Yesterday's EastEnders

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?!