Yesterday's EastEnders

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.