Should eastenders call it a day?

[creativebutterfly]

Was a fan since childhood, in my thirties now. Stopped watching it properly 2 years ago and since then have never really had the urge or curiosity to sit down and watch a recent episode. I do read things about it online but that's about it. It just seems to be woke and rehashing old or dead characters and storylines that have been done to death in other soaps, not to mention £83m on a new set I mean wth! EE was the only soap I watched, the other ones seem just as abysmal.

What are your thoughts? Do you still watch it? What irks you about eastenders or any soap in general?

A lot of TV seems to be a bit like Sesame Street for grown ups where we have a “moral of the story”.
It’s a bit of a turn off for me too.

I stopped watching it around the time Arthur Fowler went mad, after stealing the Christmas Club money.

I quite like it.

What you said about it could be said about any/all soaps at different points over the years.

In its heyday Eastenders was absolutely bloody brilliant. Really powerful acting, bold storylines, I loved it. But that was back in the days of four channels, no social media and the TV signed off for the night with the National Anthem at 11pm.

Now there’s too much competition from online and streaming, every storyline you can think of has been done to death. You know they’re getting desperate when they bring people back from the dead and invent long lost relatives. The acting and writing has taken a nosedive as well.

I was thinking how weird the teenage Michelle pregnancy with her friend’s Dad, Dirty Den was. At the time it was portrayed as an exciting love story, now it would just be called grooming and abuse.

I just think soaps were a product of their time, their time was probably up about 20 years ago.

I think it encourages the hard of thinking into believing that life has to be a series of drama filled conflicts. They can't be content with the usual day to day routine, but have to create excitement via petty arguments, affairs, over reactions and emotional incontinence.

'woke'? 🙄🤔

I like EE, Emmerdale and CS (and the Archers) for some background 'company' while working/cleaning. I don't sit down avid or care about cliffhangers anymore (usually watch in bulk on catchup anyway) like I used to back when we all watched live but there are still interesting storylines and characters to like or hate and a lot of familiarity and comfort. Yes, it's all very unbelievable so much happens in such small areas, but would anyone watch a 'believable' soap?!

I also make a point to watch them as my ex banned me from watching them as they were too lowbrow and I got endless shit for not hating them. So it's a little fuck you to him and a reminder I can watch whatever I want now. He also barred me from watching SATC - at least if I'd stayed with him I would have been saved from AJLT 😆

Last time I watches it was when Roxie and Ronnie drowned in the swimming pool.
Corrie and Emmerdale are sadly going the same way now, too many episodes per week just dilutes the content.
Too many unrealistic storyline

I stopped watching it for a while because I got into Netflix series. Time was spent on that and I just ran out of time for EE. A lot of the streaming series are so compelling with different types of storylines. I'm back into EE now and reduced Netflix viewing. I do think though that streaming is a lot more addictive than the soaps which rehash old material.

EE has always been a bit 'preachy'. Maybe we were willing to tolerate it in the past because their was less competition. We have a hell of a lot of fabulously written tv to choose from now.
Characters were better - writers took the time to develop three dimensional characters and build storylines, over a few years sometimes, so the viewers felt like they really knew these people. Not just EE but Corrie too, had realistic plots about normal things that happened to real people. Now soaps rely on explosions and serial killers and people coming back from the dead - it insults the intelligence of the viewer and pisses them off. So they put Netflix or Disney on instead!
All the humour has gone. You need the light to offset the misery fest.

I watched it for years and years but stopped about 2 years ago. I did tune in for the Cindy return it I’m not sure it’s enough to make me watch again.

For me, no one is happy, Phil is always in prison or waiting to be sentenced, Peter and Ben return with a different headed the continual affairs. It’s just a rehash of old stories all the time.

I mean Cindy coming back is hardly new, they’ve brought back Kathy and Den.

Haha some very good points being made.

I watched through much of the 90s in my teen years. I lost track at uni when it went to 4x per week and I couldn't keep up and lost the habit.

When it was a couple of episodes a week, you could build the plotlines up more gradually, and it wasn't high octane all the time. There was a bit more realistic mundane life blended in around the sensational plots.

I haven’t watched it this millennium. My memory of it is people up in one another’s faces much of the time shouting which made me feel very stressed.

I haven’t watched Eastenders since Den & Angie’s day. My impression from brief glimpses when flicking through channels is that nowadays it appears to consist entirely of women screaming at one another. If enough people want to watch that, it seems reasonable for the BBC to continue making it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I love it. It's my little bit of easy escapism. I look forward to it each day.

Don't watch it but 3.5 million people do and it's in the top 15 most watched programmes a few weeks ago

Top programmes report | Thinkbox

Coronation Street pulled in 4.6 million

Both figures a quite a lot

Was born the year it began and grew up with it as a background noise. I grew up on the place on the District Line where Walford would be if it was real. Always sort of vaguely followed it and went through stages of watching it more seriously depending on the storyline. Felt like a kind of familiar old relative that you had a fondness for even though if was cringe.

Stopped watching it in 2012 when there was an episode where the Olympic flame went through Walford. Was the hammiest, most amateur thing I had ever seen. I never recovered from it and whenever I have tried to watch it since it's felt like watching a school play, a particularly bad school play.

I don't think Eastenders changed, I think I did. I was 26 and it felt like the moment that my childhood really ended.

Used to watch it back in the day as did most people. Thing is I could relate to the characters, the working class heros, oh-I-say Dot Cotton, whinging Pauline Fowler, Nasty Nick Cotton, Ethel's Willy, Ethel's wig and yeah I had a thing for Dirty Den, but I am no longer gripped like I used to be.

Some soap families actually made me appreciate my own family as I would think mine are not as bad as (insert name) family.

Also hate how unrealistic soaps are..

Used to love EE, watched it from the beginning but stopped watching when they brought the Slaters in. Never got back into it. What would they put in place though?

When VHS TAPES came in I would record movies that's evolved into a sky box, now with Netflix, prime and others. I think going from two episodes of a soap to four was possibly a mistake. I remember years ago with a new baby I got into Days of our lives. It's so different to our soaps.

No leave EE alone, we've a nice little thread about it on here thats been going for ages, and although i dont watch any other soaps, i expect theyre all very similar storyline wise.

Great way of sitting down and switching off for 30 minutes after a hard day at work! Not too taxing on the brain cells apart from when us MNers try and guess the next plotline or who did the current dastardly deed

Well said Jelly!

Well thank you the80s!