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Why is Hollyoaks criticised so much?
lovinglife
Posts: 262 Forum Member
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Hey guys!
My very first thread!
Anyways, what I was wondering was why Hollyaks is criticised so often? I don't watch the soap myself, but after a good year or so viewing DS myself, I am well aware that HO is certainly not the nation's favourite soap. So, I was just wondering why it is criticised so much from both a viewer's and hater's point of view.
Any replies would be gratefully received.
Many thanks.
#lovinglife.
My very first thread!
Anyways, what I was wondering was why Hollyaks is criticised so often? I don't watch the soap myself, but after a good year or so viewing DS myself, I am well aware that HO is certainly not the nation's favourite soap. So, I was just wondering why it is criticised so much from both a viewer's and hater's point of view.
Any replies would be gratefully received.
Many thanks.
#lovinglife.
0
Comments
And if you don't, why on earth would you care?
Welcome to DS anyway Lovinglife.
Having said that, I really enjoyed certain eras of it despite no longer watching - Warrens first stint was good, and I loved the Brendan era though I'm aware many didn't. I firmly believe that the Brady focused Hollyoaks Later 2012 was one of the better things on TV that year.
Hollyoaks is Swiss...
But I love it!
Lol to pudge 2
I can imagine it has it's good and bad days.
BIB: It really, really was. Unfortunately, the garbled instantly forgettable toss they put out in 2013 about Tony really really wasn't.
eta: I should add, congrats on the first thread lovinglife!
Gr8 description there, teabag. I may just have to check it out myself.
It tackles very difficult issues and does them well, check out the whole mcdean/ Hannah eating disorder story line
Then it's very silly, check out maddie's death (a car door flying though the air squashes her)
They do cast mostly good looking actors and leave acting skills as a 2nd issue, currently Freddie and Ziggie are the worst actors on tv, yet are clearly employed for looks
They also have very strong actors who are given the bigger story lines to carry
No one ever gets a real punishment for a crime, unless you are innocent,mitzeee went to prison for stabbing mercy for months, a crime she was framed for, mercy got a week off screen when found out, (she did a lot of very horrid things)
The dead rarely stay dead if they fancy coming back there is a loophole found
All women either spend 90% of the time pregnant or can't have children, (Lindsay has had 3 pregnancies in less than a year)
You should google tv tropes hollyoaks, it covers a lot if the daft stuff
It's good fun,
Characters have personality transplant to suit plots. Character's have their back stories rewritten to suit plots. They do cheap plot twists for shock value (Darren / Sandy for example) which make little or no sense, and they have an annual "stunt" where they kill off half the cast.
It's silly, I watch and enjoy 80% of the time, but it's not one to be taken seriously.
It was good from 2011(When I started watching it)-mid 2013, it stuck to its theme, some very gripping plots and characters
However a new producer overtook and made the show disastrous
In terms of storylines, there aren't many long term ones and those that are long term dot get much screen time and just plod along. There's about 50 plots at the moment all being shoved in our face at once, there's no build up or anything. For example in a few episodes i watched recently, there was two arrests for murder, a mother/daughter reveal and a drug addict being locked in a room by his father, a mother walking out on her boys and backing out and two brothers forgiving each other for an affair in the space of two episodes. This would seem like a big two episodes on any normal soap but this was supposed to be day to day stuff.
And the storylines are completely OTT and unrealistic, there's something so far fetched happening in all of them at the moment that you can't help but laugh
The dialogue is sooo bloody cringeworthy, they use every soap cliche under the sun. I can't explain this very well, you'd have to watch it. Rather than delivering lines true to the character they just deliver a load of pathetic lines that sometimes dot even make sense to what's happening
The acting is very poor, I know people say it's better now that there are older actors but sorry I disagree. This time two years ago the cast was younger yet the acting was still miles ahead of how it is now. The Lomaxes and Roscoes are genuinely the worst actors.
And worst of all, it has gotten rid of it's original theme and it always seems as if it tries to be EastEnders. HO used to be a vibrant show about people and their issues, usually within their 20s, coming and going. During most peoples young years they jump from job to job to place to place, I always felt that Hollyoaks was one of those places where people would come and go, with a few sticking around for the long term. Now, the new producer has gotten rid of the University and barely features the sixth form or the school, has gotten rid of the majority of characters in their 20s and has introduced a load of new characters and families that don't fit in with HO's theme at all. The whole gritty family drama works best on EE, not HO. It wouldn't even be that bad though if it was actually done well but it's all so crap.
There's barely any issue SLs anymore. It's lost it's vibrant, unique edge and is now a piss take EastEnders. Hope this helps.
It might not be the favourite soap on here but it did win best soap so it is valued by a lot of people.
I like it because of how it looks, it's got a more film style look and uses music, plus the people in it look good not just on a shallow level but they have outfits, good hair and make up etc which is what I want to see on TV, if I want to see someone looking rough I can look in a mirror lol
I also like how storylines are in blocks, so one week a storyline will end for a bit and then a new one will take over so it's not the same characters every single week, it's like it's all set in one village but you feel almost like it's a different show when it focuses on a group of people one week & then changes the next.
You've successfully highlighted most of what is wrong about the show. It's all aesthetics - style over substance - and the block storytelling is horrendous. Plots dropped for weeks on end and then picked up again for a week before disappearing again.
Wow what a post! This this this this!
I think Leela lomax is alright though as well as sam. I think they have potential. There's far worse there.
The only thing letting the show down for me at the moment is the Roscoe/Gangster related sillyness.
hollyoaks also seem to change details of characters to suit storylines which is fine for those who don't really watch for the finer details but for people like me who like to understand a characters backstory etc this can be frustrating.
nonetheless I do enjoy watching the hollyoaks storylines in favour of the other soaps as they are more interesting and less likely to hold back when portraying particular issues.
The very foundations of Hollyoaks have always been a focus on the youths that attend the local University. The last group of uni students - Rob, Annalise, Scott, Will, Ash and Barney - had so much potential before they foolishly dropped the Rob/Annalise/Scott love triangle for no reason whatsoever and axed all three characters; turned the mild-mannered Will into a psychopathic bride-killer and Ash into his drippy lap dog. Only Barney managed to remain a brilliant and well-rounded character for a while, until he inevitable got the chop too
The Hollyoaks that was known and loved by many teens growing up in the 90's and early 00's is dead and gone. And it is a massive shame. Even the last great year of the show (2012) cannot be replicated or even mirrored, as the majority of characters from that era were killed off for the sake of Bryan Kirkwood's fat, ugly ego.
I always manage to laugh my head off whenever I read people that only started watching Hollyoaks in 2013/14 calling themselves 'fans'. Fans are the people that remember Kurt Benson, the original Finn (not Crazy O'Connor), Julie Matthews, Natasha Andersen (the first death on Hollyoaks' history - she died after her drink was spiked at a party. In 1996, this was a massive issue for a soap to cover, and it really brought Hollyoaks away from the 'comedy teen serial' label it had managed to recieve, and became an 'occasional comedy, but always gritty, teen soap'), Maddie Parker and her stalker Michael St John Thomas, Jack Osborne's affair with his daughter's best friend Dawn, Dawn later passing away in her beloved Jambo's arms after suffering with leukemia, Lee Stanley (the father of Holly Cunningham and ex of Cindy), Cindy throwing herself down a flight of stairs to kill unborn baby Holly, Cindy and Tom's dad Mr C (what a guy... what a guy. Poor old Mr C
2009 and 2010 were the years when the rot began to set in. The Loft fire and Warren's fake death were awful. Considering the story was a continuation of sorts of the fantastic Christmas 2008 story which saw Warren murder his fiancée Louise because she was plotting to kill him and frame the murder on Mandy, you would have expected Warren's big exit from the show would have been better. But, no, they dragged his near-perfect original stint on the show down with a damp squib of a stunt that turned out to be meaningless, when he returned to the show a few months later a shadow of his former self, and revealed that he had actually faked his death in the fire. 2009 and 2010 also saw the departures of many popular characters - Sarah Barnes (her parachute fall death was the best stunt Hollyoaks has ever done), Mike Barnes, Zoe Carpenter, Hannah Ashworth, Justin Barton, etc. Brilliant characters with tons more mileage. When Paul Marquess - a well-known soap destroyer much like Bryan Kirkwood - came in as the show's new executive producer, it looked as if Hollyoaks was doomed. However... to the shock of plenty, he actually saved the show. Well, it seemed he did at the time. He revigorated the cast (despite some awful castings... Gabby 'clip clop' Sharpe anyone?); he brought us some brilliantly memorable stories. The show really turned a corner. In 2011, he left and Lucy Allan came in. Others were optimistic about her, but I was more cautious. Yet again, however, I was proved wrong. Lucy Allan is by far the best producer Hollyoaks has had in it's entire (nearly) 19 year history. Easily. She understood what Hollyoaks was about, and she brought the show that we all knew and loved back to it's best. Following Lucy Allan's constant success story over the course of 2011 and 2012, once again the rot began to set in when she left in late-2012 and Bryan Kirkwood began to get involved with the story-making process. The bus crash in November 2012 and Jacqui discovering all about Cindy and Rhys' affair that Christmas were both absolute sensationalist tosh. And low and behold... Bryan Kirkwood had helped out to create both stories.
Early-2013 wasn't bad. Esther's suicide attempt was brilliantly done. But there was plenty that dragged the show down. One of the saving graces during that period was Jen Gilmore. She was a great character, played by a brilliantly diverse actress. However, the producers failed to see this potential, and she was binned before long, after being lumped with a student/teacher relationship story with Tilly, that culminated with Jen being arrested. Mid-2013 was disgraceful. However, it was the flat explosion in October 2013 that Hollyoaks was completely destroyed. And the single action that caused the shows destruction I hear you ask? The death of Clare Devine. Don't get me wrong, I've not always been a massive Clare fan. They should have left her well alone after her stunning exit in 2007. Her 2009 and 2013 stints were disgusting. However, the spur-of-the-moment decision to kill off a character so rich in history is the worst decision Bryan Kirkwood has ever made (second to killing EE's Pat off, obvs.). There was precious little build-up to her death, and even less aftermath. And following her death, what was we lumped with? A family that came out of thin air. A father in Fraser; a sister in Grace; and an adopted brother in Trevor. **** off. Clare never had a family. She was a care home kid, and she always rode solo. Even if she did have a family, she wouldn't have known about them. Not to mention the fact that Fraser, Grace and Trevor are three of the worst characters Hollyoaks have ever seen. They have shat all over Clare's memory.
In short, when Bryan Kirkwood leaves (that's if he's not executed by your's truly first ;-)), they need to get Lucy Allan back to save this show again once more. Sorry for the massive rant
lovinglife, I think you should try watch an episode or perhaps read some of the spoilers. I've noticed different people talk about different eras of the show when they thought it was at its 'best'. That's their opinion, and that's fair enough, it may be that you like it now or you don't.