Just what the heck is going on with EastEnders (aside from the usual, that is)?
Friday’s much-hyped stunt-centric episode was one of the most bizarre, drawn out, melodramatic segments in the show’s long history. Basically one long stunt sequence and lots of shouting spread out over two nights. I have to admit watching slack-jawed in amazement as events played out in the most hackneyed way imaginable.
A sequence of events that led to Peter Beale unconscious on the side of a lake after nearly drowning took an entire episode, where most soaps would have had it over and done with in about five minutes. Emmerdale plunges a car into a lake pretty much every week and they’ve got very good at it. Script calls for car to crash into lake? Right, let’s crash the car into the lake. Job done!
Down Walford way, if a car needs to crash into a lake, we have to take a detour via Slough, stop off for a burger, play a round of golf, do the laundry, get lost on the ring road, stop for a pee, and then we get to crash the car. Friday’s episode of ‘Enders made Casualty look like it has the pace of 24.
And then we have to endure lots of tedious shouting from Ian and Phil, before Mr Mitchell does his best David Hasselhoff and goes all Baywatch on us. By this stage, the pizza menu has become much more interesting…
But that’s ain’t the end, not by a long stretch. We have yet to experience EastEnders’ most outlandish, let’s-stretch-our-audience’s-patience, bonkers moments ever.
Peter and Lucy Beale are psychic!
Yes, they are, it was on telly and everything, so it must be true. As Peter is left alone in a sinking car, water up to his ears, he cries out for help… cries that, inexplicably, are heard miles away in The Queen Vic by his sister, Lucy…
Gasp!
That means… they’re telepathic! What other explanation is there, other than a director who’s trying to make ‘Enders a bit arty? What a brilliantly realised piece of edgy, window-on-the-world writing that was. I think I just heard my mother switching off in Halifax. Rather than worrying about a baby abduction storyline upsetting people, I really think EastEnders should be more concerned about ridiculous plot moments that insult the intelligence of a loyal audience.
But wait a minute… Perhaps this is part of some new initiative on the part of the producers to cash in on the current vogue for spin-offs. We’ve had Holby Blue (oops, some of our ratings are missing), Torchwood, the forthcoming Rogue Spooks and now… a reboot of 70s kids classic The Tomorrow People starring Peter and Lucy Beale. Fantastic!
They’ll be able to teleport, read people’s thoughts and move objects with their minds, operating from a secret base deep beneath the site that used to be the Dagmar. There, with the aid of their supercomputer, DEN, they will launch a war on crime, injustice and preventing Juley Smith ever returning to Walford. No wildly unrealistic storyline will go unchallenged in their pursuit of justice and truth for all Walford residents.
Well, it’s either that or Minty: the Wilderness Years.
