Newman's Latest Interview Proves She's Aiming for the Lowest Common Denominator

When the most intelligent comment on a BBC webpage, regarding Lorraine Newman's latest interview, comes from the infamous monalisa, not only is the show in trouble, but it's patently obvious that Lorraine Newman is aiming this show smack, dab, directly at the lower echelon of the teen element.

Practically every one of the twenty comments made were riddled with basic spelling mistakes, when they weren't written in text-ese and centred around the "hotness" of Joey or Lauren. The rest were whines about Lola getting her baby back or getting Alfie and Kat back together.

We now know whom EastEnders are trying to please.

vaslav37, I take my hat off to you. You were right. This lot of ya-hoo scriptwriters will retcon to their heart's content, because nobody who watches now, gives a rat's ass. And for some reason - maybe it's the unstable economy - actors who, previously, would make some sort of protest at the writing done for them, are keeping their mouths shut.

Example: Letitia Dean would, surely, have remembered that New Year's Day was the anniversary of Dennis Rickman's death as surely as Steve McFadden would know that Peggy and Sharon had reconciled before Sharon left the last time; yet both are content to play the badly-written script as it's given to them. The mind boggles.

There you go, vaslav37, Cora the Bora may turn out to be Sharon's mother, after all. Anything is possible in this substandard, one-braincelled, teen-and-underwear-model-riddled parallel universe of EastEnders.

For this reason, I choose to go through Newman's latest ego trip interview, with a nitcomb, starting with the picture advertising the interview blog, which can be found here. By the way, the interview was conducted by someone named Nickie L, which just about sums up the calibre of the questions posed.

First, here's the lady of the moment, herself, looking very much like the cat who's just caught the canary.

Let's home she doesn't choke on the feathers.

So let's roll with the interview, and with my interpretation of Lorraine's BBC spin.

Nickie L asks:-

What was your highlight of 2012?

(Me: They always ask this question - as if there were so many highlights from EastEnders for 2012. Actually, there were a fair few - Pat's death and David Wicks's brief return; Simon Wicks's even briefer return; Ian's breakdown, Heather's death, Sharon's return; the revelation of Max's secret and the introduction of his secret wife; Derek's demise. I won't even mention Shaggerman, the storyline was so sordid and badly done). But what was Lorraine's highlight?

It was definitely the Olympic torch episode. Not only was it a great episode, it was a great achievement for EastEnders. It really felt like we connected with the entire country that day. The event was 18 months in the planning. Teaming up with BBC Sport was a first for us and the Olympic Torch Team were so accommodating. On the night itself, when the Olympic Flame arrived, our actors were in total awe. Delivering a live episode is such an incredible team effort and the resulting episode had such warmth and energy to it. I was incredibly proud of Perry (Billy) and Danielle (Lola), who I thought were absolutely amazing. Later that evening, Perry told me that if he'd died that night, he’d have gone with a huge smile on his face. I probably would have too!

In other words, push the BBC Olympic meme to the hilt. After 46 years of hurt, we can now move on from winning the World Cup in 1966 to expostulating about the 2012 London Olympics for the next fifty years - specifically the part about a soap character carrying the Olympic torch.

Nickie L again:-

 If you had one word to sum up your vision for EastEnders in 2013 what would it be?

(This ought to be good.)

 Can I have three? I think warmth, family and friendships. I think you see a side of a person with their friends that you never, ever see with a loved one or with their parents. This year, we also need to focus on our families, and develop our various clans. The Brannings have undoubtedly been a great strength for us over the last few years but what will the show look like in five years time? Who will the big families be? I think it’s about planning for that, to ensure that the show remains incredibly strong and that we utilise the great talent that we’ve got. We have some amazing actors and actresses and it’s important that we have a healthy balance of material.

Roughly put, this means more love affairs (warmth), family (more expansion of the Brannings) and friendships (same old same old). 

This is a load of bullshit, and most of it concerns the Branning satellites (Cora-the-Bora, Ava and Dexter). Admittedly, the show needs to develop friendships. We've had ten years of siblings never going outside the family unit for friendship - the Slater girls (most of whom would be fortysomethings now) never socialised with anyone else, nor did the Fox sisters nor the Mitchell sisters. It's saying something that the firmest friendship on the Square at the moment exists between Alfie Moon and Ian Beale, and why isn't that pursued? At one point in 2007, it looked as though Phil Mitchell and Max Branning would strike a bond, but that exploded. Phil used to be good mates with Ricky - remember him talking about taking Ben and Liam to the park when they were a bit older for a kickabout (this was pre-2000).

Developing "various clans" simply means the Brannings are going to expand. They're expanding already - Kirsty has shown up, and now they're going interracial, with Ava and Dexter on hand. And as much as Lorraine might like to delude herself, the Brannings were at their height when they consisted only of Max,  Bradley, Tanya and the girls, with Dot and Jim on the side. After Stax and certainly after the abysmal attempts on Max's life by his wife and daughter, they started to slide down the slope of pointless sensationalism. They grew like a cancer, and if Newman would care to stop reading tween twitter and the semi-literate comments posted on EastEnders' Facebook and BBC pages, she might realise that the more discerning, more intelligent and long-term viewer thinks the Brannings suck.

As for "amazing actors," you have a few - Jake Wood, Lindsey Coulson, Steve McFadden, Letitia Dean (when she's used correctly), Shane Richie (again, when he's used correctly), Diane Parrish and Adam Woodyatt (when they are used at all); but then you also have a lot of dross as well - underwear and catalogue models with no acting experience hired only for their looks (Tony Discipline, the pathetic David Witts and the anorexic Hetti Bywater), planks or wood who look good (Scott Maslen) and graduates of second-rate wannabe fame schools who believe the PR hyped about them and then spend most of their time consciously on camera, waving their arms about, shouting lines and gurning (Jacqueline Jossa). Your problem, Lorraine, is that you centre most of the badly-written storylines around the actors with the least amount of talent and experience. 

Did I mention that your writing room sucks as well? Well, it does. The writers you employ now are lazy, presumptive and not a patch on some of the legends who used to write memorable episodes and storylines previously - like Sarah Phelps, Tony McHale and the incomparable Tony Jordan.

Nickie L with a real topic-burner:-

So can we expect to see new faces in 2013?

Newman:-

You definitely can. But that’s all I’m saying!

Meaning: Either they're still thinking about Branning perambulations - Suzy has kids, who - five years ago - were teenagers. There's a cousin Gordon someplace. If they're not thinking about a Branning expansion or how to expand them into other dynamics, then they haven't thought of characters to slap onto the Square with no antecedent and no character arc - YES, I'm talking about Ava Hartman, whom Lorraine Newman previously said was originally slated to be part and parcel of a five-episode mini-storyline until Newman faced the actress down in one of EastEnders' infamous workshops and decided then and there she would be a permanent character. So much for the lie about storylines being planned six months, one year and 18 months in advance. This was the same with the Moon Brothers - again, they caught the then-EP's eyes and he decided they had to be part of the EastEnders dynamic.

Nickie L attempting to dig:-

 Let’s look at one of the new faces we already know about. Kirsty arrived on Christmas Day. Can you tell us what kind of impact she’ll have on the Branning family?

I'll be the first to admit that Kirsty was the first interesting new character I've seen on the show for years. Once again, Newman must be deluding herself about the impact of Max's surprise. Anyone who's been watching the damned show for the past five years will know that any and all secrets Max Branning has concern women. And it wasn't rocket science to figure out that Max, being a single man on the rebound from the idiotic Tanya, would be vulnerable enough to fall in love and marry yet again. 

The one good thing about Kirsty at the moment I've noticed (besides the fact that she's portrayed by a highly-rated and BAFTA nominated actress, which means she won't want to make EastEnders her bread-and-butter) is that the BBC Website have given her a backstory and character arc, the likes of which have not been seen since the days of Matthew Robinson, so maybe Lorraine did learn something. Let's see how she uses it.

Newman:-

 It’s like a bomb’s gone off. Not just for Derek, as we saw on Christmas Day, but also for Max andTanya. There’s a bit of a conundrum there - Tanya had rejected Max and when he left, he was devastated. His path crossed with Kirsty at a time when he was clearly trying to deal with his pain from Tanya and now it’s come back to haunt him in a huge way. But Kirsty’s tenacious, she’s not going to let him go.

(She must have a degree in stating the bleeding obvious - a bit like EastEnders).

Nickie L pursuing:-

 Tanya’s tenacious too though, isn’t she?

Newman attempting to be witty:-

She is indeed. It’s not going to be a small fight. Let’s just say - there’s a lot of hair there!

OK, suffice it to say that Newman likes catfights. She's going to try out the atmosphere for such an event in the next few weeks when Roxy and Kat square off in the Vic over Alfie. And, yes, there is a lot of hair between Tanya and her extensions and Kirsty and hers - the obvious irony being that these two lush-haired women are fighting over a scrawny, weasel-faced bald-headed ginger dude. But then, a lot of EastEnders viewers don't appreciate irony. I daresay Newman doesn't either. She's just going for the shock-factor-hard-on-inducing spectacle of watching two women pull hair and wrestle about. They'll all probably be in decolletage as well in hopes of the odd nipple shot. Classy, Lorraine.

Nickie L again,asking the question that's on everyone's lips:-

 Which returning characters will we see in 2013?

Because, ya know, Kat just needs all her sisters around her now, even the one who was sacked for being drunk and who hasn't worked in the industry since because, ya know, the Slater sisters were just so cool. And why not bring back Stacey, with Ryan, married, just to aggravate Janine? And Peter Beale - there's always room for another nineteen year-old male character. Or David Wicks, now that you've successfully retconned a bikeshed bonk between two fourteen year-olds into the next generation's Frank and Pat ... note the obvious and best returnee, the one who could turn this baby around on a dime isn't even mentioned.

Newman:-

 You’ll see a sharp slow-down in returning characters this year. Obviously I’m delighted that we’ve got bothDot returning in the New Year and the return of Janine but we need to be careful to maintain the balance. We have to look forward, look to the future. I think you’ll see an injection of new characters with a sprinkling of old!

I actually agree with slowing down the return of old characters. Obviously, Charlie Brooks and June Brown were on break and have to return; but there is one character who should be asked to return, simply because there are several strings left untied and whose appearance could save this show's bacon ... Ross Kemp. He's open to being asked to return. There are miles of unresolved issues between Grant and Sharon, the most important being Grant is one of two people, besides Phil, who know what Phil said to Dennis Rickman before Dennis beat Jonnie Allen. Bring Grant back, if only for the purpose of having a Sharongate in reverse - or at least to have him knock the living shit out of Jack Branning.

Nickie L again:-

 Can you tell us about Dot’s return?

Newman:-

Dot returns to find that Cora has left her house in chaos so quickly puts that to rights and sends her on her way with a flea in her ear. She also becomes quite a strong matriarchal figure for Poppy and Fatboy. They’re a slightly unusual little family group but they give us huge amounts of joy and warmth which is great. Cora has left quite a timebomb for Dot to contend with.

Well, so much for Cora-the-Bora, Matriarch of Walford. I'll say she's left a mess for Dot, in more ways than one; but I'll be mean enough to admit, I'll enjoy that drunken old hag being foisted onto the streets from whence she came by the Wrath of Dot.

However, Dot taking in waifs and strays is nothing new, and her being matriarchal to Fatboy and Poppy is just a reprise of Dot creating a cosy little family unit with her, Rod and Hazel, the girl who tried to con her with Nick back in the 80s. Dot also took in Donna Ludlow, who killed herself in Dot's front room. And Nigel Bates, who was her boarder. In many ways, Fatboy is a cross between Rod and Nigel. So all Lorraine is doing here is reprising an 80s meme into something for the 21st Century and conning us into believing that this aspect of Dot's character is something uniquely new ... when it's not. Jeez.

Nickie L with a question dear to my heart:-

 And what about Janine’s return? We take it that she isn’t going to come back quietly?

I'm a Janine shipper, the strongest female character on the show and one who's perfectly capable of achieving all she desires without the aid and abeyance of a male. Anyone who's watched the show since Janine first appeared as a sinisterly quiet five year-old and watched her through her three incarnations, understands exactly what makes Janine tick and why she is the way she is. However, since 2000, and especially since her return under Diederick Santer, various EPs have found it easier to plump the "evil Janine" meme. Credit, however, to Bryan Kirkwood. The little good he did was, finally, to develop Janine's character past sugar daddies, sleeping with and blackmailing Ian Beale. Let's see what Newman has in miind ...

Newman:-

 While she’s been away we’ve seen Michael fall head over heels in love with Scarlett – there was some lovely stuff with him and Scarlett over Christmas. And just how will Michael deal with Janine? I can’t imagine either of them will play a fair game! Both Michael and Janine are such fun to write for, the writers get to play out all the things they’ve never had the nerve to do in real life!

All of the above is bullshit for the fact that sensationalism will dominate the landscape when Janine returns to battle Michael for Scarlett. The part about the writers getting to play out all the things they've never had the nerve to do in real life is fucking scary, considering the substandard, lazy, surreal bunch of bozos inhabiting that writing room. I shudder to think.

Nickie L broaching the one subject Newman is seeking to ship over the course of 2013:-

 What plans do you have for Kat and Alfie? Do you think they should be together?

(Because, remember, Newman reiterated in her Digital Spy interview that repairing Kat and restoring the Alfie-Kat dynamic was her priority project for 2013).

Newman (doing a bit of verbal moonwalking):-

Kat needs a little bit of time to find herself again. I personally think that she’s become quite damaged and somewhat lost over the past few years. The cycle that she and Alfie got into became quite painful to watch. We adore Alfie and should be allowed to enjoy that but, more importantly, I think Kat should be allowed to move on too from her history of sexual abuse.

I actually agree with this, but - Lordy - Lorraine Newman, as Series Producer, signed off on Kat-the-Abuser and Alfie-the-Abused as they returned in 2010. She also signed off, without complaint, on the babyswap storyline, which no one in production seems to acknowledge now. At least she seemingly admitted that Kat had been OK when she left, but was fucked up by TPTB, of which Newman was a definite part.

Regarding Kat and her history of sexual abuse, if Newman would care to remember, this was addressed and Kat was redeemed in her first stint. She was redeemed by Alfie's love and understanding. What Kat has done, and what Newman is promoting in the aftermath of the Shaggerman reveal (another pithy secret which almost everyone guessed beforehand), is - guess what? - Kat the Victim. All of a sudden, the meme is that Derek made her cheat on Alfie, he forced her (force, meaning rape), everything from the very beginning was Derek's instigation. That is total bullshit. Too many people remember Kat inviting Derek into the Vic's kitchen and spreading her legs, too many people remember her hiking down her skirt with a curious look of satisfaction on her face as she left the kitchen, too many remember her leaving Alfie in the bed to have a knee-trembler, again, in the alleyway, and too many people heard the contrived voicemail on Derek's phone which indicated that Kat was well up for an extracurricular shag. The first step in Kat moving on from her history of abuse is taking damned responsibility for her actions. She needs to apologise to Alfie - not for getting caught, but for breaking his heart and treating him like a prize piece of shit.

One thing I noticed about the Shaggerman reveal was Alfie referencing Harry, which, effectively exonerates Kat from admitting Harry played a part in her behaviour and puts all the blame on Alfie because the man-hating writers had him admit he couldn't cope with this part of Kat's personal history, and - quite honestly - that's a steaming pile of lying shit.

Newman again:-

So, over the next 12 months, we’ll take Kat on a journey where she’s forced to confront her demons and hopefully come out the other side a stronger person. Her past will always remain with her but I hope that it stops her from continually making the same tortuous mistakes and allows her to find some happiness and peace for herself.

In other words, Kat and Alfie will eventually reconcile - more than likely, Christmas 2013, on their tenth wedding anniversary.

Nickie L again:-

 What do you want for Alfie?

Newman, fudging:-

I want him to be happy! I love having him in the pub, he’s such a breath of fresh air in there, and now he’s started a tentative relationship with Roxy. Roxy, being Roxy, obviously jumped in there head-first-think-later, and then the panic of 'Oh no, I really like him! I want this to be serious, what am I doing!?’ hits her with a bang.

Inevitably she will have huge wobbles as to whether he is on the rebound and he will have to prove to her otherwise. So we’ll have some fun with them as they embark on this new journey.

Kabuki theatre. They'll make it so cute and saccharin that the viewers will be begging for Alfie to reunite with Kat. Con job.

Nickie L, getting into the real emphasis of EastEnders - teen storylines:-

Will Lola get Lexi back? Please say she will!

(Please, please, oh pretty please with a cherry on top!)

 Newman:-

Would the audience ever forgive me if she didn’t?! The question is when and how? I love the friendship group of Jay, Abi and Lola – and with Ava’s son Dexter crossing in to that group too, it becomes stronger still. The strength and support of that friendship will help to give her confidence for the future.

Oh, goody! Not only do we have an older group of teens with which to contend, we now have a younger one - although Dexter is twenty. An awful lot of long-term viewers don't like Lola, see her for the bad attitude chav she really is and see through the stupid contrivance of allowing her to have a kid hoping that the viewers will forgive her obvious and previous bad behaviour. Bad character played by a bad and inexperienced reality television star. Another victim. Lola commits a crime - it's not fair she's punished because (take your pick) she's sixteen/she's a single mum/she was brought up in care yadda yadda. One thing Danielle Harold is not and that's the new Lacey Turner, and I was never a fan of One-Trick-Pony Turner.

Nickie L, with the absolute most ignorant, shallow and dumbass question of all time in a serious BBC interview with a BBC executive:-

 Our audience won’t forgive us if we don’t ask you if you’ll have more topless Joey Branning in 2013?

Really, Nickie, who the fuck are you? And how much of my licence fee is being used on your over-inflated salary to ask a question like that? EastEnders isn't a fucking beauty contest and it's not a repository for ex-underwear models whose only stage experience has been in a gay porn review. Why not ask if we're going to see Joey learn to breathe through his nose and keep his mouth from hanging agape? Or if we're going to see Joey speak so the vast majority of the audience will understand what he's saying? Or, why not ask a hard one ... why the hell some inexperienced, totally talentless actor landed a major role on the BBC's flagship programme on the basis of looks only? Ask THAT, Nickie. I fucking dare you!

Newman titters:-

 How gratuitous!! I take all my actors and actresses stories and storylines very seriously!! And wouldn’t dream of planning such blatant behaviour! (Smiles wickedly….)

Har-dee-har-har-har ... meaning, she is so fucking craven and desperate to get bums on seats and get the tweens hot, bothered and tweeting votes for the popularity contest part of the BSAs that she'll do anything. If she could get away with David Witts gadding about the Square naked and wiggling his erect cock at the camera in hopes that thousands of frustrated teenaged girls everywhere experience their first orgasm, she'd do it. Classy, Lorraine. Real classy.

Nickie L, pushing and spinning:-

 But seriously, what’s in store for Joey and Lauren?

Newman (proof positive that her head is up her arse):-

 Lauren’s obviously very troubled. A huge amount of what we’re seeing now is to do with what’s been going on with her parents for such a long time. It’s a tough one covering the issue of binge drinking because inevitably, in order for it to have sufficient impact, it has to go on for a considerable amount of time. There’s a real danger that it will become unpalatable and that you won’t have too much empathy for the character.

Total Bullshit. Lauren is arguably the most pejorative adolescent character ever to appear on the show. She has no ambition, she's lazy, entitled, selfish, self-absorbed, immature and simply unlikeable. If Newman is worried about Lauren losing empathy with the viewers, she needs to tear herself away from teenaged wet dreams and read some of what the more perspicacious and longer-term viewers are saying about this lazy actress who is always very conscious of the camera lingering on her. That she's the obvious go-to actress, who's being shipped in every episode of EastEnders is obvious. Newman wants to remember what happened to Brookside when they decided to push the dubious talents of Clare Sweeney. It failed and died. Oh, and Laurenis a drunk, and what' "tough" about covering her story is just a piss poor excuse for you to give her a sudden cure and you can move on without addressing what has to go on in rehab for people with drinking problems, and you need to explore the part Lauren's mother, aunt  and grandmother have played in her alcohol dependence, because all of them are, also, alcoholics of a degree. I'm sure, Lorraine, you're more than familiar with  Seven Shades of Grey; well, you should do your flaming research and realise that there are seven shades of alcoholic - and Cora the Bora, Tanya, Rainie and Lauren are just four.

Newman spinning:-

But Jacq’s a fantastic actress and I think that those moments of vulnerability that we get from her are amazing. The moment after the car crash where Joey walked away from her was just heartbreaking and the pair of them together are just gorgeous. We weren’t sure quite how their being cousins would sit with the audience but the audience do seem to adore them as a pairing over and above this. So there’s clearly still plenty of story to unfold there.

Sorry, no, she's not - and too many people see that she's a lazy actress who depends on over-exaggerated arm movement, shouted lines and gurning faces. She's all to aware of the camera on her and she's all too aware that she's pretty - ever since the BBC paid for her collagen implant in her upper lip and her boob job in order to emphasise a passing resemblance to Jennifer Lawrence, without Lawrence's talent.

Lorraine's so turned on by the pretty picture of two pretty people falling in love suddenly with each other on the show that  she's creaming her knickers. Lauren and Joey were paired up because they fucking look good together. Nothing more. Nothing less. The actor is dire and the actress stopped acting as soon as she started believing the hype generated about her. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.

If you really want to take the Lauren-Joey dynamic further, let him get her up the duff and let her have a baby which comes out looking like Alice the Goon from the Popeye cartoons.

 Because this is what happens when the bloodlines are too close.

Newman:-

We will see Lauren’s story come to a peak next year but how will she deal with it? Will she come out the other side? What kind of impact is it going to have on her family? And, again, it’s a huge issue story, something that’s effecting so many teens, and the impact that it’s having on the parents and the siblings is huge, it’s something we’ll be going into major detail with.

Excuse my French, but fuck you for patronising the viewers' intelligence. This will be a storyline which will drag on and the resolve will last little over one week. Chelsea Fox's cocaine addiction was over in the space of two episodes. Phil Mitchell beat his crack addiction within a week. We never saw Ian Beale's counselling sessions, and the fragrant Lauren will not go to rehab - no, no, no. She'll puke a bit of blood, shit herself and have an epiphany. Fuck you for insulting our intelligence. Who do you think you are?

Nickie L:-

 What are the other issues that you want to cover in 2013?

EastEnders does issues now? News to me.

Newman:-

 It’s really important to reflect what’s going on in the UK – poverty’s clearly a big issue effecting so many people in so many different ways. The ongoing issue with Lola  will come to the fore and there are a couple of major medical issues which I’d like to explore next year…

Hmmm ... poverty. Looks like Bianca. smells like Bianca. How about doing some research into benefits, Lorraine? Lola struggling with Lexi, and being manipulated by Dexter in order to get around Phil. Read that one a mile off.

Major medical issues? Let me help you out there ... Jack and Kat are walkind STDs. Deal with that and the epidemic they caused - Jack could spread it to Sharon and she could spread it to Phil. Kat's infected Alfie, who's infected Roxy ... the beat goes on.

Nickie L:-

 You looked at the issue of adoption this year, with Cora’s storyline. What’s in store for Cora and Ava?

Nickie, you are stupid. This was a story about racism and the culture than engendered not only unwed mothers in the Fifties and Sixties, but also unwed mothers who were carrying bi-racial children.

Newman:-

Ava and Cora have a very tricky relationship and I think what’s quite interesting about Ava. Ava remains hesitant, partly due to the fact that she is aware that if Tanya hadn’t intervened and contacted her, Cora would not have sought her out at all. Ultimately she’s tentative for fear of being hurt.

They’re quite spiky around each other and find it difficult to open up with each other. They’re actually very similar characters, both quite stubborn, which makes it even more difficult to overcome that first hurdle. Ava will initially develop a stronger relationship with Tanya than she will have with Cora. It’s far easier for her to find out about the family without it feeling so intrusive. As mentioned, we will also see the introduction of Dexter who’s Ava’s son, and we’ll set Ava and Dexter up as a unit of their own.

Both Ava and Dexter will be involved in a big story with Bianca next year, which will help to introduce them both more into the Square. Dexter will also start working as a mechanic in the Arches and he and Jay will become very good friends.

Well, already we know that Ava will get a job at a school in Walford. If Ava's like Cora the Bora, she's also a drunk and smokes like a chimney. I'm all for believing Ava isn't as nice or as positive a character as she seems. First of all, she's a well-educated, well-spoken professional in a position of trust. Dr May, Stella, Lucas Johnson and Yusef were all nice people, initially, before their psychosis took over.

As far as Bianca is concerned, Dexter will probably shag Tiffany and probably get her up the duff; Ava will probably be involved with trying to educate Bianca up to some sort of acceptable standard, but I also expect her to "help" Masood get over Zainab's desertion whilst helping him get his teaching qualification, which he will achieve in record time due to bonking the boss. Spare me.


 Nickie L:-

What’s next for Sharon and Jack… and Phil? What does Sharon get from each of them?

(Here we go).

Newman:-

 I think Phil makes Sharon feel safe. He knows her warts and all. And I think it’s the same for him – she knows and understands his family, which is a big ask for anybody! The real danger for them is that we know that Sharon is addicted to medication and Phil has a history as an addict, so potentially it’s a very, very dangerous combination. This is something that she’s aware of too. I’m sure that’s one thing that is telling her to keep him at arm’s length.

You stupid woman. This isn't Rainie and Phil indulging. Phil has always wanted to love and protect Sharon, and Sharon, knowing his history, would naturally draw from his strength. If anything will keep Phil away from his addictions, it's the desire to be strong for Sharon. If you think this is the reason Sharon is keeping Phil at arm's length, being her fear of his addiction, you've learned fuck-all from your twenty years at EastEnders. You'd best go back to typing scripts, because - I tell you - if you couple Sharon with Jack Branning, EastEnders will have truly jumped the shark. You're in the realms of Brookside now.

Newman:-

 With Jack it’s the opportunity to start afresh, wipe the slate clean and be who she wants to be, so again that’s quite attractive. But we all know that for Sharon, her past is really important to her, that’s why that draw to Phil is never going to go away. Three people in that marriage, I feel!

The only marriage on the cards should be Sharon and Phil. That's the beauty of history. And you should grow a pair and realise that Scott Maslen may be a nice man, but he contributes nothing to the show. Maybe you should think of Jack addressing the appalling way he neglects all three of his children by different mothers. Jack is the biggest slut, bar Kat, on the Square. Deal with that!

 Nickie L: (notice how the questions and answers are getting increasingly more puerile?)

We saw a couple of unexpected partnerships in 2012, like Fatboy and Denise. Will we see any more of those in 2013?

Newman:-

 Ooh we like to surprise! I really enjoyed Fatboy and Denise and the audience appeared to too. It was unexpected and really gently and sweetly handled which I think is why it worked so incredibly well - and of course the audience adore Fatboy which is also a bonus. He’s obviously now got his new lady and he’ll be settling down over Christmas, which you may have seen in the red button. Next year we enjoy exploring the new relationship that is Fatboy and Poppy. And Denise will be on a new journey herself next year which I think the audience will also enjoy…

Pardon me ... the audience likes Fatboy? Since when? He's redundant. And the one thing the audience hates is contrived romcom. That isn't EastEnders, and Poppy is one of a long line of female village idiots, the likes of which started with Little Mo Slater, continued with Honey Mitchell and now the torch is passed to Poppy. I'm only surprised Billy Mitchell isn't staking a claim. As for Denise, cut the crap. She's going to be paired with Ian, in another contrived romcom way that's insulting to both characters. Again, don't insult our intelligence.

Nickie L (the end being near):-

 This will be your first New Year as Exec on EastEnders. Are you enjoying it?

Newman:-

It is an amazing job, absolutely amazing, and slightly surreal as well! It’s only when you step out of here that you realise quite how strange it is. But I’m totally loving it and looking forward to 2013!

Apologies for my anger, but the only thing surreal about EastEnders is the fantasy which the likes of Newman and her inadequate bunch of arrogant writers are promoting. History is abandoned, retconning flourishes and heretofore non-existent family members abound. EastEnders has lost its realism, and Newman sounds as if she's too fluffy and insignificant to restore it to its greatness. Instead, she's content to turn it into a shallow teenaged soap - Neighbours on the Thames.

EPIC FAIL.

Please, Lorraine, Pull Your Head from Your Arse

According to the Gospel according to Lorraine Newman, we're all supposed to feel sorry for poor, pitiful Lauren Branning.

She's troubled.

According to the article on Digital Spy, EastEnders is going to tackle Lauren's "binge drinking" this year. Bullshit.

Lauren is an alcoholic, pure and simple, who emanates genetically from a family of women who have always used reaching for the bottle as the only exercise they are willing to undertake for whatever purpose. And if EastEnders is going to examine Lauren's drink dependency, they need to involve all her relatives who contribute to her behaviour and from whom she's learned that drinking is the best way to cope with anything.

Cora is a putrid old drunk. She's never seen without a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Face it, Dot's house probably always smelled of stale cigarettes, but now it's got the aromatic fragrance of sodden whiskey to add to its mystique. Cora always has a buzz on; you can tell by the way she has to struggle to focus on the person to whom she's speaking.

Besides which, Cora's a seasoned drinker. She probably learned it from her childhood, herself. In fact, she was probably three sheets to the wind when she conceived Ava, three sheets to the wind when she conceived Tanya (or Rainie - depending on what day of the week it is, sometimes Rainie's older than Tanya, sometimes younger).When she pulled a drunken Lauren from the Vic at the end of last March, her first reaction on reaching Max's house was to pour herself a stiff one from Max's whiskey supply.

Rainie is a full-blown alcoholic, receiving help through AA and cognizant enough to realise that her mother and sister encourage her drunken behaviour, most likely with their own.

Tanya uses any excuse to have an over-sized wineglass in her hand. She drinks to cope with Max's lies and infidelities, she drinks to cope with the copious number of secrets she, herself, keeps from him. She drinks to celebrate anything from buying a new handbag to setting a date for her nineteenth wedding. She drinks when she's lonely, she drinks when she's bored. When she was having chemotherapy and feeling right sorry for herself, she even encouraged an underaged Lauren to drink with her - as did Cora recently on the pretext that she was "listening" to Lauren.

Newman says:-

"It's a tough one covering the issue of binge drinking because inevitably, in order for it to have sufficient impact, it has to go on for a considerable amount of time. There's a real danger that it will become unpalatable and that you won't have too much empathy for the character."

Two things interpret this asinine remark:-

• Because it's "tough" covering this issue, that usually means she'll be cured overnight. Just like Ian, there's be some vague reference to counseling etc, and she'll be miraculously restored to health - even able to drink moderately.
• Losing empathy for this character is the last thing this EP should be worried about. The viewing public, apart from fourteen year-old girls and horny fanbois who get off wanking at Jossa's collagen enhanced upper lip and her new boob job, long ago lost any feeling of empathy with Lauren. It seemed as if the actress actually attempted to learn and ply her trade until she started winning popularity contests (which she and EastEnders obviously confuse with awards meted out on talent) and then started believing her own hype. Anyone whose father was a public servant and who's been imprisoned for embezzling money for the public fund from taxpayers, who goes on her (verified) Twitter account and her cleverly-disguised Facebook page bragging about how much money she's making isn't worthy of anyone's empathy - especially since the character she portrays comes across as lazy, entitled, rude, self-obsessed and petulant. Jossa gets by on exaggerated hand and arm movement, shouting, and gurning, and she gets by because she can.

Further proof of Newman's terminal headuparsitis springs from her total inability to see the epic fail that is the coupling of Lauren and Joey:-

 "We weren't sure quite how [Lauren and Joey] being cousins would sit with the audience, but the audience do seem to adore them as a pairing over and above this. So there's clearly still plenty of story to unfold there,"

The audience adores them? Please, Newman, kindly explain to me, a long-term viewer, just whom you mean to describe as "the audience?" Of course, if she hangs out reading the tweenies' twitter, she'll be mistaken for thinking that Lauren and Joey are popular; but damn it, EastEnders isn't a teenaged angst show. Nor is David Witts even a semblance of a poor man's Nigel Harman. He looks nothing like him, and EastEnders can remould Jossa all they want as a Jennifer Lawrence clone, she has none of Lawrence's talent. Newman obviously got into the habit of reading the text-esed "Jamie iz fit" shite when she was Series Producer under Berridge and Harwood, more's the pity.

As for there being plenty of story left to tell, how about a deformed baby, since Ms Newman seems so intent on fostering incest?

This woman really hasn't got a clue. She should be off editing racy versions of Jackie or sexing up CBeebies instead of navigating what's supposed to be the BBC's flagship programme.

Give me a fucking break!

Cack or Shill

There's a thread on Digital Spy Soaps' forum wondering whether Sharon should choose Jack or Phil as her next victim husband.

Some of the answers are hilarious, exhibiting the shallowness, the youth or both of the commenters, since most of them prefer the wooden-headed sperminator to Phil.

Either these people are too young to remember or choose not to remember the history between Sharon and Jack. As someone said, "As if you'd sleep with (or marry) your brother-in-law."

Tanya, anyone? She moved Jack into the framework and household almost as soon as Max had left (at her request), then proceeded to lie like a dog to her daughters about Max's whereabouts and sought to slot Jack right into being babydaddy. Jack, on the other hand, dropped contact with his disabled daughter like the proverbial hot potato, and not only openly participated with dumbass Tanya in publically castigating and humiliating Max, but also was prepared to assist Tanya in illegally removing Max's children from the country in order to swan off with Jack to live in France.

Be that as it may, Sharon has been the love of Phil's life for the better part of twenty years, even if his brother was and probably still is the love of Sharon's life. (Look, forget Dennis. If he'd stayed around and Grant had returned, it would only be a matter of minutes before she was in bed with Grant.)

In point of fact, the Grant-Dennis dynamic was the reason Class A EastEnders' writer Tony Jordan left. With Grant and Dennis both on the scene in 2005, and with Tony Jordan mindful of the fact that there were spades of unfinished business between Grant and Sharon (and an infinite amount of sexual chemistry stronger than the trickle which flowed between Sharon and fey Dennis), Jordan sought a storyline where Sharon was unfaithful to Dennis with Grant. After all, the attraction was still there - and anyone who says Sharon has moved on from Grant needs to remember that the first person after whom she asked when Phil rescued her was Grant. No other than Kate Harwood nixed the idea of a Sharon-Grant affair simply because the resident tweenies creaming their knickers at the idea of Shannis, found Grant "ugly."

(For the record, people on EastEnders' Facebook page are pissing themselves wondering why in the world two lush-haired beauties like Tanya and Kirsty would get themselves in a lather of a fight over a bald-headed ginger minger like Max).

People, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and there is such a thing as being good in bed and  knowing what to do with it. This is how Max and Phil both attract such varied and attractive women like Tanya, Kirsty, Sharon, Mel, Kate, Kathy Beale, Stacey Slater and Dawn Swann.

It's also why a lumpen load of timber like Jack cannot manage more than a one-night stand with anything more than a mental case.

To me, the Sharon-Jack affiliation is wrong on many different levels. First of all, Sharon - and I've watched Sharon since she was a teenager - wouldn't jump into bed with a man she'd only met a couple of hours before. Nor would she subject her young son into spending the night in the house of such a person who could, for all intents and purposes, be a serial killer.

There is simply no chemistry, which isn't surprising, because there was no chemistry between Jack and Tanya or Jack and Ronnie. Funny enough, the last time Jack's and Roxy's paths crossed sexually was the only time Jack showed sufficient sexual chemistry with any woman in the show.

The Jack-Sharon connection still is total evidence that this crop of EastEnders' writers have the character of Sharon totally and utterly wrong. Sharon has always been an independent, stand-alone character. The fact that she had secured a good-paying job for herself would normally mean she would move from the B and B to a flat of her own for herself and her son; instead, she prostitutes herself to Jack for a roof over her head.

Everything about the Cack relationship is wrong, but chiefly the parody of Miss-Piggy-crossed-with-Marilyn-Monroe which Sharon becomes every time she's around Jack - the sexual innuendos, the moue-ed pouting lips, the breathy voice. It reminds me too much of another relationship she had which did absolutely nothing for me - the doomed relationship with Fireman Tom, even to the point of dressing as Marilyn on the night that he died.

From sexual predator with Tom, she went into maternal mode with Dennis Rickman. Listen to the way Sharon speaks with her son. It's exactly the same tone of voice and manner of speaking she used with her husband-brother.

Sharon is just natural with Phil, and why not? They've known each other for twenty years. They've survived a lot - including Sharon's father stitching him up for armed robbery. Still Phil returned to help Sharon suss out the real murderer of her father, and in return, Sharon gave Peggy the Vic.

When Letitia Dean's return was announced, one of the things she said she was looking forward to was snogging the divine Steve McFadden (her words). McFadden, himself, was looking forward to a Phil-Sharon romantic reunion. And why not? Sharon was meant for the Mitchells, who were created for her.

The fact that the current writing crew, led by Simon-the-Brannings-are-up-my-arse Ashdown, have literally turned Sharon's return into ensconcing her as a B-List player, there only to validate the Brannings as a proper Walford family - sleeping with Jack the Peg and paying homage to the court of Queen Tanya - is a joke. Sharon would never be attracted to a man like Jack, nor would she ever form a friendship so solid so quickly with someone as shallow as Tanya to the point that she was actually, at one time, begging to be Tanya's maid of honour.

That is not only an insult to the character, it's an insult to anyone who's watched the programme long enough to remember Sharon was with Grant long before Dennis was even dreamed up as a character.

The fact that Jack never proposed to Sharon, instead issued her an ultimatum to marry him speaks volumes about Jack's character - she's a Ronnie substitute; a one-time blonde Mitchell whose life he can control abundantly, and make himself feel better by being a babydaddy to a fatherless boy, rather than concentrating on the three children he already has - one of whom happens to be Phil Mitchell's nephew. Fancy the thought of Sharon being stepmother to Sam Mitchell's son!

Sharon is the trophy toy another bald brother from a different mother claims as his own and with a viable history. Where Jack pursued Tanya as a means of getting something Max had that he wanted temporarily, now changes to Jack pursuing Sharon because Phil Mitchell wants and loves her.

Jack sucks the life from every woman with whom he's romantically involved. As nice a man as he is, Scott Maslen is a piss poor actor, and as a romantic lead, he's bloody hopeless. Maslen always raises his game when he performs opposite the likes of Jake Wood or Lindsey Coulsen. If the writers wanted to be really clever, they'd explore Jack's dark past as a bent copper without the involvement of the ubiquitous blonde Mitchell. There would even be scope for re-introducing Jesse Birdsall as Sharon's ex John, making him the drugs baron with whom Jack cohorted during his time on the force and whom he grassed.

At any rate, Sharon shouldn't end up with Jack. She'll get so far before she realises that she's always loved Phil (or Phil as a substitute for Grant), and then she'll dump poor pitiful Jack, who'll become a victim again.

There's still hope for Jack in the Mitchell stakes, however. One blonde Mitchell satellite is still prowling around the streets and alleways of Walford ... Jack could always sleep with Shirley.

The Wrath of Dot

I'm not the biggest Dot fan, and I hate the fact that they had to entangle her with the cancer known as Branningitis in order to achieve her full potential as a matriarchal EastEnders' character, but I find myself longing more and more for her return to the Square.

Before Dot got mixed up with the Brannings, she was more or less a pathetic comedy figure - a Bible-spouting hypocrite who hid behind her Christianity, a bad mother and a very judgemental person. She was famous for her hard-as-nails sausage rolls.

The transformation from Dot Cotton to Dot Branning was amazing in that suddenly Dot had grandchildren who actually respected her. She had a clingy, surrogate son in Jack who sometimes listened to her.

But as the years wore on, Dot reverted, sadly, to caricature mode again. Although I liked her with Jim initially, I didn't like the way she reacted to his stroke and his eventual disability. John Bardon's last episode, which saw Dot, throw him back in the care home, was a testimony to June Brown's often hammy acting quality - the "head-bobbing" and prancing about maniacally like Olive Oyl on speed.

Since Jim's been in the home, she's rarely visited or referenced him. Instead, her attentions were turned from the Brannings to her own extended family - her ditzy sister Rose (Polly Perkins hired only on the sayso of June Brown) and the heretofore unmentioned nephew Andrew, about as interesting as watching paint dry. She was more interested in Heather than her own family.

The fact that Bryan Youth-and-Beauty-before-Talent Kirkwood chose, effectively, to isolate all residents of the Square over the age of sixty - Dot, Rose, Patrick and Cora the Bora - into the Branning abode, thus forming the Walford Home for the Elderly, was another insult to the character. 

Now, that home houses only Cora the Bora, the resident drunken old lag of Walford, along with the insignificant Poppy and Joey the mouth-breathing tadpole boy. Cora's managed to stink up the place with fag-ash (she smokes more than Dot) and alcohol residue, ignore all the outstanding bills, and nick Dot's job at the launderette. Dot will return to find chaos and also her lazy, entitled, gurning-faced granddaughter Lauren the Lip, in bed with her heretofore unknown steroidically-enhanced, mouth-breathing, speech-impedimented grandson, Joey the Tadpole, committing incest.

That's when the Wrath of Dot becomes unbound.

I am waiting with baited breath for her to cast the old gray drunken hag into the streets and the gutter where she belongs.

Chart the progress:-

Lola ... Kat ... Shirley ... Cora ...

The Always a Branning Show: Cackety-Cack - Review New Year's Day 2013

Start as you mean to finish, as they say, and if that's the truth, EastEnders ended with shit, started the new year with shit and probably has officially become shit.

Since Lorraine Newman's given a new fob-off spinned-out interview interview on the BBC website, where she tries to walk back a few of the things she asserted  on her Digital Spy debut and tries to get the people who've steadily been alienated by the past decade of substandard EastEnders, I'll be blogging about that later.

Right now, I'm concerned with what is arguably the worst New Year's Day episode in the programme's history. I'm uncertain. Was this two episodes cobbled together into one or a thirty-minute fare expanded when it needn't have been?

Who is Jesse O'Mahoney when he is at home? Obviously a new bod, who needs some lessons in EastEnders' history, not just pre-2010, but how about pre-2000? This man should never be allowed near an important holiday episode again.

To think, New Year's Day last year was on a Sunday. Pat died. We got a forty-minute episode at 8:30pm. Tonight, we're asked to sit through an entire hour of a christening that ended a storyline that was not only inaccurate and insulting to a particular profession, it was drawn out to the extent that it had become a total and utter bore. We also had to sit through an arranged wedding storyline about a character in whom we'd invested nothing and whom we know will be the vehicle by which a long-term character's exit line will be plotted. Besides which, the new character joins the ranks of the seminally inarticulate society consisting of Joey Branning and Tyler Moon. 

Perhaps Ms Newman might think about investing in a speech pathology department especially tailored for David Witts, Tony Discipline and Shivani Ghai.

Now to the dissection of this tripe.

The Old Grey Hag, She Ain't What She's Supposed to Be.

Here's a song for Cora the Bora:-

From the very beginning that whiskey-sodden, stale fag-breathed old coot was dipping in and throwing her opinion about willy-nilly. She's not been in Walford for five minutes, and she knows jack-shit-on-a-stick about Phil Mitchell and his family's history. She is a sodden old drunk.

For her to be telling Jay Mitchell her theories behind Phil's relenting for her and Jay to be godparents at Lexi's christening is not only presumptuous, it's preposterous. Was she drunk? That early in the morning? Plausible.

For a start, her assumption that Phil's allowing the pair of them to be godparents was all about control and Phil's assumption of an empire, by joining various families - his own, Lola's, Sharon's and now Jay's and hers. OK, that's horsehit.

Lola and Billy are part of the Mitchell dynamic. Jay is also part of the same. He chose to change his name by deed-poll and spent the better part of two years, swaggering about Walford in Shirley's wake, never ceasing to remind people that he was part and parcel of the Mitchell clan. He's now reconciled with Phil. Sharon was once a Mitchell and will always be indelibly linked and connected with the Mitchell tribe.

But Cora the Bora?

To what family, for her sake, was she referring? The Crosses? Phil only knew Rainie Cross when he was off his head drunk and stoned on crack cocaine. He wouldn't wipe his feet on Tanya, and he'd call Cora the Bora out on the drunk she is. Takes one to know one.

The Brannings? The Brannings are inbred losers, and that is why the Mitchells will always come out on top. Phil caught Max out in his scam of Peggy. The fact that Jack had to resort to emotional blackmail tonight is evident of their loser status.

The truth is, Cora the Bora, Phil relented and allowed you and Jay to stand as godparents is because Peggy refused to come (in the biggest and most inaccurate retcon in the history of the show) and for some reason, Grant couldn't show as well - that was never specified; but suffice it to say that had Grant known Sharon was about (and unattached) wild horses couldn't keep him away from Walford.

So the old man in drag the old grey hag should just STFU on that respect.

But that wasn't all ...

The first comment she made upon entering the pub and seeing Roxy and Alfie was that Kat hadn't been gone five minutes. OK, I know the drunken old bag was sweet on Derek, herself, and would have been a goer if Derek had been seriously into geriatrics, but she was actually in the pub the night that Derek's and Kat's affair was made public knowledge. She was quick to jump on the judgement bandwagon when it was thought Max was the culprit, and she's drunk and been drunk in the Vic long enough to see that Alfie was actually the innocent party in the marriage from hell, so she should cut out the judgemental remarks there. Maybe she needs reminding that no sooner than her fragrant daughter Tanya had kicked Max to the curb for dallying with Stacey, than she had actually linked up sexually with the local psycho (who happened to be Stacey's brother) and then, in the space of a month, had moved Max's brother into the family dynamic, had him play babydaddy for a year and even contemplated illegally leaving the country with him. 

So Cora the Bora can just STFU there again.

Thirdly, somehow DamienDen got left in her charge (although he seemed to disappear during the christening ceremony), to the extent that when she arrived at the church, she got caught blythely telling the kid that when you've seen one church, you've seen them all. If there's a God in heaven, only he knows when the last time this old trout saw the inside of a church enough to recognise it. For her to take it upon herself to "remind" the vicar that this even was a "Mitchell christening" - as if she were some sort of expert on Mitchell christenings. The last Mitchell christening to occur, as I recall, was Amy's christening four years ago, with Christian as godfather, and that went off without a hitch. Once again, sticking her oar in where it wasn't necessary, as well as smoking her incessant fags outside the church on its premises and blowing fag-smoke into the vicar's face, before stubbing the fag-end out on the driveway. Classy, Cora. Totally poor white trash.

And your performance as godmother left a lot to be desired as well.

If this were Jesse O'Mahoney's attempt, blessed by the Reverend Mother Lorraine, to establish Cora the Bora as the Walford matriarch, it was an epic fail. Together she and Lola amount to one young chav and the old lag Lola will become in fifty years' time, propping up a bar stool, egging Lexi on in her fifth relationship with five children by five different fathers and casting judgement on all and sundry.

I cannot wait for the Wrath of Dot to return and turn this drunken old miscreant back onto the streets where she belongs.

The Cross Family Reunion (by Hogarth)

Wey-Ayesha-Mon

Ayesha's homesick. Maybe this will help her ...

As we all know Zainab's leaving and as we all know, from the spoilers, the part Ayesha is going to play in all of that (we got broad enough hints tonight, if you were perspicacious enough to pay attention), the Masoods and everything about them, for me, have taken on an air of phoniness now.

Look, we know there isn't going to be a wedding. We know that Zainab is going. The atmosphere in the household now is next to frantic, as if they were trying to convince the remaining viewers that the family, itself, is still a viable force.

When Zainab goes, it won't be long before the rest will follow. In fact, EastEnders proved it was so good at keeping secrets regarding the Christmas and Shaggerman episodes (although most people had figured the secrets out) and they've proven so good at lying about established characters departing (Jane Beale/Laurie Brett, Ricky Butcher/Sid Owen and now Tanya Cross Branning Cross Jessop Cross/Jo Joyner), they could have sprung the same sort of surprise on us about Nina Wadia.

At least, they're not saying that Wadia is "taking a break." So she really must be leaving for good, never to return.

Once again, this was much ado about nothing. Zainab frantically ordering the menfolk about to make the house respectable to mirror the Masoods' new-found-again respectability. She's resorted to Mrs Bouquet mode again, wanting to be liked and respected, when the truth is thus: In the eyes of her community, she has a gay son, whose wedding she attended and blessed, she committed adultery in the eyes of her community years ago, when she responded to Masood's attentions whilst married to Yusef. She is currently a widow, living in sin with a man who isn't her husband. Her youngest son is separated from but not yet divorced from his wife. Her brother-in-law is a secular Muslim who drinks and who was married to a non-Muslim. In her community, Zainab would be a pariah, and the way things will go, Ayesha will soon be a pariah as well, because she'll be committing the ultimate cardinal sin - pursuing a married man.

The Masood's vignette devolved, yet again, into a very bad sitcom.

Observations: Justin Bebe. Please. Just go now. And Mas's playfully nudging the Geordie chick's arm. Just stop.

The Memory Lapse Goes On.

Two years ago, James Branning died. Last year Pat died. Seven years ago, Dennis Rickman died. We got a lingering shot of Pat's final resting place, but - boy - the hearts and flowers came out for James Branning tonight.

However, strange that Sharon never once mentioned Dennis's death's anniversary - not to  her son, and certainly not to Phil. She could have tit-for-tatted Jack - more of that scene to come.

Come to think of it (again), Sharon hasn't once mentioned Michelle or Vicky - not to anyone, and certainly not to Ian, who is their kin.

Emotional Blackmail Served on a Plank.

Jack's song:-

Suffice it to say that Jack and Sharon have zilch chemistry, almost to the point that I actually hate Sharon when she's in a scene with Jack. In fact, I want to rip her hair extensions from her head.

Does Phil love Sharon? The answer to that, Luddites, is yes. He's always loved her, and he wants to spend the rest of his days with her. He might be clumsy in this respect, with regard to his approach and his timing, but that's because this is the first time in donkey's years, he's been within reach of Sharon without any other complication. His message to Jack on New Year's Eve was simply to remind Jack that Sharon had history with him and still does.

Does Jack love Sharon? How can he? The method by which Sharon was introduced to Jack was so totally skewed regarding her character, I'm surprised Lorraine Newman signed off on this. Sharon would never run from the wedding to one man and jump into bed with someone she'd met only a couple of hours before. She'd never place herself and her young son under the roof of a stranger - she actually would prefer the anonymity of the B and B before something like that.

She knows nothing of Jack's antecedents - his days as a bent copper, how he was responsible for his daughter's disablement, the true extent of his relationship with Tanya, his ONS with her sister, his various children by various mothers, including the fact that marriage to Jack would mean Sharon becoming stepmother to Sam Mitchell's son. And Jack knows nothing of her past, except snippets of her time with Phil and/or Grant and her pill addiction.

At best, as she referenced, he treats her like a sex object, to be ordered about and who should always obey his word. He spends hours playing babydaddy to her son, when he doesn't give a rat's ass about his own children. He actually summed up the situation tonight to Michael Moon when he said he didn't give Sharon a proposal, he gave her an ultimatum. He's not only interested in her because she's the closest thing to a blonde Mitchell there is available on the Square - well, there is Shirley - but also because he knows Phil Mitchell loves and wants her. It's the same old same old he had with Max, only now Phil's the Max figure who has something Jack wants.

That he had to resort to emotional blackmail was just more evidence of how much the Brannings are losers. 

Actually, the cryptic little talk Sharon had with Ayesha in the Square over sweets was significant. Ayesha voiced what Sharon was feeling - when you're comfortable with something from your past and that association lasts, it's for a purpose. She feels drawn to Phil because they have so much shared history and so much unfinished business.

Let's, like Sharon, forget pretty Dennis's death. The only people alive, apart from Phil, who know Phil's secret are Grant and Peggy. Do you see either of them around? And, honestly, by the time it comes out, I do think Sharon will forgive Phil's peripheral involvement. If you go back and watch any episode from the Shannis time, watch Sharon's behaviour around Dennis - the way she treats him and the way she speaks. She wins the prize over Jane Beale, who treated Ian like a recalcitrant adolescent. Dennis was as much Sharon's child as her lover, and that was creepy.

The absolute worst scene of the episode was Jack's attempt at emotion beside James's grave with Sharon in the picture. Please. Steer Scott Maslen clear of any such scenes in the future. He was butt-clinchingly bad as he watched Roxy take his daughter Amy seven steps away from him across the street. He was pukeworthy in this instance.

If Newman and her writing room had balls, they'd do an entire storyline about Jack's past as a bent copper catching up with him. Re-introduce properly Jesse Birdsall as Sharon's ex John, who happened to be the drugs baron on whose payroll Jack was as a policeman and whom Jack grassed up. Jack is not a romantic lead. He sucks. And it sucks even more that Sharon has now found herself engaged to a Branning. Yes, the spoilers reveal that she says yes (from pity, according to Letitia Dean) to Jack the Peg with the third leg. And from all the hints being thrown out, she leaves him at the altar. So poor Jack is the victim again.

Whoever decided that Sharon should be brought back to compliment and validate the Brannings, should be slapped around the entire Elstree lot.

Oh, and Jack, Phil did not choose the church as a smack in the face to you about James. Most of the church sequences have been filmed at that Church, which is probably the Walford parish church - Bradley's funeral, George's christening, Pat's funeral, Den's funeral etc. It's not all about you or the Brannings.

Rolfie.

I like them together, but like the Masoods, we know it's all going to be kabuki theatre. Myself, I think Alfie moved too quickly, but he's hurting from Kat's betrayal and needs some love and comfort. Roxy loves him, and she'll be loyal. I just hope he's not rebounding and using her. She's insecure at the moment, moving into a place which, even with all reminders removed, simply reeks of Kat.

I was glad, however, to see Alfie visit James's grave, which has a poignance for Roxy also in that he was her nephew, but more importantly, to see him reference his grieving during the babyswap time and to reference Kat's overall behaviour - how the grief was all about her, how every emotion she encapsulated into being all about her - love, grief, anger - to the point that he, her husband, felt left out and alone. Good on Alfie for saying that whoever found himself with Kat would experience that awful loneliness as well.

Kat seriously needs to go. Newman needs to put her own ego on the back burner and do what the public want. Axe the spent character.

Sharon the Bimbo.

Stop dumbing Sharon down. The old Sharon would have seen right through Jack's charade.

Lola the Chav.

Let's face it. The reason Phil wants to raise Lexi is that her other alternative would be being raised by Lola, a thief and a chav with anger issues, and Billy, who is always represented as the all-time loser. Actually, I'm surprised they don't pair Billy up with Bianca.

Her attitude sucks. And she never learns that the way to Phil's softer side is through Sharon. Once she starts dictating measures, she never gets what she wants. Her miserable face tonight did nothing for me.

Oh, and for the record ... Lexi's name is still Lexi Pearce, if that's on her birth certificate. Because she was premature, Scarlett was christened in hospital before being registered. She was christened "Patricia Moon." Her name on her birth certificate is "Scarlett Patricia Moon."

Michael Moon as Devil's Advocate.

What's his name? Seriously trying to put Roxy off moving in with Alfie - reminding her that Sharon said she'd never go back there (as bloody if), how it had ruined Kat and killed Roxy's father. Janine can't come home quick enough.

Other Observations. Jay is so getting over Abi. How soon before he gets jiggly with Lola?

Piss poor.

Someone's a Little Top

dan2008:-

Ms Newman Needs to Pay Attention to Her Viewers

A thread on Digital Spy Soaps Forum posits that Kat has no right to feel sick and disgusted at Alfie moving on. You can read the thread, itself, here.

One commentator, Matthhhftw, asks plaintively:-

Why are the writers trying to make us feel sorry for her?

(Because, in case you haven't noticed, that's exactly been the plan of action since Derek was revealed as Shaggerman.)

And one of the many perambulations of the dan dynamic, dannysays, replies:-

 Because I am guessing they want us to want Kat and Alfie to get back together. So they are now trying to make it all seem like the entire affair was Derek's fault and he manipulated Kat into every illicit shag....which is complete tosh if you go back and watch the affair from the start. I really do hope we get some proper insights into why Kat had the affair with Derek, I really do because I am at a complete loss with this storyline now tbh. It was bad to begin with, dragged on and on with the mystery aspect, got interesting once Derek was revealed as the lover and we actually got some scenes of him with Kat....now its just a case of 'Well, what was the point of it all?'. TPTB are just gonna reunite Kat and Alfie, so there is gonna be no real long term after effects from this affair. Alfie's 'different side' lasted all of about 2 episodes. Roxy will be the rebound. It won't last. He will soon start sniffing round Kat again. They will get back together. Then every thing will be recycled once more.....as a couple they need a good year or two apart before reuniting if at all, but this just won't happen unfortunately. I can understand Kat feeling like she does seeing Alfie now with Roxy but I have no sympathy.

Bingo! Give the man a prize. That's exactly the tactic they're using. In fact, in her Digital Spy interview with yet another dan dynamic, Daniel Kilkelly, one of the very few definite things Lorraine Newman stated was her intention to repair Kat and restore Kat and Alfie as a couple.

In what was mainly a pandering, softball interview, one of the few direct lines of questioning Kilkelly pursued was about Kat, how her character had been systematically destroyed and how the viewers wanted to see her punished, even to the point of going.

 Newman reiterated that Kat was going nowhere, and Shane Richie has repeatedly said that Kat was meant to be with Alfie or with no one. In more than one ways, Newman implied that Kat would be happy again, and the spoilers indicate a love triangle between Roxy, Alfie and Kat, with some sort of conflict affecting Alfie.

Ne'mind the fact that, in the past, an unpopular character, one whom it was impossible to love to hate, had a limited shelf life, and - since Kirkwood created Monster Kat, Spousal Abuser, people have turned off her character big time. However, Newman is pursuing this tack as a means to assauge her own ego, having been in on the creation of Kat when she'd just assumed the mantle of Series Producer.

And that's wrong. It's a smack in the face of all the viewers who have been offended by Kat's turn this time around. Also, the fact that Newman, with the clever interpolation of Simon Ashdown, have managed to retcon the Shaggerman storyline so much that it's now become a storyline about how poor, pitiful Kat was manipulated into having an affair with Derek, how she couldn't stop it because he threatened to tell Alfie everything yadda yadda, when we know for a fact that Kat was very much part and parcel of initiating the proceedings. Hell, even the voicemail Derek played Alfie indicated as much that she was just as up for this dalliance as Derek.

Sorry, Lorraine, but as we say in the Southern part of the United States, that dog - or rather, bitch - don't bark.

Newman needs to pay attention to what her viewers are saying about Kat and the direction in which they want her character to go - away from Walford, with Alfie staying with Roxy.