YawnEnders

Does anybody still watch EastEnders these days?

The BBC appears to be going through one of its periodic advertising campaigns for the show at the moment, with all manner of trailers on both the telly and radio. Some of these ads feature characters who are among the least interesting to have appeared in the show in its entire history. Is anybody bothered about the antics of that Rob character, whose affair with Dawn has dragged on and on? Is the Dot-steals-a-baby storyline remotely convincing? Whatever happened to all of the good characters that captured the imagination and interest of the audience? Mickey, Li, Carly and May are hardly the most engaging personalities and it doesn’t seem as if they are particularly cared about.

The new boss of EastEnders, Dierdrick Santer, was yet another executive brought in to try to revive the fortunes of the show, but on the evidence of recent weeks things just appear to be meandering along the same path it’s been going on for the past few years or so. What is needed is a couple of new major families to shake things up and put some interest back into the flagging Walford community. Phil Daniels, Jake Wood and Linda Henry are all really good actors, but their characters are not particularly sympathetic, their storylines fairly dull and they cannot carry the show on their own. 

There have been rumours of June Brown wanting to quit the show again, and from the state of the programme lately it would be quite understandable if she did. Coronation Street and Emmerdale are still light years ahead of EastEnders in terms of characterisation, plotting and humour and it is hard to see how the BBC are going to ever catch up.