What can I say, it’s my show. I watched it from its inception in 1985 and stopped when I left the UK in 1986. Our PBS affiliate in Austin started showing episodes in the early 90s and I watched for a while… and of course, when BBC America first hit US shores I watched it there. The idiots in charge of the network took it off and put it on some subscription service on Dish Network, I think…
Thanks to the wonders of the Internet I have been watching the show solidly for a year and a half now, in real time. (It used to be frustrating to sneak a peek at the tabloids or chat with friends in the UK knowing we were 2 years behind!) There are a few places on the web one can chat about it - namely, walfordweb.co.uk - but I thought it would be great to discuss it with Dopers. If anybody watches it religiously, that is.
Damn! Nobody? Too lowbrow for you lot?
I wish to rescue this thread from the dustbin of fate.
My credentials for offering this contribution are questionable. I lost a lot of interest in Eastenders when Janine escaped justice for Barry’s murder. I now watch the programme only periphally, normally while reading Suetonius on The Twelve Caesars. The reason is that Suetonius gossips just as much as, if not more than, Dot Cotton so when Dot’s not on screen I can read all the scandal about Tiberius or Nero.
I’d just like to make a couple of observations for starters, like so:
(1) The houses in Walford Square look small on the outside but the interiors must be bigger than the Tardis. At one stage in the Slater household we had Charlie, Big Mo, Little Mo, Kat, Stacey, Gary, the sister who was married to Gary but got fired from the cast for excessive drinking, and at least two other people whose names escape me.
(2) Nobody ever has a Happy Christmas. This year Max’s wife Tanya and son Bradley discovered Max had been sleeping with Stacey, who has just married Bradley. The latter was last seen heading off into the distance alone and frankly I won’t miss him. As comedian Harry Hill once pointed out, Bradley’s default facial expression is that of a bloke who’s just broken wind and who wishes to conceal the effects from those in the immediate vicinity.
(3) The guy who plays Phil Mitchell needs replacing immediately. His voice has totally worn out. Phil has always spoken in a whispered grunt but now I have to turn up the volume to 55 in order to hear him say anything at all.
Roll on Monday.
In answer to the O.P.would it be possible for me to take the "Being stabbed in the eyeballs with a pointed stick "option instead if I asked nicely?