Yesterday's EastEnders

Quiz: which ILE-er once stood up Dennis Waterman's daughter on a date?

scuse me.

It is satisfactory that my home land is the only landscape that serves as background as the little happy-go-lucky moments in 'EastEnders', though...Another San Miguel, please!

YOU BITCH!

YOU COW!

We're lookin' for ROY!

This programme has really taken a turn for the better! I am impressed. Okay so little mo is still a wet whimpering sap, and Chrissie still acts and looks like a pantomime dame, but Wow - the Moon brothers? Give me a piece of that - quick!

Actually, Patrick, didn't we find out a while ago that he's technically not your son? Hmm?

also, ian and jane + sexual congress = vomit.

i demand an appearance by bricktop & co to 'sort out' Andy.

I like the new Ronnie Kray 'loves his mother, only kills his own' type East End gangster. Have we found out what the connection between him and Pat is yet?

So Paul Trueman is properly dead then? I was hoping they were going to keep it open, in a Dirty Den kind of way.

Eastenders has got so much better since they dropped the absurd pretence that Leslie Grantham is supposedly attractive to women and made him into the durty old man everyone really thinks he is. Did you hear Den say "its so vulgar having your photo in the paper" the other week?

Also there's a Den whodunnit coming up, apparently. Soap whodunnits are always great in a preposterous kind of way.

will anyone tell the difference?

I was terribly disappointed at Andy Hunters death, I was expecting him to be torn apart by Alfie or Patrick, but hey ho, can't have all the square murderers.

Gosh, I'm sad.

how did Den fake his dead pulse?

Andy's death was cool, especially the ruthless economy of it. Actually the Andy story was much more compelling than the Den storyline, I thought.

I was saying to my wife the other night that with the two new rent-a-thugs, the return of Den and the bloke of The Bill that 'enders now had way too many tough/bad guys in it. Good plan to get rid of two at once.

Rumour azzit Grant Mitchell may return later in the year.

um, xpost, some wrestling stuff, folding table gtting smashed or something

I thought the bit in the Vic with Ian playing the air guitar was quite sweet because it involved all the characters who've been there from the beginning. I can't believe I've been watching that programme for 20 years now.

I also can't believe that the best plotline they could come up with for their 20th anniversary was to kill Den again. I agree, Andy's death was much better.

And hey! The Ferreras aren't gone at all! There they were at the bar with no-one saying "where the bloody hell did you lot slope off to?"

I was quite stupidly impressed with them keeping Sharon's brief return quiet - I read quite a lot of trashy papers and magazines and didn't know about it. I should get out more.

I said that thing about Ian being like his twattish 20-years-ago self with Pauline and Dot and Den and that to my husband when it was on on Friday, like what accentmonkey said, and my husband said I was really sad. :(

Are there any gays in Eastenders at the moment? I like a good gay character.

The guy who plays the Moon brother that isn't Lee from the Office is gay in real life, but that's not what you meant, was it? Corrie has the best soap gay in Sean.

I can't help myself, my head is full of old soap plots - I'm therefore frequently baffled at the company some people keep in the soaps ("Why are you buying him a pint? He shagged your wife in 1992!"). It seems the characters have shorter memories (or are more forgiving) than me.

Tony and Simon were a top gay couple. Simon was totally over the top bad acting camp guy and Tony spent the whole time going "I'm not gay, give us a kiss Si."

Oh, and WTF is with Ronnie Ferrera? Has he got mumps?

According to teh beeb "The Banned was a pop group consisting of Ian Beale, Sharon Watts, Kelvin Carpenter and Eddie Henderson. In the show they performed a track called Something Outta Nothing. It was then released as a single."

Me too. When Den was bludgeoned I thought, wow, it's just like when Steve and Matthew did Saskia in. And cementing over the body. How Brookside!

The 'Lords of the Bling' lads had a scrap (can't remember the names) over the Ferraro girl.

That blonde girl who hangs around with the Ferraro's shouted at them a bit and then did one.

Johnny Allens daughter is an assasin. She killed her sister. Jane in the caff put her up to it cause she don't like li'l girls innit?

Mmm, attractive. Thanks, Ailsa.

In tonight's EastEnders update, the Ferreiras have gone! FOR GOOD!

Johnny Allen's daughter is clearly some sort of nervous wreck and keeps running away. She freaked out at the sight of a picture of her sister on his wall. I think the sister in question was murdered by gangsters.

Nope, it was a fire apparently. Though that fire may have been gangster-related as I wasn't really paying attention. She was called Scarlet. Like as in Scarlets. DO YOU SEE?

Isn't Stacey Slater annoying? Note to scriptwriters - we all remember Janine, we don't need another one just yet thanks.

My prediction stands: He will take back the Queen Vic, get Vicky or Sonia or both up the duff whilst seeing Den's old bit of stuff, then die somehow in another hopelessly ill-conceived scenario.

I watch eastenders, at the moment, if it's on the telly I'm watching.

Jake and Danny have grown on me, now that they are leaving.

(xpost)

Why are the Moon brothers being written out already? They're much better than the Mitchells.

Ian best wimpering idiot ever tho.

big fat hard man

Phil (pointing to toilet): "Remember that?"
Ian: "No Phil! NOT THE TOILET OF DEATH!!!11!!1"

Copper: "You're soaking wet sir."
Ian: "Well I'm just out the bath (WITH ALL MY CLOTHES ON!)."

I liked the coppers surrounding Phil then deciding to take him on one at a time a la every Bruce Lee film ever. Two sore faces later they decide mob-handed might be a better strategy.

As we never saw the ladies physically disposing of/burying Den's body, one assumes that the door is open for him to crawl back in another 14 years' time.

What I don't know, yet, is if he came back for two episodes or if we're going to have to go through six weeks of courtroom tedium now.

Perhaps he could appear in that ghastly-sounding People's Court thing that's just started on daytime ITV.

(nb: Phil did not literally flush Ian down the bog - we were denied that pleasing spectacle)

The Ol' Bill. He's still to be tried after Dirty Den stitched him up in a robbery.

(x-post) You never see Pauline with hair tucked behind her ears any more - is she hiding the join?

Ed, it's P@m $t Cl3m3ns who is *supposed to be* the muff diva with the newsreader girlfriend (and is a posh old luvvy to boot). Furthermore, she doesn't even live in Marylebone.

Jesus though, Enders is unwatchable these days, and this thread reminds me that it has been that way for at least a year. Why can't I give up watching it, why?

The Don.

come again?

crap how they started with jonny allen being OMG THE BIGGEST MOST RESPECTABLE CRIME LORD IN THE WORLD OMG, and now he's just going to turn into yet another play thing for the script writers to abuse for the mitchell brothers (who are basically just two bouncers).

And Peggy "I'm a MITCHELL" Mitchell will hopefully stop spouting that line now her boys are back.

As for "He/She's not worth it" uttered by Billy umpteen times a night - God! Get a new line!

I await with pleasure Phil's unintelligible explanation of how he isn't banged up.

Is Grant the undisclosed 3rd party who is buying The Vic? Will he get back with Sharon? Who will be killed during the Proper Family Christmas?

Never mind, you'll be getting some Sonia Jackson/Fowler lezzing-up action soon.

Sonia's new "cultured" best mate, inspired by the fact that Martin's a thicko wingnut who doesn't want to go to Tate Modern or read Animal Farm (and good on him, I say), decides Sonia needs a bit of girlie love.

come again?

Oh, steady on, Finbarr Saunders.

Is Grant the undisclosed 3rd party who is buying The Vic?

Nah, that would be Beale the Squeal, apparently.

Tonight's episode was just Phil'n'Grant by numbers, and rubbish it was too. Still, anything that deflects attention from the lame attempt at an injection of humour that is the Garry'n'Minty show is OK by me.

it was 1984 actually

Madness.

and i can't believe that johnny allen is some god-like status crime lord and phil hasn't even heard of him since he was a baby. and the fact that he had to ask Dot (?!) for information on the mitchell brothers, surely he has contacts elsewhere.

Grant and Phil weren't quite "by numbers" last night. The "I'm too old for this caper, can't we just stand around looking hard?" bit was good, though Grant didn't take long to revert to type afterwards.

xp

destroy corrie, forever

he's a right CAD as well.

slightly disappointing that eastenders uses "the bloke off of desmonds", "another bloke off of desmonds" and "bloke off of fresh prince" as seemingly the only three black actors over 50...

...also, surely when patrick arrived he was portrayed as a right devil, but now is meant to have been the rubbish one. see also jim branning's r4cialism being swept under the carpet...

Not as bad as British TV/film's "Om Puri is the only Indian actor over 50" steez though.

The guy who plays scary Warren. Where do I know him from?

Will Mellor - Jambo in Hollyoaks, failed pop star, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, that thing about posties with Dean Lennox Kelly in it. Some other stuff.

Somewhere there is a job where I get paid for knowing all this shite.

Will Mellor, oh yes.

Ailsa, you're a marvel.

Ha, my mum spends large amounts of her time phoning/texting me to ask me where she'd seen so-and-so before. This is why that kid off Doctor Who is annoying me so much, because I usually just *know* this stuff.

Eastenders is working up to the 'angry radicalised Muslim' storyline isn't it? Oh god.

I get angry and radicalised if I accidentally see any of Eastenders.

does anyone still watch this? not yesterday's but tonight's:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7907262.stm?lss

EastEnders is to air the first episode featuring an entirely black cast for the first time in its 23-year history.
Tonight's programme will focus entirely on characters Patrick Trueman, Denise Wicks, fiance Lucas, and her daughters Chelsea and Libby.

altho i'm sure there was an episode many years ago which was at least 90% Traverniers.

so as not to dilute the corrie thread with filthy eastend shenanigans like i did last time...

it's all kicking off this week. bbc trailers point to peggy's last hurrah and something happening to a certain pub.

soaps are clearly the most important thing in my life at the moment.

the last time I saw it Phil was in the depths of crack addiction but tonight I half-watched and heard people casually talking about him as if everything is normal. Did he recover in five minutes?

no, last we saw of him he was pissed off with peggy and everyone and everything, and said something about having "a plan" whilst looking at the queen vic.

Probably. I saw about ten minutes of it at the weekend and can't remember anything about it.

xpost

I was clearly on some mindbenders up there in this thread when I claimed Sean was a good character in Corrie and that Stacey was a bad character in EastEnders. Or, more likely, this was quite early on in each character's screen life, and they hadn't developed them at all (Stacey - much much better, Sean - mostly no)

becca's persuaded stacey to come off her meds and is trying to turn her against her mum. lacey turner was so good in that live ep.

said something about having "a plan" whilst looking at the queen vic.

he's going to eat the pub

totally going to eat the pub.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq8L7ADA7Pk&feature=related

I actually have an answer to this question from years ago on this thread:

slightly disappointing that eastenders uses "the bloke off of desmonds", "another bloke off of desmonds" and "bloke off of fresh prince" as seemingly the only three black actors over 50...

I read somewhere that this is because there are too few roles for black actors, so people drop out of acting early on and go and do other jobs, which means that there are genuinely far fewer non-white actors over 50 to choose from when you're trying to cast something.

I can't believe they burned out the Vic and didn't kill anyone. As someone on the Guardian comments section pointed out, this is the cleansing fire before the HD cameras move into a revamped set.

I can't believe they burned out the Vic and didn't kill anyone.

yeah, although I admire the audacity of having Phil be a crack-fuelled superman who seemed pretty much alright after wandering through raging fire, thick smoke, and the odd massive explosion, and getting crushed by half of the ceiling.

Just watching this now. How come Dot's allowed to smoke in the pub? And no-one has a mobile? Really? (Masood has just told Dot to go home and call the fire brigade)

Also, Barbara Windsor is a fucking terrible actress, good riddance.

I assumed Masood was partly doing that to get her out of there so there'd be one less person hanging around to deal with. I didn't notice that Dot was smoking in the pub, interesting. Maybe because it was a private party?

lol at phil on crack

Where did Peggy get all her costume changes from after the Vic burned down?

I think that gear had been at the dry cleaners. Billy handed it to her wrapped in plastic and on hangers. How she managed to keep her white jacket white while sitting in a sooty pub is beyond me, though.

New Lauren Branning is rubbish.

gave up on this ages ago, even the pub burning down was boring

Cosign on Lauren. EastEnders' ongoing attempts to engage with the Skins audience isn't getting any less cringeworthy, even if there is comic mileage in the Fatboy-Dot Cotton double act.

Oh ffs, really, another Moon cousin. With a SECRET (secret = he's shagged Kat, obv)

The last pair of Moon brothers were totally underused IMO, especially the psycho perv one who got shot in the head.

Aye, they just started getting good round about the time they were written out. This one is going to be terrible though, I can tell. And also, he's thingy from This Life that used to go out with Kira. Except grown up.

Really like Fat Boy.

I keep forgetting that New Lauren is Lauren, if that makes sense.

She actually looks a lot like the old Lauren, except about a foot taller and with a totally different voice and personality. I can see why they replaced her, it's a bit difficult to do proper teen stories with an actress who still looks like she's about 12.

I really liked that old Lauren was a bit quiet and sensitive - not every teenage girl has to be a Rosie Webster minx waiting to happen.

Supposed to be a new Ben and a new Lucy on the way too I think. Can't wait for New Ben.

I sort of appreciate that they didn't even change the actress when Rosie Webster underwent a complete personality transplant. But I wish sometimes they would just let soap kids grow up and give them storylines appropriate to their development (see Sophie Webster for perfect example of doing this properly).

I realise sometimes they do this because the kids don't want to be in the soaps any more, but when they axe them to bring in sexier older actors to change the character, just fuck off already. Get better writers.

(secret = he's shagged Kat, obv)

The look they gave each other suggested to me that he's the baby daddy.

Supposed to be a new Ben and a new Lucy on the way too I think.

Aw, I liked Ben. I suppose in keeping with the new BBC aesthetic (to be seen across not just Stenders, but Strictly too, he'll be some stubbly hunk with chesticles like rocks, even if he is only twelve or something.

I suppose all my cutting remarks about Lucy reminding me of Jimmy Carr are probably getting to them.

I thought I was dead clever and observant when I noticed Lucy = Jimmy Carr, but a quick google showed the entire internet had noticed before I did.

I really liked that old Lauren was a bit quiet and sensitive - not every teenage girl has to be a Rosie Webster minx waiting to happen.

She tried to kill her own father by running him down with a car. I think coherent character development went out of the window after that.

c&p'd from the Corrie thread I posted this in by mistake:

can we talk about Eastenders' Glenda turning into an uber-GILF and shagging her nephew, the ever-unnattractive Phil Mitchell, after letting Ian Beale think he was going to get his? She is fast becoming my current favourite soap character by a long way - between this and her leaving weed out for Carol Jackson to get stoned on, she is holding the show together. Not even Janine locking Ryan in a fridge, or Rosie Webster generally being amazing, is coming close.

Yeah, Glenda's pretty good really. Her character has changed a bit from when she first appeared.

I really liked the plot development of Carol having an affair with her son's friend Connor. It's a shame they've broken up already.

I'm a bit puzzled who owns the Queen Vic now? Wasn't it left to Roxy, so she could potentially sell it to solve her cash flow problems. But Alfie is paying rent for it to Phil?

I really liked the plot development of Carol having an affair with her son's friend Connor. It's a shame they've broken up already

Have they? That is a shame. I like Connor. And by "like" I mean "would objectify in the worst way".

No it was 'like' as in I thought it was a bold and interesting plot-line to have a devastated 40-something female sleeping with a much younger man - and interesting opportunity to play with other characters reactions to that.

Oh - I see I misread you - sorry.

Roxy signed it over to Peggy who then signed it over to Phil.

XP: I also liked the Carol/Connor relationship in the way you describe. Interesting to see Carol becoming so protective of one of Billy's friends, and of course it's always good to have the older woman/younger man relationship, just to remind people that it does happen.

Does Glenda actually like Phil or is she just trying to find out what's happening to Roxy's money?

Tamwar calling Stacey "babe" recently in an incredibly random, awkward tone was great acting/writing. I love little things like that. And Lauren's wtf giggles when she heard Billie had died.

I love Tamwar. I'm excited (within the context of Stenders, obviously) for a new Masood family storyline. Mas is my very favourite character, Tamwar a close second.

Great Glenda episode tonight...Party at Phil's new gaff with Glenda making both Phil and Ian uncomfortable as she's sleeping with both of them, getting drunk and speaking a few home truths.

Good clip of Glenda relaxing at home listening to Fleetwood Mac. Could just picture her rolling a few doobies and getting stoned to the Mac.

...and more...

This cot death/baby swap nonsense is fucking bleak, even by EastEnders standards.

Yeah - it's been pretty hard going. Really disappointed with Eastenders, as last year they had Archie's murder and the Indian wedding between Sayeed and Amira (really colourful episode).

This Xmas/New Year Corrie has been a lot better than EastEnders. Just caught up with yesterday's two episodes. Good stuff: with Tracey super-villain, the sexual tension between Sally and Tyrone etc.

Tracy is the worst thing in Corrie by miles (possibly only because Stape's been sidelined to accommodate her).

I did think for one long moment that Ronnie hadn't gone through with the swap when she wouldn't let Roxy into the room, but no, it's misery and bleakness all round with NO light relief at all (unless you count Masood and Zainab's bizarre mating "yes master" rituals).

worst thing in Corrie - coming up:

http://i1.cdnds.net/10/52/550w_soaps_corrie_tyrone_sally_kiss.jpg

Honestly I know tabloid hysteria is ridiculous and annoying but the cot death/baby stealing storyline is so depressing as to be borderline unwatchable.

The acting (esp. Jessie Wallace) has been terrific, but the storyline is harrowing as fuck. I don't even think I can bear to watch the "reveal" whenever they get round to it.

apparently they are rushing the reveal - the story was planned to go on for the whole of this year. i don't watch it though, it's a genuinely depressing show. every time i flick past it seems to be people screeching at each other and when they try to do comedy... o_O

Aware of the likely sensitivity around the issue, programme-makers had already made last-minute cuts to the New Year's Eve episode, including shots of a distraught Ronnie touching the cold hand of her dead baby, and Kat in blood-soaked pyjamas after her husband finds her haemorrhaging in her bed.

ffs.

oh, the quote was from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/06/eastenders-complaints-cot-death

Is there a new person in charge or something? It does seem to have shifted from the awesome kind of miserable (whodunnits, serial killer priests) to just out and out miserable (baby stealing, mothers finding their children dead on the sofa).

I'm more amazed that they shunt things like Wall-E off onto BBC3 and/or starting at 10:00pm just so the 'larger' audience are available to watch this.

Aye, new bloke just taken over in the last year. ex-Hollyoaks big chief, apparently. Not that I watch Hollyoaks, but I believe they were quite big on sensational storylines in his reign as well.

xpost to Matt

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12134763

But BBC controller of drama production John Yorke told Radio 4's World At One programme that the job of the show's creators was to "create a drama that people talk about".

"What's cheering about this - and I do hear the concerns - is that everybody's talking about cot death and we're putting it back on the agenda, he added.

I know a couple of people who've lost babies who have found it impossible to watch this storyline, especially at New Year when people tend to get a bit weepy over lost family. It's such an unsympathetic angle to take as well, making the grieving mother a mad baby stealer.

Right, let's get it over with: yadda yadda what's on your i-pod: Adam Faith, "Someone elses baby"

...

^^^

For years, the soaps cover themselves by claiming their tales are reflective of issues concerning real-life (I take it they had the usual "If you have been affected by issues raised.." phoneline/disclaimer)

But this is no better than Daily Star muckraking, purely for the benefit of people that things like this would never affect, just so they can go "ooh, look at him/her, always thought they was a wrong-un"

I don't really get why this is so awful (wrt tabloid hysteria), soaps cover murder, rape, domestic violence etc etc etc all the time and these are also things that families are affected by and no-one bats an eyelid.

Mind you I haven't watched Eastenders in years so maybe I'm missing something.

Eastenders is generally better at covering things like domestic violence/rape/child abuse sensitively though. This just seems like piling misery on misery for the sake of it. Specifically immediately turning victim into villain. Murders are so engrained in fiction that no one would think of not including a murder storyline because it would be insensitive - murder with real-life parallels a different thing obviously.

Also it's just fucking bleak and not even good soap drama. The funeral episode should be fun, I might give it a miss and do something cheerier like re-reading Jude The Obscure.

Colonel Poo, because it's painting the grieving mother as a completely deranged psycho, ignoring the fact that Kat would surely recognise her own son and that the dead baby wasn't him, bypassing any sensitive way of dealing with the issue to make what someone somewhere thinks is a better story. It's factually inaccurate and handled really badly, I don't think there would be the level of complaints if it was simply either Kat and Alfie or Ronnie and Jack grieving for the death of their own actual son.

Eastenders have done cot death and miscarriage before, and handled them effectively and sensitively in the past. But this time round, it's just whizzbang ratings-grabbing mentalism.

xpost

Newborn babies all look the same to me but then I'm not the parent of one. Also the fact that one baby had a club foot and the other one didn't and the doctor's examining the dead baby didn't wonder why it had suddenly developed one that no one had previously noticed is just a really stupid plot hole.

purely for the benefit of people that things like this would never affect

idgi - pretty sure people with kids also watch Eastenders

Well, from someone who's responsible for two babies, I'd have recognised both within five mins of them being born.

xpost yes, and is it for their "benefit" ?

OK, I'm only vaguely aware of this because of OUTRAGE headlines and just thought people were pissed off because a soap was covering cot death.

I'm assuming a bit (never watch it)..

The main outrage/reaction is due to the victim/villain is not the classic Nick Cotton "born bad" nasty in all he/she does, type.

Because 'we' have been given to be sympathetic to her past situation(s), and allowed to identify with her, when she does something 'mental'/'evil', it disgusts in larger measure.

I think the main outrage is that it paints grieving mothers of SIDS babies as crazy psycho baby snatchers.

Was reading an article at lunchtime where infant death campaigners are a bit miffed at the way in which a grieving mother is being portrayed as something akin to the childcatcher

xpost

I agree with the people who have watched it and know what they're talking about.

But, as Grace Dent points out, Ronnie Mitchell-Branning is hardly your standard grieving mother. She has form in the area of doing weird baby-related nutso things (didn't she essentially offer to buy Sam Mitchell's baby off her (standard soap stuff, I know), she has reason to be unreasonable around babies, what with her dead daughter (who died twice as far as she was concerned, and was the child of incest), her miscarriage, and so on. S

All that aside, though, I totally agree with Matt DC. There's just no satisfying conclusion to this story. Nobody in the audience is waiting with bated breath to see Ronnie get her comeuppance the way they were waiting for Trevor to get his, or Tracey Barlow to get hers, or whatever. There is nothing but more misery to be wrung out of this storyline. It's just bleak and miserable and it teaches nobody anything about anything.

Stray S there. Nice.

You know, I typed out Ronnie's backstory to illustrate a point earlier, then deleted it because it made me sad that I watch such a ludicrous soap.

You forgot that her niece is her step-daughter, for extra odd kid-related stuff.

I think there's another reason people are annoyed at this that the BBC haven't really acknowledged yet, most mothers don't develop problems after going through things like this but some do and those problems are nothing like this. The writers seem under the impression that people sometimes just go crazy and that general craziness can pretty much explain any action at all, there doesn't seem to have been any research into how grief or child abuse actually affects people mentally. The official responses from the BBC so far have been along the lines of "oh but you don't realise, she's really crazy, and she has been through a lot you know." It's missing the point that people who go through "a lot" and develop problems as a result still don't go around stealing babies.

Yes, pretty daft to talk about soaps at the moment with so much rubbish going on in the world right now, but... (I couldn't find an Emmerdale thread so forgive me for sticking this here) - Jackson and Aaron's story at the moment is brilliant. Fantastic acting from those two guys, I was almost in tears last night.

How much do we reckon Whitney Dean is worth?

too right chris. guy who plays aaron is the best actor on telly, hands down. a lot of emmerdale is o_O or boring but when it's good it's stupendous.

yeah amos & mr wilks were awesome. Miss it when it was actually good. Post plane crash (of course it had nothing to do with lockerbie yeah right) is bollocks bar when nelly dingle was in it.

I never forgave them for killing off Archie

heh
http://www.emmerdale.org/emmerdale/profiles/archie.htm

his body was never found. Bring him back!

let go

I'm quite sad that there will be more scenes of Ronnie walking around in a catatonic state struggling to say anything, it was getting quite funny.

Otherwise, this show hasn't been very good at all lately. Max might be able to wear a suit well but I really doubt Tanya would even consider swapping Greg for him.

I think my facial recognition software is playing up - I keep having trouble telling Tanya and Jane apart.

EE's been pretty bad for the last few weeks. Hopefully, the scriptwriters can draw a veil over this whole sorry baby swap/Ronnie plot. I'd like to see Roxy and Christian out-clubbing again (not in the R&R, or whatever it's called these days). I'd like to see a new older femme fatale to replace Glenda.

Aaron/Jackson/Hazel in Emmerdale last night were incredible. Jackson skydiving to Doves 'Words' the other night was gorgeous too. This storyline's been so good.

I can't believe the BBC haven't registered www.butchersjoints.com

Does anyone here watch Eastenders? I ask because my mum, who watches every soap imaginable, does not watch 'stenders and gets annoyed that it regularly wins every Soap of the Year award going, she says, "It must all Londoners that vote, because nobody here watches it." Are there regional breakdowns of viewing figures? Is everyone all Corried-up North of Watford?

most people who watch soaps seem to watch all soaps, in my experience. i used to watch corrie then i moved to emmerdale and now i don't watch any of them but i've never been able to stick eastenders. it's depressing when it's depressing and even more depressing when it attempts to be amusing.

I'd say there were more Eastenders viewers in the North than Corrie or Emmerdale viewers in the South. My mother-in-law watches all of them.

I'm with my maw on this one. Can't see the attraction of Eastenders to anyone North of Watford (or South of Watford), but then I find the accents a total earache and watching a bunch of miserable mouthy Cockernees shouting at each other and murdering each other, or whatever it is they get up to, holds no great appeal for me

my sister's an enormous Soap fan and doesn't have much time for Eastenders, mainly cos like me and apparently Tom and Tom's mum she can't see the appeal of this relentlessly dour unpleasant grimy shitfest of evil gits being evil

and i'll watch a bit of Corrie now and then and seem to have seen an inordinate amount of Brookie but where's the pleasure in badly caricatured scum being scum 24/7?

I haven't watched EastEnders for years, caught a bit of it over Christmas, and wtf, Sharon's back and being proposed to by Phil and/or Jack (never found out which one) and Ronnie's going out with Alfie and Phil was being a bit weird about making Billy's daughter/grand-daughter christen her baby as a Mitchell.

I only watch Corrie now. I used to flit in and out of Emmerdale, used to watch EastEnders but totally gave it up one day and realised I didn't miss it at all.

I watched an old Red Dwarf the other night and it had a young Max Branning in it and that big comedian bloke who was 'ever's man... googles... Ricky Grover!

I saw Max Branning in the pub once. He's small.

lol that's the episode with the Canaries, right?

I missed out the fact that they're all fucking hideously ugly too

Yes, that's the chap xp

my scottish family watch the big three + river city, though i'd guess that eastenders would be bottom of the pile for them. i've seen a few episodes while i've been up home, and i feel that it's taken the comically relentless grimness to an even higher level since the last time i saw it. seems p unwatchable now, if it was ever watchable.

i do kinda like that almost everyone in the cast is ugly though, and not even just tv ugly. maybe just because it makes me feel better about myself.

I watched an old Red Dwarf the other night and it had a young Max Branning in it

Did he slide his feet noisily across the floor every time he took a step instead of picking them up like a PROPER PERSON?

i do kinda like that almost everyone in the cast is ugly though, and not even just tv ugly. maybe just because it makes me feel better about myself.

They've prettied them up a lot lately. I don't like that.

I've always watched Stenders, but it's more of an addiction now than anything else. Certainly I couldn't argue with anyone's criticism of it, except to say that the acting is often surprisingly high quality and I love the Masoods. Well, Mas and Tamwar, anyway. Tamwar reminds me of Richard Osman.

eh? the acting is absolutely terrible.

I watch it in the same way I suspect lots of ILXers do, drifting in and out of it according to interest in the storylines. I've been feeling cheated since the underwhelming death of Derek Branning and haven't really bothered much since, assuming there's going to be loads of coverage of his boring children and not much else.

Masoods sans Syed and Christian >>>>>>> most of the other characters.

Whoever plays Carol Jackson, she is quite a good actress. Not quite so enthusiastic about the millionth comeback of Sharon even with her newfound love of painkiller abuse, or Max's Other Wife with the interesting lips.

Yeah, Carol is good, and from what I saw a couple of years ago, the lass that plays Whitney is pretty good too. I used to think Jessie Wallace was good too, she was excellent around the time of the terrible baby-swap storyline.

Baby swap story was a deal breaker/final straw for some people.

Her who played Stacey was good.

Their bad guys have always been awful.

Most of the women are really good, except Sharon. I don't understand why they keep bringing her back, I can't imagine she's even that popular as a character.

I loved Derek Branning as a bad guy. He was another really good actor they got in, then didn't really seem to know what to do with. Mostly I liked him because his character had proper motivations for doing things and didn't just go around trying to screw things up for everyone, the way Phil Mitchell does. Phil Mitchell is a dreadful character and one of the things that makes me wish I could find something else to do with myself in the early evenings. He just blocks everything, all the time, and his stupidity and lack of any apparent motivation other than malice make him boring. I can't figure out if Steve McFadden is a very bad actor, or if the character is just unplayable. Probably both.

The Derek Branning guy was a terrible actor and the character was flimsy as fuck as well. You're OTM on Phil Mitchell though.

trishy i'm wondering about yardstick of good acting. the women are camping it up, generally, seemingly to make up for the presiding misery of the thing. there's a lot of acting going on for sure, though. e.g the character whose name i don't know who had the scene last night where she found a jewellery box and presumed it was a ring and was about to be proposed to. i mean, i know she's supposed to be a comic character but rolling your eyes like a pantomime dame isn't really comic acting.

i hate that thing they do where they write the youngsters exactly the same as the middle aged gangster types. the teenaged guy with the red hair who works with phil mitchell is written as jaded and joyless as phil mitchell himself. it's not the actors fault though, what else could he do?

So who killed Lucy Beale?

YOU DID

Exhausting episode tonight. Putting the viewers through the ringer.

or wringer.

I laughed out loud at Jay and Roxy's scene last night where he was explaining how he ended up on the sex offenders' register, when Roxy said "Never mind, you'll find someone else," and he said, "yeah, because girls are queuing up to go out with a paedo."

Yeah, that was good. I've just come back to EastEnders again recently, mostly because Coronation Street is so terrible that I can barely look at it so I need to get some actual soapy misery and a plot that takes more that 20 minutes to develop and be resolved. I'm not sure a week of Roxy trying to poop drugs out of her bum was the place to start back again.

Aw, I liked Ben. I suppose in keeping with the new BBC aesthetic (to be seen across not just Stenders, but Strictly too, he'll be some stubbly hunk with chesticles like rocks, even if he is only twelve or something.

I'm basically having to treat Martin Fowler as a new character who just happens to be called Martin Fowler at this stage because of this.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/IMG_1239_zps6qrd7g96.jpg

It was dependably grim. And Roxy wasn't even the most miserable person last night, as that honour went to Ian Beale.

Not sure myself of the success of the strategy of playing the Roxy, Billy and Jay scene for laughs.

Peggy's death with the ghost of Pat was awful, just too knowing and meta. Phil Mitchell has been really good in it for the past few weeks though.

As bad as Corrie is and as ridiculous it still bears some relationship (murder plots notwithstanding) to how people actually engage with each other is daily life, that people are generally pleasant to each other, funny at times, want to be thought well off and be Liked and act accordingly. Whenever you see eastenders it's a torrential screaming match or people scowling at each other like they genuinely hate their family and neighbours and doing that growly talking thing.

Eastenders is all time at the moment fuiud.

Corrie is nothing like that at the moment. No-one interacts unless they are required to do so to drive forward a ludicrous plot which will be forgotten about in a week. They change personalities at the drop of a hat, again just to suit the plot. Storylines are forgotten about as soon as they've been done (see Faye's baby, Fiz's daughter's cancer, Tyrone's debt problems, Sinead's modelling career, Maria's gay husband, and that's just in the last few months).

I dropped out of EastEnders for about a year there. Coming back to it, the characters remain well-defined and pretty much as I remember them, and things are still bubbling on which were going on years ago. The only on-going ones in Corrie have been this ludicrous Tracy v Carla thing and Calum's murder, both of which are set to be resolved within this week, leaving them with, I dunno, absolutely nothing. It's the one-year anniversary of Kal's death so they've had a wee bit between Leanne and Yazmeen acknowledging this, but not a squeak from Sophie considering it's also the one-year anniversary of Maddie's death too. There's no continuity at all, it just lurches from one short-lived plot to another. Relationships are completely forgotten (see, for example, Carla & Michelle having nothing to do with Maria and her son, despite them having a lot of history - Carla's now on her third partner who has also been in a relationship with Maria, not to mention Liam being Michelle's nephew). Eastenders seems to exist as an actual community and acknowledges its history. Coronation Street doesn't. Which is a shame, because that used to be one of its major strengths.

I think the history thing is something that EE has been explicitly trying to do for some time after having not really bothered for years (funnily enough the time when it was really boring and I didn't bother with it).

Also I never thought I'd actually enjoy Danny Dyer in anything but he is great in it.

Eastenders is all time at the moment fuiud.

This is generally true, but man, Friday night's soul-searching convo between Roxy and hunky small-faced builder guy was some of the worst dialogue I've ever seen in anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhsz6EAmCsU

It is pretty good at the moment - but the Andy aka 'hunky small faced builder guy" scenes are a bit too ridiculous.

to be fair Andy doesn't need to act or speak anything of sense, he just needs to keep walking out the shower wearing only a towel

Impressive very special episode last night: four dads and their sons.

Or rather, three dads and Billy Mitchell. I was a bit confused by him saying to Jay, "you're right, you're nothing to do with me." I thought Billy was officially Jay's foster dad? Surely that's something?

Best line of the night was Mick's, though: "You think you can just cook the girl a chilli, ask her to have an abortion, and everything'll be sweet?"

It was a good episode.

It's always a bit risky when Eastenders decides to rely on acting ability rather than plot, but they managed it well.

Another classic 'Dad' issues episode tonight, with Martin Fowler acting the heavy-handed dad protecting Bex from Shakil's lusty intentions.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/IMG_1497_zpsz7rxtq0g.jpg

and Phil struggling with Ben.

Well, New Year's Eastenders was quite something. I did wonder why Ronnie was wearing such an awful wedding dress. Little did I realise it was for DRAMATIC PURPOSES.

i saw the episode that ended with ronnie and roxy chatting on the pavement and thought it an exceedingly nice and warm moment by eastenders standards. good that we were only being set up for an exceedingly bleak fall

much as I love Ronnie Mitchell and I thought the actual episodes were lacking in drama because it had been in all the newspapers for about ten years preceding it actually happening, I thought it was very brave of them to kill off both characters and I'm glad they did because it has become very easy for the show to rely on big names eventually coming back rather than writing new, full-formed characters.

Lee's depression storyline has been a total disaster though. The character is completely unlikable, makes terrible decisions and could easily have avoided all his problems.

Yeah, it's not exactly the Deerhunter. I think they've taken what was a good arc for Lee: awkward ex-squaddie can't settle into civilian life because it just doesn't make any sense to him and he can't get a decent job and he's not easy to be around, and they've handled it poorly. Why would he take a job like the one he has? Why isn't he working security night shifts or working in the car park like that woman he met? He would easily get work like that, I'd have thought. I can sort of buy the wanting-a-catalogue-life-for-his-woman bit, because he wants to have the appearance of normality, but he's so completely awful at that job, I'm amazed he ever got past the interview.

"Lee's depression storyline has been a total disaster though. The character is completely unlikable, makes terrible decisions and could easily have avoided all his problems."

this isnt an unusual situation irl tbh &etc

yeah that description could basically be me at varying points of my life. Lee's never been likable though, it would have perhaps been more effective to do with a character that's easier to support like Jay or Johnny.

Denise better not be dead.

given that the bus seemed to be going at 5mph I would be amazed if anyone ends up with more than a nosebleed.

Denise not dead, but it's looking grim for Whitney (if she's under there), having a bus repeatedly dropped on her head by lots of well-meaning bystanders. That'll be fun and games for Lee's depression storyline development, eh?

Was also going to say "bloody hell, Lacey Turner's a right good wee actress" but she must be really well-practised at doing hysterical screaming over the years.

I thought that episode was actually surprisingly well done and extremely tense throughout.

I'm guessing that Whitney isn't even under there (her phone could be in the market for any number of reasons) but Lee dies trying to save her. Everyone else survives.

(Also Whitney is a more interesting and popular character with more history and better actor so killing her just to advance Lee's depression/departure storyline would be a weird move even for a soap).

I'm guessing the bridge is going to collapse as well. They're rebuilding the set so they might as well take the opportunity to trash some of it.

Yeah despite the actual crash being nonsense I thought the episode with the aftermath worked really well, even the "community lifts a double decker bus" part didn't seem as ridiculous as it must have looked on paper. All the references to terrorism didn't feel as clunky as these things normally do either. I'm glad Martin isn't dead, I don't need to see Max and Stacey again and again.

The bus thing actually happened in London a couple of years ago:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/incredible-moment-crowd-of-bystanders-lift-bus-to-free-trapped-cyclist-in-walthamstow-10283901.html

Yeah, I think the Whitney's phone thing is a massive swerve (could her and Lee have the same ringtone?). But if it drives her into having an affair with Danny Dyer, I'll be well pissed off. Coronation Street are already going down the "deal with grief & a depressed partner by having an unlikely affair" route (and making a right mess of it), Stenders can fuck right off with doing the same. I think Lee dying/Lee suffering survivor's guilt on top of everything else would give Whitney and him a storyline in itself, not re-running Stacy & Max with new characters.

They are definitely going to put Whitney and Mick together. Definitely. They were already building up to it with the whole "oh, I'll sleep on the sofa, you wear L's pyjamas" business.

I thought this episode was great. Does it feel like the crew for Eastenders must be a lot bigger than it used to be? I wonder if the BBC is trying to avoid laying people off by just piling them all into Albert Square and hiding them there.

I hate the actress that plays Michelle.

Me too.

to be fair the character seems to have been ruined and she can only do so much with the role/lines she is given.

The girl who plays Bex has been really good throughout this fake Hollyoaks storyline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWI7W5G_dwo

Hey, last year it was great when we killed off two sisters! Let's (maybe) do EXACTLY THE SAME THING THIS YEAR!

jesus, this programme. I started following it because i spend a lot of time at my mum's looking after her and she watches all the soaps. god, what a depressing show. it's quite incredible that this can be a primetime soap although on the rare occasion that they try to do something light and comic it's even worse. eastenders is really terrible at comedy.

the wilmot brown & family takeover of the square was quite a good belated acknowledgment of the changing face of the east end but it's landed the show in the same place it was before.

i think "how can anyone watch this?" when i'm actually watching it. not only that it's gotten to the point that i iplayer it when i've missed it and still wonder how anyone can watch it!

...even though i've actively chosen to!

I've actually been really enjoying it lately. I really fancy Max Branning and he has been at the centre of it so that has helped but I'm also loving Abi's pre-fall transformation into mini-Janine. I'm really hoping this upcoming heist storyline sees the men involved struggle to pull it off and a team of Sharon, Kim, Karen and Linda team up to save the day, because camp female icons are always more watchable than naff gangster storylines.

You've got to figure that if you were Martin and Stacey you'd find someone far away from Walford to spend Christmas with, wouldn't you? Although I suppose Martin's got to shift those sprouts.

I really fancy Max Branning

For real?

there's something about him that's very attractive despite his non-conventional good looks

A quick bit of research indicates that this is indeed a thing now.

Must admit I’m very surprised. He does nothing for me.

It's been a thing for a while - several ladies of the internet (not me) were quite excited when he did Strictly a few years ago. I saw him in a pub once. He's tiny.

i actually find him hideous sometimes and all right at other times.

Whether you find him attractive or not, it's pretty obvious that in the world of EastEnders he is regarded as attractive. Perhaps being unable to lift up your feet properly when you walk is a mark of virility in the mysterious netherland of Walford.

lol i hadn't noticed that. will keep my eyes peeled.

I never noticed it until trishyb pointed it out to me and now it's definitely a thing I notice about him.

It's like he's scuffing out some kind of code!
Although I don't know if new-style hoodie lurker Max wears the same hard-soled shoes.

They've been showing him with his shirt off a lot lately, presumably to add at least a shred of credibility to the world's least convincing screen lothario.

I know, its been great!

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/jake-wood-blendy.gif

giving us baldies hope yet !

( saw last 5 mins of the xmas day episode, and realised why i stopped watching after bh died ... )

this was, perhaps, the stupidest thing i've ever watched.

tell me about it, and it went on so long. couldn't tell if they were going for comedy or misery half the time.

Can’t believe this is the new universities regulator. pic.twitter.com/0VugT1UbsM

— Dion Georgiou (@DrDionGeorgiou) January 1, 2018

:D

I particularly enjoyed how they wrapped up the Jay's Dad storyline with about thirty seconds of dialogue, which happened while Jay was spending New Year's Day chilling by an iron railing

Well, it's not like he can sit on the tyre swings like every other adult in the square.

They had a change of showrunner not so long ago which resulted in a load of stories being very rapidly tied up which makes sense because most of them were terrible, especially the "oh yeah that guy wasn't your dad at all" one.

Yesterday's EastEnders was completely insane - jumped ahead two days about twenty minutes in, Masood's aunt cured Danny Dyer's bullet wound with a bowl of soup, and the bloke who shot him appears to have just moved in and become another terrible comedy character. And Masood's aunt seems to have mellowed quickly to the area she was so dead set against via the medium of Linda's terrible brand of down-to-earthishness and, er, getting involved in covering up a shooting.

The Abi storyline seems like it's just been inserted into the rest of it whenever they remember about it. No-one outside of Max or Jack seem to really care that Abi's baby has been delivered and that the two Branning sisters are still in hospital.

Yeah, it's absolute rubbish. Hour-long episodes are a disaster, too. They need to get back to some proper Eastendersing.

I also loved the fact that Sonya said "Uncle Max" about fifteen times in her one scene at Ian's house, as if the writers have just remembered that they are related. And these Irish gangsters; I don't know. Unless they're a roundabout way of dragging Janine back in, I'm not interested. But my suspicion is that they're going to drag Alfie or Kat or both in with them.

This stuff is cobblers but actually preferable to the hamfisted boardroom shenanigans of the last year or so.

Ha, I noticed the "uncle Max" thing as well. I think the Irish gangsters might be to drag Melanie back in - I think I read somewhere that Tamzin Outhwaite was coming back, so probably as another gangster. Because Stenders needs more gangsters.

I've only ever given up watching Eastenders once before. Something about Ian pretending to be gay or married to someone he wasn't married to, or some other farcical thing that he was doing to get well in with the local chamber of commerce. I'm very close to giving up again.

Cupla focal ar Eastenders! All is forgiven.

this programme, fuck sake. just wow.

Friday was like watching a show where rhe main cast were all on holiday.

the whole thing of Karen and Masood having a clean-off and her saying mr popaloo, mr dopapom, mr popadoodle.... i mean WHAT

Don't like the Taylors anyway, but Karen's racism idiocy (and Mr Papadopoulos letting it slide and still considering her for a job) is just awful.

At this stage we've all been watching soaps long enough to know the drill: mouthy, noisy family moves into the square/onto the street, shakes things up for a while, gets accused of all sorts, turns out to be solid gold, and eventually gets sucked into the same routine as everyone else. Battersbys, Slaters, Taylors, they're all the same.

The stuff with the launderette was ridiculous. Masood's ice cream van thing was ridiculous. Mel's hat not being blown off her head on the ferry was particularly ridiculous. Maybe they should go back to two half hours a week.

I'm sure it's less than a year since we had someone take a briefcase to a fake white collar job.

This Tiffany storyline is awful as well, like why wouldn't Whitney just pick up the phone to Bianca at any point rather than swallow every single thing that comes out of Tiffany's mouth?

Shakil's funeral episode was really powerful. I've never seen anything like that done on a soap.

Not having watched Eastenders regularly for a while, I caught a few bits of it recently. I'm kind of disappointed that they've retconned Tina so that her inability to take anything seriously, including motherhood, right up into her forties is the result of a trauma. I've never liked that character, but I always admired the writers for having someone who was just plain old useless.

it's really bad just now but apparently Kate Oates, the exec producer who just left Corrie and turned Emmerdale around a few years ago, is being considered for the job

it's truuuuuly awful. it's not just the writing and storylines though, it's the directing as well, like why are people talking like that? like they're in a comedy sketch from the 1970s?

Corrie has been dreadful under Kate Oates. Good luck Stenders :-(

I think its been a lot better than it was under the last guy. Phelan took too long to finish off but David's attack and Aidan's death were brilliant.

Yeah, but both brushed over far too quickly in favour of more Connor factory shite and more Bethany shite (and particularly affecting because David, Shona, Aidan and Eva were up to the acting, unlike most of the rest of the cast). The repercussions have been minimal (see also Phelan where Anna was sent on her way after killing him, Nicola and Michelle were shot with no lasting effect, and no-one seems to even really remember he was there). Oates' thing seems to be rushed issue-led storylines and a complete disregard for longer-term continuity.

Shall we head over to the Corrie thread to discuss the upcoming McDonald debacle?

that upcoming McDonald debacle really needs to not be discussed, or happening

Yep. It's going to be the thing that finally stops me watching, I think.

I don't know what you are referring to and google gives a lot of conflicting information so please do take it to corrie rolling.

I can't get over some of the acting in Eastenders and suppose I've always felt this way. It's either so pantomimey or so gruff and dull and one-note. A lot of Emmerdale actors are poor but most of the bad ones at least have a modicum of charm. Corrie's cast still has charm in abundance even when it's bad. Who are the charming or charismatic performers in Eastenders? As grindingly depressing as Ee can be it's the tin ear with comedy that truly lets them down. That heist episode with Mick in novelty slippers truly beggared belief.

This show is really grim. I've gone through periods of watching it recently because I've been looking after my quite ill mother and she has it on but she stopped watching it on the reg because it was getting her down. I saw tonight's though and, omg, mum otm.

The Sharon-Keanu affair storyline complete with extended shirtless scenes seems dreamed up by a lab to be as camp as possible on paper and yet utterly useless on screen

How many people live in Martin and Stacey's house?

15?

not only that but a lot of them are small children - a total nightmare

I was also agog at the new Slater family tradition which seems to be recreating the dance routine from Mean Girls?!

The general consensus is between 15 and 17 people, so let's do some maths and see if that is correct: there's Stacey and her three children (four) Jean, Kat and Mo (seven), Whitney and Tiffany (nine), Martin (10), Hayley and her newborn (12) and now Alfie and the kids (16).

https://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/eastenders/a25406097/eastenders-how-many-people-stacey-fowler-house/

I forgot about Tiffany.

Ben Mitchell as a camp arch-villain in the style of Brendan from Hollyoaks - completely at odds with a lot of the character's history but watching it play out on screen has been hilarious

I stopped watching and have only just learnt I missed a '30 years on' appearance from Lofty and Mary the Punk.

https://youtu.be/FMIn07983n0

Which was utterly pointless as anyone they would have recognised was on panto leave

Eastenders is really good just now

What an episode tonight… Serious fire, heroics, a birth, comedy. The ratings fight back is clearly on.

"Comedy"

Well the Jack scenes were in the time-honoured line of EastEnders’ tin eared feel for comedy, but I did like Jean’s expression at the end.

I haven't watch Stenders in ages, but I couldn't resist the lure of the 1979 episode. Sadly, it wasn't very good, but I love the idea, and the casting was spot on. They haven't done a high-concept episode in such a long time. I hope they're getting back into them more.

both Eastenders and Corrie are really, really bad at the moment. Eastenders is improving slightly, I really like Stacey's surprise lesbian wife and the Panesar mum, but there is a lot of nothing happening and I need Ben to simply not be in it for a while.

I really like EastEnders - but am aware I do cut it a lot of slack. The writers have just got rid of two young characters - Dana and Jada - that were starting to develop well after shaky starts. Janine as pantomime villain is getting a bit tiresome though.

I really liked Dana. It was nice to see a young woman who wasn't a sexy siren with a secret or a troubled vixen with a heart of a gold.

Eve (the aforementioned lesbian wife) is great, but they really need to use her in a major plot. I like all of the Panesars. I really like Bobby Beale’s range of expressions.

I see that Lofty and Mary the Punk, and Colin and Barry, will be back briefly ‘for Dot’s final farewell’ this autumn.

and Lauren! Jac Jossa must be bored of making sponsored Instagram content. It will be interesting to see how they handwave away Ian, Max, Carol and Bianca all not being there.

Maybe they will be? You know how they like to stack the surprises.

Eve (the aforementioned lesbian wife) is great, but they really need to use her in a major plot. I

Can’t complain about tonight’s developments on that front …. Also distracts from the terrible Alfie

I don't understand how Brian Conley and Shane Ritchie can both be in it at the same time. Surely it's one diamond geezer end-of-the-pier entertainer at a time?

Denise and Jack? Are they honestly going to pair up every single adult with every other adult at some stage in this programme? Can't wait till Phil and Martin have their spring awakening and end up together for six months.

Jack’s become incredibly dull and in dire need of a good plot. He’s been basically reduced to overprotective dad. Rumours are he’s about to stray from Denise.

I've only just found out they're a couple and now I'm furious that he's going to cheat on her. Who with? Is it his turn with Sharon?

Jack's already been engaged to Sharon.

Jesus christ, this programme.

Innit though. it's like how everyone in Corrie is no more than one degree of separation from Steve, Gary, Leanne or Maria.

I read an interview with the Maria actress in one of the soap mags lying around my grandparents' house a few weeks ago and she was saying the character has had 31 partners in her 20-odd years at Corrie.

I'm sure I said it earlier in this thread, but it is always funny when anyone in a soap lays out the history of any house or character on the street/square/close. It always sounds just crazy.

Who with?

Keep watching … Duff Duff duff duff du du du duff

Tonight, we say goodbye to a Walford legend. 7:35pm on @BBCOne #EastEnders #RememberDot pic.twitter.com/miw1QLZsFu

— BBC EastEnders (@bbceastenders) December 12, 2022

[wipes away a tear]

Good to see Colin, Mary, Lofty and Ian.

I was expecting it to be cheesy and full of pomp, but I thought it was really good considering how it could have been otherwise... until they started comparing her to the Queen. It took me right out of it. Also, everybody standing up in the church felt like a Harry Hill TV Burp moment.

Yes that was a real clanger

Toe-curling, because it was nicely done until that point. Ian lurking in a bush was unexpected. They brought it back at the cemetery though, Jack throwing her cigarettes onto her coffin, Abide With Me seguing into the theme tune...

Rip Mick… a full Vera Lynn farewell complete with White Cliffs of Dover.

he'll be back, Harold Bishop/Dee Bliss style

We absolutely reckoned he's up for the full Harold Bishop reveal. Janine husbands should really stay away from cliffs.

The actress playing Lola is doing an incredible job.

Cindy reportedly returning from the grave in a few months, with Ian. How many of Ian's wives have tried to murder him? He doesn't bear a grudge.