What do we think are soaps' biggest retcons (or near retcons - changing what was generally assumed & a closed story, to establish one years and years later)? Mine are -

- Dirty Den getting shot, splashing in the canal and being assumed to be dead. Manages to build a new life without ever being seen, accessing any of his money or even taking his passport, only to show up years later. Obviously at the time he was supposed to be shot dead but they couldn't show it. A huge U turn!

- Same for Kim in Emmerdale, the woman was dead and identified but shows up bright as a button and very much alive, apparently her body was a case of mistaken identity (what of the other middle aged missing blonde!?)

The most recent EastEnders one was Ronnie's revelation that Archie had raped her as a child. I mean, if you look back at episodes you could kind of tag on a ''rape'' backstory there and perhaps find it believable - but I struggle to believe the actors were aware of this at the time.

The Ramsay kids in Neighbours and Lola's arrival.

Great thread!

A couple from Corrie:

Ivy Tilsley
Not sure if it's a retcon in the proper sense (people would call it a character transplant today), but the production team played around with Ivy's character many times before she became a regular in 1979.

The first time we saw Ivy she was a tarty dollybird with fake eyelashes and big hair who had cheated on her husband Wilf and walked out on him.

She gradually became a bit more grounded and by 1975 was still happily married to her husband (now named Jack!) but forever upset because they had never had children.

By 1978 she was the staunch, Roman Catholic mother to Brian and in 1979 we finally met her husband - Bert!

Betty Turpin being Gordon Clegg's mother
This wasn't necessarily a retcon in the true sense, but the storyline was plucked from nowhere. None of the characters involved had given no indication that Gordon and Betty were anything other than nephew and auntie.

Irene Sutcliffe, who played Maggie Clegg, was very hurt by the story as she felt it undermined all of the work that she had put into her character.

The arrival of the 'new' Baldwins
Mike Baldwin was an only child and had always been referred to as such since his arrival in 1976. His father, Frankie, had appeared in the early 80s and made no reference to Mike having a brother.

Suddenly, in 2004, Mike had a brother (who had conveniently died). From the brother Mike had a nephew (Danny Baldwin) and a clan of other Baldwins who promptly moved north to Weatherfield.

A completely new backstory was created for Mike, which included him fathering a child with his brother's wife, Viv (the child was Danny).

Carla Connor went from having a ex con brother named Darren to an ex-con brother named Rob.

Wasn't the Audrey/Stephen thing plucked from nowhere? I.e 26 years after her appearance Audrey suddenly remembered she gfave birth to a boy before she gave birth to Gail.

Maybe not a retcon, but I'd be fairly confident in saying that the writers have recently made Rita and Dennis closer in the 1960s than their single episode together ever implied.

Wasn't Leanne's mum named as Davina Battersby at one point?

Well Leslie Grantham claims he was asked to return as early as 1991 and turned down numerous offers over the years. EastEnders were certainly aware of the ambiguity of that exit. Tony Jordan joined the show just after Den left in 1989 and he wanted to bring him back but the producers weren't interested. It was Tony who eventually came up with Den's return so there was always one writer at EastEnders who did not consider the character dead. While it's obviously not a common occurrence in real life, there have been cases where people have faked their own death (Canoe Man for instance) and there was never concrete evidence shown on screen for viewers to argue that Den was without a doubt shot dead so I think they just about got away with it.

Peggy's romantic history with her never-before-mentioned brother-in-law Archie.

Jack Dalton being made the leader of the Firm that killed Dirty Den, when we all know that it was Vinnicombe.

Carol had three older brothers when she came into the show, now two of them are younger. Derek had no children when we first saw him and suddenly he has two.

Apparently, Jack had Vinnicombe killed and his teeth bricked out (and his body dumped into the canal so everyone thinks he's Den), then took control of The Firm. Den mentioned that shortly after his return.

Jack Dalton was the biggest load of crap ever. It should have been Vinnicombe. Mr V was THE boss, there was no-one higher than he in the firm. To suggest that Mr V was killed for 'botching the job' on Den is ludicrous. He didnt botch the job, he was the one who ordered it. Mr V was the one who allowed Den to go to prison and take a salary for it, and he was the one who ordered the hit.

The ones who botched the job were Mr Mantel, Brad and the daffodil man. Brad for allowing Den to escape the Firms clutches, Mantel for allowing Brad anywhere near the operation given his relationship with Den, and the daffodil man for hoping that a single gunshot would be enough to necessarily kill Den.

Den Watts did not have a ring on his finger when he left prison, the wallet given back to him upon release was not his. The gunshot could have easily struck Den on the arm and not been enough to kill him. What is unlikely is that Den could swim to the other side of the canal while injured and make it to Jans place without being seen (he was on the run remember) and without bleeding to death.

Den's return works in essence, its Daltons involvement that cheapens the whole thing.

Annie Walker owning The Rovers.

Ray in EastEnders. Bianca originally said she had no idea who Morgans real dad was as she was on a downward spiral at the time of his conception and there was a number of blokes it could have been. Then she met Tony King who wormed his way in by agreeing to putting his name down as father on Morgan's birth certificate doing that so he could get closer to Whitney

Then, five or so years after Bianca tells us this suddenly she knows who Morgan's real dad is and has enough information for Whitney to track him down. Then we find out Ray knew Tony and then we find out Bianca and Ray were in a relationship and she nicked £500 off him and did a runner with the kids

Well - Bianca could have been fibbing at the time, seeing as Morgan's father is black, I'm guessing it would narrow down the field to a few candidates, unless Bianca only slept with black men.

Agreed, completely. I think we were always supposed to find something creepy about Archie's attitude towards his daughter, but I don't think for one moment that, at the storyline's inception, they had the whole rape and child abuse background in mind.

I always felt that that little nugget was tacked on once they decided to make Stacey the murderer; to make us root for his killer even more. God knows the producers weren't going to risk casting any aspersions on their Golden Girl, so they threw out a quick panto-villain cliche just to cement his position as the ultimate baddie, to douse any possibility of anybody doubting whether Stacey 'had a right to kill him', despite all the terrible things he'd done.

I thought it all felt quite cheap really, and was detrimental to the character and storyline. They invested a lot of time in crafting Archie as a great villain, while avoiding most of the cliches. We saw him, over time, manipulating people, destroying them slowly while fooling everybody else. It was subtle but brilliant. Then they tacked on that obvious old adage a couple of months later and it felt cheap. It was totally unnecessary and I've always found it hard to believe it was done for any other purpose than to make absolutely certain that the man Super-Stacey had killed was seen as the baddest-of-the-bad, so as not to call their little Princess's actions into question.

Yes, Archie the rapist was preposterous. Insulting to anyone's intelligence.

I also don't like Charlie Cotton having married and breeded with Dot's sister, having the one bigamist relationship with fine, two was pushing it, the fact that Charlie slept with her was enough. No need for the lovechild

I have to agree that Den's death wasn't really retconning. The shot of him in the canal, eyes open to confirm death was shot and pulled at the BBC's request, not because of taste but because they wanted the door left open for a return and Julia Smith had a major falling out with them over it. It was always a possibility, much more so than other deaths in the show.

What I didn't like retconning with Den's return was the implication that his love for Sharon was sexual and anything other than a fathers (albeit adopted) love for their child - she was only supposed to have been about 2 or 3 when she came to Den and Angie after all.

Even though I agree the Archie rape stuff was introduced to make it absolutely clear that he was a bad man so it was okay (apparently) for Stacey (or anyone for that matter) to kill him in cold blood, I do think there were enough hints written in to his manner towards Ronnie, from pinning her down on the sofa in his first week to the near mouth kiss on his wedding day to Peggy to make the child abuse plausible. If anything, I have more of an issue with him having raped Stacey in the Launderette.

Absolutely. Although, in the shows defence, I didnt really feel thats how it came across, just due to the webcam incident, certain fans were now perceiving his every move as 'pervy' which destroyed everything he did in the show. Grantham has to take the blame for this even though the whole thing was blown out of proportion

What I will not tolerate is the Den return being branded a flop and the reason for the dive in ratings. His initial return spiked the ratings to 17 million which is an astonishing amount in the satellite age. The ratings began to flag due to abundance of deeply boring and uninteresting storylines, The Ferriera's being evicted, Patrick and Yolande becoming foster parents, Sonia and Martin mourning an old man they never knew etc etc. The few entertaining moments revolved around Den and Andy Hunter, though Den's affair with Kate was beyond stupid

I don't think it was done primarily to make Stacey a Saint but IIRC it was done to give Stacey any motive at all.

I may be wrong but up until the actual episode that Archie is murdered Stacey and Bradley had no link to him or the Mitchell's story at all. The rape reveal was a last minute (and very cheap) plot device to bring in an 11th hour killer after they'd decided against it being Peggy.

Then they made all of Ronnie's troubles with him centre on another rape reveal to try and add more substance to what they'd introduced at the last minute.

I enjoyed Archie's time on the show but it was wrecked by these last minute butcherings of the backstory.

The entire show was in a mess at that point with stories haveing to be abandoned due to unplanned, extended leaves of absence for major cast members; Jessie Wallace and Kacey Ainsworth's maternity leaves, Barbara Windsor's Epstein Barr, the actor that played Dan Ferraira's being deported and finally Les Grantham's suspension. I think he has received unwarranted flak due to it (and still think it would have been glossed over if he hadn't used BBC property for his webcam antics and slagged off major players like Wallace and Ritchie who it seemed wanted his head for it) but I do think it effected the way they wrote Den on his return (a dirty old man) and the audience perception of him.

There was a lot of good at that time, Andy, Chrissie but it tends to get over-looked.

When was Den and Sharon's relationship portrayed as sexual?

Couple of scenes - it was never really picked up on, and IMO was more a reflection of how his paternal love had warped into an obsessive love because of his absence.

That's how I read it anyway; he never knew Dennis, and vicki was a child when he fled; so in his exile his fatherly love for Sharon became obsessive in its isolation, as he dreamed of running the vic with her, and being the centre of her life.

Having said that, Zoe did call him out on it (in one of her few ballsy moments); but he didn't reply to deny or confirm.

Personally, I never really objected to the way his love had changed. It had to have been altered IMO; there's no way after a 14 year exile the love you had at the beginning would be the same at the end.

^^^ I can see where obsessed would come from, but sexual attraction? No, I don't buy it. Especially with their final scenes together.

I think the lines between fiction and reality were blurred at that point for some viewers.

Tbh I don't recall any real conclusive scenes indicating den's love was more sexual than merely obsessive. There was the odd scene here and there (count them on one hand) and Zoe broaching it specifically, but IMO the writers were pretty wary of doing anything with - to the extent that most viewers would not really have picked up on anything.

For me; it can be argued either way, but I generally come down on the side of their being little of a sexual component to it. I prefer to see it, as I say, as obsessive; occasionally straying over into the territory of paternal control of a daughter's sexuality - it was all about control IMO.

Well my lines weren't blurred, I am well able to tell the difference between what was being portrayed on screen (very implicitedly) and Grantham's off screen antics. There was definately an indication that the reason he was so against her relationship with Dennis was jealousy, not just as a posessuce father but because he would quite like to be in Dennis' position as a partner to Sharon. As someone else has mentioned, Zoe called him on it and the fact that he didn't just turn round and go, urgh, that's disgusting, speaks volumes. Also, he said himself that Vicky, Chrissie, Dennis meant nothing to him just Sharon.

Maybe I read too much into it but I don't think so, it wasn't something I wanted to see (being the same age as Sharon and having watched from the beginning), in fact as already stated, I really hated it,

This reminded me that Gail's past was retconned to give her a loose-moraled, slutty mother - Audrey. Apparently she'd always referred to living at home with both her parents in a happy home. Audrey arrived in 1979 and all of that was forgotten - Gail was now the child of a wayward single mother who was always on the lookout for a 'feller'.