BBC
Eastenders is the only soap I bother to watch these days; Coronation Street and Emmerdale remind me of the prison sentence that was my marriage when I exchanged a hedonistic lifestyle of partying (not to mention my career) for seven nights a week watching the most mind numbing television so I can't bring myself to watch them nowadays. I watched Eastenders before we met so I stuck with it once I managed to escape. People have a go at it for being depressing but there are elements of humour (sometimes rather dark I'll admit) hidden within the bleak storylines. One of the problems the show comes up against is that focussing on the same community for thirty years they inevitably need to re-visit old storylines. The Carter family for example have recycled so many past situations that I'm expecting Mick to get shot by someone carrying a bunch of daffodils any time now and return in a few years time when the writers once again go with a storyline about a dead character not really being dead (they brought in Kathy Beale last week). Not that I am disparaging the actors involved as they have all done a great job, in particular I acknowledge how much I underestimated Danny Dyer when I first wrote about him joining the programme.
The two episodes that have aired this week seem tame in comparison to last week when they celebrated their thirtieth birthday by inserting live scenes in the lead up to a totally live episode to climax the 'Who Killed Lucy?' storyline. They did a live episode to reveal Archie Mitchell's killer to celebrate twenty five years, my money is on 'Who Killed Bobby?' in five years time and it will probably be Reg Cox who did it.
Lessons have been learned from the last attempt at a live episode, presumably they spent time scrutinising all of the mistakes and not just Scott Maslam's spectacular stumble over his lines. Perhaps staging the odd live scenes throughout the week was good training, with the only fault being the one occasion where they spent too long cutting between a live and pre-recorded scene causing a Police Squad style freeze frame. That and Joy Joyner asking Jane how Adam was, but we are all aware of that by now. Most of the cast are experienced in theatre so performing live is something an actor is supposed to be able to do, the advantage being that Eastenders has people who can act - imagine how chaotic a live Hollyoaks would be, imagine the worst school nativity play you have ever seen. In the early days most television output was live so the actors had no choice but to get on with it.
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February housekeeping
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