11 minutes ago, NothinButAttitude said:

 

That's what I don't get. Honey was like a surrogate mom to him. Why destroy that? There are a plethora of characters they could've tossed him in orbit with. 

 

I feel like they just throw Jay in stories to see what will stick. Sad part is that Jamie Borthwick is one of the strongest younger actors on this show. He should be one of the main younger actors to be driving story. 

 

I suppose the same reason they decided to destroy Sharon and Ian's 30 year friendship. The show is 95% plot. They don't care about characters. 

 

Jamie is a great young actor. Agreed that it is a shame how little he is used. Now a days Jay only exists to prop up Ben and Callum.  Part of me wishes he'd move on and try his talents elsewhere since EastEnders isn't using them, but I don't blame him for keeping a steady gig. 

 

17 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

And when did Honey and Jay become an item? What are people's thoughts on that pairing?

 

Jumped the shark is what I think.

 

3 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

I feel like they just throw Jay in stories to see what will stick. Sad part is that Jamie Borthwick is one of the strongest younger actors on this show. He should be one of the main younger actors to be driving story. 

 

They've done this with Kush too. A character with potential who they just paired with any random woman they seemed to pick out of a hat rather than someone he'd probably be suited to like Ruby. None of the relationships seem to make much sense, like how Ruby would never have looked twice at Max or Martin.

 

The Ian/Sharon thing is just the lowest of lows though. I'm not sure if I can remember a time when EE was structurally in such a damaging place in terms of its direction. At least in 2018 with crap characters like Aidan it was just rubbish new characters. Now they're destroying their originals.

12 hours ago, wingwalker said:

 

That just started a few weeks ago. On one hand, Jay and Honey are two characters that almost never get a story or airtime, so I was happy they finally got one, but with Honey once being a surrogate mother figure in Jay's life, the pairing comes across as skeevy to me. 

 

Honey was never really a mother to Jay - there were periods of a few months at a time where she would be maternal toward him, but most of the time they were in different paths (especially the last few years). With that said, the whole thing is just empty and clearly a stopgap until Billy and Honey reunite (which I have less than no interest in seeing). The moment where Billy confronted Jay was so badly acted, especially by Perry Fenwick. 

 

Even worse is that the relationship began again Jay saved Honey from being raped. The misogyny of "Queen Kate" and Jon Sen is staggering.

 

I've never seen the actors as clearly over the material as they are now. The Christmas episode was terrible, one of the all time worst for EE, but what really made the badness stand out was the complete lack of [!@#$%^&*] given by people like Jake Wood, Danny Dyer, Adam Woodyatt (awful!!!) and Letitia Dean. Max Bowden was also incredibly poor.

 

I will cut and paste my Walford Web review here.

 

 

I decided to watch the full episode as one of my New Year's resolutions that I might be able to actually keep is if I am going to complain about an episode, I should watch the whole thing. 

I would tie this with 2015 as the worst Christmas episode, although, as above, I didn't sit through all of 2019 so that isn't a full response. 

Starting with the positives, or what I can find: 

James Bye, Louisa Lytton and Lacey Turner 

The basic conceit of this - Martin pining for his happy Slater family Christmas - simply does not work for me, as Martin and Stacey were miserable for most of their Decembers together (one of the more somber images of Christmas 2018 that stuck in my head were the quiet glimpses of just how lonely Stacey and Martin both were). Lauren Klee's reed-thin script did not address any of this history, nor did she bother to give Kush and Martin a substantive scene together at a time when it was very much needed. 

Fortunately, acting is not writing, and these three all threw themselves into the material, adding a great deal of pathos and heart. 

I don't feel sorry for Ruby, as she knew what she was getting and I still don't even understand why she wanted to marry Martin, but Louisa played Ruby's jealousy and hurt in a very understated manner, not letting Ruby seem like a bitch on wheels in an occasion where she could have let herself go into full panto mode. I was also reminded that James and Louisa work well together, which might have made this pairing more palatable on a show that gave a damn.

The Stacey and Martin scenes in this episode were unearned by anything Oates and Sen have ever put on the air. It's also pointless, as Stacey will be gone before long. However, James and Lacey were both pitch-perfect in their performances, especially the key moment where they kissed and Stacey told him she still loved him.  The chemistry between James and Lacey is immense; the chemistry in that scene floored me, as it's something I just don't expect to see on this show anymore. 

I'm going to be honest here - seeing what might have been and also being reminded of the quality of work James and Lacey can still do in spite of years of neglect and terrible material really broke my heart. 

Raymond and Kim

I didn't care for the Fox material (more on that later), but I appreciate that we still got a few little building block moments with Raymond, still not fully used to life with Denise. Denise taking him to church for Christmas (until Lucas turned up, one of the few moments that reminded me of the EE of old). Raymond calling her Mummy. 

Kim was also used perfectly in the family scenes, and was one of the few moments of happiness in these 50 minutes that felt genuine. I'm not a huge fan of "comedy Kim" but they got the balance right here. 

Jean

I've had my share of complaints about Jean in recent years, along with the handling of her cancer storyline, but the scene of a happy Jean finding the lump was very affecting, as was her subdued fear and fragility throughout the rest of the episode. The quiet pain in Jean's voice when she asked Ruby to let Martin stay ("for me") was the most powerful moment of an episode hyper-focused on shouting, destruction, and murder. 

"You coward."

This episode had the worst performance I have ever seen from Letitia Dean, but this one moment resonated. No matter how much we are supposed to see Phil is a tough, principled hero, he is a weak, pathetic man. Sharon of all people knows this. She is also right in that Phil never gave a damn about Denny. No matter how much Phil shot this idea down, I'm glad it somehow worked its way into the script, and based on this being the one time that Letitia seemed to really try, I wonder if we are in agreement. 

Kat in the pub 

As others have said, Kat in the Vic isn't some kind of miracle cure for the character, but the difference here and so much of her material with those around her most of the time was striking. She felt free. What a contrast to her scenes with the Slaters, where she was so invisible, we heard more of her cackling as a background effect than we saw of her as a character. I know it will always be an unpopular opinion, but I just never do connect Kat to the current Slater family, and I never will. 

Well, that was fun...

The negatives of this episode:

Dead dialogue

This has been an issue with EE for a while, but the amount of dropped clangers on display here made me marvel none of the cast had broken toes. Highest on the list are the Denise/Chelsea confrontation in the Fox home, the Sharon/Phil graveyard confrontation, the Tina/Gray confrontation, Ben with Phil, Ben with Ian, Shirley with Linda and Max...really, I could go on and on. 

False Foxes 

I'm not sure who came up with the idea to reintroduce Lucas this way, but it is absolutely nonsensical to me. To first show him with a stranger to the audience (the new Chelsea) then strolling up into church to run into Denise robbed viewers of two opportunities to understand exactly what exact menace his return was supposed to have. The scene which suggested this - his stalking Ruby - took place AFTER the rest, giving it no impact. Why????

The impact of Chelsea's return and Lucas' effect on her was completely erased by the rush job in this episode. We should have seen her arrive to stay with Denise a few episodes ago and make calls to someone we wouldn't know, leading to Patrick or Denise following her and seeing Lucas. 

As it was, we got no real hint of any relationship between Chelsea and Denise, strained or not. The arguments between them were poorly written and phony - the scene where Chelsea accused Denise of being "jealous" made me cringe, and if the idea was to show how warped Chelsea is, the writing did not do enough to explore that angle. There was a lot of Dramatic Acting going on to cover the absurd, clumsy script and storyline - I got bad flashbacks to how Diane Parish would have to try to power through similar baffling SOC material like the Emerald visit and  the not-sisters saga.

Worst of all is that the show is now so amoral, it was difficult for them to even sell the panic and fear we should have felt over Lucas returning. In an episode full of murderers, attempted murderers, and sociopaths, who cared about another rocking up? 

(and nothing against Suzette Llewellyn, but her theatrics made Sheree feel like a markdown Kim...when we have the real Kim back on the show. The OTT stuff helped bring the Fox family scenes down for me, and makes me wonder again how much Sheree and Isaac were brought on just for a storyline that seems long abandoned)

Actors Giving Up 

I suppose I shouldn't have been, but I was thrown at how lifeless the Carters + Max scenes were. 

On paper, this should have been very distressing, emotional, high stakes material - a couple who have been faithful for decades shattered not just by adultery, but by Mick's self-loathing and shame, which just pushes Linda further away.  

Onscreen, every single instance fell flat. Danny Dyer (who seems displeased by what he is being given - not that he's alone in that, if that is the case) and Jake Wood (who has been sacked and whose character is reduced - for the last but certainly not the first time - to a marauding cock) were not even making the minimal effort. I was shocked at just HOW shabby the key scenes of Shirley confronting Linda, Mick telling her he's given up on Linda, Linda agreeing to go away with Max for a break, etc. were. 

Kellie Bright did her usual serviceable job through average material, but the whole thing reinforced just what an empty character Linda is, and exposed just how plot-driven and unbelievable her affair with Max always was. The idea that Linda - a rape survivor, whose other closest intimate involvement with a man was trying to get a confession out of Stuart (which led to another physical attack) - is going to get laid with a man who worked to destroy her family because she needs to feel pretty and womanly says it all about this show's view of women.

As someone who has never had any particular interest in Mick and Linda as a couple, I'm still amazed at just how little Oates and Sen have gotten out of a story that should have been explosive and heart-wrenching. I'm left wondering why I am supposed to care whether Linda is with either of these men, and why half-assed, lurid cheating melodrama has completely overshadowed whatever Mick's abuse story was originally meant to be. 

Actors REALLY Giving Up

You have to give Steve McFadden some credit. With a handful of exceptions, he's been phoning it in for 10-15 years, yet he manages to make the process look effortless. Now that his club appearances are shut down, he should give some classes to his co-stars. 

The only way Letitia Dean could have made her feelings about this story clearer is if she'd written "Send help" on her forehead. Those graveyard scenes were an all time low for actress and character. Atrocious, There were other scenes which somewhat hesitantly tried to give more layers to Sharon's actions, like the poisoning scene at the end. When given those chances, Letitia tried. Much of the rest of the time she didn't even bother, and I can't say I'm mad. I can't bring myself to go into a camp ode to just how few [!@#$%^&*] she gave, but I'm sure many already are. More power to them. 

(and can I say how much I hate that they had Phil point out Sharon's dumb decisions [like marrying Ian] just for her to reply that she didn't want to marry him? This cynical way of preemptively dodging criticism for idiot plotting is worse than not addressing it at all)

If I were Oates and Sen, I'd be nervous about just how checked out Max Bowden seems after only a year and a half, at a time when they will be relying on him to carry a great deal of the show. His scenes were terribly written - going from throwing darts at Ian's head, taunting Ian about leaving his lifeless body behind and forcing him to beg for his life to telling Phil he could never kill Ian because they're brothers and he loves him gave me such whiplash I needed a neck brace - but he just didn't even try. He was even overdoing the accent again in the hardman scenes, which contrasted even more with the dead line readings and arch shouting. Again, I can't say I blame him, but there's something dispiriting about seeing the show's bright new boy, their shining hope of perpetual awards and social media keening, already giving up. 

Last and least, we have Adam Woodyatt, who seems to be on a constant quest to find another bed to [!@#$%^&*] in. Ian was one of my favorite characters for many years, and yet I just can't bring myself to care about his old friend plotting his murder, or his brother taunting him as he cries to be beaten to death. The character - if he can even be called a character now - is a giant sucking sound, and nothing more. I can't believe how far he's fallen. I never would have come close to guessing. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe this character has any future on the show. I can't take watching him. Not for a second. There's no going back. They have put Ian at the center of the show, a decision that should be a no-brainer given that he's an original character and - on paper - has a messy history that should lead to all kinds of dramatic complications, but the execution has been terrible and the performances from Woodyatt have somehow been even more terrible. This type of truly lousy, insincerity is not just bad. It's outright acidic, rotting at anything that comes into contact with it.

Beyond the above names, if you add in perpetually isolated and mostly-irrelevant Kathy (popping in to set up that big tantrum from Ian with Gillian Taylforth acting like Ian was having a problem hanging up the washing) and perpetually unpleasant Peter (where Dayle Hudson's brief, reliably wooden appearance only served to convince me his main future on the BBC will not be on EE, but in a biopic of Michael Heseltine), you have a wide swathe of actors and characters who should be vital to the show, and in some cases are played by cast members of 35 years, yet they are mired in so many heinously bad, ill-defined storylines that nothing can be done. 

The failings of this story are due to it the worst piled on top of the worst for longtime and current EE problems - lack of believable friendship or family buildup, telling instead of showing, cheap melodrama, lack of respect for character or history, making too much of a fetish out of the past while snuffing out the future. Everything in this grouping is bad, rotten, putrid, and must be cut out as much as possible, which means drastic rewriting and, in some cases, resting characters. 

Nothing Really Matters

The scenes with Ian swinging the bat around like Veruca Salt in the egg room were wretched for many reasons, but the biggest may have been just how utterly meaningless his strop was. You had a clearly unhinged man violently swinging a lethal weapon...and most people were either barely reacting, or were laughing at him and encouraging him. What's the point of having such a big overblown showpiece when you completely undercut it?

The scene just let us know, more than likely intended, how many sociopaths and deeply compromised characters are littering the canvas. I can't even keep track anymore. It's one thing to have flawed characters, but when you have so many characters who act in such an extreme manner, and whose actions are shrugged off in the writing, that means there are no stakes, no one to root for, nothing to care about.

In an episode awash with murderers, would-be murderers, and garden variety psychopaths, the scene that made me genuinely angry was Gray's meta comment about the knives needing to face upward. What was clearly intended to be a chilling moment of foreboding was instead a depressing example of just how much of a toll cynical, overly self-aware writing has taken on EE, and what a mockery it makes of "relevant" stories like this was originally intended to be, a long time ago in the land of po-faced press releases. 

This episode managed to get so many things wrong, in so many different ways, it's hard to even process everything I have to say. This regime is competent at only one thing - complete incompetence. 

Edited December 28, 20204 yr by DRW50

@DRW50 That was an awesome review.

32 minutes ago, victoria foxton said:

@DRW50 That was an awesome review.

 

Thank you, that's very kind. Sorry for the endless length.

 

  

 

  

Edited December 28, 20204 yr by victoria foxton

11 hours ago, wingwalker said:

Jamie is a great young actor. Agreed that it is a shame how little he is used. Now a days Jay only exists to prop up Ben and Callum.  Part of me wishes he'd move on and try his talents elsewhere since EastEnders isn't using them, but I don't blame him for keeping a steady gig. 

 

I hate that he is wasting away on EE. Part of me wonders is it out of loyalty or fear of losing stability. I wish he'd leave the nest and go on and become a star. I think he'd a strong British import in Hollywood. 

Oddly, the best parts of the Christmas episode were from characters this regime has little interest in beyond the surface. Like Denise (even though the story is ridiculous), and Kat was in her element behind the bar again. The stuff with Jean also wasn’t bad.

 

Ian has been a lost cause for years, and I don’t know what this character is, but it’s not the Sharon I once knew. 

Edited December 28, 20204 yr by BetterForgotten

  

2 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

Oddly, the best parts of the Christmas episode were from characters this regime has little interest in beyond the surface. Like Denise (even though the story is ridiculous), and Kat was in her element behind the bar again. The stuff with Jean also wasn’t bad.

 

I agree with this. I loved the stuff with Denise and agree with the decision to recast Chelsea. Denise and the new Chelsea have good chemistry. Agree also that the story is ridiculous.

 

  

 

  

  

Edited December 28, 20204 yr by victoria foxton

Absolutely vile. Tina wasn't ever my favorite Carter, but she deserved a better send off. I already see speculation it could be a fake out. I don't care if it is, they've done so many death fake outs, it's a joke. The message they are basically sending is if you try to leave or expose an abuser, you're dead. 

 

 

Wow. So they really killed off Tina? Jesus. 

 

Also, these shows really need to start straying from the Christmas/New Years murder episodes. It's becoming obvious at this point. I think it does detriment to these shows too as nobody really has to watch until this time of year. Just laziness. 

 

Much like others, I didn't care for Tina either, but they could've simply wrote her off. And I definitely won't be watching b/c now we gotta watch Shirley and Mick sulk for centuries over this. 

I actually thought Tina was one of the most tolerable Carters (not necessarily a compliment when you look at the Carters). LOL. So of course they kill her.

 

Really sad to see how far EastEnders has fallen. It really is a parody of itself, isn't it? 

 

The miserable Christmas and New Years has always turned me off.

 

And add me to the list of those who think it's really sad the actor playing Jay is basically window dressing.

 

Honey/Jay could actually have lots of layers, as icky as it is.

 

A lot of these stories could actually be turned around.

 

Jon Sen does seem to be a very bad influence. Not that Oates is any better, really. I haven't been impressed with her history on any show. And with the same producers hopping back and forth between HollyOaks, Emmerdle, Corrie and EastEnders, they've all become similar to each other. Dark. Plotty. Reminds me of Jill Farren Phelps and other US producers who turn their shows in to dark plotty messes. You could at least say it was produced well. EE isn't even produced well. 

Edited December 29, 20204 yr by KMan101