Having said that the acting has come on leaps and bounds since the show started https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir7FXuSAzkc

Aaaand a 15 year old Cindy and Mandy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKXkK5ZgCW0

It's been much, much better. At times it was amazing and by far my favourite of the four soaps. It's a joke now and I largely watch it just to laugh at how shit it is. Well done Kirkwood, hope you're happy.

People are so negative in this thread!

I've watched religiously since 2005 but it got beyond awful in Autumn last year so I stopped - something I thought I'd never do.

It's beyond repair. Is there a likeable character left who has behaved like a human being would rather than a plot puppet?

The Twitter audience, which the show have desperately chased for attention, adore Freddie and the brainless shocks and they're the same people who multivote mindlessly for the awards. So it'll never change now.

Your last paragraph sums up a major major problem (as mentioned in my previous post). The show has a young demographic and the producers / marketing team target them shamelessly come awards season. The show will do again at the next soaps awards, mark my words.

Slightly ridiculous remark there lol!

Yes with absolute good reason! The show is absolutely pants at the moment, there is no substance to it at all anymore.

Nothing will change as the current approach, whilst deeply unpopular on this forum, is delivering an audience and that's all C4/Lime want

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...postcount=2203

Hollyoaks has its ups and downs. You've caught it going through a rubbish phase. Hopefully it is just a phase and we don't have to put up with this drivel much longer.

This is sad but true. They have abandoned all interest in quality. It's quite shameful really.

Nope. Sorry but I can't agree with this. Rather strange remark. I thought Brendan was a really terrible character and I don't want to see him return anytime soon as I strongly detested the Brady era. The quality actually started to drop their for me when we started seeing more of Brendan than anyone else and even then, the show can clearly work without him like the last 15 years before his arrival.

At the moment, the show is in an even worse state than before. It's been absolutely ridiculous and mind numbingly irritating with it's stupid inconsistency and bizzareness.

I guess that's b/c it's working for them. I don't get why they've had a ratings resurgence right now? The show is exactly the same as what it has been all year. So, why are people tuning in now?

And rightly so! Hollyoaks has become really shit recently and it certainly can't be ignored when looking at episodes such as last night and Theresa'a parody escape from prison. All the inconsistencies, repetitiveness, and constantly reverting characters and recycling them in a rut instead of developing them. Quality is no longer a factor in Hollyoaks. It's become a shadow of what it used to be and Kirkwood has really ruined that for me.

Yes, there's been an audience increase but HO viewing figures have always been relatively low, right? It's not as if there's 6 million viewers; making the show really crap to gain a couple of viewers is a poor move IMO and that might make Channel 4 chuck it from their main channel.

It was amazing back then.

I agree with this post. The show is beyond terrible at the moment, and the negativity in this thread is very much deserved as it is really bad at the moment.

With that said I can't see the show changing that much in the months to come. As pointed out the show is winning awards, and ratings are fine. So it has it's fan base no matter how ridiculous the show gets.

The problem is that Hollyoaks is a mixture of things.

I do love the Blakes and their weirdness- and how it's tongue-in-cheek outrageous (even though I think the Dodger is the father was a cop-out). However Hollyoaks isn't surreal enough for viewers not to expect any reality.

Mainly it's just dull marital woes that even Jeremy Kyle would turn his nose up at, as people randomly have pointless one night stands with people whose names could have been picked out of a hat, or whose faces could be seen across the breakfast table.

The issues we are supposed to 'care about' are dull in comparison to the craziness. If it's becoming repetitive, that's because everything else is. I'd rather watch Sienna on repeat crazy mode than the millionth repeat of Lindsey's lacklustre love triangle. It pokes fun at some things but not others, so we don't know what's meant to be taken 'seriously'.

I read a book on melodrama that said that advertising for Hollywood melodramas often mentioned 'social issues' but in a lurid and titillating way. You think you're coming to watch about drug addiction but really you want DRUGGY BAD TIMES.

I agree that hollyoaks has been much better in the past. The characters have the same storylines over and over again and it has just become boring. The only storylines I have liked recently are the domestic abuse storyline and parts of Sienna's storyline however I do feel like they are just repeating Sienna's but in a different way. I wish they would bring the uni back as it worked with the target audience. I think hollyoaks is just going to get worse with it becoming more about the hospital... I don't watch casualty for a reason

Not all young people are stupid or lacking standards.

It's ok when the twin is as hot as sienna hehe.

Hollyoaks used to be amazing.
In fact ironically Birkwoods last era was one of the best. Now he is responsible for the worst!

Also some of the Brenden Brady era was fantastic.

The show has completely lost the plot now. And I would be amazed if half the actors arent wondering what the F is going on.

Winning the best soap at the soap awards a was the worst thing to happen to this show. Yes we all know soap awards are meaningless, but birkwood and clan will take it as a nod that they have done well, yet it was won at a time hollyoaks was at its worst ever.

I also don't feel comfortable with the way death is used on this show.

Welcome to Soaps on DS.

I agree. The Linda aftermath has been very slow and repetitive. When I'm watching Hollyoaks, I'm completely engrossed from the first scene, which is always nice. It's on every day too