As someone who hated Aaron with every fiber of my being as soon as Jackson showed up and ruined him, I'm very happy to see how well Danny Miller and Ryan Hawley work together. They were smoking hot together today.

ETA: Sorry for posting this in the wrong thread. Those scenes really left me mystified I guess.

Edited December 5, 201411 yr by Bright Eyes

Carl: What do you think of Cindy and nuShabnam?

There must be a story behind Sam Strike leaving after just a year. Johnny wasn't featured in any storylines since the attack on The Albert (was that in June?) so something must have happened in the spring to cause production to put the breaks on.

I think Johnny's last story was in August with GuanLuca. It definitely feels like something went down to make Sam Strike quit, considering they clearly had the Johnny/Ben story planned to continue into 2015. That story has suddenly come to an abrupt end, and Johnny is randomly buying a vesper and asking GuanLuca if he can come and stay - in Italy! On the bright side, this awful Ben/Johnny story has ended; it isn't just regressive and annoying, but it makes every character look stupid, especially Abi and Phil.

On a different note: I think they do those bilingual scenes awkwardly. Marta entered the show needing her daughter to translate for her, while Aleks hopped between English and Latvian in a semi-believable way. A month off screen later, and Marta now understands enough English to know what people are saying (even with the slang), but still can't speak it. So, we get badly written scenes of Marta talking to Aleks in Latvian, and him randomly replying in English (her and Roxy throwing shade at each other in their native languages). I've never known anyone not able to speak a language that they can clearly understand. They did these scenes so much more realistically when Mas/Zainab used to argue in Urdu.

- the scene where Lee went "crazy" and "beat" Ben was so lackluster and so timid, especially the part where he supposedly got so nuts that he almost hit Nancy.

Forgot to mention this yesterday, but some viewers found that scene quite violent, apparently - too violent for the timeslot. I guess those people don't watch much TV in general. I thought that scene was written all wrong: Lee is a soldier, and would be trained in how to deal with the enemy in strategic ways. He should have locked Ben down and applied pressure to his lungs, cutting off his air supply, instead of pummelling Ben like a common thug with anger management issues.

This could have been a good time to showcase some of Lee's army training, giving the character some much needed depth, as really, you would never know he used to be a soldier. Much like how you would never know Johnny wants to be a lawyer. And does Nancy have any interests? Neighbours has done a much better job at writing a soldier in a believable way, and really shows Lee up for being a poorly defined character.

So anyway, apparently Jake Wood is still on Strictly. Good for him. I wonder if they put him in any nice outfits.

His last outfit showcased his arms nicely. He's had a number of dances that's drawn attention to his ass.

I think the Marta/Aleks scenes with them alternating between English and Latvian was beyond ludicrous. It was well established that Marta had known very little English and had learned a bit from her daughter. But there she was conversing in English with Aleks on intimate matters which seemed even more stupid.

The Aleks story is so strange. They had a really good thing going with him and Roxy and with him at the flat with the lesbians and Jake, but ever since this "twist" that seems completely insignificant, Aleks has just been annoying and/or a bore.

I loved Aleks and Roxy as a couple, but always knew that his wife would have to factor in eventually. I think this story had heaps of potential, but for whatever reason it feels like TPTB got bored of it, so decided to speed it all up without developing any of the characters involved. Marta arrives; Aleks takes Roxy on holiday; he dodges both women for a couple of episodes; Marta disappears for a month, only to pop back up and Aleks' two-timing is exposed. That's literally the beats to the entire storyline.

I really wanted to see Aleks go between Roxy and Marta in secret, showing us how different he is, and how different his relationships with both women are. But we got nothing. No reason to care about Marta and his daughter; no real reason to care sufficiently about Roxy picking yet another failure b/c they haven't really invested much screen time in showing us Roxy/Aleks as a couple. I also really wanted to see Tamwar feature in this more prominently, considering he knew about Marta. Then Charlie randomly found out and threatened to tell Roxy, which I thought made him look like a complete hypocrite considering he's hiding evil Nick, whose supposed to be dead.

Really awful story all round.

What do you think of the recast Martin so far? I've only seen a bit. He's a little husky, but he does sound like James Alexandrou. I guess at least DTC didn't go for more generic hunkiness, but I wonder if that's because we're supposed to hate him and root for Sonia/Tina. (Tina needs a pacifier, not a girlfriend)

It did make me smile that DTC went back to the "I want a motorbike" well to help convince Johnny to leave the show. That's the story Mark Fowler was supposed to get until the actor had to leave for personal reasons. They instead gave the story to Michelle. (I will always miss Michelle but I hope the show never brings her back)

Linda/Mick continue to be misery pits, with Mick essentially being a Depressed Elmer Fudd with sad panda faces.

Apparently he's going to smash up the Vic on Christmas Day, which was quite daring 20 years ago...

I really think Mick needs to die. He isn't much beyond a more fuckable Kevin Wicks. Nancy is a bore, but she's passable. Kill Mick off, have Babe leave town in disgrace, cut Shirley's ties with the family and have DTC put her somewhere else (maybe she can hook up with Max and try to help poor pathetic Abi) and push Nancy, Lee, and Linda (and if they last, a recast Johnny) in a new direction.

Edited December 14, 201411 yr by DRW50

The new actor who plays Martin (James Bye) is pretty good. At certain angles he actually resembles a young Nick Berry (Wicksy).

Carl, I really hope you watch last night's episode. Linda Marlowe, who plays Sylvie Carter, has made a truly spectacular debut. Wow.

No Johnny recast planned. Sam Strike will last be seen on Christmas Day (December 25).

http://www.digitalspy.ca/soaps/s2/eastenders/news/a617901/eastenders-boss-door-wide-open-for-sam-strike-return.html#~oZfgrlHLRVlk5u

I hate that it's so soon, but I'm happy DTC doesn't want to recast right away. As for Ben, with Lauren saying tonight that Max screwing up his relationships is like a "sickness" I hope he finally gets the sex addict story that is so clearly all but written, leading him to have an affair with Ben.

DTC overidentifies with Johnny (who, as with his other pets like Christian, is a generic ubergay cliche who knows everything about being gay and needs to help rescue self-loathing closet cases, with more time spent on his hair and clothes than on characterization), and likely believes Sam Strike is the only one who can represent him. He did the character a huge disservice by giving him poor, half-written stories (was there ever any reason he let Sharon get beaten?), overexposing his sour, one-note relationships with crabs like Linda, then shoving him in the background until time for the tedious anti-chemistry of Johnny/Ben. Strike fled as soon as he could because he knew he wasn't getting anything anyway.

Treadwell-Collins also tipped Ben Mitchell as one to watch in 2015. The character returned to screens in September with Harry Reid taking over the part.

He said: "There's a lot more to come for Ben Mitchell as a character. When we met Harry, I thought, 'You're more Ben Mitchell than Ben Mitchell!' and he's making the role his own."

Could this get any more generic? What does this even mean? Does Harry Reid go around killing people and doing impromptu Broadway dance routines?

There's nothing to come for Ben. The character is played out. The fact that they had to revive a sexuality storyline says it all. No one cares about Ben's sexuality or about his relationship with Phil. What else is there? Oh, will Abi get pregnant? How shocking.

Instead they're going to just bring in yet another generic gay character for Ben to have a stilted, predictable romance with - something DTC has consistently failed to do (he screwed it up with Johnny over and over and his writing for Christian/Syed was beyond horrendous)

He needs to stop focusing on his fantasies and all these ideas that he has no ability to execute, and start working on trying to save a show. Endless hype and PR drone-type fans and the declining fortunes of ITV soaps aren't going to mask his weaknesses as a producer.

Edited December 23, 201410 yr by DRW50

Nancy gave Linda an autographed Playbill from the "original Broadway cast of Gypsy." And it was the one from the third revival of it starring Bernadette Peters! Down in Hell Arthur Laurents must be FUMING. He HATED that production (directed by Sam Mendes) and went out of his way to direct another revival (starring Patti LuPone) a few years later. Heh.

Edited December 25, 201410 yr by TimWil

Was he a bad man (Laurents)?

Given that Nancy has no taste, I guess it fits.

Yep, Carl, he was a notoriously nasty piece of work.

Actually Nancy's exact line was "the ORIGINAL Broadway program for Gypsy" and Lee adds "And personally autographed by Miss Bernadette Peters herself." It was actually sweet. Peters has been mentioned on the show before as being one of Linda's favorite musical performers.

As for the rest of the boffo hour-long Christmas episode it had its moments but Linda bellowing "HE'S YOUR BRUVVA!" was meh.

Edited December 25, 201410 yr by TimWil

EastEnders is always at its worst when it tries to recycle old iconic cliffhangers. Stuff like Sharongate and the Kat/Zoe reveal are once in a lifetime moments. The fact that they keep trying to recycle these same set-ups over and over again throughout the years makes the reveals and storylines so contrived and lackluster.

Thanks for the background TimWil. Have you seen any of the 80-82 episodes uploaded (GL episodes) lately? They have some Geraldine Court stuff that wasn't already on Youtube.

I know Peters got a lot of knocks for her Gypsy work. I've only seen her Tonys performance, but it seemed OK to me.

What gets me is when some fans get so defensive and insist this is all new and fresh. It isn't, and that's just how soaps are now. It's not a slam against EE. But I do think EE has become too self-aware in recent years, especially starting with DTC/Santer. Too much need to ruin genuine drama by trying to be "iconic."

The Carters just aren't interesting enough to warrant this treatment. How many people really care about Shirley being Mick's mother? Even the fans I see who enjoy the Carters don't care.

The other problem, as I saw someone mention, is why is this all about Mick? A woman was raped and it's all about Danny "wot's wong L?" Dyer.

You can always tell an episode underwhelms when the DS brigade says, "Oh yeah? Well Corrie was worse!"

I will have to watch more of it later though.

Edited December 25, 201410 yr by DRW50