I'm with NotDebbieDingle - the last 5 years pretty much blur into one stint of crapness for me.

Of course there have been good points.

Some excellent characters have been introduced such as Tim and Kylie.
Some good couples have evolved - again Tim and Sally / Kylie and David stand out
I liked what Blackburn did with Rob and Tracy
I liked the kirsty plot to begin with but it got rubbish later on.
Karl was okay but not great.
Todd's return has been a good thing
Likewise Phelan.

However,
I hated nearly everything they did with Tina from deciding that Graeme should marry Xin onwards and unfortunately, that meant hating a lot of stuff from 2011 to 2014 as she was so front and centre of the show. This was at its worse in 2013 so I found watching it a trial for that reason alone.

I remember thinking, and commenting on sites like this, that i had to force myself to watch it around that time and that i'd never known it that bad in (at that point) approx 30 years of watching.

I actually do think it is better now than it was 3 years ago. Yes, there is daftness (the strike this week was ridiculous) but it started turning a corner last Autumn and i think there has been a steady improvement since then.

This was 2011 Mark, she was a pole dancer who Lloyd picked up from work in his taxi & had an abusive b/f, Chris who Lloyd had a feud with, and a son Russ!! Trouble is she was such a sullen, uninteresting & miserable piece that, despite being quite pretty garnered absolutely no sympathy, love or support from the viewer!!
Chris had a brief relationship with Maria before getting a brain tumour, recovering but pretending he was still ill to get sympathy from Cheryl & get back with her!!
His tricks didn't work, both left seperately & mercifully that was the last we ever heard of either!!

Forgot to mention she was also an old mate of Leanne's who got her a job managing the Bistro for a while!!

Edit: Just realised who you're referring to, Theresa Bryant, estranged mother of the Morton clan!! She was rough as they come & downright horrible but still a good deal more entertaining than Cheryl!!

Pairing Sally with Tim was a brilliant idea.

The only good that came out of 2013 were the scenes involving Sylvia, Roy and Hayley. Nothing has come close ever since....love it if Roy's mother came back for even just one episode.

Tina's transformation blighted the year for me. As did Kylie's, who looked capable at the bistro.

I loved Sylvia! where did she go?

Kylie was great in the bistro, she should have got her job back there when she returned in 2015, I preferred her as a waitress in the bistro than when she did nails in the salon

2013 is when the rot set in, I started giving up towards the end of 2013 and saw Tina's exit and fully gave up early 2014.

Non of the characters were likable anymore and storylines were no longer engaging.

The last time I properly watched Corrie was the Kirsty storyline - who was a sympathetic, realistic but very cruel woman and couldn't wait to see her get her comeuppance.

Unfortunately ITV couldn't resist going down cheap cliche ITV route and turned Kirsty into a cartoon villain at the end (they also ruined it by having Fiz and Tyrone have an affair thus justifying Kirsty's jealousy, if not her actions).

Everything since then has been equally poor and it's a shame because they got it so right for a little while.

I occasionally have to suffer an episode when visiting relatives and no amount of looking at my phone or making tea seems to help me escape from how mind-numbingly awful it is. There's absolutely no originality, no cleverness in the writing, no artistic direction or any sense of effort... it's complete mind-mush that's just churned out under the brand name "Coronation Street" but really they could write any old drivel and people would watch because it's "Corrie" and it's just what people do. And the worst thing is that it's deliberate. To appeal to the widest mass of the public they have to keep it drivel. And ITV knows this. There's no desire to up the quality if they don't need to.

I've said it before but if a brand new show came along with these terrible characters and this awful writing, not only would nobody watch it, but it would be critically and publicly slammed. They only get away with it because it's "our beloved Corrie" and people have blinkers on.

2013 was the year when characters acting completely ridiculously and plots happening for no apparent reason really took hold. This had been happening before, but it really became the main way Coronation Street does things in this year.

Characters like Tina, Sunita and Hayley all had personality transplants to facilitate an 'explosive exit'.

Pointless twists, chance encounters and carelessly shared secrets became the norm. Even the Kirsty/Tyrone storyline was filled with preposterous twists, especially Fiz and Tyrone starting an affair, thus proving Kirsty's paranoia to be true and really weakening the impact of the story.

Characters like Deirdre and Gail began the early stages of their buffoonery, which would become more accentuated in 2014 and 2015.

The return of the McDonalds to the Rovers was a bad move and has dragged the show down ever since.

Don't worry Kate Oates will put an end to that.......

OK thanks, Those two characters probably never stood a chance being paired with Maria and Lloyd...two of the most useless characters on the show.

There was a time when Maria was very prominent, used will in important storylines and the actress coped well. If you can, check out the period from 2007-2009 sort of time concerning her getting together with Liam, the still birth of their first baby Paul, Liam's death, tony (her husband's killer) falling in love with her and then his death.

It was good stuff and possibly the reason why longer term viewers think more favorably about Maria than more recent ones.

I watched the Tony Gordon stuff, Carla and Roy were great in it, Michelle was pretty good as well when she was hating Carla. Maria on the other hand was just meh IMHO. I think the problem with her is that she went from getting about as much screen time as Emily to being on our screens everyday they should have eased her back into the front instead of shoving her down our throats all at once.

Oh i thought she was fine in that storyline and it was an interesting way to develop her after being at first a fairly simple, kind hearted kennel girl to something of a femme fatale (she was engaged to Nick many years ago which is something you might not know) to heartbreak in a proper, adult relationship.

I do think that oart of the issue is that the actress has had two maternity leaves within a few years and been sidelined both coming up to and straight after them and then i think they just forgot what to do with her. Now they've remembered again and people are finding it a shock - especially if they are missing leading women like Carla and Kylie who she seems to be replacing.

I'm not Maria's biggest fan by the way, can take or leave her most of the time, but I do think she's being given a bit of a hard time by some quarters. Not just you, you're perfectly entitled not to like her but there seems to be a general tone against her.

I think they did try to ease her back in with scenes with Carla before she left, reminding us of the family connection and history but it was difficult after it having been ignored for so long.

For me, Michelle was far more realistic when she wasn't all pally and antagonised others. It made for better scenes, now it's all 'butter-wouldn't-melt' stuff.

Maria's friendship with Carla was a breath of fresh air. Such a shame it was all forgotten about once Michelle returned.

This definitely!

Its not that I don't like Maria, I just don't think she deserves to be in the spotlight so much. There are some character I love and some I hate but Maria sparks no real emotion from me at all.

I don't think they handled her return to the front burn well though, it seemed like ever since Michelle and Steve broke up she has been on our screens non stop. I thought it was so weird that Maria was the one to comfort Michelle, they were acting like BFFs and I swear I've never seem them exchange words in the 3+ years I've watched Corrie.

I do agree that Michelle and Maria suddenly being in each others pockets was weird, even though logically they should have been friends all the time given than they are sisters in law and Liam is Michelle's only nephew from her two dead brothers.

Their friendship would always have been more beliiievable than Michelle and Carla's *(no matter what the history or it not being her fault, Carla is a major reason that both her brothers are dead and I don't think I could bear to be around her if i were Michelle) but we have,'t seen it so it seems jarring that they are suddenly in each others pockets.

But, Michelle needs a friend and confidante and with no Carla, step up Maria and even more ridiculously, Leanne.

I do think that there is a huge problem that We have lost Carla and Kylie so close to each other and arguably they have been the two most prominent women in recent years, along with Tina who only went 2 years ago. Anybody that takes their place is going to seem jarring for many.

I'm honestly glad Carla was gone, I was so tired of her character and she was nothing but self destructive and self pitying. Now her had Kylie's exits did create a hole in the show but instead of shoving Maria on us 24/7 the could have given more screen time to all the female cast members.

Just to clear this up I don't hate Maria, I just don't think she's the right sort of character to be given stories she's getting, maybe it should be Leanne or Eva?

And I'm sick of Maria being on 24/7 it's turned into the Maria Show! When a character gets as overused as she's getting lately, you just wish they'd tone it down a bit!

I think this new boss is tryna make Maria be Kylie's replacement but it's not working with me at all. She is nothing like Kylie and never will be! I know they are tryna make her replace Kylie cos not only is she getting dramatic stories but also they're making Maria Eva's new best friend! Eva and Kylie had a great friendship, I don't buy Maria and Eva at all! It's all so forced

It's insulting as a Kylie fan tbh, that they seem to think another character can replace her (anyone not just Maria) No one will ever be able to replace Kylie imo, no matter how hard they try

Tbh I find it a complete overreaction. Maria is hardly shown 24/7, and is probably getting more than she did in three to four years, so not really the "Maria Show". I don't see how anyone is trying to replace Kylie either, nor have Corrie said otherwise.

Eva is just an awful character, what with her needy behaviour and stupid laugh making her out to be a bimbo. And despite my soft spot for Jane Danson, I don't know if I can put up with arse-faced Leanne every episode and having a go at someone. Plus Leanne already has a plot involving the McDonalds, so is hardly underused and probably gets the same amount of screen-time as Maria (and has been involved in far more over the years).

As for Maria and Eva being 'best friends', well this is something Corrie always like to do when a female character sleeps with a man, the man's spouse/girlfriend conveniently wants to become their best mate and obsess over them. The 'friendship' will fizzle out and be forgotten once Aidan's deceit is revealed, although knowing Corrie they will forget it and Eva and Maria will be laughing and partying together during a hen night.

I also really don't think that Maria is being used 24/7. She's being used more than she was, but she is far from dominating things. As others have mentioned, Leanne has had just as much screen time if not more. Likewise Eva is being used as much as Maria in this Aidan plot. Sarah has taken a bit of a back seat butis still fairly prominent and Michelle has also been getting scenes because of the baby plot and that will increase.

So, I actually think that it is being shared around the young women, rather than only Maria.

The only way she can be seen to be 'replacing' Kylie is that she is getting screen time now when she hasn't had much during the last 5 years when Kylie was around. As Cool Mate says, he would object to anybody taking Kylie's place but that is inevitable. The character has gone, they can't just have dead air time, they have to have something happening in scenes and that means using other characters, some of which will be young and female.

Maria is a very different type of character to Kylie, they haven't had her getting involved with David or trying to Mother the kids so how is she replacing her?

I was also fed up of Carla and don't mind her having gone. But, as with Kylie, she got a lot of plots and with her gone, that part of the show needs to be taken by somebody else.

I'm not sure what the objection is to how she is being used either. They've been building this Caz plot up for some time and rather fits with the "Maria, the victim" personae they've had ever since Liam died really. Then she's had a ONS with somebody and perhaps over invested in it which again, is in keeping with Maria of old.

Who should they have given those plots to?

ETA: yes, they've had her sharing scenes with Eva, Kylie's friend but again that is down to the family connection - Maria is a Conner by marriage and Eva is dating a Conner. So, it's logical and i don't see it as a replacement relationship for Kylue/Eva. Also, as mentioned it is plot driven because of Maria sleeping with Aidan, same as Michelle being all over Leanne is plot driven because of them both being pregnant by Steve.

It is lazy scriptwriting but it isn't 'replacing' Kylie. If anything, I'd say her replacing Carla as Michelle's bff has been more obvious as that is who Michelle would have been talking to about Steve before she left.

I do wonder if they might revisit Leanne and Maria's fued when her sleeping with Aidan is revealed.

Which would be marginally preferable to another Tracy one with whomever.