Originally Posted by gavin shipman:
“EastEnders is completely fine. It feels refreshed and natural. Corrie seems stale for me and none of the storylines are interesting. Toyah's return sounds good but EastEnders has really improved the feel of the show by writing and back to basics approach not silly unbelievable stunts like Corrie.”
Originally Posted by Whoopie Doo:
“The last producer totally messed EastEnders up. I actually turned off for a while when they decided to retcon all of Sharon and Den's history to suit the panto character Paul Nicholas was playing. I was still reeling from the stupid notion Kat somehow gave birth to a son she never knew about. The damage in this show is deep. It needed a quiet time to get its mojo back.
I wish the new guy would axe Danny Dyer too. I think the Carter's just don't have that X Factor to be front of house. Mick is a really weak character and its evident when you see the likes of Martin in his scenes. Mick is so one dimensional in comparison. The show really needs new exciting characters and fast.”
Originally Posted by sheepiefarm:
“And yet - funnily enough, I've started watching it again because I'm enjoying the reality of the character conversations & interactions.
Over on ED - they've gone chasing after the social media demographic - therefore we end up with ridiculous scenarios like a teenager locked in the boot of a car plunging into a lake miraculously escaping (off-screen) - two characters flatlining after the big stunt, all back home again within a couple of episodes. A retcon of a previously straight character suddenly being told he had bedded a guy and got beaten up by his dad (this is a character who we watched growing up in the show and has never been mentioned till now)
Horses for courses I suppose - but I do think the soaps have gotten themselves into a ridiculous state in recent years - so much so, that when a well told story happens (i.e Holly's drug overdose in ED) we have loads of watchers who can't see it for the story it is and are busying waiting for the "reveal" that she was murdered by someone.
The voice of social media (the voting demographic for awards) has been paid too much heed to and the intelligence & integrity of the narratives has suffered badly in the process.
Soaps have become such a homogenous entity because too many producers have been chasing the social media demographic.
I'm quite glad SOC has the temerity to tread his own path.”
Dominic Treadwell-Collins took EastEnders to crazy town. He started so well in his first year and then the wheels fell off after live week. Keeping the identity of Lucy's killer secret from his own writers so that they only got to work on follow up stories the day after the broadcast, rather than having the episodes ready to be shown, was one of the stupidest decisions I've ever seen made in television. After that we had weeks of dull stories and no follow up to the main storyline. Then they brought the Lucy storyline back and stretched it out again. We also had history rewritten to shoehorn in new characters, characters doing weird shifts in character to fit storylines, storylines repeated with the same characters (Roxy sleeps with Ronnie's partner yet again), twists that added nothing (Did Mick really need to be Shirley's son rather than brother?) DTC had EastEnders in a mess by the end.
Sean O'Connor has come in and sorted a lot out but his low-key approach won't excite people and put bums on seats. Things still need to happen alongside the ordinary.
DTC made EastEnders too fantastical and SOC has made it to ordinary.
