It's classic DS. Nobody is able to explain why they enjoy something without somebody else trying to get one over on them.

You would certainly need to be a masochist to want to sit through 31 years of misery and doom.

and yet we are all masochist enough to watch the new episodes, I do wonder if EE viewers have much masochist tendencies than other TV show fanbases.

Also the reason I have made my comments in this thread is that, there is no way W can commit to such a scheulde, for the next 20+ years, and for all those fans who say they would watch every episode, they wont, we all know they wont.

I must confess that I have rarely sat through a complete episode of EE, I was just curious when I saw the thread.

I would love to see repeats of the great days of Corrie, when they had Annie Walker, and Hilda Ogden. They did start showing them on a Channel called Granada Plus, but that disappeared years ago.

all the soaps im sure could put together a package of say 100 of their best episodes to air on W (or similar channel) but repeating ALL the episodes is not viable.

But that was a different era where only a small percentage of people had cable / satellite. Today (almost) everyone has access to these channels so viewing figures would be more. To be honest they probably dont want to do it as most people would ditch the current rubbish and watch the old shows instead. I know I would.

I used to subscribe to a channel that showed the EE omnibus twice a week, followed by 2-3 UK Gold episodes (from the beginning).

It all ended suddenly, without warning; the last episode being when Lisa Fowler caught the bouquet at Phil's wedding reception to Kate (?) in the Qn Vic. Fans in the US went crazy. Many of you likely know that Brad Pitt & Jennifer Aniston started a petition to bring it back. Signed it myself & reading the comments were hilarious!

Yes,it was 20 years ago- although the fact that all the shows were all eventually demoted to early morning slots suggests that they weren't doing as well as the other programmes being screened on those channels. But,I would certainly love if some channel tried again.

An easier way of doing it would be 4 eps a day that would take it down from 21 years to 5/6 then just start again.... Like friends does

Yes a soap channel would be brilliant. It's strange that Sky or UKTV haven't made such a channel yet.

A dream soap channel schedule would be something like..

6.00am A Country Practice.
6.30 The Young Doctors.
7.00 Neighbours.
7.30 Home & Away
8.00 Prisoner Cell Block H.
8.30 Sons and Daughters.
9.00 Brookside Double Bill.
10.00 EastEnders Double Bill.
11.00 Coronation Street Double Bill.
12.00pm Dynasty.
1.00 Dallas
2.00 Family Affairs Double Bill.
3.00 Emmerdale Farm Double Bill.
4.00 Hollyoaks Double Bill.
5.00 Crossroads Double Bill.
6.00 Brookside Double Bill (new episodes - repeated next day 9am)
7.00 EastEnders Double Bill (new episodes - repeated next day 10am)
8.00 Coronation Street Double Bill (new episodes - repeated next day 11am)
9.00 Casualty.
10.00 The Bill Double Bill.
11.00 Eldorado Double Bill.
12.00am London's Burning.
1.00 Take the High Road.
1.30 Doctors.
2.00 Night and Day.
2.30 Sunset Beach.
3.30 Teleshopping.

One can dream

Sky did have a dedicated soap channel in the 90s. IIRC,it ran from noon to 4pm. They played series like Emmerdale Farm,High Road and some American soaps. At the time other channels like UKGold,Granada Plus and Living were playing shows like Eastenders,Coronation St.,Crossroads and Brookside.

I love the idea of Brad and Angelina cheering Lisa on!

You'd have loved some of the comments on the petition then, O.....O. Keep in mind, it was during the Brad & Jen era. Two that stuck w/ me were:

*Matthew Perry, aka Chandler Bing, added to his signature, "Will you PAH-leeze sign this so Jen won't come to work & complain about Eastenders?"

*Ozzie Osborne. "What am I supposed to do now on Saturday mornings without me EE?" ME EE, not my EE.

Wish I could remember more; think that they had over 50K.

This is clearly better suited to a VoD service. I know everyone says "LICENSING ISSUES!!!" when comparing the iPlayer to 4OD, but that doesn't explain why they can't try adding bits of the back catalogue.

People are going to start wanting a lot more from the iPlayer when they HAVE to pay for it, especially the "I don't watch much on the BBC" crowd.

Yup. The main issue in the late 90s early noughties when they last tried was the lack of time since some of the shows started, CS started in the 70s and quickly hit the 90s due to 2/3 a week programming on original schedule matched with two a day on re-run. It was never sustainable.

If they actually went to the very beginning of EE, Emmerdale Farm and CS and showed them on a two episodes a day repeated a few times policy now they'd be set up for decades. Show some of the less long-lived episodes on the gaps and bingo you'd have a wicked soap channel. Obviously they couldn't put them in the 19.00-21.00 slots to avoid competing with current shows and they could run back to the start once they got within a certain distance (say 2-4 years). If they cycled it as something along the lines of 18 hours programming of

Eastenders x 2 (1 hour)
Corrie x 2 (1 hour)
Emmerdale x 2 (1 hour)
The Bill (1 hour)
Casualty (1 hour)
A Soap Doc programme/other soaps such as Crossroads/Take The High Road/Family Affairs (1 hour)

The main issue would be the amount of cutting for adverts. No channel is going to show the 27 minute long originals of Corrie in the 1960s, which is why I'd much rather see them release on DVD/Online unadulterated.

The BBC Store, run by Worldwide is selling them at £1.89 a pop all the way back to late 2014 with plenty of older episodes availale from before that. I wouldn't be surprised if this continues all the way back to 1985 at some point. There's current 400 and odd episodes available.

Aye, and that's fine for a 1-3 part drama, but £1.89 for a 26 year running soap?

Also, when I last checked, it was impossible to find a specific episode, you just have to keep scrolling by date.

There's an old episode of EE available on the BBC iplayer, from '85 or '86. I watched it but it was pretty boring. A whole half hour of Den and Angie moaning to each other, almost agreeing to a divorce, then not because she said she had 6 months to live. Oh, and some guy was trying to wash the windows. That was the entire episode. Zzzzz.

I'd assume they'd put a buy all up for a few hundred quid if they ever had the lot on there.

Yeah, but that was just build up for greatness...

Then put them on DVD or make them available in BBC Store, at a slightly more reasonable price than £1.89 an episode (or £10,017 for the entire back catalogue).


Count me in as criminally insane. I'd love to see EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm from the start. There's so many characters and events that would be good to watch. If I ever win the lottery my first call will be to BBC and ITV to see if DVD box-sets or an online archive are viable.

This needs to happen either online or a channel, does anyone want to start a petition? we could Facebook/Tweet it and email Sky and UKTV

I think the most sensible plan of action would be to petition Sky to buy the rights to old episodes of the big three and repeat from the start and the channels they aired on to provide them.

Do you think Sky is the right avenue to go down though? If Sky do it that means it could be exclusive to Sky, BT and Virgin or even just Sky which is no good.
UKTV is another option with the Drama channel being on Freeview but it needs to be a lot of people asking as 1 person won't help

UKTV Gold (if it's still called that) or W would be ideal as they are on Virgin and FreeView (I think). That or an online archive of the shows.