DRW50

I know what you mean. I know a lot of what's going to happen (I almost wish I didn't), so I could try to watch the April and current episodes simultaneously, but I'd just decided to wait. There are some short-term stories you could always skip over, but there's no way of knowing if you would have enjoyed them and wanted to watch them, so... To me the February stuff dragged a bit but a lot starts popping in March, and April is also very exciting so far. There's one ridiculous beauty shot of Steve playfully chasing Liz through the entire hospital that I can't wait for you to see. It felt so...alive, while today's soaps are so dead.

I don't think you should skip. I'm still in April, as I'm watching with my mother, and everything builds pretty steadily, especially in the Maggie/Matt/Karen saga. There's also the Bunker story which you'd miss, and I think you'd like that.

I think Mitch said he wanted to see more of Charmane (?). Anyway, I'm not sure if this was posted before, but here's a bit of her, in the first clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reDukKoeFnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPPIRLvHxPI You can also spot Barbara Garrick (later to return in the late '90s as Reid/David's psycho assistant) as Kirk's bitchy party date. Weird keyboard Little Richard music with Karen and Jeff. The background music in general on soaps at this time was odd I guess... The lighting is, for once in this era, appropriate in the scene with Frannie and Bob. Touching little scene. I guess Bob whooped some ass in the next episode. Charmane seems so much like an ABC soap character. I do think Marland might have had fun with her. I wish they'd brought her back to annoy Lisa later on...maybe during those years (89-91 or so) when Lisa was just listening to people and keeping baby secrets. She could have gotten a fashion talk show on WOAK or something. Or opened a trashy boutique nearby Fashions. Or thrown herself at Grant.

I sometimes see fans go on now about the good old days of the Freshco siege (1999, 2000), and so on, but to me that era of the show was just anathema to most of what made Corrie stand out. It's so needlessly grim and so generic, like something airlifted in from the last years of Brookside. Corrie can be both quaint and contemporary, but most showrunners seem to have no idea how to do this anymore. I guess 2002-2004 or so, flaws and all, were the last years they sort of did.

Barbara Garrick fans may enjoy this brief glimpse of her as Kirk McColl's party date - she gets in some bitchy lines with his "aunt" and makes one of those classic Barbara Garrick faces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reDukKoeFnU

He hosted twice, but was never a major part of the show. (Robin Williams)

I always liked Andy better too. I thought he was a more believable character. I also liked his droll humor. Unfortunately the actor was a part of one of those idiotic "Corrie has too many gays!" articles so I'm not sure they'll ever have him back (of course he'd aged badly, but I did like it when he popped up for visits).

The thing with Gail is as dumb as she was, she never knew anything but the best of Hilman for most of their relationship. Aaron mostly knows all of Robert's worst. So if he gets involved with Robert again, how many viewers will feel sorry for him, especially if he starts whining about how he hates being a secret? And if he doesn't get involved with him again, is that just going to be months of him self-harming while Robert makes evil eyes? The main reason some fans got into this story was because it wasn't another "poor Aaron" story. It may not have been a love story, either, but it was an interesting story about two screwed up guys and the consequences of their affair. If it turns into another "poor Aaron" story, along with Robert being written off as a serial killer (because clearly only Andy and Cain can get away with killing people), it's going to flop. Not to mention that if they had this planned all along, that means they always set out to say that bisexuality makes you murderous and depraved, which is disgusting. Adding into that the whole self-harm aspect mostly just being used to shock and not being treated seriously if it's just going to go on for months as viewers wait to see whether Robert will push Chas down the stairs and knock those awful bangs off her face. I'd like to believe she's just trying to create buzz, and nothing like that will actually happen, especially since his reaction to Katie's death was not "oh I killed somebody, now I can do it again and again." But her reply was so flippant I now have to assume the worst and have to assume that even though Robert is so integral to Emmerdale and Ryan has been such a perfect addition to the cast, she just sees him as fodder to more Andy and Aaron misery, sees him as disposable, not as a character in his own right. It's just a very sad and very wrong writing choice, if this is how they're going. And it's a great way to push viewers away for good.

I know some fans would say the early 90s were the last truly great period of the show, up to about 1994 or so. I guess I have to get around to watching more of that era. To be honest some of the characters heavily featured then just exhaust me somewhat (like Mike and the Macdonalds). I wish more of the 60s was on Youtube.

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s12/emmerdale/news/a629070/emmerdale-robert-sugden-to-endanger-aaron-livesys-loved-ones.html

These poll results only represent a handful of fans, but they're still a good reminder of the toll taken on popular characters in the last year. http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2052378

I can't remember if I posted this before, but it cracked me up. It's like an Emmerdale writer watched a lot of Lynch. And Dan's Cain impression is more than credible. Another laugh - some of the purity brigade reactions to the most popular characters in this fan poll. http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2052306

It's funny (well, funny and pretty damn sad), because I always see people calling for Harold's firing, and one of the reasons is because Kirkwood created her, so that means she must go. These types of fans don't give a care about Eastenders. It's all about soap wars and producer wars and showing what good little soldiers they are. You can always spot them because they give long PR-type responses in praise of the show that rarely seem to be what a human being would say (Collinson got the same reaction on Corrie). I'd just like to ask people exactly what DTC has done to help maintain Eastenders long-term? Buzz and a slight ratings uptick are good, yes, and important for the show's future, but what about characters or structure or something to build on? The flop Carters, who are a vanity project based on his own life, populated by actors who are already fleeing, do not count. What else is there? What has he done exactly? The fans who are eager to chase off Lola and whoever else he didn't create - what are they watching for? His name in the credits?

I mostly remember Pauline Quirke from a horribly depressing role on Emmerdale, but she's mostly known as a comedienne. Here she is at :30 selling BBC Choice. I guess by this time the BBC had begun to thaw out with Doctor Who as there's a fairly big use of the show in the ad.

Promo starting around 2:20. It's effective and low-key, not like the bloated promos of recent years. You can also see a bit of Martine around 4:20 in a spot for BBC Choice, looking and acting nothing like Tiffany, with no mention of EE. I guess because she was just about done with the show. They'd come up with an excuse if he did, but I don't think it will be him. I'd guess it's Cindy, Peter, Jane - some combo. EIther that or someone totally out of left field, for shock value, like Patrick.

There's so little of Laurie's Sharlene around, but I think Anna did a decent job with the transition.

Kate was an alter. She was a gatekeeper type because Sharlene needed her after everything that had happened. She sacrificed herself so that John could have Sharlene back. Yes, today Sharly and John would have been all over each other. I think they didn't want to write it that way here because it was still a bit of a triangle after she integrated. They did say she'd slept with Lucas years earlier, during a Sharly period. I'm not sure why the show went that route as it went nowhere.

I don't comment on it too much because I worry it's down to a medical issue (as he used to talk about running and things and kept slim for a long time), but that's part of it. The other part is the character, like Phil, has been stuck in the same stories too long. EE seems to think if they acknowledge what a loser he is, that means it's good writing, but smug meta is not a substitute for good material. This year of all years should have revitalized Ian. Instead it's the same old stories, with the same old dishrag at his side. I keep trying to think of something I'm looking forward to seeing this week. I like Peggy, but I don't see a need for the character to return and she's not a legend or an icon no matter how much she gets that bill. I don't care who killed Lucy. I don't care about the Carters. I guess I'm mostly going to try to watch because I like live episodes, and to see if any returns surprise me. What are you looking forward to?

Forsyth never returned after being fired. Holbrook did a few times - for Josie's wedding, and when Josie lost her baby in late 1998 or early 1999.

I think people only remember the hitman thing and not the rest of Cindy, which was mostly a lot of moaning, and fleeing Walford, and being unhappy with Ian. She wasn't some OTT soap bitch, like the way wooden Melissa Suffield played her. For all DTC's talk of loving the Beales, he had a great chance to build them up and now, between Lucy's death and Ben Hardy quitting, they've never been more irrelevant. And watching Ian just makes me sad these days, like Tad on AMC.

Anna won for the John/Sharlene/Felicia triangle. I haven't watched the later DID story, with Kate, but the one with Sharly was OK. It wasn't a disgrace, mostly because Anna played both personalities expertly, and Anna and Dack Rambo had solid chemistry (and the show made sure they never had sex). I always had some mixed feelings about it because I don't think they needed to put a sexual abuse history onto Sharlene. Her past as a hooker was one thing, but saying Jason had pimped her out as a child, and then all the stuff with Sharly and the mess with Taylor Benson...it almost felt like too much. I really liked the strong-yet-vulnerable woman we saw in her first 6-7 months on the show, the one who went toe to toe with Rachel and represented the Frame legacy.

Now that we're almost done with "Who Killed Lucy?", I mostly think about what the character never really was, and what most of the younger women on the show in recent years have never really been. When Eastenders started, Mary, Naima, Sharon and Michelle made up the younger female character set. The show used them to explore different sides of being a young woman growing up in a turbulent world. Naima had an arranged marriage and tried to adapt herself to modern culture. Mary struggled with being a single mother. Sharon wanted to have fun, meet cute boys, laugh, but was caught between her warring parents. Michelle was mostly just support until Mark had to be written out of the show, which heavily increased her role. Within a year she'd gotten the story that was at that time the biggest on Eastenders, and one of the strongest of all time - her affair and pregnancy by Den Watts, her best mate's father. Eastenders has had some great young female characters in the years since, and some not so great, but let's look at the current set. Cindy - barely there, mostly popping up now as a suspect Lola - barely there, mostly popping up now as a suspect, and as a plot device in the Carter misery, because of course a young mother who's trying to turn her life around would date a man accused of rape Nancy - barely there, mostly props up the bar, or pops up to make faces and watch her parents suffer Abi - half-hearted attempts at showing a mental breakdown, mostly there to react to other people, and humiliatingly enough, to beard for Ben Mitchell (I'll be surprised if we get anything from her at this reveal beyond more crying and running out of the room) Whitney - I keep forgetting she's on the show. I almost forgot to put her in this. She's treated as Walford's welcome wagon for the latest fit lad and has no role or life of her own, vanishing for lengthy stretches of time. Lauren - the most three-dimensional by far of this group, with a complicated history and many demons to face There isn't much to shout about here, even worse since Lauren will be gone for most of the year due to Jacqueline Jossa's maternity leave. Never would the show have needed an interesting young female character more than they do now with Lauren leaving. That could have been Lucy. Many people just gave up on Lucy once Melissa was sacked, which is a shame, because the character didn't have to be defined by one actor. What did Lucy even do at that time? Mostly spit her lines at people and make sour faces. Even her pregnancy story was never about her. People cheered because she was "just like Cindy," but I assume they barely ever saw Cindy, who was a passive, passive-aggressive woman for almost all of her time on the show, a woman who hid behind men and mostly felt trapped. With a new actress in the role, the door was open for new possibilities, but instead nothing was done with her and she was killed for a ratings stunt. Within a few weeks, it will have gone from "Who Killed Lucy?" to "Who Cares?" (as it's been treated much of the year anyway, frankly), and the show's problems won't have gotten any better. If Eastenders wants to truly improve, having strong, diverse young female characters with inner lives and individual voices would be a great way to start.

Thanks for posting that (and thank you for the background info dgb). If you have any stories to tell we'd enjoy hearing them. Sheryl always looks so beautiful and real in all the photos I see of her.

I guess I would expect more out of something publicly-funded. Oh well.

Oh I know. I just meant upload as in posting them here. I know Goutman loved those special episodes. I remember how many people hated the dollhouse one. I don't think I ever saw it.