When you sit down to watch Eastenders, you kinda expect a bit of a decent plot, and a twist.

Having just finished watching the Special about Dot Cotton, what the hell were they thinking?! I mean "I did something terrible" - i let a dog off a leash and prayed - boohoo!

Anyone else got comments on this waste of airtime?

j..b

a bit dissapointing

A pile of horse shite.

it was supposed to be looked at from the point of view of a child who would have been scared by these types of things in war time. It was portraing what happened in that time which may seem strange now but was very real then. June Brown was excellent as dot as always. If you cant understand it its because u were not around then in those strange times of evacuees. This type of experience would have haunted her right through life and thats what it was showing. I find it ins=ulting for people to mock this episode as it was portraing real events that occured

A nice story spoilt at the very end by advertising the next programme. AGAIN

I agree why interupt the music for a add for a film

I thought it was one of the best things on tv for ages. June Brown`s wonderful acting, together with the other members of the cast, the little girl who played the young Dot also. The story was very true to the life of an evacuee to Wales during the war (my mum was such, and about the same age) and I wept buckets.

I can appreciate that some people would have enjoyed Dots Story.June Brown is an excellent actress and Dot a great character, however its not that Im not interested in history but I found it boring.It should have had extra air time instead of the usual Eastenders slot. It was a Special Edition, special to some people but not all. Special Edition chocolate does not take the place of the original so why should this?

Relax, although they screened the special edition you will not have missed anything that happens in Albert Square

What really annoyed me was the awful fake film effect they used. Similar to Emmerdale a few months ago.

The EE episode that would have played yesterday was played on wednesday night, so no-one missed out on an episode. The only thing I didn't understand was why at the beginning Dot was in her sister's flat, but how did the son know where she was? And why didn't we see her sister?

Jim told the son where she was.

I thought it was a moving story and enjoyed it once I got into it - which took a while, as it was extremely boring to begin with, with too many jumps back and forth through time. But why they linked this one-off drama to Eastenders escapes me. Are we going to have to sit throught he life stories of every character? Is it in the contracts of the actors that they should have the opportunity to do one-off specials to show off their acting skills? Are they padding out their CVs in preparation for the time they leave for pastures new? Done differently it could have been a drama that would have appealed to a wider audience - I suspect lots of people would have just thought 'Oh, Eastenders' and not watched it.

And we have the special with Phil and Lisa to come yet. Yawn. I wish they'd just leave the soaps AS soaps and not try to turn them into something else.

Oh, I'll stop panicking then!!

Smokefreegirl- we aren't going to sit through the story of every character but the reason for dot's story is the fact that she is a long-serving eastenders character and she's hardly ever mentioned her childhood. By showing the past you pad out her life story. I think this was filmed some time ago when they knew that June was going to leave EE for a few months to film the thing for ITV and to make way for her coming back sometime soon.

I missed it, what was the big twist?

Exactly! Brilliantly put and to the point. It was the story of what has shaped Dot throughout her life - she was abandoned, taken in by an ideal couple and when their relationship was looking fraught, she blalmed herself. The death of the man resulted in her not wanting to cause any more pain for the woman so running away. It turned out that Dot was not to blame and she was not blamed - just loved and missed.

It was a tale of 'what if' and regrets that have shaped Dot for the past 60 years and would have shaped other people at the time. It was such a touching tale - being told from a child's viewpoint - that made you love Dot even more. She's had pain all her life and June Brown, God love her, played it to perfection.


I could reply to that but I won't waste the skin on my fingers typing except to say you obviously can't appreciate good drama unless it involves the unrealistic sensationalism that EastEnders, Corrie and their pals regularly dish out. In more cases, there's more realism in Noddy than those.

But so's Pauline. How long do you have to serve to get the right to a one-off special? I DID enjoy it, but as something separate from Eastenders.

Hasn't Pauline had her own special? I seem to recall they devoted a weeks Episodes to her trip to Ireland to visit her Step Sister? I think and they too relived childhood memories.

That one must have completely passed me by! God that's bad news - it means they ARE going to go through the whole cast! Or perhaps the newer actors have got different contracts!

Talking of Dot - did we ever find out what the business was of the baby stuff buried under the house? I don't know - stories drag on for weeks and weeks and I always seem to miss the episode where all is revealed!

No, that was the trip that year. It wasn't a special as such. Ian took the kids back from Sindey and Mary+Connor came back to Walford with everyone else. Dot's had a lot of grief in her life, but Pauline seems to have a much more normal upbringing.

if memory serves, Dot got pregnant by her hubby, but Hubby didn't want it, so Dot went thru an abortion (illegal at the time) but had the mourning that a mother would have and buried the babies things, and tried to keep the fact that she had been pregnant a secret.

Thanks! Yes, that sounds likely. What a shame she couldn't have married someone decent.

I liked the bit in the special where she was wafting her mother's cigarette smoke away and wrinkling her nose! I think Dot giving up smoking would be an excellent story line - she could bully Jim into joining her.

Just thought of something - when Dot ran away from the Welsh farm, why didn't the woman make any effort to find her? Didn't she report her disappearance to the police? How old WAS Dot at that point? I know the woman thought Dot had deserted her, but surely she was just a child? Didn't she want to check she was okay, especially as she took nothing with her?

Well they did the over 60's Flu jab thing to death!

Never have I seen a GP wandering around with leaflets about the flu jab in his hand trying to catch all those in the right age group!

They are far too busy and ask each patient only once and then, opportunistically.

God yes. If only I lived in Albert Square, Coronation Street, the village where they do Peak Practice or Heartbeat etc etc. Oh to never have to sit in a waiting room again - to have the doctor knock on the door and ask me how I'm feeling today!