Tonight see's the return of one of Soap's greatest characters. The ginger whinger herself, Bianca Jackson/Butcher. And without sounding like a geriatric harping on at his bored grand children, it doesn't half take me back to the days when Eastender's was must see TV. I remember being on the edge of my seat as a youngster, watching Bianca cheat on gormless Rickaay with her Mother's orange boyfriend. These days on Eastenders it takes someone being buried alive to get your full attention. What changed? When did Eastender's stop being the addictive Soap that I grew up with? Remember its slogan back in the day? Everyone's talking about it. They've stopped using that now, and I don't think that's a coincidence.
Nowadays I only tune in for special occasions - Christmas, deaths and returns of big characters. Seems I'm not the only one who feels this way considering The Eastender's bosses have gone to great lengths over the last few years to lure back the characters that made it's heyday so special.
First it was Dirty Den, making a "sensational" comeback from the dead. Maybe it was the scripts that needed bringing back from the dead, not that creepy, old perve. Still, it got them the temporary ratings boost they wanted. Then of course he had to be re-killed after Leslie Grantham, the actor who played him, was caught masturbating on webcam. They didn't call him Dirty Den for nothing..
Next it was the Mitchells that BBC bosses shelled out hundreds of thousands to get back. Did anyone even notice Grant coming back? And did anyone even notice that Phil had left? Heaven knows why the Eastender's bosses think of Phil Mitchell as such an integral part of the show. He's single handedly made subtitles necessary for all viewing of the show with his inaudible mumblings, yet is apparantly one of it's stars? Baffling.
And now we have Bianca. I'm interested to see what story they're going to use in order to plausibly bring her back considering she no longer has any family left in Walford. I wouldn't be surprised if they went all 'Dallas' on us and claimed the last five years had all been a dream sequence and that Bianca had in fact never left. After all, this is the Soap that has repeatedly expected us to believe that there are women out there who would fancy and even marry Ian Beale. Anything can happen.
I will be tuning in to see the return of one of my favourite characters, in spite of my critisisms. I'm just hoping they don't turn her into a charicature of what she was, having her screeching her infamous 'Rickaaaaaay!!!' every 5 minutes just because the script writers have run out of ideas. Maybe the problem is that instead of coming up with fresh characters and new story lines to entice viewers, bosses are instead being lazy and reaching for their wallets to get back old favourites when ratings are down.
As far as Patsy Palmer, the actress who plays Bianca, is concerned - I hope the return is successful and she can bring back a bit of the old Eastender's magic to the show. Assuming she manages to stay away from naughty webcam behaviour...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment