The era of Sean O’Connor is over at EastEnders - a turbulent 12 months in charge that has divided viewers and critics alike. We’ve had a high-profile recast, the controversial deaths of two Walford icons, new signings and a back-to-basics approach to storytelling. But it’s not exactly paid dividends: the most recent consolidated figures put EastEnders a million viewers behind Coronation Street, plus the BBC1 drama came away with just one prize at this year’s British Soap Awards. So what do we make of the last year in Albert Square?

Well, let’s start with Michelle Fowler, whose reintroduction with a brand-new face at Christmas sounded warning bells for some. But why? Head swaps in soapland are nothing new and, in the case of Michelle, there’s a whole generation who only know her as a photo on Ian Beale’s sideboard. But it soon became apparent that Michelle wasn’t winning fans of any age over. The long-time die-hards couldn’t put Susan Tully out of their minds, while newer viewers disliked the seedy love affair with American student Preston. Both groups found Jenna Russell’s performance slightly mannered and grating - though she has, admittedly, got better as the months have gone on. But it was a definite gamble to bring back a well-loved character with an icky plotline that seemed deliberately crafted to alienate fans.

Then there was the case of Denise, who found herself on the breadline and in need of help at a food bank. EastEnders has, of course, put its characters into poverty before, Arthur Fowler having famously stolen the Walford residents’ Christmas club savings back in 1986, for instance. But, on that occasion, the storyline was character led – Arthur being desperate to give his daughter Michelle a wedding day to remember. In the case of Denise, the social issue seemed grafted onto the character. Indeed, you felt as though the same plot could have been given to, say, Martin, Donna or Stacey and the effect would have been the same.

The other trouble being that if you unpick anyone’s finances, then the whole show starts to fall apart: how does Martin provide for his family on the takings from the fruit-and-veg stall? How come everyone can afford to drink in the Vic every night? Why do the market workers buy tea from the café when they could all pop home to boil a kettle? The thing is, we’re prepared to suspend disbelief on all that stuff, at least until the show boss decides to forensically examine a bank balance to the extent that we feel duty bound to point out plot holes.

However, for me, the greatest error of judgement was in the recent treatment of the Carters. Take Lee, whose exit did - at first - seem like an admirable 21st-century retelling of the aforementioned Arthur Fowler plotline, right down to the raiding of a collection box. Moving scenes shown over Christmas even saw a desperate Lee driven to the brink of suicide. You really felt for Lee because his plight grew out of who he was as a person. It was all about Lee rather than a news headline.

But then came the moment when Lee lashed out and hit wife Whitney. The result? A story about one man being priced out of society suddenly became a tale of domestic violence. OK, so it tapped into Lee’s history with anger management, but it also turned him into the enemy. Couple that with Mick’s lack of sympathy for his son (which was very out of character) and Lee’s departure ended up feeling rushed, botched and almost like a betrayal of what had previously been set up.

But worse was to come. With Lee gone and Linda temporarily off the scene (actress Kellie Bight having taken maternity leave), the normally loyal and steadfast Mick found himself in the arms of Whitney. Now, OK, so affairs are rife in soapland. Everywhere you look there are love cheats and philanderers. But the beauty of Mick was the decision on the part of the writers – up to this point at least – to keep him monogamous. And they’d managed to do so for three whole years. So to cast the Mick and Linda partnership to one side did feel, I have to say, shortsighted and reckless. Once Mick strays, he is tarnished. And that can’t be undone.

Of the other criticisms levelled at O’Connor, I’m less narked than others. Did he turn EastEnders into Waterloo Road thanks to his focus on Walford High? Not really. To keep the next generation of viewers interested, you have to include subject matter of relevance to them. And the topics of sexting, consent and cyber bullying are ripe for exploration. Only in recent weeks have things started to drift. Louise has now been hoodwinked too many times by Madison and Alexandra. She’s a clever girl, so why is she listening to a word they say, especially when she’s seen how they ruined Bex’s life?

And then there’s the death of the Mitchell sisters – was O’Connor wrong to kill them off? Personally, I felt like Ronnie and Roxy had run their course and – by the time they were dispatched – were operating in a different show to everyone around them, so outré and bizarre had they become. So were they to die, then it had to be in as crazy a way as possible. The counter argument is that writers should rest heritage characters rather than murder them, so that the option is there to re-introduce them (hopefully refreshed and rejuvenated) at a later date. What was noticeably odd, though, was the way Roxy became an afterthought in conversations following her untimely demise. At times, you could have been forgiven for thinking that only Ronnie had met her maker.

Finally, there’s a need to look at the tone of the show in the last 12 months. ‘Less melodrama, more slow-burn’ appears to have been the philosophy. And there were some excesses that needed reining in: the pantomime villainy of Gavin Sullivan, for instance, at the end of Dominic Treadwell-Collins’s tenure being too daft for words. But in its place, we got endless on-screen discussions of bin collections, plus plenty of talk in interviews about taking EastEnders back to the days of Julia Smith and Tony Holland. Community spirit and people dusting themselves down in the face of adversity. The trouble is that TV has moved on since 1985 and those early mid-Eighties episodes now seem rather theatrical and dated. I also have a feeling that viewers don’t particularly want to see their own day-to-day anxieties reflected back at them in their soaps, they’d prefer to watch heightened drama in a familiar setting. So less I, Daniel Blake starring Denise Fox. More Broadchurch starring Ian Beale.

Of course, we may now never get to know what O’Connor’s masterplan was for EastEnders. It seemed as though we were gearing up for a mass protest against Max and the Chairman’s scheme to raze the Square to the ground. Perhaps there would have been characters trapped under rubble? Shock deaths to leave fans reeling in the months ahead? But, in this fast-moving media age where there are so many other options for viewers, Sean O’Connor took too long setting out his stall. It was all about the planning and not enough about the execution. An understandable tactic when a show is in need of overhauling, but O’Connor inherited a relatively healthy EastEnders. Why be so radical when the show appeared to be on good form when he took over?

I’m sure everyone will be debating all this over the next few days, just as I’m sure that the good ship EastEnders can be steered back on course again. Under the temporary control of John Yorke (he of ‘Who Shot Phil?’ fame and a magnificent period running The Archers), I feel that the duff-duffs will be back to their best by Christmas. Hopefully, this is just one of those summer cliffhangers that everyone will have forgotten about by the autumn.

EASTENDERS is facing a ratings crisis as viewers fell to an average just 4.5m for last night’s episode.

The BBC One soap fell behind Emmerdale to become the least watched of the big three as Coronation Street soared to six million while fans of Walford were left divided over the bullying storyline that has seen Louise Mitchell believe she has been raped.