Maxed Out…

TRAUMA! Hollyoaks, Channel 4, 6.30pm

So after what feels like months of the tedious will-they-won’t-they antics all soap couples have to go through before a wedding, and the obligatory outing-the-priest at the ceremony, Max and Steph finally marry today in Hollyoaks. So far they have proved a likeable couple, much more suitable than their Neighbours counterparts, and you can’t help but wish happiness on two of Chester’s most beleagured and nice characters.

They’re pulling all (well, some) of the stops out for this episode, with the returns of OB (who appears to have left Summer behind), Cindy (who appears to have left her old character behind), Mandy (who appears to have left both her baby and any acknowledgement she’s had one behind) and Mrs Cunningham (who appears to have left the awesome Jude behind).

However, soap being soap, all is not going to go well for the happy couple, and in case you haven’t discovered what happens in the most spoiled soap plot in, well, the last couple of days, I won’t spoil it. What I will say, though, is that it will give you even more cause to hate the most infantilised eight-year old and annoying soap child since Hannah ‘Button’ Martin in Neighbours, Tom (he’s NOT cute, he’s an eight year old with less intelligence than my friends’ two year old). And to think, if he’d ever gone to school and learned some basic life skills, what happens tonight could have been avoided.

Let’s hope Clare comes back and teases him about this mercilessly. It would serve the little shit right…

Jelly Bye-Bye

FAREWELL! Neighbours, Five, 1.45 and 5.30pm, Fiver, 7.00pm

For those of us who are currently despairing the state of the soaps (seriously, what is with them all at the moment? Not one of them is any good) this week’s Neighbours is not going to offer us any comfort, as we bid farewell to one of the street’s all-time legendary characters, Harold Bishop. Although his last day is actually tomorrow, we’ve got a couple of other shows to preview then, and as Steven pointed out yesterday, apart from tomorrow night, there is NOTHING on this week that we haven’t previewed recently (especially today), so I thought we’d give everyone’s favourite grandad (with the possible exception of Wilf from Doctor Who) a day all to himself.

Actor Ian Smith is retiring, which is the kind of behaviour we expect from normal people, not soap stars. He and his wife are going to be ‘grey nomads’ - the term for Australians who spend their retirement travelling the country in trailer homes. And in a case of art imitating life, that’s exactly what Hazza will be doing. Although fortunately, the producers have managed to make it a semi-retirement and have persuaded Smith to make flying visits to Erinsborough every now and then.

To be fair, although I’m sad to see old Jelly Belly depart, it’s a nice way to go: much better than him having a second screen death, or moving to live with the whiny Sky. Considering that Harold has had one of the most tragic lives of any Ramsay Street resident (two dead wives, two dead children, a dead grandchild, a dead daughter in law, being missing presumed dead for several years, watching Sky turn from fierce funky teen to moaning nymphomaniac, becoming insane and murderous, being conned by a variety of unscrupulous women and so on), giving him a happy ending is even sweeter.

Today and tomorrow the neighbours prepare to say goodbye to one of their most loved… but will he be leaving alone, or will someone else decide to join him on his travels..?

90New1? Oh!

There’s great excitement over on our forums at the prospect of an all-new version of Beverly Hills 90210. Not as much, mind you, as there would be if we heard they were bringing back Melrose Place (or even Models Inc), but it’s still quite a hullaballoo by anyone’s standards.

There seem to be loads of exciting rumours already – some/all of which might be made up by the agents of former cast members/wishful thinking/copied down wrong off the internet. Rumours like these!

» Once again, the story revolves around fish-out-of-water siblings from “the country” who find themselves at West Beverly High, surrounded by freaks, emos, dorks, jocks and bitches. Lots and lots of bitches.

» None of the old cast are back! Or all of the old cast are back, depending on which made-up reports you listen to. One who is definitely back is Jennie Garth as Kellie Taylor. And there are a few characters who sound like they might-possibly-a-little-bit have names that mean they could be related to characters who were in the original series

» Jessica Walters is signed up to play Tabitha Mills, an booze-swilling Beverly Hills matriarch.

» One character has her own YouTube series called “Answers to Life’s Inane Questions Answered by a 15 year-old in a Bikini”. Tasteful!

» And so on!

The question is, will the new 90210 be a match for the increasingly-ridiculously-amazing Gossip Girl? Will it be cancelled after three episodes? Or will it run until the students are hobbling to high school on their walking sticks, like the original? Find out this “fall”.

At the end of his Wicks

UNHINGED! EastEnders, BBC One, 7.30pm

Bringing Steven Beale back to EastEnders was always inevitable, but his return to the soap has been bumpy, to say the least.

He left to live with Simon Wicks as a slightly demonic young, blonde teenager and returned last year as an ultra-demonic, older, brunette teenager. The Steven-tortures-Ian episode that heralded Aaron Sidwell’s arrival as Cindy’s eldest set the scene for what was to come: it was a brilliant piece of psychological horror, let down by its payoff – because Steven looked so different we didn’t recognise him. His return has combined brilliant elements and ‘what the fuck was that?’ moments. It’s as if the scriptwriters couldn’t think of what to do beyond the ‘is psycho, tortures not-biological-dad and sister and shoots sort-of-stepmother in the belly so she can’t have babies’ opener. Since then, Steven has fluctuated between being a nice, sympathetic, family-minded, troubled-but-healing young man and a COMPLETE PSYCHO – although growing up in the troubled mess that was the Beale/Wicks/Cindy family triangle can’t have been much fun.

The recent implication that some of his strange behaviour was also because ZOMG! HE IZ GAI! (or possibly bisexual), and Simon had rejected him for it, seemed shoehorned-in as an afterthought, as well as being a bit morally dubious.

Steven’s return looks as though it may be coming to an end (for now) though, as last night we saw him buying a ticket for France to escape the misery of Albert Square and his troubled relationships with Christian, Ian, Stacey, Jane and whoever else he’s upset (and who could blame him, frankly?). Oh, and he’s kidnapped his sister and is holding her ‘captive’ in a caravan: a plot revelation that could not really have been more badly timed from a current affairs point-of-view.

Last night we saw Pat being hit by a car after seeing Steven with Lucy’s passport. Worried that she is going to reveal his secret, Steven visits his gran in hospital, and takes the opportunity to make sure he’s alone with her. Will he be tempted to harm the one person who has been consistently on his side…?

In other plot news, tonight Claire and Bradley go to a Star Wars convention. And quite frankly, we need some plot development for Ms Devine… er, Bates… quick sharp. She arrived full of her Hollyoaks glory and hasn’t had much to do since. Apparently some of her past will start to catch up with her soon. I just hope she gets the chance to be fierce again. Poor Gemma Bissix, she deserves better than this. If Steven is leaving, there is a chance to be the resident misunderstood evil minx – but with Show spoiler ▼

she won’t even have that job for very long. If they let her be the new Gus, I won’t be happy….

Blue Monday

OZ! Out of the Blue, BBC One, 2.15pm

Although this was touted as the Beeb’s Neighbours replacement when its arrival was announced some months back, it isn’t quite filling the same slot. OK, it’s taking the slot its fellow Aussie soap occupied for five minutes in 2008, but everyone knows that was never proper Neighbours time. This secheduling may well be a smart move. By only showing at 2.15pm, it is rather cannily allowing those watching Harold, Susan et al on Five to still come over and catch this new soap, too. And with a rumoured 135 episodes already commissioned, the Beeb appear to be confident that this will spread some daytime goodness.

The premise of the show is intriguing. It centres around a group of thirty-something pretty Aussies (so far, so Secret Life of Us) at a school reunion. However, very early on, a murder is committed, and the sunshine soapy feel of the show takes an altogether darker twist. We like the sound of this one and wish it well, even if we can’t guarantee to remember to record it every day.

You may not recognise many of the younger cast: it doesn’t have quite the high proportion of former Oz soap alumni we expect from such exports, but in the older cast, there is at least one gem: Maggie Dence, who played Dorothy Burke in Neighbours. If this keeps going, no doubt all the old faves who have run the gamut of roles in Neighbours, Home and Away, Prisoner Cell Block H, Heartbreak High, The Young Doctors, The Secret Life of Us, and The Flying Doctors will no doubt appear. First one to spot an actor who’s done all the Aussie soaps and dramas gets a prize*.

*May not be a prize of any monetary worth.

Baby, I Swear it’s Deja Vu

We’ve noticed something rather annoying in soapland lately - they are all reusing each other’s plots. Now we know this is common practice but we’re far more used to them recycling their own (yes Hollyoaks with your incest, Neighbours with your infertility=baby, EastEnders with your sleazy teenage girl/dirty old man affairs). Anyway, here’s your guide to the current soap plots, and where you may have seen them before…

Emmerdale currently has Laurel’s potential babies-switched-at-birth storyline going on (with a DR MARSHALL, which was the name of the resident awesome all-powerful Neighbours doctor who came inbetween Clive Gibbons and Karl Kennedy), the like of which you may remember cropping up last year in both Neighbours and Coronation Street, the soap currently vying with EastEnders over which child of a controlling parent is the most batshit crazy - David Platt or Steven Beale?

Neighbours is currently being rocked by the SCANDALOUS teacher/pupil affair between Rachel and Angus. You may remember this plotline from such stories as, err Libby and Taj in Neighbours, Becca and Justin in Hollyoaks, Emma and, er, Craig McLachlan’s character, in Home and Away and Michelle and Geoff in EastEnders (what do you mean storylines from the early ’90s about university lecturers and mature students don’t count?).

Home and Away is currently thieving from its Aussie neighbour in not-one-but-two-count-em storylines. Firstly, they have a very boring journo story with Belle, mimicking Neighbours‘ very boring journo story with Elle. (And Riley. And its previous ones with Scott and Libby and umpteen others). The other robbed story involves physio Sam giving a fatal injection to Johnny, in a sort-of-echo of Erinsborough’s amazing FakeDoc story last year (and FakeDoc herself has rocked up in Summer Bay recently as another character. Coincidence? I think not?). Will Sam join the current line-up of soap characters perhaps getting away with murder? Hollyoaks‘ Warren looks set to join that elusive club, which also includes Paul Robinson from, yes, you guessed it, Neighbours.

And a mini-spoiler for next week’s Coronation Street (skip to the next paragraph to avoid): according to my TV guide, ‘Paul heads to the Police Station. Will he confess to the arson attack?’ which, word for word, could be a summary of a Neighbours storyline not so long ago. They didn’t even bother changing the character name.

Talking of not changing the character name, EastEnders has completely lifted the character and storylines of Clare from Hollyoaks and placed then in Albert Square. Let’s hope she also gets to strut around in a red coat, cheat death in a red coat and fly away, head held high, in a red coat. Hollyoaks has also been attempting the soap-geek makeover (seen everywhere, but most famously in Plain-Jane-superbrain from Neighbours) on Elliot, with mixed results so far, it has to be said.

Even last night’s rubbish ‘Sean pretends Gus has eaten his dog. LOL!!11!!’ story in EastEnders has echoes of the time Neighbours attempted to go multicultural with the Lim family and Julie Martin thought they, too, had eaten a dog.

Oh, and think The Archers is immune to all this? Think again. It’s just had a rape trial, and we all know rape is the fall-back storyline option in Hollyoaks…
REPETITIVE! The soaps, various channels and times

The Butch[er][s] is[/are] back

FRANK! EastEnders, BBC One, Mon & Fri 8.00pm, Tue & Thu 7.30pm

Exciting and solemn (mainly exciting) times in EastEnders this week, as the soap pays a very special tribute to the late Mike Reid with four episodes centred around the funeral of Frank Butcher. Pat and Peggy’s health spa / civil partnership witnessing break is interrupted by the arrival of Ricky and Diane (DIANE!) with some grave news about their mutual ex-husband, and over the course of the week the Square’s residents (the few who’ve been in it for longer than two years, anyway) pay their respects in true East End style. There may be piano playing. There could be arguments. It’s going to be quite a week.

Of course, it’s not Frank’s first funeral, and the biggest tragedy of all is that with the magnificent Mike Reid officially dead in real actual life, there’s no chance of Frank popping out of the coffin mid-service in one of those moments of supreme good taste with which he was always so closely associated (see Fig. 1). So now the REAL thrill is the return of three of Frank’s offspring (advance reports make no mention of Clare ‘occasional table’ Butcher, the Belinda Slater of the family, but we live in hope), with Sophie Lawrence briefly reappearing as Diane (DIANE!) after her last brief reappearance 11 years ago, Charlie Brooks temporarily dragging Janine out of cold storage for the first time since 2004, and serial returnee Sid Owen returning PERMANENTLY (or at least until the lure of To Buy Or Not To Buy and I’m A Celebrity becomes too great) as Ricky, conveniently at exactly the same time as Patsy Palmer makes a similarly permanent return as Bianca ‘the former Mrs Ricky Butcher’ Jackson, now with added kids, added not a very good singing voice and apparently no money.

So what’s everyone been up to in their absence? Well, Bianca’s been collecting kids and failing to have any money (see above), while Ricky’s bafflingly been doing rather well for himself money-wise, and has landed a gold-digging girlfriend in the shape of Siobhan ‘not former-EastEnder Daniela Denby-Ashe’ Hayes from My Family. Janine’s been hard at work competing with Leanne Battersby in the perpetual ex-cocaine addict, ex-prostitute, money-grabbing bitch parallel life stakes, and appears to be back mainly for the reading of the will (presumably hoping for some cash to cover the cost of the petrol she’s presumably planning to buy for the small Italian restaurant she’s presumably been running for about a year - looks like Leanne’s about to pip you to the post on that one, Janine!), while Diane (DIANE!) has taken responsibility for her son (the frequently offloaded Jacques), is training to be a doctor and has already trained to be a lesbian, evidently hoping to minimise the risk of accidentally falling into bed with Ian Beale or Phil Mitchell during her slight return to Albert Square.

Naturally, the return of Sophie Lawrence is the most exciting part of all this for us, with the early-90s episode where Frank found Diane (DIANE!) living in Paris being our earliest memory of that peculiarly EastEnders thing of having someone only appear right at the very end of an episode and then putting them at the top of the cast list in the end credits, adding SIGNIFICANCE and INTRIGUE and EXCITEMENT to their appearance. And clearly no post about Sophie Lawrence and Butchery would be complete without this:

Or even THIS:

Superb.

Elsewhere, Pat and Peggy obviously use the funeral as an excuse for another punch-up, selfish Chelsea goes in search of her apparently-selfish father to erroneously claim some bone marrow or bum some cash for a dress or something, and Honey probably does the whole death-related malapropism thing quite a lot (to death, in fact). Ricky, Diane (DIANE!), Janine: please accept our sincerest condonances.

Teenage rampage

CALAMITY! Neighbours, Five, 1.45pm, 5.30pm, 5.10 am; Five Life, 7.00pm

We are pleased to see that the writers and producers of Neighbours take the advice of lowculture seriously. We refer you back to December 10, 2007, when we gave them a list of tips to make the show better.

Our tips included:
» Axe Ned (we don’t want to give too much away here, but… squeeee!)

» The Parker family (Ned aside) could have potential if they are actually rewritten a bit. Someone on the message boards commented that Dad Parker is trying to fill the nice guy role of Philip Martin, but doesn’t quite achieve it. That’s because Philip Martin had suffered being married to Julie, then seeing her die, and being dad to all those horrible kids. Then he married Ruth, who had a bit of sass, and thus was a good foil for him. So, we’d like to see Miranda (mum) Parker, either developing her Ruth/Susan/Janelle sass - which we feel is unlikely, seeing as in Neighbours, that sass is usually formed by being dicked over by a man and not standing for it - or, our preferred option, becoming the new Julie/Hilary/Mrs Mangel. The street needs a new busybody, and she could easily be it. Riley is decent enough eye candy, but he needs to take his shirt off a bit more, get screwed over by Elle Robinson and go all dewey-eyed with tears. And get a plotline. ‘Didge’ either needs to get over herself, fast, or die in a freak accident. (Seriously. We rocked this one. Every point ticked. Well Elle hasn’t screwed Riley over yet, but surely it’s a matter of time)

» All good Neighbours casts have a teenage gang. The current bunch of teenagers barely even speak to one another. Get them bonding, stat.

And it is to this last point which we now come. They have, indeed, bonded the group of teenagers (well, except Declan, who appears to have been missing in action for weeks), and added in new kids Josh, Jessica and Taylah to boot, as well as a ginger school bully. However, tonight’s episode is the 2007 series finale. Previous series finales have included Lassiter’s blowing up, the plane crash and other such death-ridden catastrophes. So what we are saying is that we hope you haven’t got too much emotion invested in the current teen gang, OK?

You may have noticed that there is an ILLEGAL! DANCE! PARTY! taking place. And regular viewers will know that Neighbours takes a dim view of teenagers doing illegal activities, particularly if dancing, or sexing, or drugzing, or drinking might be involved. So let’s just say this dance party is probably not going to go anywhere good.

With Rachel and her current-inappropriate-but-cute-teacher-shag-Angus, Zeke, Didge, Ringo, Declan (maybe?), Riley, Taylah, Jess, Josh, presumably the ginger bully, Elle and Riley (demonstrating mad undercover journalistic skillz), and, inexplicably, Libby and Karl all on the premises, will everyone make it out alive? And will anyone develop temporary disabilities that will magically go away in five weeks’ time?

We’re not saying. But if the producers are reading, we’re still waiting for Steph and Toadie to have some kids, and for someone to go on that Cuba trip. You know it makes sense…

Daydream believers

CHEERFUL! Hollyoaks Omnibus, Channel 4, 10.00am
CHOONFUL! Hollyoaks Special: Summer’s Got a Secret, Channel 4, 2.05pm

So, Hollyoaks finally said goodbye to Summer and OB this week, and just in case you missed the episodes, we heartily commend this omnibus to you as something rather delightful. Don’t believe us? Check out these user opinions:

‘Today’s episode was the most amazing, feel good TV ever. OB got the kind of ending that poor old Mandy deserved. It’s not often a soap, especially such a shit one, makes me happy in such a simple way.’ - Xenomaniac

‘It was still very touching and I may have cried a bit. I also quite liked the manly hugging at the end.’ - Sparkle

‘Max and OB’s Big Goodbye is LOVE.’ - Joel

‘Awww, that was proper lovely. Such a fitting sendoff for OB. Even the Birdseye Botherer managed not to be annoying’. - Steven

What we are saying is that you will regret it if you don’t watch it NOW (or on channel 4+1 at 11.00, seeing as we are writing this rather late in the day). Thursday and Friday’s episodes are less good (warning: Valentines! Boob theft anger! Rubbish Tranny! Silly drugz Plot! Jake and Nancy! Swimbint being self-righteous!) but they contain glimmers of the immense Barnesey/Plankton/Micksy love triangle so are not all bad.

And Channel 4 are spoiling us this afternoon with Summer’s Got a Secret which follows LC fave Summer Strallen as she moves from the soap to star in The Sound of Music. Best of all, it doesn’t even clash with Come Dine With Me today, as that is on later than usual (4.00pm, More4). The publicity shots even promise added Auntie Bonnie Langford! Result!

CHOC-FULL!Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory, Channel 4, 9.00pm

Now, this is a curious one. Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory follows entrepreneur (isn’t everyone one of those these days?) Willie Harcourt-Cooze, who wants to launch his own chocolate business. Only this business isn’t just any old chocolate business - he wants to own the first company since Cadbury’s to grow its own chocolate as well as to manufacture and promote it.

Naturally, we are expecting thrills and spills along the way in a Trouble at the Top kind of way, and the title was too good a pun for Channel 4 to miss. We are expecting characters, challenges and all the usual stuff you get in these kind of one-off docs.

But wait a cocoa-bean-picking-minute! This isn’t a one-off doc, it’s a four-parter. That must mean the footage was so entertaining they couldn’t contain it within just one hour. Whether it will stretch to four hours’ worth of material remains to be seen, but we reckon it’ll be worth giving a whirl anyway.

Libbin’ it up

RETURNING! Neighbours, Five, 1.45pm, 5.30pm, 5.10am, Five Life, 7.00pm

One of the great things about Neighbours is that whenever a favourite character leaves, there is always a good chance you’ll see them again. Even if they die. (See also: Home and Away, EastEnders, Emmerdale).
Tonight sees the return of an old favourite, Libby Kennedy. Libby comes back to support mum Susan through her trial and her still-a-mystery-but-not-for-much-longer illness. It’s a good job someone in the family cares. Mal and Billy are both too busy being overseas, and Carytyre is too busy going out with Paul McClain to actually give a damn. Seriously, they could at least phone.

We’re not sure what kind of job Libby will have, what with Riley being the new resident journalist and ‘Fitzy’ the new teacher, but there’s still a doctor’s position going, so maybe she’ll have had yet another career change. However, all is not well in Libby-land. She and Ben (worryingly, he is played by the brother of the actor who plays Mickey, we thought we ought to warn you) are back, but where is Darren?

What this all means is that not only is Libby back, she’s back with a bang, as the Kennedy-Smith-Kennedy-Smith-Kinski-Kennedy clan enter into some of their biggest storylines to date. Following on from this, can we have Lucy, Gail and RobRob back now please?

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