is somehow supposed to denote anxiety. But what else can one expect from ...
Secondly, her "determination" to take matters in her own hands harkens back to the bad olf days of incompetent Walford policing. Especially, the last scene, which was laughably amateurish in its direction and execution - Lauren pacing back and forth in stage-mannered indication of indecision, before writing the fateful e-mail. Well, we can guess from whom the e-mail was, and its purpose: Jake and it was all about showing her the snap of Max and Lucy snogging.
And she's back gurning and using that innie Mouse funny voice which is somehow supposed to denote anxiety. But what else can one expect from ...
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. TO.
APPEAR. IN. EASTENDERS.
I'm fast losing patience and sympathy with Peter. It's the actor's stereotypical look of the tragic young man that annoys me. It doesn't belie the fact that, under this producer, he's become a snob and a socially gauche Tim-nice-but-dim stereotype ...
And when he dumps Lola, not only the sweet Cockney sparrow whom he pursued, he'll become what's commonly known as a Class A Prat.
Oh, please, the dialogue was so bad ... who speaks this way? No one, unless you live in KatieDouglasLand.
Titties, Beer and Tosh.
It's not only the 40th birthday of the Court Jester, it's also the 29th birthday of Honker, the patron saint of geese and sobbin', self-pitying women.
Contrived, much?
On the one hand, we have Sonia lying, yet again, to her mother and her sister. And, on the one hand, if Carol's cancer storyline has become all about her trying to hold onto a man who has never honoured commitment, on the other, it's become all about Honker the Diva and her Amazing Tits, who are co-stars in her melodrama of impending, self-willed separation.
I bet Honker sings this song to her tits every day ...
Newman received a lot of justified criticism for her propensity to portray love triangles,and it seems DTC is keen on this one of the lesbian variety. A lot of speculation has been ventured about the relationship between the puerile forty-going-on-five year-old Tina and Tosh (who resembles Dame Kelly Holmes's celebrity double), centering on the possibility of domestic violence, with Tina as the victim.
That was introduced along with the character, with the premise being big, bad Queen Shirley the Hermaphrodite rescued Tina from Tosh's beatings. Yet, we've heard Tina say that she could give as good as she gets and that she, herself, made it difficult for Tosh to live with her.
All common excuses offered by battered women for their abusers, but, somehow, with a div like Tina, this rings true. Since we've seen Tosh interact with the Carter family, the only pejorative behaviour has come from Queen Scrote, who's seeking to undermine her. Tina's also stood Tosh up without notice in order to swig from a bottle of wine and snog Honker (a fate worse than death, I would imagine).
Tonight, the Court Jester was forced to choose between seeing a West End show with Tosh or having a knees up with Shirley, the emotionally blackmailing landlady who drinks the profits. No one seemed to imagine that Tina actually may have made plans, herself. Still, Tosh obliged and went out of her way to accommodate the Carters, until Scrote childishly and provocatively spoiled Tosh's chocolate fountain gift to Tina.
Then we had to suffer Honker the Self-Righteous, Patron Saint of the Self-Obsessed. How ironic that the Court Jester, because Tina's 40, acts like a spoiled fourteen year-old and dresses like a buffoon. She's neither funny, quirky or charming. She isn't even likeable. It's simply weird that people so down-to-earth as the Carters (bar Queen Shirley) continue to mollycoddle this childwoman and cater to her puerility in a way almost as bad as Ronnie does to Roxy.
Where else would you find two feckless drunken, irresponsible aunts living with their brother and his family? Queen Shirley's word is law at the Vic... We own a pub.
Really, Shirley? Ten grand conned from your old man and meant for your brother entitles you to say that you own a pub? I suppose that entitles you to drink the profits, which is what you usually do. I'm no big fan of Tosh, but Tina seems to be genuinely enamoured of her, and they are both two consenting adults. Tina's entitled to make her choice, and Shirley's interference is petty, vindictive and puerile. Ruining the chocolate fountain, after undermining the effort Tosh put into Tina's birthday was small-minded and mean. I hate this wizened, bitter old beeyatch and wish someone would hand her a broomstick and point the way out of Walford.
And Sonia the Self-Righteous. Get Honker Fowler! She'll know what to do. And off she waddles to counsel Tina. How ironic was the line The Court Jester fed her about Honk saying everyone should think about themselves. Honker's been doing that since God was a boy, and she's still doing that now, as well as trash-talking Martin. Martin doesn't love her enough that she can tell him that she is carrying a cancer gene that doesn't really mean she'll get cancer (she admitted as much tonight). Who the EFF is this moron? Martin watched his brother battle HIV and die of full-blown AIDS. As a young child, he watched his brother tend his first wife, also dying from the disease. He was in the house and older when Ethel came home to die. He's committed himself to this annoying a-hole, who treated him like cack when they were married and on the Square before, and now it's Martin's burps which offend Honker's delicate sensitiviities. I suppose she'll tolerate The Court Jester's tactless questions such as the one she asked Denise some months ago.
The Court Jester gave her just enough ammunition to sing like a canary about her perceived troubles. As for the Jester, her problems were miniscule.
Where else would you find two feckless drunken, irresponsible aunts living with their brother and his family? Queen Shirley's word is law at the Vic... We own a pub.
Really, Shirley? Ten grand conned from your old man and meant for your brother entitles you to say that you own a pub? I suppose that entitles you to drink the profits, which is what you usually do. I'm no big fan of Tosh, but Tina seems to be genuinely enamoured of her, and they are both two consenting adults. Tina's entitled to make her choice, and Shirley's interference is petty, vindictive and puerile. Ruining the chocolate fountain, after undermining the effort Tosh put into Tina's birthday was small-minded and mean. I hate this wizened, bitter old beeyatch and wish someone would hand her a broomstick and point the way out of Walford.
And Sonia the Self-Righteous. Get Honker Fowler! She'll know what to do. And off she waddles to counsel Tina. How ironic was the line The Court Jester fed her about Honk saying everyone should think about themselves. Honker's been doing that since God was a boy, and she's still doing that now, as well as trash-talking Martin. Martin doesn't love her enough that she can tell him that she is carrying a cancer gene that doesn't really mean she'll get cancer (she admitted as much tonight). Who the EFF is this moron? Martin watched his brother battle HIV and die of full-blown AIDS. As a young child, he watched his brother tend his first wife, also dying from the disease. He was in the house and older when Ethel came home to die. He's committed himself to this annoying a-hole, who treated him like cack when they were married and on the Square before, and now it's Martin's burps which offend Honker's delicate sensitiviities. I suppose she'll tolerate The Court Jester's tactless questions such as the one she asked Denise some months ago.
The Court Jester gave her just enough ammunition to sing like a canary about her perceived troubles. As for the Jester, her problems were miniscule.
The Stars of the Show.
It says everything that the two best performers in tonight's episode were Ann Mitchell and Timothy West. Just as Kirkwood "got" Janine, DTC "gets" Cora. She's desperate for money to get her own place, and Dot was scant on Christian sympathy at her plight. This was Dot at her judgemental worst and carrying a grudge to the grave over Cora's shenanigans which almost cost her her home, but a real Christian, sensing the hint that Cora was in a plight, would have shown compassion and understanding. Still, it was all right for Dot to tell a white lie in order to summon "not-Charlie" over to keep her company.
Cora was the only character who interested me tonight, and I liked her interaction with Stan.
Cora was the only character who interested me tonight, and I liked her interaction with Stan.
Worst episode since DTC took the reins.
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