DRW50

Amy vanished for much of the year. No one is entirely sure as to why the show did this, as it wasn't really announced, although I guess it was for story reasons. Amy is struggling with post partum depression and this also somehow has made her not even want to see her older daughter, Leah. Ste is raising both kids. I imagine this will turn around by next year and we may see them go back to Ste as the villain, but who knows. I really like the actor who plays Ste. I loved Jacqui when she first arrived. I still love Clare Cooper, who plays her, but I think they took a wrong turn with Jacqui when she became all about babies and when they took away her heart.

Did you think the move to supercouples (Liza/Steve and all that) and the trips to exotic locations modernized the show anyway? I haven't seen a lot of SFT but from what I'd read it seemed like people felt the show suffered from a loss of identity.

I was just thinking about how much I used to love the closing credits from around Christmas, showing the crew, with Jerry very Dorn saying, "From our family to yours..." I still miss Ross so much

I wish I could see the show from the mid-70s as I'd heard that was a good period for them. It does seem odd to me that P&G never really made the effort to find a stabilizing writer. If they and the networks had taken better care of their soaps, what might daytime be like today? Thanks for the article, Paul Raven. Interesting stuff. Here's the last moments of the 1983 Christmas episode. They also have an episode from December 16 1986. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYZhN-ID2nM That's Jennifer Gatti in the holiday party at the end right? I didn't know she was on SFT. I always thought she had such an exotic beauty.

CBS had moved the show around to different timeslots and the show had gone through many different styles and regimes. Schmering said CBS felt the show was a "dinosaur." They replaced it with Capitol, which didn't last the decade. Then B&B, which has been more successful because of Y&R than because of itself. I wonder if CBS ever regretted cancelling the show, given some of the erosion their lineup underwent later on. And Mary Stuart lived another 20 years, Larry Haines for another 25 years (using the time of the CBS cancellation), so with a proper overhaul, with Jo still in a good role, the show could have run for a long time.

Santer says the Mitchells are "the premier family in British soap." All I could say to that is, "That doesn't say much for the others, does it." I really can't wait for this Christian/Syed stuff to be over. They both behave in horrible, selfish ways, made even worse because we saw no buildup to their relationship and we see no affection between them. If this story was supposed to be done to address how Muslims feel about gays, then throwing around an assortment of anti-gay stereotypes was an odd choice. Here's his year in review. http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s2/eastenders/news/a189593/producers-perspective-2009-diederick-santer.html

Mostly teens and gimmicks. Calvin and Carmel suck as a couple, why they are hyping them getting married again baffles me.

The story which some felt was too close to a recent child killing in the UK has been amended, after the boy's mother went to a screening of the episodes and asked them not to proceed. http://www.clickliverpool.com/news/national-news/127208-hollyoaks-drop-james-bulger-storyline.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240504574586271381624280.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular Deconstructing TV's No. 1 Show

Lucy Allan talks about 2009. http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s13/hollyoaks/news/a190454/producers-perspective-2009-lucy-allan.html She seems a bit prickly, although with some of the criticism HO has had this year, no wonder. I did laugh when she said she got rid of Ash Roy because he was becoming "panto." If Anita isn't a bad caricature, or panto, these days, I'm not sure who is.

At the time I did figure she'd been fired, just because she had stayed for so many years and I couldn't see why she would have left of her own accord as they were launching a new version of the show. I think they wanted to make Alex more hip or sexy or whatever, and pairing him with Danny's sister (who was given the "mental illness makes her a prostitute" story so we could see how hot she was) was apparently supposed to do that. Alex/Jocelyn never did much for me.

In that first clip, was that Rob Bogue (the last Mallet on GL) as the bartender? How random.

I hate the dramatic irony style of writing, and I thought the wrapup to the non-Edmund murder story was a mess. I did like her goodbye scene with Vanessa, and her last scenes with Mallet, but yeah, it should have been better. I guess it could have been worse. Who was your favorite love interest for Rick over the years? I was watching some of the 80s stuff and he seemed very natural with Roxie, although that may have been only a few episodes. I was also watching this episode from August 1989. It starts here. It seems to be an episode when the show was in transition, as the Will Jeffries story was winding down, Beth was on the way back, Holly had just returned and was offcamera trying to get WSPR from Phillip. Still, there are some golden moments. I really love the playfulness with Alan-Michael and Phillip (I wish they hadn't rewritten them to be rivals when GA returned in 1996). And the moment where Reva asks Dylan if it killed him to see his adopted child...one of Kim's best performances. I have such a hard time imagining Ross and Nadine together.

Yeah, they say that every year now. It's a shame. Soaps used to have some happy moments on Christmas. On Corrie, for years they would spend part of the time watching the Queen's speech.

I don't think Ellen Wheeler could have done that, she seemed to adore Jeffrey. The idea of Jeffrey chasing Edmund forever isn't the worst, although I did want better for Edmund. I was hoping he might have a happy ending. I hated that he came back only to be the crazy foil for the saintly Shaynes/Lewises yet again.

Yeah, I have to give GL credit for the returns. They weren't all satisfactory but I never imagined we would ever see people like Nola and Bridget again. I needed to see them, to say goodbye.

Blanche's best one-liners: http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s3/coronationstreet/scoop/a189626/a-look-back-at-some-classic-blanchisms.html This is touching:

This has been a hellish year for Corrie. I think they will be thrilled to say hello to 2010.

The nighttime series did look like night in the original primetime airings. For some reason the process has never looked right on VHS or DVD.

Oh no Not Blanche :( I don't think those who haven't seen the show can truly appreciate how truly hilarious this character was. Here are a set of clips: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blanche+coronation+street&search_type=&aq=f Here's the AA meeting one, which was seen as a legend:

They never said what the relation was between Pansy and Leticia. It's funny though because the real Pansy Faye was Kay Frye, not Nancy Barrett, so that means Pansy had an aunt or grandmother or whatever who looked just like Charity Trask. I guess it truly was fate that 57 years later, Pansy was killed and took over Charity's body! I loved that we never did see what happened to Pansy/Charity. They didn't even bother to give a line about how now that her work was done, Pansy left, or whatever. I like to imagine Charity as an old woman, running around Collinwood annoying the piss out of people telling them, "I'm gonna dance for you..." I didn't see Pansy and Leticia as being that much alike. Pansy seemed more fervent and crazy, whereas Leticia was more restrained, more of a con artist. 1840 also had the continuity bloopers of Edith Collins being killed, even though she existed in 1897, and Barnabas going into a trance in 1970 so he could take over his 1840 body, yet, when he went back to the present, he was still in his 1840 body, which would mean he never went back to the coffin and never would have been freed by Willie Loomis. I would have loved if they had gone back to a completely bizarre, unbalanced timeline with some sort of crazy people running Collinwood, people they don't know, and who are barely even Collinses, and then Julia and Barnabas and Stokes just go, "Oops." Seriously though, I know you can't take this stuff so seriously. The continuity gaffes just make me love DS even more! The costumes were great at this time. They brought in a costume designer to create new stuff for 1841PT so those are even more gorgeous and unique. I liked Joanna Going as Victoria, although I agree Rebecca Stabb was the most appealing. She also worked best with Joe. The later stuff with Joe does not work for me, and is very rushed and poorly written towards the end.

I remember how sensational and thrilling exits of characters like Sean and Danielle were supposed to be -- only to be a damp squib. Pointless killing off of characters and endless baby/dead baby drama seem to be Santer's only storylines.

Thank you for keeping this going! I haven't caught up on VL or AWZ in a while now. So is Vanessa gone from AWZ? I liked her, I wish they hadn't saddled her with that big mess of a story about Deniz turning straight for her.

Yes, he used to be on Doctor Who Confidential constantly in their first four seasons. Not too bad on the eyes.

Something definitely needs to be done. The only good story is the one with Tony, which is winding down, and was mainly saved by some of the actors. A lot of the stuff needs to be dialed down or dumped entirely (Kevin/Molly, anything with Michelle, more of David's feuds). I'm not sure if Collinson will have that much leeway, unfortunately. I hope he keeps the vets and continues to use them, and that he keeps focus on Peter and Leanne, and Hayley and Roy, and brings in some better gay characters. Collinson and Russell Davies are both big Corrie fans. Collinson was said to have gotten the position last year, after he left Doctor Who, but that didn't happen.