EastEnders was back on form last week as the show aired a big fire week. It was a return to form for the soap, which has been struggling in recent months after losing its executive producer and writer.
EastEnders is back on form with its big fire week. The soap has been criticised for not being as good as it was, but many viewers are saying that the show is now better than ever.
Did the big week on EastEnders live up to the hype? (Photo credit: )
If there’s one thing I hope all EastEnders viewers agree on, it’s that Jack Branning is a really awful cop.
I wouldn’t bother asking him to help me solve a crime. He spent approximately 20 minutes with a breathless and crying Linda on Monday and still didn’t think she was in labor.
I almost expecting him to go looking for a concealed bottle of Evian in her pregnant garment when her waters broke. Jack would simply chuckle and say, “Yeah, pull the other one, buddy,” if Gray came through the Square with a sandwich board that said, “I murdered Chantelle, Tina, and Kush.”
Now, the swivel-eyed solicitor was commemorating the one-year anniversary of his wife Chantelle’s murder by choosing not to let another unfortunate person die. To the tune of Florence and the Machine’s Shake it Out, Gray pulled a wheezing Kheerat from a blazing No 55 Victoria Road.
Nobody knows why we had music playing throughout the rescue. Maybe Winston was listening to a record on his market stall? Gray, on the other hand, had a rare moment of heroism in a week that saw him go from a terrible guy to a little less-awful person with daddy problems.
Janine, too, has matured. We saw that she does have the occasional transient maternal instinct after spending her first couple of episodes delivering caustic putdowns as if she’s some sort of Joan Rivers homage act.
Isn’t Jack the greatest detective around? (Photo credit: )
She may have caused the fire, but she wasn’t going to let Scarlett and Tommy perish on her watch. She did, however, walk over Phil Mitchell’s comatose body rather than give him any assistance, as I saw. Phil, on the other hand, had more Teflon on him than the pot he was using. And, sure enough, he was the first one out of the blaze, clad all in black and like a smoke-damaged Oswald Mosley fan.
Meanwhile, Jean, dressed as Pablo Escobar in a floral-print cagoule, had been kidnapped and was being interrogated in the manner of a Line of Duty scenario, in which she gave three “no comments” before fainting. She also managed to frame Ruby for drug trafficking – not that we have any compassion for that scheming jerk.
Ruby was last seen being rejected by Martin before being apprehended by the police, and she will now hopefully meet encounters with Stacey in jail, who has vowed to murder her with her bare hands. Which, to be fair, wasn’t the greatest idea to scream at full voice in front of all the guards.
Tiffany and Dotty had a catfight in the gym for some light relief. Because women attacking one other is usually played for comedy on soap operas. Mandy and Nicola had it the other week in Emmerdale, when they rough-housed for what seemed like half an hour. Isn’t this an odd state of affairs? Violence is never the solution to our issues, according to soap operas. When it’s just a few of ladies with a grudge, though, it’s just enjoyable “feisty” behavior.
Dotty and Tiffany got into a fight (Picture: )
The key question for EastEnders is whether all of the recent turmoil has done enough to get the show back on track.
It was in desperate need of a makeover, since it was currently behind Coronation Street and Emmerdale in the ratings. To be honest, it still seems like there’s a lot of work to be done. It was like seeing a Greatest Hits CD with very few extra songs. A comeback, a fire, an unusual birthing companion for someone in labor, a couple of police arrests, a paternity dispute, some child endangerment, and a serial murderer struggling with his conscience were all on the agenda. All of them were wrapped and given to us as if they were brand new.
It was almost difficult to ignore the echoes of previous plotlines in certain instances. Trevor Morgan and Tom Banks might have easily been Gray and Kheerat. Tommy’s fall from the upper window resembled Mickey’s dropping Summer as the Millers’ home burnt down. And Jack’s role as Linda’s emergency doula had echoes of Phil’s role as Kim’s doula not long before.
I understand that there are only so many tales to tell in the world, but the key is to deliver them with enough twists and shocks to keep them seeming new. Not simply with new characters taking the place of old ones.
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Obviously, there is still potential here. Harvey, Dana’s father, might be exposed to a right-wing fanatic, for example. Maybe Rocky has a hidden vampy wife that shows up and causes him and Kathy problems? Has Gray’s remorse driven him insane, as he begins to see images of Chantelle wherever he goes? Or go go broke and have Phil learn that he, like Wolverine, has an adamantium shell, which explains why he can escape every Walford catastrophe…
But déjà vu doof doofs are the last thing any of us needs. For those who wish to revisit the past, Drama airs historic episodes every lunchtime.
EastEnders, at its finest, shocks and disturbs as much as it entertains. And right now, it simply seems like the program is feeding us reheated copies of previous triumphs rather than surprising us with something really thought-provoking and, more importantly, fresh.
EastEnders returns to One on Monday, September 20 at 8:05 p.m.
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EastEnders’ big fire week was a return to form. The show has been criticised for its lack of action, but this week it had plenty to keep viewers entertained. Reference: eastenders tonight.
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