The Ghosts of Christmas Past - Review: Christmas Eve 2016

Like a lot of people, I've got a housefull of relatives at the moment. It's the first time in a good few years all that all three of my children, plus the son-in-law plus the two grandkids have been under one roof, so I'm savouring that for a moment.

So it wasn't until a quiet time today, after the heavy meal when everyone is out of it or just out (a toddler and a young baby still suffering the after-effects of a long plane journey) that I get time to watch last night's episode and cogitate some thoughts.

First of all, I'm harsh on EastEnders at the moment, so my ratings are probably down compared to the fanboi experts who patronise me and use my very opinion as an excuse to exercise their misogyny. There are so many things wrong with the show yet, dating from John Yorke's involvement that whatever Sean O'Connor is trying to rectify, somehow, just isn't working.

Anyway, here are my honest thoughts on the show, which saw the end of one era, the cack-handed beginning of another and a lot of reference to the past. I can be honest here, elsewhere I get ridiculed and remonstrated.

Millennial Michelle. That's what I call Sean' O'Connor's Christmas Surprise, and it stinks. In fact, it stinks worse than Dot's fish paste sandwiches. You can't get Susan Tully to reprise her role as one of the most iconic and seminal characters in the show's history so - wham, bam, thank-you-ma'am - you re-cast the character.

As you do.

It's not enough to say there haven't been re-casts in the show. There have been plenty. Some, because of death as when the first Mark Fowler ...

... became the second Mark Fowler ...

We've had two Sam Mitchells, the fist Sam being wildly divergent ...

from the nicer, milder second Sam ...

There have been two Lauren Brannings - the first being a lolly-pop headed, mumbling, non-entity ...

... and the second being loud, obnoxious, gurning and with windmill arms ...

And Sam Strike's Johnny Carter ...

who lollygagged about on the sofa all day and allowed Linda to cater to his every need, and there's also Ted Riley's Johnny Carter ...

... who's seen attending uni courses and quoting the law as well as other moral mores, inserting himself and his opinion where it often hasn't been requested.

There have been three Janines, three Bens, two Denny Rickmans and a plethora of Peter Beales, and of all the only recast character consistent with the original premise, has been Janine. 

All of this is to say that sometimes re-casts work, and sometimes they don't, but that sometimes some characters are so iconic, so seminal to the show that, even when they leave, they shouldn't be recast. John Yorke tried for yonks to get Anita Dobson to return to the show to do a six-month stint at the end of which Angie Watts would die. She refused. Rather than re-cast a dying Angie, he had her die off-screen, with Sharon witnessing her death so there could be no revivalist repercussions. He didn't think to recast her, the thought never crossed his mind. No one else could play Angie, no one else could be Angie. She was and always will be Anita Dobson.

And that boils down to the Michelle recast. Simply put ... This ...

... is definitely not in any way ... this ...

Because this is Michelle Fowler, Susan Tully as she is today - not some sleek, svelte sharp-faced woman striding around Walford. It meant nothing to see her sitting on Arthur's bench. This is Arthur's daughter, but not anyone with whom I am familiar. The power that should have emanated from the last scene, when a distraught Sharon goes outside to escape from a claustrophobic situation created by her dying husband's cowardice, self-pity and extremely cruel emotional manipulation, simply didn't come off - because Sharon collapsed into the arms of a stranger, and the surprise was having Sharon utter the name "Michelle."

Surprise! Because most of the people who have been wetting their Y-fronts at the unintentionally leaked information about this character's return never saw the character in the flesh the first time around except from various grainy clips from YouTube. They'll be able to invest in the character because something established is being re-introduced as something new to them. Already, they're licking their lips at the prospect of a potential return of the ludicrous twat that slinked onto the scene during the summer as well as the return of the odious Vicki, never thinking that both Michelle's children are adults well-equipped to live in a world without their mother being at their beck and call. Fucking Vickiy is 30 years old, so it's not at all unrealistic that she'd even want to live with her mother yet.

For those of us who've watched from the show's inception or at least from the 1990s, this woman isn't Michelle Fowler at all. Granted, she's been away from Walford and the UK for twenty years, and changes in outlook and attitude are to be expected, but the entire look, her mannerisms - Michelle would have been diffident and hesitant in revealing her presence to Sharon, and, oddly, gentler, rather than striding up with a cheesy smile.

I get it that her return was always going to be the surprise at the end of this episode, and in that respect - had it have been kept under wraps - it would have had the stench of an old US soap trick emanating from within. US soaps, still and in their heyday, re-cast without compunction. Soaps, especially the ones based in New York, were stepping stones for actors on the way up, as much as those on the way down. As people moved on and got roles in a play or on prime time telly, their roles were re-cast. Sometimes, the show wanted to take a character down an different path and re-cast because they believed this would be more effective. A character would leave the show for a period of time, maybe even die off-screen, and down the line, would come a mysterious stranger, who would be revealed, by the time the organ music swelled at the end of the episode, to be an old face with a new head.

It's early days, and I'm bound to be berated for expressing my opinion, but the look is wrong, the mannerisms are wrong and the voice is certainly wrong.

But then, I'm in the minority who remember what a seminal and important character Michelle Fowler was. Brutally important. Important enough that if the original actor who played the role didn't want to reprise it, then TPTB should have left well enough alone and accepted her better judgement. 

Sometimes, when something ain't broke, you don't fix it.

This is a Michelle for the Millennials, who seem to think they own the rights to EastEnders lock, stock and two smoking barrels, because, after all, isn't today's EastEnders written entirely for, about and by Millennials?

The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Dot. I'm not a fan of Dot in any way. At the best of times, I find her morbidly wrapped up in her own self-pride, and at her worst, she's a head-bobbing cartoon.

But I found this episode's depiction of Dot's plight poignant and oddly moving. It's all too au courant, an elderly person, who's part and parcel of the community for so long that people take her very presence for granted. The launderette is closing down, a place where Dot had worked for 50 years, a place where most of the older residents had seen as a place of refuge more than just an ordinary launderette.

It was, again, all too common to hear Kathy, of all people, make a point of reminding the market traders that this was Dot's last day at the launderette, and that she'd be having a leaving do; and then to see everyone in question, intend to drop in and visit her, but inevitably they found something else better to do.

Kathy was ringing Tina to cover for her, to enable her to visit Dot; obviously, Tina never came. Patrick had to go to the bank. It never registered with Sharon, because of her problems with Phil. Jane and Stacey thought to give it "just another hour" before popping over and never did. Truth was, most of these people had the all-important Christmas play on their minds, so no one visited Dot, and that's when we got some visits from the voices from Dot's past.

For me the big surprise was Dot finding an old cassette tape in the back of a drawer as she cleaned out her belongings at the launderette, addressed simply to "Mrs Branning," only to play it and to hear that it was a Christmas present from several years ago from Heather, who'd made a compilation tape of cheesy Christmas music for Dot as a gift. Hearing the voice of Heather again, after she'd been dead for four years, and her banter with Shirley, was jarring, if not a bit sad. (One wonders if Cheryl Fergison's services were obtained for the voice-over for this tape). Then, as Dot left the launderette, hearing the voices of the past in Dot's mind, voices of people who'd meant a lot to her and who'd influenced her in her past - Jim's asking her out for their first date; Lou, seeing Dot to say her own good-byes when she knew she was dying; Ethel, talking of her little dog immediately before she was forced to have him put down; and finally, Pauline, speaking of just how important Dot had been to both the business of the launderette and to the community. 

The only person to have entered the launderette today was the ineffectual glorified extra known as Shrimpy, and that was to bring an elderly cassette recorder that Winston had, in order that Dot could hear this tape. He couldn't stay even for a sandwich, he had to prepare for the play. Like everyone else.

For several episodes now, we've seen a stray black cat hanging around Dot's house, an animal who refuses to leave, no matter how hard she tries to shoo it away. Eventually, alone with her sherry on Christmas Eve, she relents and allows the creature to come into her house. Dot's lonely, and animals provide an unconditional conduit by which people can give their love and compassion, when humans about them show nothing but neglect.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Phil. So Phil's spent the night being taken in by Shirley and, in the morning, hearing a few home truths from her. 

I want to say that at the moment, Linda Henry is the strongest and best damned actress the show has, but oddly, she isn't being used nearly enough. She's got a spiffy new hairstyle too, which is very complimentary to her.

Kudos to Shirley, however. 

She's the third character in less than a week to call Phil Mitchell out as a coward, and to remind him that Sharon is the brave one here, for sticking it out with all his little idiosyncracies and self-pitying ploys. Shirley takes no prisoners, and she is now, finally and to her credit, totally over Phil to the extent that she feels sorry for Sharon for having to put up with this ginormous babyman.

However, it isn't Shirley who makes Phil see the light. Oh, no ... it's Saint Denise, who's carrying his holy rainbow child. She runs into Phil (deliberately? on purpose?) as he's sat on a bench by Peggy's grave.

This is Phil's problem altogether. He's missing his mummy, as indicated by the words he uttered over her grave ...

Fat lotta good you're doing me in there.

All Phil wants is his mum to appear suddenly and kiss it better. Make it go away.

He wants Peggy back, and the days when he was powerful and feared and could rule his "manor." It's not death of which he is afraid, it's mortality, it's getting older, it's losing strength, and for Phil, that means losing face.

Denise's appearance was a blatant contrivance. Like hell, she comes by every year to mark Kevin's memorial slab. Kevin died on New Year's Eve, a whole week away, and last year, she was too busy creaming herself over seeing Lucas again and finding Jordan to ever think of visiting whatever memorial stone they have to mark the passing of a man who only stuck around Walford for two years and whom no one remembers. His rapist son showed up not referring to him as "dad" but "Kevin." Why should Denise want to remember him as well?

Instead, she used the opportunity to gurn a bit, throw some insults about, and then to proceed to tell him how his son would turn out bad and his daughter would get into drugs once she found her father had died - the inference always being that Phil intended to slope off and kill himself. How Denise suddenly obtained divine powers is beyond me, but to this producer, she's everything to everybody.She even spares a fleeting thought for Sharon too - ya know, the woman whose husband fathered her baby and doesn't even remember it.

Denise must know that Phil is dying - everyone knows this; yet when Phil remarks about how he's seen Denise staring at him from across the Square (for someone supposedly not wanting the father of her child to find out about its existence, she's certainly making it obvious enough), Denise assumes that Phil thinks she fancies him, screws up her nose in that particularly awful look of disdain she has and tells him to look in the mirror. Nice one, Denise. Because you have so much to offer on that front, yourself, don't you? 

I get the irony that TPTB intended showing in this scene, with Phil not knowing about who fathered Denise's child on a one night stand (and how did he know her pregnancy was the result of a one night stand?), but irony shouldn't be so obvious as to have Denise standing there rubbing her belly and then sit down and rub her belly some more. We get the drift. She's carrying a blood Mitchell. 

And of course, the further irony is that her words of wisdom convince Phil to return to the family set-up she'll probably blow apart when she shows up on the doorstep with Rainbow Baby Jesus.

Phil's enormous sulk is felt by his scurvy daughter, who sulks as much as Phil because her sugar daddy who kept her in money and material things has chosen to abandon his family at Christmas because he feels sorry for himself. Diddums. He slinks into the community centre to catch Dennis in the play, and then he slinks home to sit in the living room in the dark until the kids and Jay discover him, lurking there in the shadows. At least Dennis and dippy Louise are happy to see him, Ben and Jay are indifferent - they've been this route too far before - but Sharon's at the end of her tether, and so she sees the ghost of her Christmas past.

The Ghost of Christmas Past: The Fowlers. So Martin's taken his Cratchit costume home because it turns Stacey on and they had sex. OK. But why was this relevant? We know that, for the moment, this couple works, and everything's going swimmingly until the stray black cat nibbles the turkey - at 10 pm on Christmas Eve with nothing open where it might be replaced. 

Stacey goes outside to bin it when she thinks she sees a face on Arthur's bench, a face she just may have seen in some of Mark's family photos, but she isn't sure. Then when she puts out a request on social media for anyone who could help her find a turkey ... another turkey sitting in a car in the dark, nearby, comes to her aid in a cyber manner - and we know that this is really the ghost of Christmas past for Stacey - 2007, to be precise. 

The long-awaited prodigal has returned.

The Ghost of Christmas Past: The Carters and Lee. Linda is acting like the child she usually is and sneaking about the Christmas presents when Mick receives a call from Elaine in Spain, which no one wants to take. So we see the passing about of the unwanted relative, only to find by the end of the episode that Elaine has had a stroke in Spain, and now Linda has to dash off to be with her, after binning her off earlier.

Lee, on the other hand, is keeping a low profile from the neighbour next door, who obviously heard that Lee had taken delivery of a parcel he's expecting. And so it goes.

And Finally ... This Christmas Show has lasted three episodes. We were treated to all three of the nights it ran, and at last it's at an end. Louise, who seems to have forgotten that, at that time, Phil was AWOL, is geeing dipshit Rebecca up against dipshit Shakil, and Donna gets invited to the Kazemis for Christmas. Joy.

The End (Not) - Review:- Friday 23.12.2016

One thing I do love, in a purely cynical way, is how EastEnders, under O'Connor's domain, tries to have a literary, arty-farty bend to it. In a way, it's like watching The Archers in an urban setting, but in another way, it's like watching a schmaltzy movie from the 1930s.

It's Christmas, and it's plodding. But then everything is geared for the Millennial crowd and their wankfest at the re-cast of a horse-faced woman who's supposed to be Michelle.

Seriously.

Phil Throws a Pity Party. I love it when EastEnders tries to be subtle and clever, playing out Scrooge's seminal epiphany moment at his future graveside, wondering how he ever became so soulless and empty that he meandered to a lonely and abandoned grave as the backdrop and voice-over to Phil's current situation.

The star of the episode was Dot, and I'm not a fan of hers, and also the writer Matt Evans, for having the balls to put words into Dot's mouth that was the total and complete truth about the Mitchells as people.

They are cowards. Bullies and cowards, who take the easy way out of a difficult situation. They bluster, blowse and bully their way through life, revelling at being lords of their "manor," but death comes to us all, and it comes in various ways.

Dot was totally right. Peggy was a coward to choose suicide, rather than fighting her cancer to the last breath, and in that respect, everything about her life was a fraud. The same with Phil. I don't know if the writers, in general, want us to feel sympathy for him in his plight; but last night's episode and his behaviour tonight just showed me that what's bothering Phil now, more than anything, more than his illness, is his own mortality. 

He's getting old, and no matter that he'll get a new liver - we know he will, and it will probably be Ronnie's as Roxy's will be drug-addled - but it won't strip away the years. He won't be the king of the hill, the big man, the one the people feared anymore. He'll just be an ageing man, watching his health and his behaviour, as younger men of a different ilk step up to the plate.

He's taking the coward's way out, instead of fighting for his life. He thinks so little of his wife and children because he's embarrassed to be revealed as what he perceives to be weak, because he's so ill. Some of the bravest people on earth fight the most devastating illnesses and medical conditions - Steven Hawkinge, anyone? - and those aren't even self-inflicted like Phil's.

So, kudos to Dot, for telling it like it is. The Mitchells - Peggy, Phil, Grant, Sam, the lot of them - are cowards. When the going gets tough, rather than face the consequences and fight, they cut and run. And credit where credit is due, the Sharon in that last scene was 1990s Sharon, brooking no nonsense, at the end of her tether with Phil's self-pity, ingratitude and selfishness, epitomised by the fact that the only way he could express his sentiments to his children was by handing them money instead of saying the words they longed to hear from him.

Finally, finally, the Mitchells are exposed for the sham artists that they are. Faux strong-arms, who fold when mortality challenges them.

The real surprise this Christmas shouldn't be the "return" of a woman who will no more be Michelle Fowler for however short a time than a Dutchman would; the real surprise should be Phil Mitchell's death. 

But it won't be.

Steve McFadden can't be surpassed in playing a drunk, but Phil isn't drunk anymore. He's very ill, maybe dying - so why do I think he's acting the way he did when he was drunk? He had that same, bleary-eyed, half-cocked stare, he shuffles, he grunts and pants. One wonders if his liver disease is so late stage that it's developed into hepatic encephalopathy, affecting his brain; but I don't think so. I think McFadden is on autopilot playing Phil in this stage, and he's channelled Phil the drunk.

To watch Phil shuffle about the Square, plying Ben with money, but not ever telling him his feelings for the boy; he gives money to Louise and condones her plans to atten a club night on New Year's Eve, advising her to take a cab home. Sorry, but aren't things like this restricted to people aged 18 and over? I know Louise looks 18, but sending an underaged girl of 15 out to an event like this is playing right into the hands of Social Services, and that doesn't even involve Jay's presence.

But that's Phil's way - give the kids some money to have a good time, and forget about him, and he couldn't even face his wife.

Dot at least had the courage to remind him that he had a wife and children who loved him and called him out on his selfishness and cowardice, for putting himself first, not wanting to live with what he'd become. She spoke the truth when she told him that Jim Branning was more of a man than he would ever be.

In the end, Dot gave up on him.

God be with you ... That means "good-bye".

It's a shame the producers don't give up on this totally worthless character. Since John Yorke started the rot, by tacking the worst aspects of Grant's character onto Phil and calling it development to Kirkwood's pairing him with Shirley and turning them into a pseudo-romantic idea of Shirley as cerebral Phil and Phil and dumb Grant to the shitstorm of amoral terpitude heaped on him by DTC, Phil is a totally irredeemable character, but I get it that he'll be given a reason for living by she-who-can-do-no-wrong Denise and her Holy Rainbow Child.

Spare me.

Secrets and Lies. I don't feel sorry for Lee in the least, but I think Whitney is a whining, puling, little bitch. I get it that Lee has told a porky pie about the type of job he's got, but did he? Or did she assume that because he was working in the City, that he was earning mega bucks?

She's spending money like there's no tomorrow. Is this the money she must earn from her shifts in the pub? Are her purchases bought on Lee's credit card? I get it that she wants to prove a point and outdo Linda in the Christmas League, but the first time Lee tells her that his mother won't like something that she's bought - fancy, expensive crackers - she runs whining to Mick, telling tales about Lee.

For fuck's sake, you're married! You're supposed to be adults, yet you go whining to Lee's father, a man on whom you clearly at one time had designs, telling tales, hoping he'll "have a word" with Lee and tell him to stop picking on or digging at Whitney. Pardon me, but didn't she do the same thing with Bianca, go running to her the moment a boy purportedly disrespected her in some way, and let Biance fight her battles.

I still don't think Whitney loves Lee. She loves the idea of what she believes him to be. In the end, we had another Christmas roof scene at The Vic, with Mick and Lee, in the dead of winter, sharing beers on the roof. At least, Lee managed to tell Mick that he worked in a call centre and that his job wasn't some high-powered financial job in the City. Was Mick stupid ever to think that his son, with no sort of qualifications, could land a financial job in the City?

How much of what Lee told Mick is uncertain, but he did come clean about the job, and Mick advised him to tell Whitney, which he promises to do ... after Christmas.

In the meantime, he's taken the virtual reality headpiece and pawned it for cash, and had the audacity to lie coolly and coldly to the man who should have been receiving the package - a Christmas gift for his nephew.

Lee's afraid of disappointing Whitney. Deep down, I think he knows her love for him is only shallow.

The Show Must Go On ... and On. What was that? The show was slammed by no less than the local critic for The Walford Gazette, and rightfully so. This was some sort of warped tribute to the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney "Let's Put On a Show" musicals of the 1930s ...

Nobody wants to do the show after being slammed by the press - and even Denise the plagiarist was put in her place by the press. Still, not even the holy mother Denise can't convince the people to participate in the second night.

Classic, schmaltzy stuff - leave it to Linda to do a Public Service Announcement and everyone puts the show back together in one hour, after Patrick and Derek had a heart-to-heart - that's DErek, the luxury character, who got another three-second scene with Martin, but SOC's version of Derek is pointed toward the bosom of the Fox-Hubbards. He's invited to spend Christmas with them, without seeking almighty Denise's permission, and even with po-faced snobby Libby home for the holidays.

The show was accommodated to include Danny Dyer's Cockney patois and Martin, Stacey and the kids bursting into Madness's Our House. 

Of course, the show was ultimately used as a lead-in to Phil's predicament. As you do.

What will the weekend bring? I wonder.

The Diva Episode - Review:- Thursday 22.12.2016

What the bloody hell was that all about? A detailed examination of an amateur show, people acting like Broadway divas, the Square bursting into song on an ordinary work day, Phil Mitchell having a bona fide soliloquy ...

What's happened to this show?

And don't even mention Christmas. For an episode in the seminal week running up to Christmas, that had to be one of the worst episodes I've ever seen on EastEnders.

Most of the cast gave a trailer trash-meets-idiot's version of A Christmas Carol, complete with in-fighting and petty squabbles, Derek had a hissy fit, Mick went shopping for Linda, Lee got further into debt, and Phil gave a soliloquy.

The Cratchits (Oh, Spare Me). Don't get me wrong; I really like Martin and Stacey, but that was just embarrassing tonight. For one moment, when the rest of the market broke into song with Martin, singing Madness's Our House, I thought that EastEnders had gone from sitcom to musical, complete with dancing, the way Martin was twirling the miserable po-faced Rebecca about.

I don't get this with her and TurdHead. I thought he'd dumped her and left it at that. What the fuck does she gain by sitting and staring at the interface of her expensive Smartphone?

The only voice of reason was Stacey, and she was right. Rebecca isn't the first girl to be dumped by an idiot, and she won't be the last. Shakil isn't important; Martin is - because he's her father.

The make-up scene was maudlin and schmaltzy, and once again, we have the situation where a parent is made to apologise to a child.

I don't think the Rebecca-Shakil shit has finished, but I wish they'd go.

Michael Goes Shopping. I thought Mick and Linda had both bought each other, unknowingly, made-up front page wedding announcements of their marriage the previous year, but maybe that's for their anniversary.

This entire segment had cliché written all over it. Mick, the typical man, who doesn't know what to buy Linda for Christmas and has to ask Whitney, someone who's not known Linda very long at all, but knows exactly what would float her boat at Christmas. I thought Linda's necklace that was stolen was some sort of heirloom from her grandmother, but it seems Holly Willoughby has the exact same necklace, prompting a subtle innuendo comment, from both Mick and Tina the Court Jester about Willoughby's most famous two assets ...

The purpose of the shopping trip was, at its end, a contrivance for Whitney to sigh and make a remark about how she wished Lee were more like Mick or something to that effect, and for Mick to reassure her and tell her that he thought she and Lee were just like him and Linda, solid for life; and that a lot of Lee's problems - and he wasn't far from being right, albeit for the wrong reasons - were his adjustment from the army to an office job, which seemed to be doing his head in.

Of course, we know that Lee and Whitney are anything but solid. He's slowly crumbling beneath her blithe inability to want to know what's irking him. The other problems the Carters are having is waiting for the insurance pay-out from the robbery, and whilst Linda's whining on the phone to Lee about that, Whitney's whining in the other ear, reminding him to ask for champagne flutes for the Christmas dinner.

Lee and Whitney live in one of the Branning kids' old bedrooms, with an en suite added. They're tripping over each other as it is now. They have a hotplate, a couch, an armchair, a flat-screen television and a bed. I guess the Carters will have to stand up to eat. 

Of course, Lee's new problems come when Whitney shows him the matching earrings she's bought for them to give as a Christmas gift for Linda. For some reason, this sets Lee off on one of his loan-hunting larks. I don't get this - surely Whitney paid for them, herself? Or did she use Lee's credit card? Whatever it was, he felt the need to seek out another loan, all the while a package, left mistakenly with him for another tenant, held a virtual reality headset, something Lee could probably sell for a pretty penny.

And once again, we have Whitney telling him how proud she is of him. Every time she tells him something of that ilk, we see Lee sink lower and lower. 

How long before he disappears?

The Mitchell Tragedy Unfolds. The highlight of the episode to me was Phil's soliloquy, delivered against the backdrop of a Ronald Reagan Western and to Jay. He confessed to Jay the real reason he'd given up hope for the future and was prepared to die. 

It's nothing to do with his liver or his illness, although serious ailments of any sort occur on a regular basis as people get older. No, what's bugging Phil is exactly that: He's getting older. It wasn't his illness or the seriousness of his illness that causes Phil's distress, it's the fact that he's getting older, past his prime, and he isn't King of the Cock anymore. This was brought home to him in his trip to West Ham's new stadium, where he witnessed two City yuppies, drinking and being obnoxious - the sort of people whom Phil, in his prime, would have "sorted" without compunction and without thought.

Phil remembers what the weekends of his youth involved - drinking and fighting - bantam cocks establishing their territory, and daring others to invade their pitch. He defended his manor, and for the majority of the 90s and the Millennium, Walford was Phil's manor.

Now, he can only sit on the sidelines and watch life go by; he can't even claim his territory anymore. He's ready to die, because without the ability to defend his pitch, without his ability to fight and stand his ground, he's less of a man and not worthy of life. He claims he has nothing to live for.

Jay listens to all of this, listens to Phil pronounce him a "good kid" (when only weeks before, he was calling him a nonce) and simply shakes his hand. He says nothing, this after finding out that the meeting with Billy Jay interrupted was, in fact, Phil planning his own funeral for Billy - to save Sharon the heartache of doing that.

She's been through so much ...

Yes, she certainly has. She's been beaten up, cheated on, insulted, accused of all sorts and treated like the doormat she's become, and so he's sparing her the expense and the trauma of organising yet another funeral.

But the amazing thing is this: That Phil Mitchell has a wife who loves him unconditionally, a daughter, a son, a stepson and a surrogate son, as well as an extended family who, for some benighted reason, look up to him, and yet they mean nothing to him. He has nothing to live for - not his wife, not his children - nothing matters to Phil but the loss of face, the loss of power, prestige and his innate masculinity, the loss of youth. He's mortal.

On the other side of the coin, we have Sharon spending extensive time with Ben, trying to explain to him how frightened Phil is and how Phil is a man whose actions speak louder than words - the two examples Sharon gives Ben are of how he supported Ben after Paul's death and collapsed going to his rescue when he was kidnapped. But Ben is right also - Ben was never good enough for Phil, he was never the son Phil wanted or expected, and that much is true also; but Sharon does the snow job on Ben and convinces him to spend Christmas with the Mitchell family, she emotionally blackmails him into spending what could be Phil's last Christmas here. 

Sharon has at least sussed Phil's fear, but I am so not invested in this storyline, knowing what will happen. Phil was totally fucked up by DTC, beyond redemption, and Steve McFadden is phoning it in, grunting, breathing like a stentor and whispering even more broadly. He's a parody of himself.

A Comedy Tonight. I thought bringing Derek back would be a moment of consequence, a character connected with Martin's adolescence and a positive force in his life. However, Ian Lavender, like Gwyneth Strong, is simply a luxury guest appearance, for one purpose only. Derek is there as the prissy, fussy, fanatical amateur director, who's a bit of a comic martinet - a Basil-Fawlty-meets-Colonel-Mainwaring person. Once the Christmas season is over, he'll be gone, and he only had a scene with Martin which lasted less than a minute.

The play was presented as a farce and a comedy - Mick playing Scrooge's nephew as Danny Dyer getting frustrated because someone in the audience was eating crisps ...

This is he theatre!

Donna and Martin taking a dose of Dutch courage to get them through the ordeal. Martin being over-awed by the local crowd to the point of falling mute, Steven getting caught up in his chain prop, and Kush taking a swan dive off the rear of the stage, Carmel offering dramatic advice and Derek keeping everyone behind for a dressing down and storming off in a huff.

This was like a very typical British sitcom. I kept expecting to see Nicholas Lyndhurst or Anton Rodgers putting in an appearance.

What the fuck was that all about?

Days of Future Past - Review:- Tuesday 20.12.2016

Days of future past, all right, and then some. Call it repetition for emphasis, call it déja vu, call it what you will, the Southern author, Thomas Wolfe, wrote a book about it, entitled You Can't Go Home Again.

And this is what I think Sean O'Connor is trying to do. This episode had it's We're the future of Walford moment, only this was a step into the past, with the three-way toast to the Beales, the Mitchells and the Fowlers. But where does that leave the Brannings, the Fox-Hubbards and the Carters, you ask?

All three of those outsider families will find themselves entangled in some way, shape or form with one of the three premier families listed above.

And now the gossip all around, especially in one area, is the possible return of a re-cast Michelle Fowler. With the mysterious phonecall that abruptly ended and with a mention in this episode of a Christmas card, it probably means she'll show up with a new head on Christmas Day as the "big surprise" Sharon Marshall's punting.

I feel this is wrong. The role of Michelle will forever be linked with Susan Tully, and there it should remain. The only people who are excited about it are the viewers who never saw her, except for the clips shown on YouTube - those people who watched from the eras of John Yorke and Diedrich Santer. This is being done for them, the Millennials (although they hate that word). It isn't being done for anyone who watched prior to 2000. We don't matter.

O'Connor will make his recast, and that means that wherever Michelle - a complex character and probably THE original nuanced character - goes, her two putrid children follow, kids who have been raised and who were born in the US, sounding like they were from the leafy Surrey suburbs, so us oldtimers are just going to have to suck it up and like it.

Or not.

The show bled long-term viewers when they brought zombie Den back. It can't afford to bleed more.

In my opinion, which isn't allowed to be expressed in some spheres, this is O'Connor's second strike.

Only one remains.

The Shitty Teens Again. The girl who plays Rebecca is arguably one of the worst actresses who ever appeared on the show. She calls herself a singer, but she's pretty bad at that and all. 

Does O'Connor think presenting the classic teenaged love tryst storyline - the one where the silly girl doesn't want to lose her boyfriend, so she puts out and loses him - would interest us?

Stacey told Martin what happened between RedNose and TurdHead, and so she should have as well. She's his wife, and RedNose is his daughter. He has a right to know what she's up to, especially since she's still dependent on him for financial and emotional support and lives under his roof. He reacted ... like a father. 

Ian Beale would have done the same thing. And Mick Carter. Both did. And a fit Phil Mitchell or even Grant Mitchell would have done the same. Den Watts would have hung him out to dry. And so would Max Branning, but like all situations on EastEnders, the father in question was made to feel that his overreaction was wrong.

The good thing about this storyline is that Martin got some crafty zingers in at the expense of the Kazemis and their defensive self-righteousness. When Kush, holding him back from attacking Shakil, called him out for acting like a prat and not a father, Martin had a brilliant retort ...

Since when do I take parenting advice from you?

And when Carmel prissily asked where Rebecca's mother was, Martin shot back, asking where Shakil's father was.

The idea of Kush talking to Shakil about his behaviour was risible. This is a family of self-absorbed narcissists and sexual predators. The gist of Shakil's bad behaviour stems from the fact that he dumped Rebecca online ... "in front of everybody", she wailed. Kush agreed that this was low, and that was astounding, coming from a man who made a career our of one night stands and ditching inappropriate women after currying sympathy sex for his dead wife.

Shakil thought Rebecca wanted to dump him. Why? Because she kept wanting to talk.

Duhhhhhhh ... dumb or what? I guess Shakil is a man of action and few words. He just wants a fuck on tap and no conversation in between. Kush echoed exactly what Stacey told Rebecca: If you can't even talk to one another, what the hell are you doing sleeping with each other? That's not a relataionship, that's just using.

I liked Kathy taking on the role of Beale-Fowler matriarch, in speaking to Rebecca, and the reminsicent scene at the pub at the end of the rehearsal, when Ben toasted Kathy on her new name change, and everyone sat around remembering Lou; but Ben piped up and wished he'd known Lou - sorry, but Lou Beale was not his grandmother, or even his great-grandmother; and Lou wouldn't have considered him a Beale at all.

I'd also forgotten that Martin wouldn't have remembered Lou, being just a baby when she died, and it was funny hearing Jane refer to Pauline as a "battle-ax".

But the Shakil-Rebecca shit is just deplorable, and it's bad, not only because the actors are bad, it's bad because the characters stink.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death. EastEnders still doesn't do subtlety, and to me, that's playing to the lowest common denominator of viewer. Dumbed-down.

The story that's interesting me the most at the moment is the continued downward spiral of Roxy, a character I feel they shouldn't lose. Charged with the task of arranging Ronnie's hen night, she pulls a sickie on Donna and fuels her research with liberal snorts of cocaine.

We know this because all the time she's standing around talking to Ronnie about various venues, she's sniffing so loud and obviously, that you can barely hear her dialogue. Now Ronnie's pretty much a lowlife and a woman of the world, and it hasn't been that long since Roxy rocked up in Walford again, acting as a drugs mule and having a drugs problem.

But Ronnie's got a bad case of the stupids, or else the EP wants us to believe that this murdering psychopath has been tamed to domesticity by Jack's cock and three kids. She thinks Roxy is tipsy from drink. Roxy sniffs her way through most of the episode, pointedly refusing to spend Christmas with Ronnie and co, and between the two of them, uttering THE SINGLE MOST OBViOUS piece of overshadowing in the show's history:-

Roxy: This Christmas should be just you, Jack and the kids. It's your last Christmas before you move to Ongar.

Ronnie: IT'S OUR LAST CHRISTMAS.

Yes, Ronnie, it is, indeed.

The Spectre of Phil. Steve McFadden is phoning this in, shuffling around, gruning, mumbling his lines. He's off on a day out looking at West Ham's new stadium with another dying friend, leaving Sharon to deal with the small matter of Social Services and Jay.

There was good continuity, in that they've used the same social worker, who's followed Jay's case since he was a boy. He knows Jay, but he also knows that Jay is on the sex offenders' register, and cannot inhabit a house where an underaged girl is living. The choice is stark - either Jay leaves (and he's an adult, capable of living on his own) or Louise goes into care.

I know Jay was allowed to remain with Billy and Honey in the wake of his conviction, and they have younger children, but I think the core of this is more to do with Phil and his ability to exercise responsibility more than anything else. Phil is an alcoholic with a history of violence. Removing Jay from this equation is as much for Jay's protection as for Louise's.

There's an easy solution to all of this - the empty flat above Coker and Son. I'm sure Les would allow Jay to stay their, probably at a reduced rate, and maybe sharing with Ben; but under Sean O'Connor, the "bruvs"' relationship seems to have undergone a downward spiral.

Ben feels isolated and abandoned within his family dynamic. There's no more Treadwell-Collinish talk of being "brothers." Instead, as much as Ben feels jealous of Denny's relationship with Phil, he feels left out when Phil places a paternal hand on Jay's shoulder and announces that Jay is staying, regardless of Social Services. This is the man who kicked Jay out as soon as he was charged with the sex offence.

Later, when Ben returns from rehearsal and remarks to Sharon and Phil that Denny got in trouble for spying on the girls undressing, Phil, in pain and not thinking straight (bad pun), blurts out ...

It's what nomal boys do.

Phil loves his son, but he is simply unable to accept Ben's sexuality, and sometimes - because he's drunk or in pain - he says things that he shouldn't say, and it hurts. I was a bit taken aback by Sharon, trying to get Ben to ignore Phil's remark, but I thought the subsequent scene between her and Jay was good, and I'm not a Jay fan.

The line about Social Services having its priorities, but her having her own priorities was total Sharon. It's the sort of thing Sharon would do, and the fact that she's confiding her fears to Jay isn't lost on Ben, who's returned only to tell them that he's having a Beale Christmas and tha he doesn't belong in that family anymore.

So Ben's removing himself from the Mitchell frame ... just in time for the birth of Rainbow Baby Jesus Mitchell, another sucky storyline.

Just a word about Dennis leching on the girls. First, this was another, more cack-handed, attempt by the show to show generational continuity. Dennis is the son and grandson of inveterate womanisers, and he's showing an early interest in the opposite sex. I think in that scene, O'Connor tried to please everyone and ended up pleasing no one.

There was the indignant reactions of Louise and Rebecca, but even that was OTT. This was a ten year-old kid, copping a peak, not a sixteen year-old boy or even a man. There was Kathy, accusing Derek of blaming the victim (a tip to the odious sex offender Trump and everything that goes with him) and Mick and Patrick calming everyone down by saying, simply, that this is what boys do. It is. Dennis has a crush on his step-sister and he's also on the cusp of puberty and curious.

Dot the Martyr. Again.  I don't understand why Dot won't go with Abi to Devon. She clearly knew that Tanya wanted Abi to spend Christmas with her, and both Tanya and Abi wanted Dot to share Christmas with them. Was she really so expecting an invitation from Jack and Ronnie? Or does this have to do with her eyes?

The Endless Show. All of this played out against the backdrop of the Christmas show, enhancing Denise's ego,  which is expanding in proportion to her Mitchell-filled belly; giving us an attempt at comedy with Mick's tight trousers and Linda messing up the music cues; and establishing a camp generational comic duo of Johnny and Derek, which is a pity, because there's been almost no interaction between Derek and Martin, and that has been a waste and detrimental to Derek's character.

I know this is all setting the scene for the ubiquitous action-packed Christmas and New Year, but I don't like the way this producer is trying to take the show back to the future, but on his terms.

The Schmaltzy Sentimental Sitcom Christmas - Review:- Monday 19.12.2016

What the living hell was that?

For starters, it was a seriously good episode - for the most part - if  you like schmaltzy, sentimental feel-good American sitcoms, and I say that as an American. But this is EastEnders. They don't do sitcoms or romcoms or bits and bobs of feel-good Christmas drama.

Unless this is the false sense of peace on earth and goodwill to men before the shit hits the fan on Christmas Day and afterward, what was the purpose of this episode? And it even had the feel of being the actual Christmas episode - no dramatic duff-duff, a rolling credit reminscent of the sort put on for a significant episode and a fade-out to Christmas music - specifically the awfully maudlin All I Want for Christmas Is You.

What is happening to this show? I get the community spirit and feel - that came in spades tonight, but what I saw tonight was not EastEnders. Good programme, but not EastEnders.

That was filled with Newmanesque love and warmth.

Let's get the shit out of the way, first.

He's Just Not That INTO You: RedNose and TurdHead. This is so laughably awful and trite, it's almost criminal. It's the classic stuff of teenaged angst from the 1950s. Still, since the Brexiteers and the Trumpsters seem hell-bent on propelling society back to that time, it's almost normal. 

Shakil is looking for a Bexit, not a Brexit. That much is obvious. This is what happens when you give yourself to the first boy you fancy. I don't like Rebecca, and my dislike of her was confirmed tonight when I saw the self-obsessed and selfish way she treated Louise, as they walked to school - and I'm no great liker of Louise.

But Louise's father is dying, and Rebecca is banging on and on about the pathetic Shakil not calling her, not even putting in an appearance, and making up excuses about why she hasn't seen him - maybe he was helping his obsessive mother, or maybe he was rehearsing his lines for the play, maybe he was doing a lot of things. Even Louise's succinct and meaningful line (Or maybe he's dead) in an obvious reference to the actual seriousness of her situation as compared to the relative triteness of Rebecca's, was totally lost on Rebecca.

The only time Rebecca's interest is sparked is when Louise tells her that Shakil had texted her, Louise, about meeting up to rehearse their lines. Louise's advice to Rebecca is to call him, confront him about his behaviour, talk to him about how he comes around for a bonk and then she hears nothing, but it's couched in the absolute worst line of dialogue ever assigned a fifteen year-old character ...

You're a strong and independent woman, Rebecca Fowler ...

Seriously, what 15 year-old girl talks like this to her friend? This is the sort of line someone like Lauren would say to Whitney, but Lauren and Whitney are 21 and 22 years old, respectively. This is what I mean by the fact that Tillie Keeper, even scrubbed of make-up and clad in a school uniform, still looks her age, and get lines ear-marked for a character in her late teens/early twenties ... or even older.

Shakil, meanwhile, is hunkered down in his mother's office, hiding out. He doesn't want to go to school because he's frightened of Rebecca pestering him. As he informs Kush, who is a sexual predator, himself, he's already "done it" twice, and Rebecca's eager for some more.

The scene in the park was bum-clinchingly awful, from dowdy Rebecca, with her prominent probiscus, hunched over the picnic table munching on chips to a visibly uneasy and grunting Shakil.

Look, Shakil is horny. He doesn't want a relationship with Rebecca, because - apart from the fact that she's spread her legs a couple of times for him - he doesn't fancy her. However, if she offers it to him on a plate, he'll take it; because as a 16 year-old boy, he'd be a fool not to do so, He's actually quite pointed in telling her that they don't have to be all over each other and hang out with each other. If Rebecca had any nous, she'd take the hint. He only wants you when he's horny for sex, love, and that type of relationship, you do not need.

Later, she attempts to talk to Stacey about this situation, and actually, what Stacey said was good common sense ... it's just that Rebecca is too stupid to understand Stacey's meaning. For someone not even out of her twenties, having to deal with something like this so early on must have been difficult for Stacey - her face was actually a picture. This is the sort of thing she should be talking to Lily about in ten years' time, yet there she is, sitting on the sofa in the NuFowler front room, talking to Rebecca, who's afraid she hasn't "done it" righth with Shakil.

Dumbarse, there is no "right" or wrong way to have sex, but like Stacey said, intimacy is more than just the sex act. If you can't talk to someone with whom you've been intimate enough to share your body, then the sex act becomes something simply hormonal. Sex, or as Abi would have put it making lurrrve is an extension of and an expression of real love between two people. Rebecca was so stupid, she totally mistook Shakil's interest to be fondness and affection. He was only ever interested in her when he was either directly or indirectly pressuring her to have sex. Countless numbers of people told her that if she felt unready for this, then she didn't have to do anything, but she rushed headlong into this situation, and now she's paying for it.

She thinks she loves him; he wants sex. He as good as told her, they'd only hang out for that purpose, and she should have taken the clue, at least, from his body language, and he was purposefully avoiding her. He wants a fuck buddy, nothing more, nothing less.

She furthers her own stupidity by barging in on the rehearsal where he's playing a young Scrooge, who's being dumped by his girlfriend for being too greedy and stingy. It just so happens that the dialogue between the two, in Rebecca's silly mind, mirrors her own dilemma, and when Louise, in character, turns away from Shakil, RedNose makes a fool of herself, crying out to Shakil to explain to Louise, in character, why he's changed. It almost seems as if Rebecca is jealous of Louise in that scene, but later she's made to find out the scope of Shakil's involvement with her when he posts his status on Facebook as "single."

Dumped on the Internet.

Maybe she'll use her red nose to guide her to her putrid mother.

The Miracle of Christmas. There were three, and this was pure sitcom. In fact, it could have been a British sitcom episode.

1, The Kind Policeman. The Secret Santas who'd stolen the tree from the Council, have been rumbled by CCTV camera. Mick's face has been caught on camera. He's fed Linda's ego by allowing her to believe that her incessant e-mailing resulted in the Council providing them with a better tree.

In true sitcom style, we had the ubiquitous policemen, a detective no less, who knows in advance what's happened, appear at The Vic, just as the grotto is about to start. We have the usual lie - the agency didn't send a Santa, but an elf (Tina) - only to have Mick show up decked out as Santa Claus. 

There follows the epiphany scene, with Linda, Mick and Tina arguing the toss about the tree, and the kind policeman agrees to look the other way as long as the tree is returned to the Council in its proper place. Cue a male bonding exercise, directed by Mick - if they have to return the tree, they all return it - Mick, Martin, Jack, Kush and Shrimpy - dressed as Santas and in Billy's hearse.

And cue the unfunny scene of Carmel, playing Angry Mamma and slapping Kush about the head. 

Embarrassing.

2. Ian Beale Is Snookered. Again, this is totally something from the script of a sitcom. Faced with having no tree, Linda and Stacey pay a visit to the man who just happens to have a forest of them. Classic sitcom scene where the gruff protagonist is upended and outsmarted by by two women. When Ian refuses to budge about donating trees to the Square for free, Linda comes up with the idea of using these trees as a display to advertise Ian's Christmas tree sideline. If he allows them to decorate and display the trees, with a sign advertising Ian's enterprise.

Miracles of miracles! It happens, complete with decorations and festive music, and the Secret Santas returning home to gaze in wonder at what Stacey and Linda had accomplished. We see the principal couples lovingly reunited - Mick and Linda, Stacey and Martin and Jack and Ronnie. We see Carmel reunited with her sons, and oddly standing directly next to Martin and Stacey and paying no attention whatsoever to Arthur.

Then there's the single scene of Jane wheeling onto the Square to remark to Stacey that "they" didn't do so badly after all - so was an off-screen consultation held between Linda, Stacey and Jane about how to approach Ian and stoke his ego?

3. Ollie Walks. The one thing that's preying on Linda's mind is Ollie's assessment coming up in the new year. She's worried about his developmental process, but, again - miracles of miracles - Mick comes on the scene with Ollie walking solidly toward Linda.

The Drama Bits. Well, there was Dot, whose eyesight hasn't seemed to respond to the treatment. Her loneliness and vulnerability was heightened by the presence of the little black cat, which seems to hang around her front door. Abi's told Ronnie about Dot's problem with her sight, and Ronnie approaches Dot in the launderette. Dot thinks she's come to invite Dot to spend Christmas with her and Jack and the kids, but Ronnie's only offered what she's been offering a lot of to various people lately - money. She and Jack have offered to pay for an innovative operation which might restore Dot's sight. It's a Chrismas gift, but Dot takes offense.

Then, there is Lee. Whitney's only gone and decided to cook Christmas dinner for the entire Carter clan. No matter how much Linda offers to help with the expence, she assures her that Lee is "doing really well" at work, so they'll cover everything. Of course Lee is doing really well at work - he's just worked over Billy's flat and came up a cropper. But now he's got to do what he always does - take out another payday loan to cover Whitney's Christmas caper. Hang on ... doesn't Whitney get a wage from the Vic? Why can't she contribute to something like this, instead of rely on Lee?

And finally, Roxy, the saddest and most poignant scene of all, sat in the park watching mothers play with children. We don't know, but Roxy is waiting for someone, not Ronnie, who inevitably shows up to reiterate that Roxy doesn't have to give Amy up for adoption and to wonder why Roxy wasn't around during the weekend. Roxy insists that giving Amy to Ronnie and Jack was the best thing for Amy, and as Ronnie leaves, her butch female dealer appears. The last we see of Roxy is her sat, strung-out on the floor of Phil Mitchell's loo.

Good episode, but not your normal EastEnders.

The Overshadowed Christmas - Review: Friday 16.12.2016

Natalie Mitchell is a writer who isn't used enough by the sensitive snowflakes inhabiting the writing room. While not much happened in this episode, it was brilliant in characterisation and subtlety.

It was all played out against the children's Nativity, the rehearsals for the play, and Jack's stag do.

A Brief Word about Jay. Considering that this is my own blog, I can say what I like about an actor who's basically a one-trick pony, and who will probably end up a 45 year-old version of his beetle-browed self, mooching about, feeling sorry for himself, and making mincemeat of the fact that this is the only role he's ever played.

Lazy. Actor.

Anyway, let's get one thing straight. Jay is a sex offender. And there he was, bold as blazes, sat in the café, overseeing the woman Louise's and Denny's breakfasts. That's right, someone on the Sex Offenders' Register was in charge of two underaged children, one of them a girl.

Louise is one of two girls whose stupidity is legion in Walford, but she's fifteen years old. She's been in Social Services care before, and she should have common sense to know that Phil, even at his healthiest, couldn't fight the Social if they come gunning for removing Louise because it's their right. Jay cannot live in a house where there are underaged children.

Billy and Honey did the right thing. They invited the Social Worker into their home and talked about how long they had known Jay and how they trusted him. They were cool, calm and very articulate. Instead, we had Phil, shuffling and grunting about - he was rude to the police officer, so was pithy Louise, and he baited the guy with stupid Christmas cracker riddles. The police officers, and one was a woman specifically for that purpose, know now exactly what type of household Phil runs.

Jay is sitting on a time bomb waiting to be turfed out, and he will do so in martyr meme. When the Social tries to take Louise from Phil and Denny from Sharon, Jay will become the self-appointed sacrificial lamb.

He even made a major sacrifice tonight - removing himself from the Christmas play - Jay plays a white younger Scrooge who eventually ages into a black man - because he was required to take Louise's hand in the play, and then kiss her. The latter was on Derek's direction. I find it astounding that no one had thought to apprise Derek of Jay's situation. Instead, it was left to the Madonna of Albert Square, Denise (ironically carrying the sainted Mitchell Rainbow Christ Child) to suggest that there might be something more useful Jay could do "behind the scenes." Since when did Denise learn tact?

Once again, and worryingly, EastEnders are pitching sympathy for a sex offender. At best, had Linzi been of age, Jay would have bedded her, not just because he was attracted to her, but to prove a point to Ben, of all people. His basic premise for being with Linzi was to score a bonk. Six weeks he was seeing the girl, and he never once thought to ask her anything about herself - her age, what she did for a living, her family ... nothing.

He was stupid, he got caught and admitted his guilt. He's paying the price. He has to abide by certain terms and conditions of his licence for five years. He isn't worthy of pity - the remorse he showed was purely because he was awfully sorry he was stupid enough to get caught.

Please stop asking viewers to sympathise with a convicted sex offender. You'd think the BBC, who made a living out of harbouring the worst kinds of sex offenders, would know better.

A Word about Denise. Sean O'Connor is re-inventing many characters, and Smacked BumFace is one of them. Because she's been inveighed with wisdom and self-importance from carrying the blessed Mitchell Rainbow Christ Child. she glides about the Square, benignly imparting wisdom and solving problems.

She's still basking in the admiration heaped on her by the multitude of uneducated people in Walford. It's clear from the dialogue Patrick uttered the other day that she'd openly plagiarised dialogue from the A Christmas Carol, itself. Tonight's scene between young Scrooge and the girl he gave up for money had this offering ...

I want to spend some time alone wiv you, Ebenezer.

Really, Denise? We're talking 1840s England, not 21st Century Walford. Belle, for that was Scrooge's lady friend's name, could no more have "spent some time alone with him" than she could have kissed him. Don't be so bloody ignorant.

And tact ... since when has Denise ever had tact, sidling up and whispering to Jay ...

I understand why you can't do this scene ...

Before toddling over to the café to offer Roxy some benign advice about make-up and children. Shut up. Just shut up. You aren't so great, and now we realise that her putrid mother is about to be cast - just another stereotypical Jamaican who'll play reggae, fuck Patrick and be the mother-in-law from hell to Vincent, whom I'm liking more and more.

And more and more, I'm thinking that maybe Ronnie and Denise should jump to their deaths and leave Roxy and Kim.

A Brief Word about the Blisters. I know they are leaving, but do you know what I hate about this entire leaving line, which, evidently, will result in both of them dying?

It's this: Ronnie needs karma. She kidnapped a child and let his parents believe that he was dead. She killed two men in cold blood and proceeded to swan around the Square as if her shit didn't smell. She married a good, had his son, bot bored and fucked a man on the floor of her front room whilst her young son was upstairs. She "arranged" for her husband to be put out of the picture, after he called her out for being what she is - a cold-hearted, control-obsesses psychopath.

She was rewarded with a reconciliation with her first husband, and acquired two of his children to add to the one she already had by the husband she ran off. And the viewers are being asked to accept her as the suburban Yummy Mummy, whose happiness has been regularly upset by her immature little sister.

Roxy, on the other hand, deserves to grow as a character, without the impediment of Ronnie, hanging about like a bad smell, reinforcing the poor self-esteem she holds about herself, that without Ronnie guiding her life, she'll inevitably fuck up.

What TPTB have given us is an abiding image of Ronnie as the core of stability, happy with Jack and successfully raising (and spoiling) Jack's two children, one of whom happens to be Roxy's child. Roxy, on the other hand, is now being represented as a feckless, irresponsible failure of a mother, who can't do anything right for her child, who fails her at every turn.

Of course, Amy is going to want to be a part of Jack's and Ronnie's dynamic. They are spoiling her rotten with riding lessons, a pony and all manner of material stuff. The idea being pushed is that Roxy has become one of those part-time parents who haven't got a clue about what their children like and need. The ultimate example of this was presented in Friday's episode, when Roxy gave Amy a gift at the end of the Christingle service - a make-up set for an 8 year-old. Roxy's idea of a day out with Amy is a trek around the shops, when Ronnie and Jack take her to the pantomime or the zoo or someplace kids enjoy going. It was heartbreaking to see Amy's puerile, rude response to Roxy's gift, dumping it unceremoniously back in the shopping bag from whence it came. Instead, she would rather go with Jack, Amy and Ricky to visit Grandma Dot. And why not?

The meme being pushed is that Amy, like all children, craves stability and normality, something she didn't have with Roxy; and the writers have contrived to have everyone from Donna to the Reverend Stevens suggest to Roxy that the kindest thing she can do for Amy, the ultimate sacrifice of unconditional love is to get Jack and Ronnie to adopt Amy.

Last week, we had Donna tell Roxy that the kindest thing her mother ever did was to put her into care, where she sould get the specialist attention she would need by responsible people who made it their business to look out for her. In Friday's episode, we had a quiet moment on Arthur's bench between Roxy and Rev Stevens when he quoted a fridge magnet and implied that the ultimate sacrifice Roxy could make for Amy would be to give her to Jack and Ronnie.

I actually find this offensive. 

Roxy has never been anything less than a loving mother for Amy, and in that respect, everything else hasn't been any better or any worse than any other dodgy mother on the Square, and I could include the likes of Stacey, Jane, and even fucking Ronnie in that equation. Certainly Sharon. Definitely dumbass Denise. And Pearl is only an accessory for Kim's bad taste.

I also know that all of this is meant to lead Roxy back into the iniquities of a cocaine addiction, which was heavily implied by her last scene, drinking alone in The Albert, then meeting up with a female pusher in the alleyway to score a hit, and finally having the camera pull slowly away from the image of Roxy standing alone and bereft in the middle of the Square. 

All of this played out subsequent to the big scene between the Blisters, when Roxy tearfully gave Ronnie permission to adopt her daughter. For all of Ronnie's alligator tears, this is what she's wanted and intimated all along. Now she has a real-life child version of Roxy to bring up in her image.

But we know that won't happen. Because two weeks from today - Sunday 18th of December - Roxy and Ronnie will both be brown bread.

A Word about the Beales and the Fowlers. Theirs was a sitcom moment, a real-life enactment of Scroogy Cousin Ian denying Cratchitty Cousin Martin time off from the stall in order that he might attend his step-daughter's Cristingle.

But the Beale-Fowler dynamic seems to be steeped in sitcom situations at the moment. Martin and Stacey the Arthur-Pauline picture of stability with their requisite three children, had the continuity moment of the season with Stacey afraid to enter the church, as the Cristingle performance from the previous year had triggered her psychosis.

At the moment she decides that she's unable to face the performance, who should turn up but Martin - his situation saved by the combined efforts of Jane and Lauren, who decide to man the stall so Martin can have the afternoon off to attend the performance. What was all that hoo-hah about the other day, with Martin doing a song-and-dance, beleagured Steven drafted in on the fray and Stacey shouting the odds about Ian's stinginess, when all anyone had to do was appeal to Jane, the current disabled version of Lou in the frame of things, and all would be well.

Instead, we see Jane and Lauren being wheeled to the rescue of diffident Martin, only to find, in a few moments time that Ian's dependency on Martin and his excuse being his bad back precluded him from shifting and ferrying Christmas trees, was fraudulent. 

Har-dee-har unfunny sitcom moment: Ian Beale liked being fussed over so much with his bad back that he enabled the problem to last a few days longer than necessary just to savour the moment of people running to and fro and doing his business.

The backdrop to all of this is silly, insipid Rebecca's crisis. I gather that she managed to allow the cretinous turd-headed Shakil to get a leg-over in the NuFowler abode the other night when she was there, ostensibly, baby-sitting two young children, and since then she's heard nothing from him. Again.

All it took was one bad, nasally-sung song dedicated to a dickhead with a man bun, for Shakil to realise that she'd be up and ready for some more spreaded leg action. Rebecca needs to realise something - that virginity isn't a thing that's lightly given, and that a romantic sacrifice like that is all too often done in the spur of the moment, not clinically planned the way she did, complete with dressing up and doing her make-up. Maybe that's why the occurrence wasn't that great. She also needs to realise that whilst she might think she "loves" Shakil, for him, she was a convenience, one of a gaggle of girls who said "yes" to his demands. 

As long as some other prettier, long-legged, blonde damsel - like Louise, whom he'll have to kiss in his new-found role as young (Iranian) Scrooge - doesn't make herself available, he'll happily carry on banging Rebecca RedNose.

This isn't Mick and Linda. This isn't a childhood romance. It's just an ugly girl mooning after a dipshit boy who comes from a long line of horny, self-obsessed chancers. 

The actress who plays Rebecca is all kinds of bad. She overdoes her reactions even in the smallest of ways. Had I been Lily, when Rebecca gave me the advice for conquering nerves of taking a deep breath and exhaling, I'd have run a mile. The intensity of her delivery would have frightened any child.

A Word about the Stag Do. In this instance, I think Danny Dyer as Mick works best. This was a believable stag do. Ian Beale wasn't invited. Nor was Phil Mitchell, who was too ill - nor Ben, nor Jay. The dynamic of Mick, Jack, Martin, Kush, Shrimpy and Mick's two sons, with Billy picked up along the way, worked well, and was quite amusing.

The whines about the Christmas lights and the stealing of the Council's Christmas tree was a bit over the top, but nothing compared to last year's storming of the Council's Christmas dinner by the market traders, and Billy, booted and suited, with a Santa Clause beard was quite funny.

However, more and more, I think it's obvious that not only was Lee in on the robbery at the Vic, which has been established, I think he was also in on the burglary of Billy's and Honey's flat. My guess is that when Lee leaves, he'll be in for some bird ... in prison.

Watch this space.