EastEnders: Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Oh I don't disagree with you -- I like Lacey Turner but the character was wrecked several years ago.

I was being serious about which exiting characters you actually missed.

[DRW50]

Thank you so much for posting that June Brown interview. I knew very little about her life -- she has overcome so much tragedy yet manages to keep her head high. It's fascinating to watch her, and also slightly surreal, as some of what she says and that nicotine laugh remind me of my grandmother who is now gone. I think Fern is very patronizing but she helped get a real picture out of June. DS, which seems to be even more hysterical than ever, had some thread trashing June because she said she didn't expect to end her life on a soap, but I can see why she said that.

I do wonder why they didn't talk about her leaving the show for 4 years.

I thought the part about her asking, and receiving, permission to rewrite huge portions of an episode because of her personal issues with her scenes was fascinating. To me that is another example of Louise Berridge, for her many faults, genuinely caring about the people on Eastenders. Many producers would write June off as difficult and gleefully convince her to leave.

There were a lot of really interesting moments in here. I had no idea about the origins of Dot.

[DRW50]

Christmas spoilers. Some sound very good, at least on paper.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=46264993&postcount=61

Ryan/Janine photo shoot for The Sun.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3258938/Dont-miss-this-weeks-buzz.html

[Sylph]

Well, Scott Maslen beat Anne Widdecombe in Strictly.

Edited December 5, 2010 by Sylph

[DRW50]

Interview with Stefan Booth. I find him much more charming and attractive when he's talking to the interview than I do in the beefcake shots...

[Bright Eyes]

Carl, do you post at TWoP at all?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

There's going to be a Revealed special on Stacey airing on the 28th. Natalie Cassidy is narrating it (I hope this doesn't mean Sonia is ever coming back).

Some big Jean spoilers:

[All My Shadows]

Carl, I finally moseyed on over to DS to see how bad the posters were trashing the show. Jeez! I guess it's safe to say that their idea of good soap is a lot different from my idea of good soap. They're all obsessing over the tram crash, which I'm interested in a bit, but my mind's totally preoccupied by EE at the moment as far as soaps are concerned. Dialogue-heavy scenes like Kat/Ronnie at the Vic, Max/Lauren, Masood/Jane, Masood/Zainab, Carol/Bianca, etc, will always be more interesting to me than watching nightclubs explode and trains falling on terraced houses.

I'm loving the Masood drama, the Tamwar end of it at least. Nitin G. was phenomenal in the hour-long episode. He's always great, though, and I'm enjoying all of the chaos with Mas/Zainab, Jane/Ian, and Glenda/Phil/Shirley. Also loving Carol and Connor. The Dot stuff has been depressing, especially when Heather showed up and changed her mind about leaving George with the Brannings. Poor Dot I'm interested in the Stacey/Ryan/Janine stuff, but Janine being clinically insane and Ryan being a liar and Stacey being a murderer is kinda making it hard for me to find someone to root for. I'll just root for Ryan's jeans.

The auction at the pub was great fun. I love those things the best, the whole square mixing it up with each other in the pub. I like Kat and Alfie best behind the bar, and it's really cool to see different characters who wouldn't normally interact talking, like Peter and Patrick randomly chatting in the background. I love my Corrie (for sentimental reasons), but in recent months, the Rovers has never been as lively as the Vic. Sylph is going to give me an "I told you so" because in the spring I said EE felt dead while Corrie felt alive. Totally the opposite now (though I haven't watched Corrie in a while...I guess I'll view this week's eps).

The last episode I've seen is Thursday's, so I'm getting caught up finally. One thing I've noticed is that nearly all of the cast is being seen somewhat regularly. The only absentees I can think of are Fatboy and Mercy.

Edited December 8, 2010 by All My Shadows

[DRW50]

DS tends to go in cycles, but this time it's even more pronounced because a few Corrie fans are stirring the pot, spending a lot of time going on about Eastenders not being very good. But to be fair to them, Walford Web also has a lot of complaints about the show at the moment.

I haven't really seen Eastenders as being what it should be in a number of years, so I'm still enjoying the show more than I did when Santer was around, and the ratings are holding up, so there's that.

I do think a lot of people are so into the idea that death is what a show needs -- there was a lot of heavy focus at DS on the pub fire, and a lot of anger when no one died (I thought that was a brave choice). Now Corrie is killing off a few characters, so, even if it's being done clumsily, has been telegraphed for months, and for no real reason other than shock value, that means Corrie gets the hype.

[Ben]

AMS, I really want to ITA with all that you said, and feel what you feel about the show, but I don't. To me, there are no real differences, story wise, between now and when Santer was EP. OK, community spirit is up, but the stories are still thrown together in a clumsy fashion, with no real thought about continuity and pacing; exploration of certain stories, like Carol & Connor are non existent, and come across messy and weird. I want to know what's going through Carol's head, b/c her affair w/ Connor comes across creepy and v. Freudian, and I'm not sure if that's their intention, and if it is, then why aren't they exploring that?

Ian & Jane are a mess of a couple, and I don't understand the logic behind Jane's decisions. She's all set to leave Ian b/c he lied to her about Lucy's termination, then after months of scheming, suddenly her motive has shifted to feeling neglected and unloved by Ian; then after she 'fesses up to him, and does his usual sobbing accompanied by a flimsy explanation, Jane decides to stay, even though her main issues with the marriage/role in the family haven't been sorted out. Nothing has changed! So, why is Jane still there?

Now, Glenda is prostituting herself, and Phil is as un-likeable as ever, with Shirley being as stupid as ever, and Jay wants to be a Mitchell and is acting all tough and beating up Connor, who as yet to serve any real purpose.

The Kat/Ronnie friendship feels forced, simply b/c of their storyline. The Janine/Ryan/Stacey triangle has no depth, and I don't understand where R&S' lust/love for each came from. Also, none of them have any rooting value, so why should I care?

A lot of characters have no direction, coupled with a lot of contrived plot points. Like I said in another thread, it's still watchable, but it's generally very blah and mediocre.

[All My Shadows]

I think I don't have as much invested in the show as most viewers do, so I'm able to just take what they're giving and enjoy it for what it is. Unlike AMC, where all of the stuff that makes no sense and is just bad severely hinders any chance of me enjoying the show. I can recognize EE's faults, but on an episode-to-episode basis, I don't mind spending a half-hour on it. I like the general atmosphere right now, the stories aren't too confusing or convoluted, all of the characters get a decent amount of airtime, and there are different tones/emotions throughout episodes, so I like it.

I can't quite put my finger on what tuned me out of the Santer era. I think some of the stories then made it very hard for a new viewer to come in, and so it was hard to follow a lot of the show.

[DRW50]

For me the Santer era was too much hype, too many hollow characters, too much smirky self-awareness, too much focus on awful characters and repetitive stories which focused only on reveals.

I 100% agree with what Ben has said, and he expresses it very well. Someone at the show should take notice. It's not couched in all the hysteria you get at DS these days.

I do still enjoy the show now more than I have in in a number of years. Why? I'm not sure. I know it's not great. I guess just little things like the way Pat is written now, or Dot. Those types of things tend to keep me watching.

I do agree about the Carol stuff, it's kind of aimless at the moment.

[Dion]

interesting rumour about Kat, Ronnie, Jack and Charlie posted on DS, bare in mind that there's no source but I thought it was worth posting anyway.

[Ben]

Dion, that rumour is actually a spoiler, and they're all true; it's taken word-for-word from the latest Inside Soap magazine.

Thanks, Carl. DS is very hysterical, but it never used to be. Don't know what's changed (a part from new members). These days, people can't express a critical opinion about EE or Corrie, without someone jumping on them for being a bitter fan of the opposite show. It's like they can't possible have any genuine concerns. Crazy.

I like the way they're writing for Dot and Pat, but Pat has had some dodgy scenes lately that made her look stupid - e.g.: Pat absent-mindedly telling Ryan that Janine locked him in the freezer - Pat has never been that stupid, and was a contrived way of moving the plot forward.

[Dion]

Ah ok, there was no source on the DS so I wasn't sure.

To a certain extent the DS fanbases have always been a bit competitive (especially back in 2004 - 2005) but it really does seem to gotten a whole lot worse this year