Oliver Kent is now at EastEnders- will he be able to over ride Sean O'Connor in terms of storylines, axing/bringing in character's?

I really thought Sean O'Connor's pedigree as a writer/producer was going to save EastEnders but he has been hugely disappointing so far in terms of the drivel we are been given at the moment.

I don't know much or anything about Oliver Kent.

Hopefully he will bring in Fresh blood

have you not seen the mess he has made over at casualty, anyway its just a made up role with little input in the other productions so he will still be screwing up holy and casualty.

SOC's been overridden?

Probably for the best. His work is drivel.

Beware of what you wish for, if Kent does meddle with EE the SOC could walk leaving it in a hell of a mess, Kent is the worse thing other than cancellation at this moment that could happen to EE.

Is he? I don't know anything about him. I'll have to read up on him.

This could be suicidal for EE as he has ruined Casualty with again a small cast and focus on pathetic storylines.

Way to kill things off BBC

Casualty's such a mess these days it doesn't bode well for EE. Standard soap in all but name.

I wonder if DTC knew they were intending to create this position when he quit? I'd already suspected he knew they were going to slash the budget and reduce the cast size and didn't want to be blamed for or associated with a cheaper looking, cut price EastEnders. I think he maybe saw which way the wind was blowing and wanted out. His departure seemed quite sudden.

He's in charge of Holby City right? I'm quite enjoying that at the moment, seems like good news.

It's fantastic that DTC was sacked, and long overdue, but it's good to see that the BBC have realised their error in hiring SOC, and are bringing in some oversight to try and correct that.

He was executive producer of both Casualty and Holby City (which is really good) but now this new position means that he oversees Doctors, River City and EastEnders as well.

Is he a younger or older guy?

Youngish

Not sure how old this is but interesting video of him talking about Casualty

http://www.careerplayer.com/graduate...r/oliver-kent/

I'm not fond of his work in Casualty. But he has been doing a fantastic job in Holby City, although it could be argued that Simon Harper is responsible for the decent storylines in Holby. I think he has given up in Casualty because the current storylines are woeful. However, I'm enjoying Connie and Grace's traumatic story and it's a slow burner.

Casualty was great for the 30th and the cliff hanger!!

It doesn't sound like it's a particularly hands-on role, more helicoptering above all of these series and looking for efficiencies, sharing best practices, advising/assisting the EPs and all that so important top-management jazz...

Well if he is head of continuing drama I'd say SOC will report into him. It'd be a bit like a Creatve Director having the heads of Art Buying, Copywriting, Production all reporting into them. So, there will probably be an over rule ability. But also, he won't have the time to be that hands on on a day to day basis as that would be too much work with 4 other shows also on his brief, which are produced in different locations. I'd say most decisions will still lie with the Executive Producers for each show with him just being consulted if there is an issue or for major decisions.

Re Kent himself, I have to say that Holby City had one of its best times when he was a series pruducer some years ago but both it and Casualty took sharp downturns quality wise when he was appointed EP just over 3 years ago. There was aninterview where he started talking about adding 'spice' to the show, which seemed to translate as throwing any realism away and opting for over blown melodrama (usually predictable) instead. As somebody that valued the shows as primarily Hospital drama with Patient and Politics stories to the fore and th
E staff 'soap' aspects secondary, it grated. In fact many hoped that he would get EE so we could be rid of him and maybe get a show with less 'spice' back.

But there has been good stuff and to be fair, when you have a division of labour with story producer, series producer, executive producer etc, it is hard to say who is primarily responsible for the general state of a show.

I would say though that the season of Holby I thought was reLly bad and very sharply changed in tone the episode that Kents name appeared on the credits, was 16 when, reputedly, he was very hands on. When he turned more attention to Casualty and left Holby more to Simon Harper (again reutedly), Holby started getting better again.

Personally, I like what SOC is doing with EE. No it's not must see tv in the way it was the first half of DTC's tenure and other periods in the shows history, but he us rebuilding it from the ground up, making it, and the characters, relateable, believable and likeable again and I prefer the slowburn of stories like Lee and Dot.

I couldn't disagree more there. I thought it was a trsvesty of the show I watched start 30 years ago.

I did quite like 'A Childs Heart' which opened season 30 in Sept 15 as it seemed to get the show more so I commend Kent for bringing back one of the original writers and directing style for it. Even though they did retcon loads of history.