Two weeks before the 30th Anniversary episode and they churn out tripe like this. I know there are some who opine that the ratings go down when the Carters step to the fore - and there was plenty about the Carters tonight which irked me to no end; but the shite tonight (and let that be the title of this review) came stonking in and stinking from the Beale contingent, with Sonia bringing up the rear, and Stan being sucked into an abysmal chasm.
Cheese.
This is the cheesiest, most pukeworthy example of Beale smugness I can imagine in song terms:-
I have a question: Is it Saturday in Walford? Because normally half-marathons aren't run in the middle of the working week during working hours, much less in the dead of winter. And even novices, like Masood, don't run marathons in jogging jackets and trackster bottoms. Kush was the only one of the lot who looked and behaved like a distance runner. You certainly don't run half-marathons sprinting like a bunny rabbit without breaking a sweat, the way Shabnam was.
That aside, there's no one who emanates the unbearable smugness of being like the Beales, unless you're Sonia, and she was briefly caught up in the fray today. Have you ever seen a cow floating?
The fragrant Jane floated smugly to and fro about the Square, smiling serenely in the knowledge that soon, very soon, she would once again be Mrs Beale, First Lady of Walford, and scion of the social climbers in Walford, the most important woman in Walford - or so she thinks.
She and Sonia stop briefly to expound upon the circumstances of the day before. Sonia hopes Jane's burned her offensive matronly wedding suit. Oh, Jane's done worse with it. She's consigned it to the ranks of Dot's jumble. Then, looking at the small field of runners, many of whom are costumed, they notice one dressed as a cow.
~Ooh look~ Jane purrs to Sonia, looking at the cow, ~I didn't know my mother was here.~ (Titter, titter, giggle, giggle). Witty, ladies, and very classy. Not.
Well, I saw two cows tonight, and neither was running a half-marathon.
Peter the Posh Prick is running the race, and we had lots of reminiscences from Ian about Peter's dreams (rather, Ian's) of qualifying for the Olympics. Throughout it all was Lauren, back in self-centred mode and equally as smug as the Beales.
Butt-clinchingly pukeworthy scene of the evening (but not the worst) came as Jane and Lauren watched the half-marathon from inside the cafe. The dialogue between the two was so sentimentally bad, it was almost hilarious - talk of how glowing Lauren was (well, the actress is pregnant in real life) and how much she means to Peter yadda yadda ... only for Lauren to tell Jane how much Jane is glowing for being in love with Ian. (Actually, Jane is probably glowing because she's feeling mighty good about herself). Anyone notice how Jane sorta kinda stopped "glowing" when Lauren made that remark, as if she didn't quite know what to do with herself or how to react? She managed to recover sufficiently to dupe Lauren.
We were treated to more scenes than was necessary of the Beales collectively patting themselves on the back at how clever they are, how they've managed to get through an entire bad year, recovering from Lucy's death (with Lauren piping up in true Branning all-about-me fashion to remind them that it's been a difficult year for her as well, before she tosses her hair). The absolute worst scene, which was capable of inducing projectile vomiting, came when Ian, Jane, Peter and Lauren were huddled congratulatorily in the pub, with Jane prattling on about Cindy being a bridesmaid and Bobby wanting to be a pageboy .... Er, really. Bobby? You're eleven now, and you're in secondary school. Isn't that a tad too old to be a pageboy? What next? Tap-dancing? If so, I'm sure murderous Uncle Ben has a pair of tap shoes someplace he can loan you.
But suddenly, again in true Branning all-about-me fashion, Lauren steals the Beale's thunderous toasts to Ian's and Jane's umpteenth wedding by choosing that very moment to propose to Peter. Romcom shit at its worst.
There's only one thing that remedies it. You know, you just know that in two weeks' time, someone at that table is going to be outed as Lucy's killer, and it ain't going to be Lauren. (Please, let it be the Bovine Queen).
Deathwatch.
(Suitably sombre music)
I'm glad Timothy West's tenure is coming to an end. The character has worn out his welcome, and West is already portraying him with one eye cocked on the studio clock and some BBC flunkey sat outside Elstree with the motor revving in West's car, ready to abscond.
Stan's proven to be a wet noodle in his death throes. He's full of self-pity, vindictiveness and cowardice regarding his eventual end. Look, I've every sympathy with a cancer sufferer, but then again, Stan is an old man, who's lived a full life; and death comes to us all. Death isn't kind, and it isn't pretty, but it's something every one of us has to face. I get it totally that Stan doesn't want the indignity that cancer sometimes brings, and he wants to end his own life on his terms. It's just that ending his life on his terms means him not ending his life at all, but getting someone else - more specifically emotionally manipulating someone else into doing the act for him.
If Stan wants to commit suicide, I've no problem with that. If he wants to hop a plane to Switzerland and visit Dignitas, I'm easy with that also; but what Stan is asking his family to do, and he's targeting dippy Tina because she's the least intellectually-challenged, is to commit murder. To kill him. To end his life intentionally, and that is murder. Whilst Stan's still able to throw a handfull of barbituates down his throat and neck a bottle of Scotch directly afterward, asking his family to overdose or smother him whilst he sleeps is simply asking them to kill him outright, and - as Emma Summerhayes would say - that's murder.
If there is an afterlife somewhere, Stan would probably be cackling obscenely at the sight of the Old Bill ushering Mick, Linda and the kids out with their heads under blankets and handcuffed as DI Keeble reads them their rights.
I hated the way he stood at the window and made bitterly self-pitying remarks filled with bitterness and venom about the participants in the race below, wishing he could shoot them. As much as I am hating him, I am liking Lee more and more, although I fail to understand how he is still in the army but never in the army, if you get my drift. Just as we have Sonia the Ava Nurse, we have Lee the Ava soldier. Lee's been in life-and-death situations. He's been trained to kill, yet he has a high sense of moral conscience, and he's quick to tell Tina she's wrong to let Stan mess with her head.
For all Tina's whiny remarks about how kind it would be to end Stan's suffering, it sounds as though she's trying to convince herself. Lee is right to remind her that once a person's done something like that, it eats away at your soul -well, unless you're Ronnie Mitchell and you have no soul. If Stan wants to end his life, let him bloody well do it. Tina is as much a coward in her convictions as Stan is, begging Lee not to tell Mick, because Mick will hate her.
Someone told Mick, and I'm glad he saw sense. He's not having this nonsense, because it's killing and it's wrong. I thought it was right that he sit Stan down amongst the family and inform them of what he wanted and called for a vote on the subject. Stan, himself, couldn't even articulate what he wanted from his so-called family. Then Tina the feeble-minded runs out of the pub and smack dab into her love interest Sonia, asking her for tips on dealing with a relative suffering from cancer. Sonia's head is so far up her arse that she can only think to remark that, with Carol, they had a glimmer of hope, which is not what someone with a relative suffering from terminal cancer wants to hear, and all Sonia can then do is offer a coffee, but Tina spies something more lethal ... Shirley, who's not the best judge of character or actions in the world.
Tina's and Shirley's scene was one of sublime irony.
This family ain't like it was before ~ says Tina. (That's because it never was before, you dozy mare. You're cobbled together from your and Shirley's having intruded into Mick's life again after more than a decade, and your old man hasn't been around for donkey's years.
We're breakin' up. Same shit, different day. You were broken before, only now Mick and Linda are even more broken and are aware of it.
Blame and Fable. Mick might be averse to killing Stan, but he isn't averse to killing Dean, one surmises. He was well out of order with that policewoman tonight, and did himself more damage than good when he lashed out at her. Even Linda realised that she was only doing her job, and part of that job is to keep them apprised of the situation. The police have released Dean on bail and injuncted him from approaching either Linda or the pub, but they do need to construct an investigation and build a case before they charge him, and this does take time.
Mick only made himself look like a prat by openly threatening this woman and telling her she was useless. This is a hard case to call. It would have been as hard, had Linda reported it immediately, because of the nature of the crime, itself.
What is important now is that even though Denise is firmly Team Dean, Shirley isn't. In fact, Shirley would breathe easier, one feels, if Dean were to take her up on her offer and leave Walford and London. (Pardon me, but isn't that sorta kinda jumping bail? Look where that landed Sam Mitchell).
That way, she'd have an easier time of ingratiating herself back into Mick's good books and her perceived place behind the bar of the pub, but I'm wondering if she's going to be the one who offs Stan? Another murderer wafting about the Square.
Think about it ... whoever thought of the tagline There's a killer amongst them was actually making an understatement. There are several.
The Marathon.
Whoever wrote this, isn't a runner. To begin with, you don't stop at a drinks' station and have a chat whilst runners go by you, the way we saw Kush and Peter having a chat. The idea of drinks' stations is you grab a cup or two as you run by, for hydration. Masood had the right idea, when he poured a cup over his head, but this far more common in marathons run in spring or summer, not in the dead of winter.
The purpose of this hearts-and-fiddles sentimental tripe was for Shabnam to give her inheritance to Masood, and for Masood to immediately grasp it - no self-deprecating speech about the money being useful for Shabnam's future or anything like that. Nope. The money is Mas's entitlement.
Foreshadowing line of the night when Shabnam said There's a lot you don't know about me.
Meh episode, but not because of Mick and Linda - that fault lies with Ian and Jane.
Cheese.
This is the cheesiest, most pukeworthy example of Beale smugness I can imagine in song terms:-
I have a question: Is it Saturday in Walford? Because normally half-marathons aren't run in the middle of the working week during working hours, much less in the dead of winter. And even novices, like Masood, don't run marathons in jogging jackets and trackster bottoms. Kush was the only one of the lot who looked and behaved like a distance runner. You certainly don't run half-marathons sprinting like a bunny rabbit without breaking a sweat, the way Shabnam was.
That aside, there's no one who emanates the unbearable smugness of being like the Beales, unless you're Sonia, and she was briefly caught up in the fray today. Have you ever seen a cow floating?
The fragrant Jane floated smugly to and fro about the Square, smiling serenely in the knowledge that soon, very soon, she would once again be Mrs Beale, First Lady of Walford, and scion of the social climbers in Walford, the most important woman in Walford - or so she thinks.
She and Sonia stop briefly to expound upon the circumstances of the day before. Sonia hopes Jane's burned her offensive matronly wedding suit. Oh, Jane's done worse with it. She's consigned it to the ranks of Dot's jumble. Then, looking at the small field of runners, many of whom are costumed, they notice one dressed as a cow.
~Ooh look~ Jane purrs to Sonia, looking at the cow, ~I didn't know my mother was here.~ (Titter, titter, giggle, giggle). Witty, ladies, and very classy. Not.
Well, I saw two cows tonight, and neither was running a half-marathon.
Peter the Posh Prick is running the race, and we had lots of reminiscences from Ian about Peter's dreams (rather, Ian's) of qualifying for the Olympics. Throughout it all was Lauren, back in self-centred mode and equally as smug as the Beales.
Butt-clinchingly pukeworthy scene of the evening (but not the worst) came as Jane and Lauren watched the half-marathon from inside the cafe. The dialogue between the two was so sentimentally bad, it was almost hilarious - talk of how glowing Lauren was (well, the actress is pregnant in real life) and how much she means to Peter yadda yadda ... only for Lauren to tell Jane how much Jane is glowing for being in love with Ian. (Actually, Jane is probably glowing because she's feeling mighty good about herself). Anyone notice how Jane sorta kinda stopped "glowing" when Lauren made that remark, as if she didn't quite know what to do with herself or how to react? She managed to recover sufficiently to dupe Lauren.
We were treated to more scenes than was necessary of the Beales collectively patting themselves on the back at how clever they are, how they've managed to get through an entire bad year, recovering from Lucy's death (with Lauren piping up in true Branning all-about-me fashion to remind them that it's been a difficult year for her as well, before she tosses her hair). The absolute worst scene, which was capable of inducing projectile vomiting, came when Ian, Jane, Peter and Lauren were huddled congratulatorily in the pub, with Jane prattling on about Cindy being a bridesmaid and Bobby wanting to be a pageboy .... Er, really. Bobby? You're eleven now, and you're in secondary school. Isn't that a tad too old to be a pageboy? What next? Tap-dancing? If so, I'm sure murderous Uncle Ben has a pair of tap shoes someplace he can loan you.
But suddenly, again in true Branning all-about-me fashion, Lauren steals the Beale's thunderous toasts to Ian's and Jane's umpteenth wedding by choosing that very moment to propose to Peter. Romcom shit at its worst.
There's only one thing that remedies it. You know, you just know that in two weeks' time, someone at that table is going to be outed as Lucy's killer, and it ain't going to be Lauren. (Please, let it be the Bovine Queen).
Deathwatch.
(Suitably sombre music)
I'm glad Timothy West's tenure is coming to an end. The character has worn out his welcome, and West is already portraying him with one eye cocked on the studio clock and some BBC flunkey sat outside Elstree with the motor revving in West's car, ready to abscond.
Stan's proven to be a wet noodle in his death throes. He's full of self-pity, vindictiveness and cowardice regarding his eventual end. Look, I've every sympathy with a cancer sufferer, but then again, Stan is an old man, who's lived a full life; and death comes to us all. Death isn't kind, and it isn't pretty, but it's something every one of us has to face. I get it totally that Stan doesn't want the indignity that cancer sometimes brings, and he wants to end his own life on his terms. It's just that ending his life on his terms means him not ending his life at all, but getting someone else - more specifically emotionally manipulating someone else into doing the act for him.
If Stan wants to commit suicide, I've no problem with that. If he wants to hop a plane to Switzerland and visit Dignitas, I'm easy with that also; but what Stan is asking his family to do, and he's targeting dippy Tina because she's the least intellectually-challenged, is to commit murder. To kill him. To end his life intentionally, and that is murder. Whilst Stan's still able to throw a handfull of barbituates down his throat and neck a bottle of Scotch directly afterward, asking his family to overdose or smother him whilst he sleeps is simply asking them to kill him outright, and - as Emma Summerhayes would say - that's murder.
If there is an afterlife somewhere, Stan would probably be cackling obscenely at the sight of the Old Bill ushering Mick, Linda and the kids out with their heads under blankets and handcuffed as DI Keeble reads them their rights.
I hated the way he stood at the window and made bitterly self-pitying remarks filled with bitterness and venom about the participants in the race below, wishing he could shoot them. As much as I am hating him, I am liking Lee more and more, although I fail to understand how he is still in the army but never in the army, if you get my drift. Just as we have Sonia the Ava Nurse, we have Lee the Ava soldier. Lee's been in life-and-death situations. He's been trained to kill, yet he has a high sense of moral conscience, and he's quick to tell Tina she's wrong to let Stan mess with her head.
For all Tina's whiny remarks about how kind it would be to end Stan's suffering, it sounds as though she's trying to convince herself. Lee is right to remind her that once a person's done something like that, it eats away at your soul -well, unless you're Ronnie Mitchell and you have no soul. If Stan wants to end his life, let him bloody well do it. Tina is as much a coward in her convictions as Stan is, begging Lee not to tell Mick, because Mick will hate her.
Someone told Mick, and I'm glad he saw sense. He's not having this nonsense, because it's killing and it's wrong. I thought it was right that he sit Stan down amongst the family and inform them of what he wanted and called for a vote on the subject. Stan, himself, couldn't even articulate what he wanted from his so-called family. Then Tina the feeble-minded runs out of the pub and smack dab into her love interest Sonia, asking her for tips on dealing with a relative suffering from cancer. Sonia's head is so far up her arse that she can only think to remark that, with Carol, they had a glimmer of hope, which is not what someone with a relative suffering from terminal cancer wants to hear, and all Sonia can then do is offer a coffee, but Tina spies something more lethal ... Shirley, who's not the best judge of character or actions in the world.
Tina's and Shirley's scene was one of sublime irony.
This family ain't like it was before ~ says Tina. (That's because it never was before, you dozy mare. You're cobbled together from your and Shirley's having intruded into Mick's life again after more than a decade, and your old man hasn't been around for donkey's years.
We're breakin' up. Same shit, different day. You were broken before, only now Mick and Linda are even more broken and are aware of it.
Blame and Fable. Mick might be averse to killing Stan, but he isn't averse to killing Dean, one surmises. He was well out of order with that policewoman tonight, and did himself more damage than good when he lashed out at her. Even Linda realised that she was only doing her job, and part of that job is to keep them apprised of the situation. The police have released Dean on bail and injuncted him from approaching either Linda or the pub, but they do need to construct an investigation and build a case before they charge him, and this does take time.
Mick only made himself look like a prat by openly threatening this woman and telling her she was useless. This is a hard case to call. It would have been as hard, had Linda reported it immediately, because of the nature of the crime, itself.
What is important now is that even though Denise is firmly Team Dean, Shirley isn't. In fact, Shirley would breathe easier, one feels, if Dean were to take her up on her offer and leave Walford and London. (Pardon me, but isn't that sorta kinda jumping bail? Look where that landed Sam Mitchell).
That way, she'd have an easier time of ingratiating herself back into Mick's good books and her perceived place behind the bar of the pub, but I'm wondering if she's going to be the one who offs Stan? Another murderer wafting about the Square.
Think about it ... whoever thought of the tagline There's a killer amongst them was actually making an understatement. There are several.
The Marathon.
Whoever wrote this, isn't a runner. To begin with, you don't stop at a drinks' station and have a chat whilst runners go by you, the way we saw Kush and Peter having a chat. The idea of drinks' stations is you grab a cup or two as you run by, for hydration. Masood had the right idea, when he poured a cup over his head, but this far more common in marathons run in spring or summer, not in the dead of winter.
The purpose of this hearts-and-fiddles sentimental tripe was for Shabnam to give her inheritance to Masood, and for Masood to immediately grasp it - no self-deprecating speech about the money being useful for Shabnam's future or anything like that. Nope. The money is Mas's entitlement.
Foreshadowing line of the night when Shabnam said There's a lot you don't know about me.
Meh episode, but not because of Mick and Linda - that fault lies with Ian and Jane.
No comments:
Post a Comment