Frankly, the show is leaving me cold these days.
Okay, so it's filmed quite well & looks good in HD but that's about as positive as I can get at the moment.
Let's start with ...

(1.) The Beales.
By now, I've lost all manner of sympathy for this family. At this point (let's not beat around the bush here!) they're all accessories to murder! Jane at the very least & Ian by association. Perverting the course of justice and lying under oath in a Court of Law ... Maybe they can all reconnect in the new family unit of E-Wing of ye olde Victorian prison and repent the error of their ways! They've driven everyone else away.

(2.) How the devil does Phil Mitchell get away with bribing the foreman of the jury to "lean on" & sway his fellow jurors during an active and on-going murder trial? AND get away with it?!?! The WORST Police Force in the entire country notwithstanding. I know that usually the Mitchells have their low-rent Kray twin spiel to uphold, but to do that and then force a miscarriage of justice. How can the police not lift him for that?! However creepy Max might be sometimes, it just seems the residents (including Christian God-fearing Dot) are willing to abandon him as irredeemable. Looks like Ronnie got away entirely with killing Carl then! Remember him? WORST Police Force Ever!

(3.) This will likely split opinion, but here goes anyway ...
Few (not all!) of the characters in Walford presently manage to elicit any sympathy or pathos. They're all so caustic & Machiavellian (which, I suppose, is why they're making TV drama), but other soaps manage to have devious characters without them being completely asocial most of the time. Like maybe, Cain Dingle in Emmerdale or even Tracy Barlow in 'Corrie'! Not entirely convinced either about this trend of bringing back older characters, especially when so many newer and fresher (& younger) cast members are pushed out: Lola, Cindy (though she'd be better off outta that house), Lauren, even Lucy ... Makes the show seem more tired & jaded somehow! Never warmed to Sharon either! When Zoe Slater, Sam Mitchell and Chrissie were deciding what to do with Den Watts at last, all I kept thinking was whether they could put "his princess" with him too! Funnily enough, I think they'd both appreciate it!

To be more positive, characters that redeem the show: the Carters (bar the extended family), the Masoods and Kush, the second coming of Martin Fowler seems better than the original, Kim & Denise (+ baby), mini-Kat Stacey (if she could dial back the voice a few decibels!) and much of the older cast.

(4.) Jay & Ben Mitchell: are both boys really capable of cuckolding that nice Abi Branning? But then again, what's a nice girl like that doing with a Mitchell? & a gay one too? If Kathy knew about his orientation since he was a kid, come on Abi! She's meant to be the bright one! Sometimes it's felt for some years now that they've been forcing Ben into certain storylines rather than let the character evolve naturally because Ben's in the Mitchell clan and they have to be front-and-centre. Ben the victim of domestic violence, Ben the murderer, Ben the closet homosexual with a girlfriend ... WTF?
Which brings me round to the whole Les/Christine thing. The whole thing feels like they're trying to force it on a character/actor for shock value or push a particular political agenda because I thought that whole Coker family had been worked seamlessly in the Square since the whole Lucy murder thing. I might have believed it better if it had been Paul, the grandson?

(5.) On a more general note:
Has anyone on the show actually visited the East End of London in recent years?! How does anyone live on London prices by working at an open-air market stall? The Queen Vic would have been shuttered and boarded up years ago, undercut by the cut-price supermarkets & high rental costs. Still a world covered in asphalt!
Next: I'm half expecting an East End dockworker to walk into the Vic and pay 'alf-a crown for a pint. Only to be told by Mick Carter, "sorry mate! Been no docks round 'ere for years. 'S all flats now! Now sling your 'ook 'cos yer money's no good 'ere!"


Maybe that's the licence fee budget being squeezed?
But O wow! That sure was cathartic!!!

You do have some points there ,I think i could write a book lately on what i don't like any more ,some really unrealistic plots ,why all the culling of the young ?Charlies wallet found in a bin ,and that's the end of that ! Shoddy is a good word .I am sticking with it for now ,but the Beales are unredeemable to me now ,sending an Innocent man to jail ,and for a crime that he could even get killed for in Jail ....

Don't have time to say much at the moment but nodded to virtually everything you said!

Agree pretty much.

I'll sum my problems up with this: back in around May, I stopped watching for around 2-3 months, dipping in very rarely. I just got bored of storylines going nowhere, and things being dragged out beyond reason. I was sick of Kim deciding whether to trust Vincent, Mick and Linda hating Dean and not being able to do anything about it, Sharon's deciding enough is enough with Phil, the Beales beginning to crack covering up Bobby's antics, and, of course, a female character is pregnant.... all of which just going round in circles and going nowhere.

I tune back in in July, and what's happening? Kim is deciding whether to trust Vincent, Mick and Linda are hating Dean and are not able to do anything about it, Sharon's deciding enough is enough with Phil, the Beales are beginning to crack, and, of course, a female character is pregnant. Flash forward to the present day, and what's happening? Kim is deciding whether to trust Vincent, Mick and Linda.... well, you get the point.

The sad truth is that Dominic Treadwell-Collins and his team wouldn't know how to properly plot and pace a storyline if it hit them in the face with a sledgehammer. Can't say I'm overly excited at the prospect of Grant's return, knowing it'll take 5 months of "omg it's Grant!" 5 second appearances before anything actually happens.

EE is meh, and it has been for some time. Not terrible like BK's era, or annoyingly dull like Newman's.... just meh. And, if I'm honest, that really is the worst a show can be.

They just invested so much energy to one massive storyline and the quality has dipped. There are intermittent quality episodes i.e. Kat and the sister; Shabnam and the still birth; Sharon vs Kathy initial meeting and Christine.

Block storytelling
Lack of menace (tbf until now) Hooray Gavin may be the saviour like Michael Moon
Exit of major players
Not making Denise Lucy's killer and me winning £700

Phew! It's a relief to know it's not just me then!
Thought I might be the only one.

Although he's a hard man, I don't buy Phil's current extreme homophobia. I guess he's lashing out but I don't understand why he would be so shocked. He must know that the Abi relationship is a con.

There is a hell of a lot of things wrong with it this year.

I actually think this year has been ok. Mitchell and Beales storylines have been spectacular. Carters are finally getting interesting again. Shabnam/Kush's storylines have been heartbreaking and wonderfully acted. The Cokers are definitely "memorable" and I'm glad they're raising awareness because many people have been in Les' position. Just a few examples.

Who or what are the saving graces in your opinion?

There's been the odd good episode, but even the characters involved in them do not hold my interest. TBH I can't come up with any saving graces. Live week was good but the Beales have annoyed me immensely since. The stillbirth was great, but what bores Shab and Kush are the rest of the time. Les gave us one superb episode. Kat was great, just before she left , ditto Max. I honestly don't know why I hang on.

Do you think if you ever did stop watching that it'd be for good?

I do feel like the poor planning for months after liveweek was unforgivable -a golden opportunity squandered to hook in some more viewers and buck the downwards trend for soap ratings at least temporarily.
The genre is slowly losing its pull anyone due to a fragmented media environment awash with choice, the internet, the fact they've been around so long etc without executive Producers accelerating the decline above and beyond that.

Unlikely. I'd keep an eye on the spoilers. The trouble is that they often make it look better than it actually is.

I still enjoy Eastenders and i will never stop watching it, but my main problem with the soap right now is how many secrets there are and how drawn out every single storyling is. Does everything have to take so long to come to a conclusion ? I mean come on, get the hell on with it !

With no strorylines really moving on, we are ending up with new storylines building up on top of them, and then this just makes every other storyline slow down even more. With the way things are going, it's going to take about 3 years for any storyline to come to a conclusion, it's too much !
It's time to close out these storylines once and for all so the soap can keep going forward, it's trying many fans patience.

Who killed Lucy / Bobby the killer needs to end.
Dean the rapist needs to end.
Stacey's Key needs to get going, that should have started and ended about a year ago.
Ryan making a 5 second appearance last year needs to be explained. There must be a reason why they bought him back for those 5 seconds.
Ben and Abi need to end and Ben needs to stay out of the closet this time.
Kim not making her mind up about Vincent needs to end.
Phil keeping secrets from Sharon and then Sharon dumping him and taking him back needs to end.
Sharon's real dad needs to end.

It really has gotten out of hand now.

Agree. Plus Libby's secret, Kat's secret, Alfie's secret

Yep, there is so much going on that i am even forgetting things It's hard to keep up with it all.

And
Phil's secret
The secret of Stacey's baby
Mick secretly meeting his mother