Santer was VERY hit and miss for me, he did well at the start of his era, and i'm glad he introduced Ronnie & Roxy to the Mitchell family, god knows what he thinks of this new producer killing them off

The last time i truley enjoyed EastEnders though and found it unmissable, was the Chrissie/Zoe/Kim Medcalfs Sam. (why the **** did they bring back Daniella??!!) Dirty Den saga.
Have so many great memorys from that era.

Cannot believe the crap thats being served up now.

Very well said, people always want this perfect tenure under a new Ep and always wanted in their way.

Just because their is no news on new characters does not mean it is not happeing. You do not need Midnight anouncement drama every week, only to be let down. Tptb owe nothing to DS forum members.

I can hardly bring myself to watch any more, its become so dull that is feels like a chore. He is definitely the worst producer in years and needs to be replaced.

Me too. This is why I've turned off. I don't have the patience to wait for it to get better. I tried that with Kirkwood, Newman and DTC and wasted precious minutes of my life. 😂 In all seriousness though, the show is just not worth my time anymore. People are saying 'but character interaction is better now' and while that is a fair point, that doesnt inspire me to watch. You have to ask, what is your sole purpose for watching? Well for me it's to be entertained. That's always been my reason for any show I watch. I want it to interest me, grip me, excite me. I work 45 hours a week and when I come home, I want some escapism. I want to be look forward to an episode. My days are waiting for it to get better are over. When it does - and I'll know by the overall tone on this forum ( just like Corrie and edale at the minute) that's when I'll give it a go. I've been there, done that... with the waiting game and I'm bored of just waiting.

As for SOC not giving a interview, I get what others are saying he doesn't have to give one and I don't want any big false promises that can't be delivered either. However I think the reason why people are getting frustrated is not neccassarily they want spoilers or big declarations. It would just be interesting to hear what kind of direction he wants to take the show in. Granted, it may translate on screen differently, for better or worse, but seeing he is going to be at the helm for approximately 2-3 years, it would be interesting to hear what kind of vision he has so we can at least get some kind of feel for him as a producer.

I also agree with others that xmas and January to march tell us if he is truely a good fit for the show. Yeah the first 6 months haven't been great but it's still early days. Next year will be the telling point.

I'd personally love to see this forum buzzing about EE again. Not since the days of santer has that happened. I know he had his critics but at least he got everyone talking about the show for all of the right reasons and that there was a general mix of good storylines and characters at the time. There was always a storyline worth talking about.

I preferred DTC. I feel SOC has axed too many characters that might have had potential (Belinda, Kyle, Les, Pam, Ronnie, Roxy, Claudette, Aunt Babe) and some of the stories are not that exciting like bin gate and Shaki keep trying to force Bex into bed. Some of the episodes seems slow. That being said Lee's depression story is being handled better as he is trying to keep up the facade of the perfect job.

I am not sure if Belinda, Claudette & Babe were axed.

Bsbe is still in the show - not sure when she leaves but some charactrrs are still there that should have been axed

Wow, a lot of negativity! Then again, I've not watched in months - the last straw for me was that utterly farcical excuse for a tax payer funded programme that was Grant's return being turned into yet another secret son 20 year delayed baby plot (because we just had to have one every week under DTC).

No better I take it? Shame.

But come on guys. Ronnie and Roxy have needed to go for years. It's just the same thing over and over with them. Ronnie is just repulsive and not the flawed deep character she used to be, and Roxy hasn't developed a smidgen in ten years.

Agreed. Roxy has regressed into an embarrassing, drug smuggling, snivelling, directionless, failed mother who has no gravitas of her personal situation. She's made to loos a terrible parent by Jack for crying out loud! Bin her ASAP.

Ronnie is a severely damaged, creepy black widow who has the capacity for inflicting great pain on someone who has crossed her yet tries to create an illusion that she's a mother and wife who's in control. She cares only for herself. She took Kat's baby and this sort of act makes me want her to be bombed out too.

If you didn't like the DTC reign you should give SOC a try. Different ends of the spectrum in many ways.

Calling this the worst era for EE is hyperbolic nonsense. His actual sl's only started in September (he oversaw DTC's final plots which were largely pants). Don't conveniently forget the the damage done by Kirkwood and the boredom of Newman. Not to mention how inconsistent DTC was after the 30th anniversary stuff (he was brilliant until the end of February 2015, then it became a mixed bag of very good and very poor).

IF SOC delivers big at Xmas and NY I can imagine the tone will change a lot. If he doesn't do something dramatic, however, I'll happily agree that he hasn't brought the goods.

Any indications of ratings under SOC? Of course excluding when the football's on ITV. Particularly Mondays and Tuesdays.

Monday and Tuesday just gone;
Monday - 6.203 (28%)
Tuesday - 6.071 (30%)

For comparison, this is what the ratings were this time last year (Mon 23rd Nov 2015)
Eastenders 6.05m (26.1%)

So yeah, the ratings could be higher, but they're not apocalyptically bad, either.

That was the last time I was excited about the show. It really was unmissable.

I think people are just going to keep watching out of habit and because it's on at a convenient time. I don't think the quality is even a factor in the ratings anymore. If it was EastEnders would have ended years ago

Yeah they look pretty stable so viewers are still tuning in.

The ratings REALLY dipped around 2004 I think, and possibly 2013 as well.

BIB The 3 of them were axed, SOC's decision

These ratings actually seem OK in the grand scheme of things.
What are they in comparison to Emmerdale out of interest?

I cant imagine the BBC panicing yet, i think it would take months for EastEnders to stay in its current state before people switch off and we see a noticeable dip in ratings.

I thought Carli Norris said she was returning as Belinda in 2017?

Dominic Treadwell-Collins and his cohorts, Lamb and Batten, turned the show into a fanboi bastion of sensationalism. Murder and murderers were trivial everyday occurrences. It didn't help anyone when the EP systematically made countless numbers of characters irredeemable by virtue of their covering up Bobby Beale's crime - Ian, Jane, Sharon, Phil, Peter and Lauren were all tainted by that, and some won't ever be redeemed.

SOC has his work cut out. I'm fine with what he's doing so far, except for his anointing Denise as a mother of a Mitchell child. I'm no fan of Denise at all. Like Ronnie, she's a character who lost relevance in 2010, and everything they've tried with her until now has either been a failure, or when it hasn't been (cougar attractions to Fatboy and Kush), they've been short-lived and unfulfilling. It seems that the only way they can make this character relevant is by linking her - and by extension, her mostly awful family - to the Mitchells; and that, for me, has been the producer's biggest mistake.

If he has balls enough to axe the Mitchell sisters, he should have balls enough to call time on Denise.

What? And turn it into The Branning Show by inventing all these heretofore unknown Brannings once again?

Ashdown loved and lived for the Brannings. Too much of them got old fast. It's bad enough that this producer seems to be linking everyone and everything to the Mitchells. THAT will all end in tears.

The door was indeed left open as she didn't die, but in the world of soap I wouldn't take a "I might return" from an actor as fact, and after some dubious comments SOC may think better of it, if, and I say if he survives himself until the summer.

Emmerdale for last Monday and Tuesday
Monday 6.55 33.0%
Tuesday 6.39 33.0%


I should say that I don't think people should get too hung up on ratings (especially overnights). I only posted them because I'd noticed on other threads that some posters had convinced themselves that ratings had nosedived since SOC took over, which obviously isn't the case. They've been fairly stable all autumn.

The ratings for November 7- November 13 (Masood's leaving week):

Monday: 7.2 million
Tuesday: 7.3 million
Thursday: 6.8 million

Source: Official Barb

Hardly disaster.

Whilst it is not edge of seat viewing at the moment, the hysteria whipped up in this thread and those similar is ridiculous.

Yes, the storylines aren't on fire right now, and there should be a bit more going on, but there's little wrong with the quality of the individual episodes. Mostly, they are well written, with believable interactions between characters. It just seems like it's the glue between episodes that we are waiting for (note, waiting for, not gone forever) and when that comes, the show should be pretty solid, thanks to the change in writing style humanising most of the characters again.

The opposite seemed to be happening during Santer-Dtc. The glue was there, but not the believable foundations, so rarely did anything seem real or gritty, no matter how dramatic. It was as if the show was living through doof-doof moments (Stacey's return week being the most irritatingly obvious) and the core of the episodes and the characters, were an afterthought.

The show cannot carry on like it is now forever, absolutely not, but those claiming this is 'the worst I've ever seen EE', or 'Soc is writing for the 80's/90's' need a reality check.

SOC inherited the show in a very poor state, as Dtc did in 2013, BUT instead of papering over the cracks by instantly throwing big storylines at damaged characters, thus destroying them further, there's been a determined and successful effort to repair and re-humanise the characters through the more realistic and mundane moments. Now, when the drama does come knocking (and we ALL know it will, as much as a certain few love to pretend EE is being deliberately sabotaged), the pay off will be much greater.

Actually emmerdale had 7million..

It's quiet.

SOC is not the worse producer ever, you cannot even begin to pin that title on him after less then a few months.

There probably not been a revered producer in years, everyone has been slated once and awhile.

Santer left the show in a sore state, BK took over, he vision didn't fit, Newman had the unfortunate of being a go between, DTC was the so called saviour, started well, ended badly, he left it in a worse state then the previous 3.

SOC took over and now we are at a crossroads of him trying to bring the show back into a fit state but also his way of doing things is not to everyone liking.

Fair enough, I was just quoting from the ITV Media site.

http://www.itvmedia.co.uk/