DRW50

I wish Jem could be set up for some acting classes. She's truly not outrageous. Bronagh Waugh introduces us to Mr. Marquess:

Archie's always seemed a bit chunky to me, which sort of suits him, but I was surprised at how much bigger Elliot looked. I remember him being very toned.

The Carmel/Mercedes scenes in the E4 episode were fab. Carmel: Why the hell am I comforting you? Mercedes: Because that's what you do, Carmel. That's what you do. The scene where Jem (I wish she would go away) realized Gilly still loved Steph was also good. Anthony Quinlan can be a good actor when he has the chance. I wonder if they are going to be breaking up Malachy and Mercedes for good. Is it wrong that I just can't stand Cheryl even if she's in the right? She's so judgmental.

The spoilers for World Cup Week don't seem too bad.

The thing with Janine is she needs to build as a character. If you look at her from 2000-2004 or whenever she left, she had an arc which built and built and built. She hit rock bottom, then she became increasingly conniving and got money and power, then she crashed again. I think she's OK at the moment, because she's away from the stories about the Mitchells making her look stupid, and I do enjoy her with Ryan when they're having fun, but I think for her to really work as a character they need to figure out who she is. I don't mean having her yell at Pat or have her talk to Ricky about Frank, but I wish there were some way to reconnect who she was with what she is now and what she can be later on. Most of all I hope they make a decision to not treat her as a joke, because she's not a joke. Finding out about Stacey's baby would probably be a good starting point. Since they are going with this stuff with the stupid bet she has regarding Lucas I wouldn't mind seeing her get deeper into that and starting a rivalry with Denise, and causing Lucas to go even further over the edge. That would also affect Patrick, and get Pat involved in the story.

I liked Laura, I sympathized with the underdogs or the miserable types I guess, but she could be very annoying. There was a real fearlessness and a grit to Janine back then which isn't there these days, she is often too ridiculous to take seriously now. I think John Yorke and then Louise Berridge did a fantastic job of building Janine up into a real force of fury, one who never became too panto and who, even as she was always an outsider, never seemed like a spare part.

It's OK (kind of reminds me of the old playground song, "Shimmy Shimmy coco pop..."), but it's a bit too busy and mechanical. I liked Amira but the show treated her as just a plot device. I don't think we will see her again, unless it's for one or two days to clear up the bit about her being pregnant.

How long ago was that? I guess that was one of the times I wasn't watching.

I just hope they take some time to explore Zainab's point of view because as of now it's just oh, she's a horrible mother and a homophobe, she wants her son dead, poor Syed. I don't really care about Syed because he is such a one-note wet blanket no matter what scenes he has but Zainab used to be a great character before this story began.

Have Aaron and Charity ever had any scenes together?

I'm glad to get a break from them but the show has severely damaged Masood and Zainab as characters for this mess and that's just on hold? And once again, like when Syed married Amira, the more demanding material takes place offcamera, while endless variations of "Syed's eyes well up over (anything and everything)" and "Christian furrows his brow as he does his Joan Crawford impression" take up weeks and weeks of airtime.

So EE's weird pacing strikes again. Not that I will be sorry to see the destruction of the Masood family on a breather, but apparently Christian and Syed will not be seen for about 5-6 weeks. This story was already poorly done to begin with and these lengthy gaps just make it even more hollow.

I'm catching up on some recent episodes and, while I really like Adam and it's great that a young man in this day and age can be so positive and lacking bitterness, I was annoyed when he kept going on at his father for the kiss with Eve. Yes it was wrong but John realized that immediately. He didn't exactly give her one in the Woolpack. I've known so many couples who have committed far more flagrant adulteries, and they would have probably ripped their child's head off if they had attitude like Adam was giving. I haven't seen yesterday's show yet. Was Holly any less wooden than usual? I hope so, otherwise I wish they hadn't given her a major story.

It is pretty smart, but I think with the show's ratings needs they may be better off leaking some stories, if they think those stories will get attention. Kirkwood basically gave away most of what was going to happen in the first half of 2008 and it didn't hurt ratings any.

I don't love the Vaseline lens stuff. The initial part of the theme is a bit too muffled, more like a "Best of" video than a theme. After that somewhat shabby shot of the CGI pigeons, the opening gets much better. The title card is stunning and represents what the show should be. I guess they don't have the cat anymore?

Here's another Anita Dobson video from 1987. ITV's Chart Show called this the worst video of the year. I don't know enough to say, but it is kind of annoying when she keeps mugging for the camera. The best part is when she turns into Brian May.

I'd love to hear anything about those soaps, especially Lisa's mother, as I've always wondered about her (I've just seen her in one or two photos). Or anything about characters like Penny, Jeff, Neil Wade, or anyone on ATWT in the 60s. I was also wondering if you had any thoughts on the main GL characters of that era, like the Bauers, Robin, Peggy. Did you get to see Edge during the time they brought Nicole in? That story where two women were stalking her and one accidentally killed the other is one I wanted to see. You've seen the EON page right? http://lavender.fortunecity.com/casino/403/ Here's a Secret Storm episode from 1966: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ7A5Sc0Pnc There are some GL episodes from the 60s on Youtube, have you ever watched those? Here are some links to some clips: http://glmemories.blogspot.com/2007/01/shadows-of-past.html http://glmemories.blogspot.com/2008/09/love-and-anger.html http://glmemories.blogspot.com/2008/02/in-balance.html

I'd definitely be interested in anything you have to say about the soaps you watched. I think a number of people here would. I'd love to see some of that era, so watching it at the time, when the soaps were stronger and had individual identities, it must have been something. Which ones did you watch? Did they all have organ music then or had they moved on by that time? I've heard about how awful the Secret Storm became and that only the story about the priest had some interest near the end. Were you annoyed about how they destroyed the Ames family?

In 1975 or 1976 Kathy played Jenny Wolek on OLTL. Her main story as Jenny was about deciding to abandon her plans to become a nun, so she could marry her soulmate, Tim Siegel (played by Tom Berenger). During an argument with Jenny's cousin Vince, Tim fell down a flight of stairs, and Jenny married him on his deathbed. When she left the role it was recast with Brynn Thayer. Now that I think about it the RH story may have involved pot, not LSD. Sorry. (Her daughter wanted to set her up with a man so she drugged their brownies, but the man didn't show up, so Rae ate them all, and ended up falling off the balcony and being put in traction). General Hospital did have an LSD story in 1978 or so. Heather Webber wanted to slip her rival a mickey with LSD to try to discredit her, but the drinks were switched and Heather drank it, resulting in her being institutionalized for several years. That's interesting, what you mention about the ratings not being an issue. I didn't even know how many times actors were interviewed about their soaps back then. Was Gale interviewed for a daytime TV type magazine? I can't remember what replaced Best of Everything. Did you ever watch that?

Kim said in an interview not long after she went back to GL that the Models Inc people aged her to fit the role she was playing. She just said to hell with it and wanted to look as old as possible. She seemed to see that role as a low point.

I can see them doing a lot with Lucy if they develop her more, and stop using her as a plot device. I think Abi might also be better off if she's written in a bitchy manner. That scene where she was nasty to Ben was one of her better moments.

Yeah it's odd that the original plans for the E20 group coming to EE did not even involve Mercy. I'm not going to praise her before she's actually on the show but I did enjoy her on E20 and I'm hoping she can help fill a niche here, since the show needs more down-to-earth teen characters. The first scenes for the E20 group were so horrible, sometimes I still wonder what was going on. Yet, you're probably right, if Santer had had his way it would have been Zsa Zsa and Leon, especially since Zsa Zsa had the Stacey/Whitney wannabe entrance. That was also around the time poor Todd was abruptly dumped after many months of buildup. I guess we won't ever see him again. Apparently they released two new photos of Glenda. I guess that doesn't mean anything (Leon just had two or three released) but hopefully it means she might stay around. http://www.walfordweb.co.uk/item.php?id=2418

I'm so glad you're not saying, "The teen story is just trying to be true to life, that's what real teens do," like some people on DS keep saying

Thanks. I'm glad Jacqui will have a lot to do. That's funny when Jorgie says she had no idea she was going to be in Hollyoaks Later until DS told her. I know some in the comments are saying that her being the killer is unrealistic, but I don't care that much in this story because the whole thing is absurd anyway. At least there will hopefully be some drama.

That's interesting. Which character did he sabotage?