DRW50

Hard to imagine Bianca was going away to fashion school. Stacey was going to do that too. That way lies doom apparently.

She helped give him some excitement and he grounded her as she was always very overwrought and hysterical. They had a good rapport. These days she's more hardfaced and bitter so it doesn't work as well but I think the chemistry is still there. I can't see her working with anyone else, unless they really work on bringing out her vulnerability and not keeping her as the Shameless knockoff. It helped that their first wedding was so much fun. Ricky's bachelor party was priceless.

At least she's working with Zainab now, which should be good entertainment. I don't know why they had the weird conflict with Ian, it came out of nowhere. They have her as meddling because they don't have a story of her own to give her, I guess. I just wish they'd brought her back without Billie. They could have Dan come back and cause problems with Bianca and Carol. Dan was a great character. Patsy Palmer says she didn't want Ricky and Bianca to get back together. I guess that explains why she didn't really show a lot of love from Bianca to Ricky in the buildup to their wedding. I wondered why there wasn't more affection. I wonder if they may split up soon. http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s2/eastenders/news/a210643/palmer-didnt-want-ricky-bianca-plot.html

I don't know if Kirkwood will be a lot better -- McDean was overrated and rushed, although they did at least kiss and we saw them in bed together. John Paul and Kieron were also rushed and told, not shown, and John Paul lost most of what made his character interesting. Kieron was a fascinating character who was then killed for no real reason because hey, why make an effort when you can just swing the axe. I know Eastenders cannot really show anything between men, I would just like to see better pacing. If they had spent months showing Christian and Syed slowly fall in love I would not have cared if we only saw them hold hands or hug. It was seeing them immediately fall into bed and start the extremely degrading, ugly treatment of each other and Amira that made the story poor. This just made the sudden lack of any intimacy between them even more jarring, because there was nothing to fall back on. The problem is that like most Santer stories, it does not exist beyond PR. They wanted to get publicity for telling a story about a gay Muslim. That was it. As Ronnie's and Whitney's sexual abuse and Stacey's rape were all plot devices, not worth exploring in their eyes. And as any interest in bipolar was stopped in time to make Stacey a murderer. They want praise for "issues" without actually bothering to follow up. The show is so hollow these days but people aren't as likely to notice because they have been trained to think well it's OK things are naturally supposed to be slow until the latest death/reveal/shooting/rape. At its best, Eastenders didn't used to be that way. They had a colorful enough cast that entire months did not have to be worthless filler populated by actors who can barely read their lines.

Gay romances tend to get a following, especially angsty relationships. This story should have been much better than it is. Between the bad pacing in not actually letting us see them fall for each other, making Syed and Christian so cold, the not so great casting for Syed (he always seems very weak and teary-eyed to me), and the decision to barely ever show most of their time together, it's all been underwhelming. I think Christian works as Jane's brother and Lucy's uncle. I'm sorry that part of the character is gone. I wouldn't shed a tear if Christian left but I think the problem is with the writing on the show, which scalpels away everything interesting about a character in order to service the plot. Christian could still be salvaged if the writing improved. On a show where the likes of Roxy are considered star attractions, you can't get much worse. If they start cutting their losses with bad stories or characterizations, only about a half-dozen characters would be left.

Upcoming story...

Don't worry about it, they are sort of the same type of character, and they look alike. Jasmine was a stronger character though, she had some backbone, whereas Scarlett is often more simpering and pointless, although she has her moments. I like her best with her brother Jimmy.

She doesn't go by Jasmine. Jasmine left last spring. She was Ashley's niece, on/off girlfriend of Debbie.

Most of the Barton stuff doesn't seem that bad to me. It's just Holly and Hannah can't act. The bullying stuff wasn't bad. Anything with Holly fails if she's in a major role -- she worked OK as the bored beard for Aaron. I do think they don't quite gel. Adam needs a woman who will give him more personality (Scarlett doesn't have one to give), and I'd like to see a bit more from Moira and John. I'd also like to see less of John clothed.

This is random. Jane Badler is going to be doing a brief guest stint on Neighbours. I wish she'd have been able to go back to OLTL briefly as Melinda. http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s14/neighbours/news/a210890/jane-badler-joins-neighbours-cast.html

I know that big production values are helpful and I think Santer has done a good job of budgeting at a time when the recession has slashed the money they get. Some of the special effects are better than others. Remember when Danielle stood in the road for what seemed like hours and was then killed by the world's slowest moving car? What I don't get is why they can't work out any type of momentum. Why have these big stories you publicize about Lucas and about Syed/Christian and then leave them to wither on the vine for thrilling stories like 30 year old looking gangs and stolen mail and Roxy shouting at random people. I assume Stacey will have the baby, since that will cause problems with Ryan and Janine. If this new Zoe Lucker character becomes popular then I won't be shocked if Janine is written out. The material for her since her return has been strained and goes in circles and she often comes across as a joke. Maybe he's just not my type of producer, as Dominic Treadwell-Collins and his Roxy love aren't my preference. I like the Eastenders of the 80s and some of the 90s, and some of the years when Sharon returned. Eastenders was my first British soap so I will always have some fondness for it. I like most of the British soaps, at the moment I think Emmerdale is the best and then I'd tie Corrie and Eastenders and Hollyoaks in last. Obviously ratings don't agree though.

Congrats to Larkin Malloy on being named one of the 50 best actors in soap. http://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/03/50-greatest-soap-actors-45-larkin.html http://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/03/flashback-larkin-malloy-1986.html http://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/03/classic-clips-larkin-malloy.html

Poor Sam. He has had better stories than this. I guess she's more interested in Eli anyway isn't she? David is such an unbelievably gorgeous man. Why does he still have that patchy beard which looks like random pieces were shaved off? I hate that look. I think the Barton family has potential but the daughters aren't very good actresses, especially Holly. I need a story about John secretly becoming an escort or doing nude photos to pay the bills or something.

I mean his character makeup. I wouldn't say he was a bad character, he was fascinating (I'd say a bad character would be most of Paige's boyfriends, or anyone brought in during season 13, or Kate, or Jean Hackney, or that weird Peter Reckell character whose accent vanished overnight). He was just a sad, sad loser, a waste of a man. Sometimes he did try, and I think in his heart he did love Laura, but it was never enough. I think in many ways he was intimidated by Laura...perhaps by the idea of his wife ever being strong, but I think it was more than just a wife, I think he could not ever really handle a woman like Laura. I wasn't hugely surprised that after he left he ended up finding someone and being happy with her, probably someone who did not have that fire which Laura had even when she was his beaten down homemaker. Overall I think he was a great character to watch. I liked some stories more than others but some of them like his breakdown and his later freakout over the Ciji/Laura friendship were great drama. And one of my all time favorite scenes was after Sid fired him during the rape trial in early season 2 and he got drunk and began berating Richard in the street in the dead of night. John Pleshette also hated LML so he'd fit in well here.

The performances were very good. That last scene was the final goodbye for the Santer era -- style over substance. An episode where nothing happened, but look, it's a fancy effect. I still have no idea what made Max change his mind about wanting Stacy to pay for what she did. I'm not sure why they went out of their way to make sure we knew she was in the right frame of mind, because that means she was perfectly sane when she killed a man and let Bradley die for it. I don't know why this needed to be a two-hander. If they wanted to do this to help fill the gap between the live episode and the month of subpar stuff that followed, then at least have something happen. Why not have Stacey in a poor way and Max has to help save her? I also wonder why Max looked like he wanted to make out with Stacey for half the episode. I hope that the show can now start pacing stories properly instead of stretching things out and then having the big event episodes that often seem hollow.

Do you have Netflix? The first season is still on that I think. Or it was. They're also being sold very cheap on Amazon. Richard was a very pathetic character but John Pleshette was one hell of an actor. The episode where he has his mental breakdown is a marvel. And his final episode is very moving, especially his last scenes.

Greg was part of the problem but probably what hurt her the most was that she was a very complicated character. She had parts of Valene (victimized) and parts of Karen (backbone, compassion) and parts of Abby (the wit and ferocity). As the years went by the writing for the women of Knots became more and more about putting them into archetypes. You couldn't do that with Laura. So when the time came to cut the budget, they got rid of what they saw as too difficult. They also had to prop Paige, and Laura going helped them push Paige. To me the big mistake was downplaying the Laura/Valene friendship. In spite of Valene's ME ME ME WHAT ABOUT ME ME ME ME ME behavior at Laura's funeral, I loved their bond and although I liked Valene and Karen as friends, I always found Laura/Val more realistic and believable than the Valene/Karen, "We're best friends, let's reminds everyone of that every few episodes" vibe. Laura knew Valene's life because she had lived some of that, especially with Richard. I think in real life Karen would have gotten tired of Val. They also could have done more to explore Laura's past. It's no surprise that the story which helped keep the show afloat in season 13 was all about Laura and her past. If only they'd done that when she was alive! I liked the last 3-4 years of the show but on a more superficial level than when Laura was there. She was the heart of KL. Her last episode, driving away and confiding in Karen and all that, still gets to me even when I think about it now.

Unfortunately by this time Laura was barely seen. I guess that was due to Constance going on maternity leave but even aside from that she was barely a presence in her last few seasons on the show. They gave up on her character. I didn't mind Karen and Mack as a stable couple. What I minded more was when Mack became a judgmental ass sometime around the time Laura died. I never forgave Mack for the way he behaved at Laura's funeral -- even if he and Greg were no longer close, Mack's behavior was childish and selfish and disgusting. After that he was so angry and cold so much of the time and was wasted as Paige's meddling, obsessive father. The only time he went back to being a more balanced character was when he adopted Jason. I always had a lot of issues with the writers giving little Meg to Karen and Mack. I felt like that was somewhat of a betrayal to Greg and Laura and how Laura had loved Greg. Laura helped Greg to become a better person and yet he regressed completely after she died. While that may have been realistic, it wasn't fun to watch, and I would have rather seen Greg have to balance raising a small child with having a relationship with Paige and working at Sumner.

I agree with everything you said. Paddy being used so often for comedy yet perfectly at home in this dramatic story is one of Emmerdale's strengths. On the other soaps there is a sharp dividing line between comedic characters and dramatic characters but on Emmerdale, at its best, they can easily go back and forth. What really worked about these scenes were when I realized they were not what I expected, in that this was about Aaron's secret or Aaron being gay. This was about Paddy as much as being about Aaron. The monologue from Paddy about how he had hated Aaron for so long and yet in the end Aaron was the one good thing he'd gotten from being involved with Chas...I was so moved. And you could see Aaron was very tense, using sarcasm and waiting for Paddy to lead into telling him how awful he was, and then Paddy showed him such love, and tenderness. I think all the soaps have their ups and downs but Emmerdale is for me the most human of all the soaps and the one that when it is truly good, is most likely to seem the most genuine and the one that isn't trying to tell you how to feel. With Aaron's story, for instance, I have never felt like, onscreen, I am being told this story instead of being shown it. This is the main reason Christian/Syed on EE don't work that well for me -- we have never been shown most of their relationship, instead we were told they were supposedly in love when the only real point of this seemed to be so the show could get attention and so the characters would have conflict. I'm just glad they toned down the violence that was originally supposed to be in the episode and instead went with the emotions. Dominic and Danny were both so incredible that this could have even worked as a silent film, you could just see everything on their faces and in their body language. I think that's one of the reasons I was so affected by it.

I know there's been some complaints about how the press for the story has focused on being "groundbreaking" or on Aaron not being "stereotypical," and I can understand why some might resent that, but I think the story has been very strong so far. I don't think it's just been a "look at us, we want attention and isn't it shocking to do a gay story," it's been a story that seems very, as you mentioned Cat, organic. The episodes last night took that up to a whole new level. The anger and denial in Aaron seemed so palpable and he was in as much agony as poor Paddy. I was disgusted when I read about what he was going to do to Paddy, and I still am, but the scenes made perfect sense for the characters. And Paddy continuing to try and get Aaron to accept himself and be happy, even as he was so obviously in severe pain, it just broke my heart. Seeing actors who can turn on the tears so easily and make it believable tends to get a similar reaction from me. Dominic and Danny were so damn good. The scenes were so well written and filmed, they were some of the finest I have ever seen on television or film. I get so annoyed at how often Emmerdale is overlooked by the public and by the press, and episodes like this are the reason why

The problem with the Phil character is they spend long periods of time telling us how pathetic and weak he is, a failure as a father, a drunk (although they seem to think his drinking is hilarious), a failure as a son, never the man Grant was. He has to use sad Shirley to get through the days. Yet I'm supposed to hope he gets to have his daughter. The chav gang is so worthless I hope Phil does tear them apart. Or make them sit in a room with Roxy. The strange part is even with this awful story I think Kylie and the other guy are better actors than the E20 group, who are supposed to be long-term. I don't know what they will do with Stacey, beyond more crying and yelling. If it were me I would just have her get back together with Max. Jake and Lacey have strong chemistry and they have no one else -- Ryan was just a one night stand for Stacey, Bradley's gone, Tanya is a self-righteous cold fish who has to have a new man every few months. I would also love it if psycho Becca ended up unknowingly causing them to reunite.

Devon Anderson sucked on Hollyoaks and he sucks here. He looks bloated and he is a terrible actor. He has also destroyed anything of value in the Whitney character. Jack as a character doesn't do a lot for me (although he has improved recently) but yes, Scott Maslen is very hot. He always looked good in those underwear shots he used to do before he started acting. My favorite is Jake Wood/Max. I haven't seen today's show yet. I heard he has a shirtless scene, that should be OK. His best feature is his ass (which is one of the best I've seen on TV ever), but we're not going to see that, I guess, unless we get some sort of Late Night Eastenders...

Matthew was killed by Steven and didn't they have him become colder because of that or something? I guess at least they tried to write for Steven, but Jack Coleman never did a lot for me. I guess the writing may have been a part of it. I wanted to shake Emma Samms Fallon for years yet in the last season she was a blast.

Does anyone know why they brought Wayne Northop back years after his early role as a chaffeur who slept with Fallon? Did they ever do anything with him on his return? And how long did it take for the Karen Cellini Amanda to disappear? Wasn't it as if she never existed, Amanda I mean, after that? Why did they hire such a terrible and awkward looking actress in the first place? I remember when they tried to follow up on Fallon being taken by aliens, which, of all stories, I probably would have dropped. I think they did drop it after a few episodes but at least they tried I guess.

Corrie has a lot of problems (too many attempts at sensationalistc storytelling, overuse of characters until people get sick of them), and the stories at the moment are not great. I do think that they have improved recently, there's a lot of good conflict and emotion between characters - Nick/David (spoiled by a poor recast, unfortunately), Gail/Audrey, and Pam/Molly, Kevin/Molly, good scenes with Bill and Kevin, Kevin and his kids. Simon's kidnapping ended in an odd anticlimax, I don't really imagine that was what they originally had in mind, but that story was also decent up to then. I'm looking forward to Sophie's upcoming story. They've done a very good job with her over the past year. I think the show is still in passable shape, although with plenty of room for improvement. I mostly watch for certain characters, especially the older characters, who are still allowed lives and emotions, unlike what's become of, say, the veterans on Emmerdale recently, or poor Pat on Eastenders, who has a severe heart attack one week and the next is treated like a slave by Bianca.