Post by RitaLittlewood on Dec 26, 2005 15:54:00 GMT
From the Mirror:
SHELLEYVISION'S VERDICT ON THE CHRISTMAS DAY SOAP SPECIALS
26 December 2005
More turkeys than crackers
DEPRESSINGLY, for once, the most dispiriting Christmas Day soap was not EastEnders but Coronation Street.
This proved firstly what a trough Corrie has been in for the past couple of months and, secondly, the fact that you really can't rely on EastEnders for anything - not even to be miserable...
EASTENDERS has a tradition of running its biggest episodes of the year on Christmas Day.
Remember Den giving Angie her divorce papers? Tiffany getting run over? Or Arthur Fowler's breakdown? Happy days!
Yesterday's episode toyed with the usual misery in the form of Christmas at the Fowlers and Sharon and Dennis arguing over whether she had food poisoning - only to make a late volte-face and end up positively uplifting. Have a word with yerselves, lads!
Initially, of course, it was predictably bleak and tedious. Martin burned Sonia's books, the ludicrous Johnny Allen mooched around trying to threaten Ruby.
The Slaters' comedy Christmas and travails with their turkey were as funny as the Battersbys' dismal efforts at Twister in Corrie.
Then came the Damascus-styled turnaround. It transpired that Sharon didn't have food poison after all but was pregnant.
This was particularly astonishing/ ridiculous given that Sharon can't have children - something which has been the basis of several hundred of her storylines involving Grant, Phil and Tom the fireman.
And now she's pregnant. Who'd have thought it, eh? Not me.
Then there was Kat and Alfie. For most of the show it looked as if, for no reason that I could fathom, Alfie was going to leave Kat behind, especially when (equally inexplicably) he sped off into the horizon to live his (and Mark Fowler's) dream of driving across America in a Ford Capri.
This was despite the fact he had only half a tank of petrol and no money. Essex, here we come!
No, I didn't really understand what was going on either. Of course, he took Kat with him. Why wouldn't he?
In fact, why wouldn't he have just stayed with her all these years?
The decision to split them up - and bring in Andy Hunter - was the moment when EastEnders started to go into decline and turn into Brookside.
The important thing is that Alfie's gone but Kat will leave a big hole... as it were.
Bleak and tedious, it became uplifting
CORONATION Street on Christmas Day is usually one of the year's juiciest pieces of television. Who can forget Deirdre pulling Dev's Christmas cracker? I know, I'm still trying.
In 1987, a nation wept when Hilda Ogden left the Street and on Christmas Day in 2003 and 2004, the Steve- Karen-Tracy triangle reached an explosive, um, climax.
But this year's "special" was just a poor Sunday episode.
Two storylines in particular ruined it. One was Carol Baldwin - a horrible performance by Lynne Pearson as a horrible character, so miserable she comes over as a younger version of Catherine Tate's character "Nan".
Last night, after several weeks droning on about her wretched life, Carol was back on the drink.
As an alcoholic, this was potentially dramatic, except for two drawbacks. One, it was utterly inevitable and therefore had no drama. And two, the audience has to care about a character before the writers can bring them down. Worse yet, her drunkenness interrupted what could have been a sensational Christmas "incest" scenario between her son Jamie and his stepmother Frankie.
Elsewhere, Steve was whingeing about being given five grand by his girlfriend, Vera moaned about being given her dream present and, after several interruptions from Fred, Claire told Ashley she was (predictably) pregnant.
The mighty Steve McDonald has become a cross between Robbie Williams and Jimmy Savile. Tracy Barlow and Charlie contributed nothing and there were none of the traditional Christmas dramas of babies getting lost, weddings cancelled or children being run over.
Instead, we had the onset of "Uncle" Mike Baldwin's Alzheimer's. A fine performance from Johnny Briggs just made this storyline unpleasant viewing as Mike wandered off from the restaurant, lost his bearings and nearly left the series.
EMMERDALE has always been fantastic at Christmas, with the likes of Kim Tate or Chastity at their sex-crazed, manipulativebitch best. Something usually blows up.
Yesterday was poor though, a damp squib. Or rather a hard rain, which fell and fell and fell - mostly on to seven-year-old Belle Dingle and teenage tear away Daz Eden, who had moved into the bottom of a mineshaft for Christmas Eve. Bad move.
Anyway, the apocalyptic rain filled the shaft up as t'villagers searched for them - though not very hard (they kept adjourning to the Woolpack). Belle's family hadn't even noticed she'd gone. I know the writers think the Dingles are "salt of the Earth" but, like EastEnders' Millers, basically they're scum.
Eventually, with virtually no fanfare or drama whatsoever, someone stumbled over them. It was a shame really. There should have been some kind of fatality. I guess things don't look good for Spike the ferret.
SHELLEYVISION'S VERDICT ON THE CHRISTMAS DAY SOAP SPECIALS
26 December 2005
More turkeys than crackers
DEPRESSINGLY, for once, the most dispiriting Christmas Day soap was not EastEnders but Coronation Street.
This proved firstly what a trough Corrie has been in for the past couple of months and, secondly, the fact that you really can't rely on EastEnders for anything - not even to be miserable...
EASTENDERS has a tradition of running its biggest episodes of the year on Christmas Day.
Remember Den giving Angie her divorce papers? Tiffany getting run over? Or Arthur Fowler's breakdown? Happy days!
Yesterday's episode toyed with the usual misery in the form of Christmas at the Fowlers and Sharon and Dennis arguing over whether she had food poisoning - only to make a late volte-face and end up positively uplifting. Have a word with yerselves, lads!
Initially, of course, it was predictably bleak and tedious. Martin burned Sonia's books, the ludicrous Johnny Allen mooched around trying to threaten Ruby.
The Slaters' comedy Christmas and travails with their turkey were as funny as the Battersbys' dismal efforts at Twister in Corrie.
Then came the Damascus-styled turnaround. It transpired that Sharon didn't have food poison after all but was pregnant.
This was particularly astonishing/ ridiculous given that Sharon can't have children - something which has been the basis of several hundred of her storylines involving Grant, Phil and Tom the fireman.
And now she's pregnant. Who'd have thought it, eh? Not me.
Then there was Kat and Alfie. For most of the show it looked as if, for no reason that I could fathom, Alfie was going to leave Kat behind, especially when (equally inexplicably) he sped off into the horizon to live his (and Mark Fowler's) dream of driving across America in a Ford Capri.
This was despite the fact he had only half a tank of petrol and no money. Essex, here we come!
No, I didn't really understand what was going on either. Of course, he took Kat with him. Why wouldn't he?
In fact, why wouldn't he have just stayed with her all these years?
The decision to split them up - and bring in Andy Hunter - was the moment when EastEnders started to go into decline and turn into Brookside.
The important thing is that Alfie's gone but Kat will leave a big hole... as it were.
Bleak and tedious, it became uplifting
CORONATION Street on Christmas Day is usually one of the year's juiciest pieces of television. Who can forget Deirdre pulling Dev's Christmas cracker? I know, I'm still trying.
In 1987, a nation wept when Hilda Ogden left the Street and on Christmas Day in 2003 and 2004, the Steve- Karen-Tracy triangle reached an explosive, um, climax.
But this year's "special" was just a poor Sunday episode.
Two storylines in particular ruined it. One was Carol Baldwin - a horrible performance by Lynne Pearson as a horrible character, so miserable she comes over as a younger version of Catherine Tate's character "Nan".
Last night, after several weeks droning on about her wretched life, Carol was back on the drink.
As an alcoholic, this was potentially dramatic, except for two drawbacks. One, it was utterly inevitable and therefore had no drama. And two, the audience has to care about a character before the writers can bring them down. Worse yet, her drunkenness interrupted what could have been a sensational Christmas "incest" scenario between her son Jamie and his stepmother Frankie.
Elsewhere, Steve was whingeing about being given five grand by his girlfriend, Vera moaned about being given her dream present and, after several interruptions from Fred, Claire told Ashley she was (predictably) pregnant.
The mighty Steve McDonald has become a cross between Robbie Williams and Jimmy Savile. Tracy Barlow and Charlie contributed nothing and there were none of the traditional Christmas dramas of babies getting lost, weddings cancelled or children being run over.
Instead, we had the onset of "Uncle" Mike Baldwin's Alzheimer's. A fine performance from Johnny Briggs just made this storyline unpleasant viewing as Mike wandered off from the restaurant, lost his bearings and nearly left the series.
EMMERDALE has always been fantastic at Christmas, with the likes of Kim Tate or Chastity at their sex-crazed, manipulativebitch best. Something usually blows up.
Yesterday was poor though, a damp squib. Or rather a hard rain, which fell and fell and fell - mostly on to seven-year-old Belle Dingle and teenage tear away Daz Eden, who had moved into the bottom of a mineshaft for Christmas Eve. Bad move.
Anyway, the apocalyptic rain filled the shaft up as t'villagers searched for them - though not very hard (they kept adjourning to the Woolpack). Belle's family hadn't even noticed she'd gone. I know the writers think the Dingles are "salt of the Earth" but, like EastEnders' Millers, basically they're scum.
Eventually, with virtually no fanfare or drama whatsoever, someone stumbled over them. It was a shame really. There should have been some kind of fatality. I guess things don't look good for Spike the ferret.
