I love Daran Little, but even Jesus couldn't work miracles with that.
I've said it once, and I'll say it now: If Newman's name were on the masthead of that episode, it would have been branded total and utter shite. I accept that there has to be a quiet time after the sturm und drang of Anniversary week and the lead into it, but think about it ... it's been a month. A month since the 30th, and look where we are after a month.
For all it was a day when EastEnders isn't normally broadcast and at an odd hour and up against Champions' League football with English teams, at that moment, involved, EastEnders took in less than five million viewers.
After the brilliance of January and February, I never thought, a month on, we'd be back struggling for five million viewers, with figures stuck below seven million and Corrie back on top - only just, but back on top.
I could live with that, but Corrie's mired in mediocrity more than EastEnders.
Just sayin'.
Two Sneaks.
Tina and Sonia deserve each other. If this were an attempt to make Sonia more likeable and sympathetic, it didn't work. First of all, the way she treated Stan in hospital was nothing less than patronising. He's an elderly man who's dying, he's not a child who needs to be spoken to in simplistic terms, and using him as a subtle conduit to preen about his silly daughter in order to big up Sonia's self-righteousness about herself was pukeworthy.
Yes, Tina has a heart of gold, as Stan said; but why no mention of her utter distaste and mistreatment of her own daughter, Zsa Zsa? She's Stan's grandchild as well, and a Goth, like Rebecca is trying to be. What's that that Carol said? Trying to act out in order to get her parents to work together? Well, Zsa Zsa, who in another life under another producer whose storyliner was the current producer, Zsa Zsa was the product of Tina's marriage to a man, and Tina had run away, leaving her with a stepfather, in order to be with a Spaniard - and a man, to boot. Maybe Zsa Zsa's Goth period was an enactment in order to get her mother to respond in a parental way, but one thing has been constant between heterosexual Tina and lesbian Tina: she put herself before her child, and that much, she and the abysmal Sonia have in common.
I kept waiting, in that scene between Stan and Sonia, for Stan to expand upon his exhaltations about Tina's goodness by reminding Sonia how less-than-good Mick and Shirley were, as that's what he usually does. Instead, he emphasised her goodness by saying that Tina has never stopped loving him even though he has been less than a good father, which impresses silly Sonia all the more.
Meanwhile, back on the Square, Martin seeks out his mother-in-law for some subtle advice. This was interesting, in that Lindsey Coulson always makes a scene seem real, but also because the last time they shared a venue - last week in the Vic - neither Martin nor Carol acknowledged the other's presence. (This was the episode where Carol kissed Billy).
Martin was deferential, respectful and acknowledged his own shortcomings as a father, whilst emphasising the fact that he had never encouraged Rebecca to avoid or shut out her mother. He was just bemused by her sudden morphing into a Goth. Since Carol has some experience dealing with teenaged girls, Martin is interested in her input.
Carol simply reassures him that Rebecca is acting out as a means of forcing Martin and Sonia to work together for her benefit. That's when Martin assures her that he hasn't been prejudicing Rebecca against Sonia - and he reiterates that it isn't as though they were splitting up because one or the other of them had met someone new, and he acknowledges that he hasn't always been the best of dads in the past, but he was putting in the effort now ... Oh, and by the way, he'd seen that mate of Sonia's, the one at the pub ...
Tina, Carol assures him. Oh, she always put a smile on Sonia's face, which is everything Martin needed to hear. Martin's been there and done that before years before when Sonia walked out on him and Rebecca for that great love-of-her-life Gnomi.
After a coy encounter with Tina at the hospital, where we learn that Tina ran off after their snog the previous evening, but she isn't best pleased when she returns to the Square to find out that Martin's been talking to Carol and Carol's been talking back. In fact, Carol's quite impressed with Martin's role in Rebecca's life.
I'm her mum. She should be wiv me.
That's all Sonia can reiterate, despite the fact that she spent more time hanging out at Carol's, especially after Carol's recovery, than she did with Rebecca. It was Sonia, who - after a year of trash-talking Martin and snogging Tina on the side and whining about Martin not caring - decided to walk away from that marriage. She's even more shocked when Carol expresses support for the fact that Rebecca's spending time with Martin and that he's stepping up to the plate.
That sends Sonia right over to the Beales' house with the impulsive idea to invite Martin and Rebecca over to dinner.
You mean like a family meal or something? asks Martin, incredulously. He then makes his excuses about Rebecca going bowling with a friend and how she's really looking forward to it.
Sonia shits herself before she takes up residence on Arthur's bench, to stare at the Beale house, where the Court Jester finds her.
The Court Jester is hating herself because she's pissed off at Stan demanding money for a care home, but she pauses long enough to listen to Sonia trash-talk Martin some more. Martin's never had time for Rebecca, which is an obvious lie, and now they're together and Sonia's shut out. Well. maybe Sonia shouldn't have emotionally manipulated her daughter. Throughout the history of Sonia and Rebecca, it's always seemed that Sonia wanted Rebecca on her terms.
She gave up the baby for adoption because she didn't want to just "get by" the way Carol did. She wanted an education and qualifications. Yet she stalked the couple who adopted Rebecca, and their mother-in-law, on two occasions, once kidnapping Rebecca and once obtaining a warning from the police. Just when Margaret, the granny, was willing to let Sonia and Martin into Rebecca's life, Sonia had started romping the beds with Gnomi, missing Rebecca's birthday celebrations, which Martin attended.
Now Sonia throws herself a pity party and welcomed Tina's snog - there wasn't much of that in her marriage to Martin. Boo-bloody-hoo. Who'd want to kiss a self-righteous prig like Sonia, who'd trash-talk you behind your back? If Sonia's head wasn't stuck so firmly up her own backside, she'd realise that Martin wasn't stupid, and that he'd remembered the name-calling and taunting phonecalls Tina had made to him. Sonia chooses feckless, silly Tina, a woman who was in a relationship with another woman when she met Tina and cheated on that woman to be with her. Cheaters cheat, and the next girl who catches Tina's eye, when life with Sonia proves to be one big self-righteous lecture to a forty year-old going on five, will prove Sonia the self-important fool that she is.
I want to see the arse-end of these two bitches on the way out of Walford.
One thing Sonia and Tina have in common, and that's a propensity to abandon their daughters for their own selfish needs.
The Plot Device. So much for Andrew Sachs - a glorified plot device of one-liners and a depiction of an annoying little old man whose death prompts Stan and Cora to finally confess feelings for each other and unite.
Although Timothy West, Ann Mitchell and Annette Badland gave it their best shot, in segment rife with observation and backstory and top-heavy with sniping, it was shite. Seriously shite. It was a borderline farce of a go, the depiction of two elderly women fighting over the carcass of a dying man.
It's clear that Babeshite is the Carters' evil version of Auntie Sal. Remember this? (The key word is "trifle".)
I've said it once, and I'll say it now: If Newman's name were on the masthead of that episode, it would have been branded total and utter shite. I accept that there has to be a quiet time after the sturm und drang of Anniversary week and the lead into it, but think about it ... it's been a month. A month since the 30th, and look where we are after a month.
For all it was a day when EastEnders isn't normally broadcast and at an odd hour and up against Champions' League football with English teams, at that moment, involved, EastEnders took in less than five million viewers.
After the brilliance of January and February, I never thought, a month on, we'd be back struggling for five million viewers, with figures stuck below seven million and Corrie back on top - only just, but back on top.
I could live with that, but Corrie's mired in mediocrity more than EastEnders.
Just sayin'.
Two Sneaks.
Tina and Sonia deserve each other. If this were an attempt to make Sonia more likeable and sympathetic, it didn't work. First of all, the way she treated Stan in hospital was nothing less than patronising. He's an elderly man who's dying, he's not a child who needs to be spoken to in simplistic terms, and using him as a subtle conduit to preen about his silly daughter in order to big up Sonia's self-righteousness about herself was pukeworthy.
Yes, Tina has a heart of gold, as Stan said; but why no mention of her utter distaste and mistreatment of her own daughter, Zsa Zsa? She's Stan's grandchild as well, and a Goth, like Rebecca is trying to be. What's that that Carol said? Trying to act out in order to get her parents to work together? Well, Zsa Zsa, who in another life under another producer whose storyliner was the current producer, Zsa Zsa was the product of Tina's marriage to a man, and Tina had run away, leaving her with a stepfather, in order to be with a Spaniard - and a man, to boot. Maybe Zsa Zsa's Goth period was an enactment in order to get her mother to respond in a parental way, but one thing has been constant between heterosexual Tina and lesbian Tina: she put herself before her child, and that much, she and the abysmal Sonia have in common.
I kept waiting, in that scene between Stan and Sonia, for Stan to expand upon his exhaltations about Tina's goodness by reminding Sonia how less-than-good Mick and Shirley were, as that's what he usually does. Instead, he emphasised her goodness by saying that Tina has never stopped loving him even though he has been less than a good father, which impresses silly Sonia all the more.
Meanwhile, back on the Square, Martin seeks out his mother-in-law for some subtle advice. This was interesting, in that Lindsey Coulson always makes a scene seem real, but also because the last time they shared a venue - last week in the Vic - neither Martin nor Carol acknowledged the other's presence. (This was the episode where Carol kissed Billy).
Martin was deferential, respectful and acknowledged his own shortcomings as a father, whilst emphasising the fact that he had never encouraged Rebecca to avoid or shut out her mother. He was just bemused by her sudden morphing into a Goth. Since Carol has some experience dealing with teenaged girls, Martin is interested in her input.
Carol simply reassures him that Rebecca is acting out as a means of forcing Martin and Sonia to work together for her benefit. That's when Martin assures her that he hasn't been prejudicing Rebecca against Sonia - and he reiterates that it isn't as though they were splitting up because one or the other of them had met someone new, and he acknowledges that he hasn't always been the best of dads in the past, but he was putting in the effort now ... Oh, and by the way, he'd seen that mate of Sonia's, the one at the pub ...
Tina, Carol assures him. Oh, she always put a smile on Sonia's face, which is everything Martin needed to hear. Martin's been there and done that before years before when Sonia walked out on him and Rebecca for that great love-of-her-life Gnomi.
After a coy encounter with Tina at the hospital, where we learn that Tina ran off after their snog the previous evening, but she isn't best pleased when she returns to the Square to find out that Martin's been talking to Carol and Carol's been talking back. In fact, Carol's quite impressed with Martin's role in Rebecca's life.
I'm her mum. She should be wiv me.
That's all Sonia can reiterate, despite the fact that she spent more time hanging out at Carol's, especially after Carol's recovery, than she did with Rebecca. It was Sonia, who - after a year of trash-talking Martin and snogging Tina on the side and whining about Martin not caring - decided to walk away from that marriage. She's even more shocked when Carol expresses support for the fact that Rebecca's spending time with Martin and that he's stepping up to the plate.
That sends Sonia right over to the Beales' house with the impulsive idea to invite Martin and Rebecca over to dinner.
You mean like a family meal or something? asks Martin, incredulously. He then makes his excuses about Rebecca going bowling with a friend and how she's really looking forward to it.
Sonia shits herself before she takes up residence on Arthur's bench, to stare at the Beale house, where the Court Jester finds her.
The Court Jester is hating herself because she's pissed off at Stan demanding money for a care home, but she pauses long enough to listen to Sonia trash-talk Martin some more. Martin's never had time for Rebecca, which is an obvious lie, and now they're together and Sonia's shut out. Well. maybe Sonia shouldn't have emotionally manipulated her daughter. Throughout the history of Sonia and Rebecca, it's always seemed that Sonia wanted Rebecca on her terms.
She gave up the baby for adoption because she didn't want to just "get by" the way Carol did. She wanted an education and qualifications. Yet she stalked the couple who adopted Rebecca, and their mother-in-law, on two occasions, once kidnapping Rebecca and once obtaining a warning from the police. Just when Margaret, the granny, was willing to let Sonia and Martin into Rebecca's life, Sonia had started romping the beds with Gnomi, missing Rebecca's birthday celebrations, which Martin attended.
Now Sonia throws herself a pity party and welcomed Tina's snog - there wasn't much of that in her marriage to Martin. Boo-bloody-hoo. Who'd want to kiss a self-righteous prig like Sonia, who'd trash-talk you behind your back? If Sonia's head wasn't stuck so firmly up her own backside, she'd realise that Martin wasn't stupid, and that he'd remembered the name-calling and taunting phonecalls Tina had made to him. Sonia chooses feckless, silly Tina, a woman who was in a relationship with another woman when she met Tina and cheated on that woman to be with her. Cheaters cheat, and the next girl who catches Tina's eye, when life with Sonia proves to be one big self-righteous lecture to a forty year-old going on five, will prove Sonia the self-important fool that she is.
I want to see the arse-end of these two bitches on the way out of Walford.
One thing Sonia and Tina have in common, and that's a propensity to abandon their daughters for their own selfish needs.
The Plot Device. So much for Andrew Sachs - a glorified plot device of one-liners and a depiction of an annoying little old man whose death prompts Stan and Cora to finally confess feelings for each other and unite.
Although Timothy West, Ann Mitchell and Annette Badland gave it their best shot, in segment rife with observation and backstory and top-heavy with sniping, it was shite. Seriously shite. It was a borderline farce of a go, the depiction of two elderly women fighting over the carcass of a dying man.
It's clear that Babeshite is the Carters' evil version of Auntie Sal. Remember this? (The key word is "trifle".)
Can you imagine any of the Carters saying that to Babe? She'd lace her trifle with strychnine.
Cora's hungover - we know that, because on a dingy day, she's wearing her signature sunglasses, and she pops over to Patrick's for hair of the dog. Patrick guilt-trips her into visiting Stan, and when she does, she finds Babe there, force-feeding him trifle. (I wonder if the trifle is foreshadowing the fact that Babe will eventually lace it with diomorphine to knock him off in the end). Stan's still belloweathering about money.
Babe got the best of a bad lot of lines of the night:-
How's business? Oh wait, it's your daughter who's the brass ...
In the middle of their sniping, Andrew Sachs's irritating Cyril drops dead in the middle of eating the hospital food he likes so much, which prompts an evacuation, some soul-searching by Stan and a phonecall to Tina, and some back history on Babe's relationship with Stan, as related to Cora.
It seems Sylvie was a "hostess" in an up-market Soho club, paid to pull the punters in amongst other things. (Think Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain - she was one of those types too). Forgetting her keys, she rang the fifteen year-old Babe, back in the early Sixties, to fetch them for her - although why she'd need them, when Babe was at home, is anyone's guess. Babe caught her heel in a grating outside the club, and Stan came to her rescue. He then escorted her into the club (even though she was fifteen and wouldn't have been allowed inside) and went, himself, into Sylvie's waiting arms, without as much as a back glace at Babe, who'd remained childless and suffering since then.
That had prompted Stan's cruel assessment of Babe as a lone figure, doling out trifle and hanging about his family like a bad smell, trying to worm her way in. If anyone came across sympathetically in this mishmash, it was, surprisingly, Babe. She's a lonely woman who's sacrificed her youth and her life to provide a constant for her sister's family, begging to be a part of that dynamic by trying to make herself indispensible, even in a manipulative way as a fixer. She's still a dark presence, but you got a bit of insight into her character tonight.
In the end, Stan proposes to Cora, Cora runs away, has a fag and returns to accept the proposal, and Babe's unhappy yet again.
Die, Stan ... just die. Spare us the dramatics, you stopped giving the moment the PR department announced Timothy West's departure. Just die and stop phoning it in.
Yet another mediocrity. Oh well, the Mitchells and Beales are back next week.
Cora's hungover - we know that, because on a dingy day, she's wearing her signature sunglasses, and she pops over to Patrick's for hair of the dog. Patrick guilt-trips her into visiting Stan, and when she does, she finds Babe there, force-feeding him trifle. (I wonder if the trifle is foreshadowing the fact that Babe will eventually lace it with diomorphine to knock him off in the end). Stan's still belloweathering about money.
Babe got the best of a bad lot of lines of the night:-
How's business? Oh wait, it's your daughter who's the brass ...
In the middle of their sniping, Andrew Sachs's irritating Cyril drops dead in the middle of eating the hospital food he likes so much, which prompts an evacuation, some soul-searching by Stan and a phonecall to Tina, and some back history on Babe's relationship with Stan, as related to Cora.
It seems Sylvie was a "hostess" in an up-market Soho club, paid to pull the punters in amongst other things. (Think Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain - she was one of those types too). Forgetting her keys, she rang the fifteen year-old Babe, back in the early Sixties, to fetch them for her - although why she'd need them, when Babe was at home, is anyone's guess. Babe caught her heel in a grating outside the club, and Stan came to her rescue. He then escorted her into the club (even though she was fifteen and wouldn't have been allowed inside) and went, himself, into Sylvie's waiting arms, without as much as a back glace at Babe, who'd remained childless and suffering since then.
That had prompted Stan's cruel assessment of Babe as a lone figure, doling out trifle and hanging about his family like a bad smell, trying to worm her way in. If anyone came across sympathetically in this mishmash, it was, surprisingly, Babe. She's a lonely woman who's sacrificed her youth and her life to provide a constant for her sister's family, begging to be a part of that dynamic by trying to make herself indispensible, even in a manipulative way as a fixer. She's still a dark presence, but you got a bit of insight into her character tonight.
In the end, Stan proposes to Cora, Cora runs away, has a fag and returns to accept the proposal, and Babe's unhappy yet again.
Die, Stan ... just die. Spare us the dramatics, you stopped giving the moment the PR department announced Timothy West's departure. Just die and stop phoning it in.
Yet another mediocrity. Oh well, the Mitchells and Beales are back next week.
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