Off the top of my head I can only think of him axing Derek & then Mavis leaving which is what he's famous for. Did he get rid of Des Barnes too?

WOW 13 is a lot, maybe SOC will be looking to beat that?

100% agree. I'd honestly have preferred Johnny to go, although I don't mind Johnny.

I've always really liked Pam and Les (more so Pam), however they've grown on me a lot since Paul's death, and I now really like both of them. I'd rather have them than some of the other characters on the show!

I hope not tbh, I'd rather he try and bring new ideas and remould some of the characters first if he feels they are failing rather than rushing in to axe them straight away. If they are still not successful after that then they should be axed.

Apparently he axed Derek, Andy McDonald, Bill Webster, Maureen Holdsworth and Don Brennan, as well as some other characters. So not as many as it sounds to be honest.


Maybe . It worked for EE at the time as the show then introduced characters like Steve, Mel, Lisa and the Slaters etc. Hopefully it will work this time, SOC seems to not be saying much at the moment but hopefully he will do a good job. He worked on the show from the late 1990's to 2005 and this is what quite a few fm's call the last golden era of the show so hopefully SOC knows what he's doing.

Didn't DTC also work on the show at that time?

True, but I think there is more to come...............

I think the problem with Johnny at the moment is that they decided "let's bring back Johnny" rather than "Let's bring back Johnny and take the character on this journey with X storyline and Y character". He's been back months and the only decent material he has been given was as a supporting character in Ben's storyline. Now that Lee has unfortunately gone, I think they definitely should keep him and focus on where the character will go but a part of me thinks that this is the beginning of SOC axing the Carter family which would be a huge shame IMO.

I was originally indifferent to Pam and Les, they worked well as friendly supporting characters but I didn't really think they were much cop beyond that but once they have been given some really good material, both of them exceeded my expectations and I am now a bit disappointed they are leaving. Aren't they the only "older" couple on the show especially with a long term marriage.

I did like Lee's depression story a lot in the beginning, as it was pretty realistic and it wasn't ott or sensational, like Shabnam's stillbirth it was one of the less publicised storylines but it was really good, then block storytelling seemed to ruin it a bit. DBH is a decent actor agreed, there are far worse ones on EE alone, but I just wish they'd made a real go with the depression story, it was engaging to begin with but when the story gets picked up and dropped you do lose interest.

Les and Pam have been excellent since Paul has died. The episode where they were in the hospital was heartbreaking, it's a very realistic and believable way they have handled his death and it has been superbly acted.

DTC began working on EE in October 2005 as a senior story editor, before being promoted to story producer in January 2007. So he worked under Kate Harwood and Diederick Santer. So by the time DTC was at EE SOC had left.

Ah yes, I remember Don Brennan's exploding taxi very vividly

Thank you

I agree I thought it was a good realistic approach when they started it. I think block storytelling was one of the major weaknesses of DTC's whole era in the show tbh and it weakened a lot of the plots. The long drawn out build ups to reveals that would just go missing for weeks on end and then reappear for a random scene (I'm looking at you Stacey's Key) and other storylines lacking a proper aftermath of payoff after a conclusion such as Cora's homelessness story being resolved in one episode. I agree it can make you lose interest in a plot.

After he tried to run over Mike Baldwin

There was a thread on the MF the other day about Samantha Fox joining EE and that she looks similar to Letitia Dean (Sharon), and they really do look the same! They could pass as sisters in EE!


You're welcome. Thank Wikipedia

It's the Soap section through the night thread, and people are actually discussing soaps!

Brian Park's 'axeman' title was more a case of media spin than anything else. As others have said, he really only axed a handful of characters but by Corrie's standards at the time, this wasn't something that had been seen for more than 30 years. What was most socking was that Park was unapologetic in what he did, especially when he reportedly sacked Peter Baldwin (Derek) on his first day in his new role.

The biggest thing about Brian Park's reign was that he purposely targeted the happiest and most comfortable characters in Corrie (Derek, Mavis, Sally & Kevin) and set out to make their lives a misery. His axing of Derek has always stood as his most memorable action.

Love him or hate him, he really did save Corrie and brought the show into a new era.

The first UK soap 'bloodbath' was in 1964 when Corrie producer Tim Aspinall axed five characters, which at the time amounted to about 20% of the entire cast. All of the characters had been with the show since Tony Warren's original scripts. Out went Frank Barlow the Hewitt family and, infamously, Martha Longhurst who was shockingly killed off.

Don Brennan in a mentally disturbed rage was actually scarier than some of the proper " "villains" Corrie have had since.

I didn't know Sam Fox even did acting until that thread, I though the last time she was on TV was her Brit awards failure and then by coincidence the next day I saw something about her being in Big Brother

first time for everything

Christmas is awesome


That's a bit sinister.....even for Halloween!


I'd rather that characters were given material first to try to make them likable before being axed. Kate Oates did this at Emmerdale with Ruby for example.


I like Kirk, they need "everyday" characters in my opinion to make the show realistic, not everyone has to be "doing something" all the time in my opinion, and I think he works well with Beth. Samia whatshername can deliver when given juicy material. I wouldn't miss Izzy.


Agreed

agree re Lee and danny boy

Block storytelling really does weaken plots and it shows on screen. Like one week you have a certain story and you don't hear about it for another few weeks or so and by the time it comes around again you forget where it was left at, and especially the addition of damp squibs and poor conclusions/aftermaths makes the whole story disappointing. I wonder whether SOC likes long running story arcs like DTC does, or whether he goes for the shorter storyline approach. As an example, the Little Mo/Trevor Domestic Violence storyline (which was storylined by SOC) lasted just over two years, from when the Slaters came into the show to Halloween 2002, when Trevor died in the Slater house fire. So maybe some of his stories will be long running, whilst others will be shorter.

Like one FM said on another thread a couple of days ago, if SOC can make EE as half as good as it was in the early 2000's then that would be brilliant.

I don't agree, Corrie have a good cast but they have a major creativity and writers problem!

The story is in no way a bad one, but I do have a few problems with it if I'm honest. I think my main problem with Lee's Depression storyline was the amount of depth it could have gone into compared to the amount of depth it did. We saw Lee suddenly change from a cheeky ladies' man to a moody and reserved shadow of his former self, which is admittedly realistic, but it's the scenes in the doctor's that stick in my mind. Instead of exploring how Lee felt with him opening up properly and describing his emotions and thoughts, we had Mick constantly answering for Lee and getting told off, which I felt took away from the scene. It could have been one to rival Johnny's coming out scene, but it turned into a scene with Mick butting in and making it all about him if that makes sense.

It's a shame DBH didn't get more to do, as he never really got to show how good of an actor he is IMO.

Generally agree. There are a handful among the Corrie cast who have been there some years under multiple producers and storylines that I think are generally poor and won't deliver even with better material. But for the most part I think the majority of Corrie's problems lie within the writing and general direction and tone of the show and if this improves, the acting generally seems to improve with it as we saw around Kylie's death.

TOUCH ME, TOUCH ME I WANNA FEEL YOUR BODY.

Don Brennan's decline and descent into madness was fantastic, and had slowly been sown over the previous seven years or so, it was just Brian Park who decided to take it up a notch or seven. The period in the early 90s that covered the decline of his marriage to Ivy was superb and the things he did at that time were really chilling. Does anyone remember when he became obsessed with Denise Osbourne and started giving her nuisance phone calls, all the while pretending to be a concerned friend. This was while he was still married to Ivy! Then he tried to kill himself and lost his leg. The seeds had well and truly been sown and as the intricacies of Ivy's will played out and Mike Baldwin repeatedly got one up on him, his obsession and attempted murder of Alma (and his own attempted suicide) were spot on. His final suicide was also handled brilliantly and is one of Corrie's most memorable 'explosive' deaths in my opinion.

In many ways Don was soap's first modern mad man, though there had been many before him.