difficultdiva

It doesn't matter, Carl. As long as Dodger has onscreen scenes with his shirt off, he'll be considered sexy and hot. He really is the "British Ford cousin" for Hollyoaks, because that's exactly how the Fords got started on OLTL. Has he dumped a bucket of water over himself yet?

LOVE the fact that Hollyoaks only won two awards last night at the Inside Soap Awards.....

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s2/eastenders/news/a342413/inside-soap-awards-2011-the-full-winners-list.html

Sexiest Male - Danny aka "The British Ford Cousin" Mac

Best Newcomer - Emmett J. aka "The only thing keeping the show alive" Scanlan

EastEnders swept this year's Inside Soap Awards.

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s2/eastenders/news/a342413/inside-soap-awards-2011-the-full-winners-list.html

Best Soap

Best Wedding

Funniest Performance - Tameka Empson

Best Young Actor

Best Actress

Watching The VIew and loving how the audience and the stars of AMC are reacting with each other.

Random question: how long have they been using Stamford Hospital in Connecticut as the exterior of PVH? I didn't expect to see it in some early 80s episodes I was watching a few days ago.

Well, having been born and raised in Stamford, I think AMC started using the exterior of hospital in the late 70s. I think around 1978. I always thought that Pine Valley reminded me of my town anyway, especially in the 80s.

Spoiler in white (highlight below):

Supposedly, Deniz will start up a new friendship with this new female character (a dancer) in the upcoming months.

I'm loving the acting during this storyline between Roman and Deniz. I just think that IF Roman wasn't dying, he wouldn't take his ex back.

Yeah I'm not reading much that inspires me to work. Honestly, I don't even recall Lucy Allen being that horrific. I liked that she at least was the same tone as Kirkwood, she just told dull stories mostly.

Well, it wouldn't be Hollyoaks without someone being murdered every other month. Didn't Lucy Allen also kill off someone during her Hollyoaks Later week-long episodes?

So, the show finally got rid of Ste's former beard/almost baby momma Rae?

Well, at least Kieron's making good use of his offscreen time by marketing his new website. I just never imagined that Ste would end up being written as a pathetic doormat punching bag for a in-the-closet sociopath, who's just "misunderstood".

Silas murdered Rae to set Brendan up for her murder.

Get ready for yet more scenes of Brendan looking sad/Brendan in tears/everyone's out to get Brendan. I don't think he's had one story which isn't about what a victim he is.

I don't think that's going to happen. The Stendan fans would riot if they don't get their demands met of wanting to see Ste and Brendan finally make it as a OTPing. Even when that means Ste will, yet again get another "Double B" beatdown, because he was too demanding, whiny or he wouldn't give him sex.

I agree with everything you said, but I don't think writing Ste out is the solution. I like him, he has history, but they need to put him in a new relationship....and a dynamic one at that.

Noah was cute and all, but their story was so boring compared to what Ste's first gay relationship was. Brendan and Ste were exciting, and riveting in the beginning, but after it became apparent Brendan was not going to stop hitting Ste...it became unsettling.

I would like Ste to find someone else, the complete opposite of Brendan, but with a story just as riveting. Right now he is just coming off as so sad, when I saw him run after Brendan half-naked , my heart sunk, it was his lowest point on this show...so sad.

So, Carmel's going to fall for Father Francis like what happened between JP and Kieron?

Interview with Emmett Scanlan on Digital Spy:

Part 1 - http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s13/hollyoaks/interviews/a320338/emmett-scanlan-brendan-brady-hollyoaks.html

Is this all a plot to win Ste back?

"I'm not sure whether Brendan is planning to win Stephen back so they can have a normal relationship, so to speak, as I don't think there's anything normal about Brendan - it's not the way he rolls. But he sees Stephen as a person that he cares for, a person that he's killed for - and in doing so, he's shown his love for him in that way, however different or perverse his love may be. What turns Brendan on most of all is power and manipulation, so if he can't have Stephen, he's going to make sure that nobody else can have him. Whether he wants to get back with Stephen is another question altogether, but he thinks he owns Stephen and that's quite frightening due to the type of individual that he is."

Part 2 - http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s13/hollyoaks/scoop/a320339/emmett-scanlan-interview-part-two.html

What's next for Brendan?

"Brendan's main fear was people finding out about his homosexuality, but now that secret's out, he has no fear. So what happens to a crazy, sociopathic man who has no fear? He becomes a different breed of animal. He has absolutely nothing to lose. I'm very interested to see what Brendan does next and myself, Gareth and the writers are all singing off the same hymn sheet. I'm hoping that it will take a path of its own and that if you thought Brendan was bad now, he'll just be Satan incarnate in the next few months. If you thought he was bad now, watch out. It's very exciting to think what could happen at the close of this year, but I never have any expectations. Hopefully we can all create some crazy storylines together."

I just love that Emmett hasn't romanticized his character, in the way that many of the Stendan fans have, to the detriment of what's happened to the Stephen character. Stephen's a complete afterthought for some of them.

Well, at least we know that Pete's alive. Macca could be dead somewhere in an Ireland ditch, for all we know. I don't know what to say about it, CarlD2. Other than, I really think that maybe one of HOL writers are trying to base this character and how he's written on the US daytime soap stable of the "redeemable" rapists/abusers that exists on 3 of the remaining 6 soaps currently on air.

Look at the Warren character: He killed his fiance, Louise and then was "killed" by Claire. Then, he comes back from the dead (after the actor couldn't find a job outside of the industry) and now he's on his third relationship with another woman and having a "bromance" war with another abusive male character, Brendan Brady.

Too bad they can't give him writing that makes any type of sense. I get that they think abuse = love, but what about beyond that? How bizarre to have someone come to town swearing revenge on Brendan, then, after Brendan comes out and wears a new suit, this apparently makes the man who is in a wheelchair for life feel content and he only cares about yelling at his students.

TPTB for Hollyoaks will give Emmett Scanlan whatever he wants, in order to keep his badass happy and on contract forever and ever with their show.

Yes, it is.

Apparently she and some of the younger characters sell a snake to Cindy or something as a con and it turns out the snake goes missing and is poisonous.

The Waveguide spoilers have more.

I don't know what Hollyoaks is these days.

That's just sad....

So, will Mandy come back, expecting to still be Warren's "piece on the side"? Or, has that part of their sexual involvement been wrapped up?

Brendan's just misunderstood. Can't you see how much pain he's in, because he's got to "protect" Ste from Warren. Even though, Ste doesn't have to be in this mess at all, if he just allowed himself a BIT of common sense and self-preservation and stop allowing Brendan to call the shots all the time. Amy was right: Ste IS a puppy.

With that spoiler, CarlD. Don't you know

Everybody wants to be seduced by Brendan. Even a slightly effeminate guy, that most viewers hate, because he's messing with their "OTP".

I haven't bothered with the recent stuff yet. I have heard some fans say they think Ste will pretend to be abused by Brendan and this is all some big secret plan. I can't imagine what that is about. All I know is that Hollyoaks teaches viewers abuse is love and the abuser is the real victim.

There is also some rumor that

Brendan will seduce Noah, which would be an interesting twist, I guess.

Thanks, Carl for posting up the clips. I never knew that Darren was working the 90's bleached blond hair in the past. The casting folks will always remember what viewers are really looking for in the show: YOUNG AND HOT BODIES. Damn, Danny Mac does look like the actor portraying Ford on OLTL.

Carl, have you seen the latest clips in the abuse storyline between Brendan, Ste and Noah? I still think it's interesting that, for some viewers, it's worse to be perceived as being an effeminate gay character on screen, then being a self-hating, manipulative and abusive gay man, who beats up on the men he has sex with.

I hope you will post more often - I don't watch that much but I'd love to hear your views.

I try to follow most of HOL, but it's difficult to find a good torrent and I'm lucky that ADL from AfterElton puts up the Brendan/Stephen/Noah storyline on his YT page.

You're right. It's very offputting, and it doesn't help that his backstory is so poorly written and so scared of actually making him edgy. It's all posing. What is the point of bringing in Pete for a revenge tale when it turns into another example of how Brendan suffers (Pete's accident being a result of Brendan's suicide attempt)? Then you have the stuff with Macca that went nowhere, the family we never see, the rivalry with Warren that is mostly for laughs. Anything bad he does is treated as being out of love. He beat Ste out of love. He killed Danny Houston for love. And so on.

I would probably care less if they hadn't ruined Ste for all of this.

Seriously. The Macca part of the storyline just ended strange. Didn't Brendan put Macca BACK in the hospital, in order to get him to leave town and go back to Ireland? The same viewers who are now rooting for Stendan, thought that he was "delusional and pathetic" for wanting to get back with Brendan (after knowing that he was abusive towards him). Yet, it's a COMPLETELY different situation for Stephen, because "he's in love". On one hand, I'm glad that these characters (including Noah) aren't written like US based daytime serial gays have been in the most recent past (that they have to be "non-threatening good gays" all the time), but in Hollyoaks need to keep a "good thing going", they're destroying (IMO) one half of that pairing.

Yes, that's it. A Ford. No wonder I can't watch them.

Everything they've done with the Ste story is so irresponsible and poorly written. The chemistry isn't worth it, and they have so limited Ste that he would probably disappear if he wasn't there to help hype Brendan. I'm still baffled about why they ever planned to make Brendan a monster in the first place. Emmett Scanlan has played him as a loveable, comic character who suffers the most of anyone, and that's where the show went too. It's always disconcerting to see such a violent figure turned into a campy martyr.

I read that they are finally showing Charlie. I guess all the Becca/Justin clips I've been watching lately put that into the universe.

They're finally bringing Charlie into the picture of Hollyoaks?! It's been, at least 3 or 4 years since he was born out of Becca and Justin's affair.

I'm thinking that TPTB are just amazed that the soap press in the UK have lost their minds over Emmett Scanlan, that they're going to do anything and everything to keep him front and present on their show. It's like he's the Luke/Todd/EJ/Victor/Adam Jr. of UK soaps. American soaps for decades have turned male violent figures into martyrs all the time.

It was obvious from the time the show moved away from their original plans to write Brendan out that Ste would pay the price. Ste is now irrelevant and it's all about hyping Brendan at any cost. They are going to turn Ste back into a one-note monster just to make us weep for Brendan. No thanks.

It's completely working. There are lots of Stendan fans, who don't give a crap about Brendan's past history of beating the men he slept with, because now he's "in love" with Stephen. The Noah character may be dull, boring, effeminate and ugly (in certain viewers opinions), but he's not a self-hating and abusive homophobic manipulator. I don't want Stephen and Noah to get married and I certainly don't want to see Brendan "redeemed" so that Stendan can happen.

I just would like to see Stephen grow and develop into a man, who's at peace with himself.

The "hot" brother looks so much like another soap actor. I can't think of who.

Here are the Savage brothers.

I guess they've totally given up on the pretense of Noah not being campy or femme?

He looks like he could be another "Ford" brother from OLTL.