Just when I thought that Waterloo Road would be the only show which I would pick fault with every scene due to my employment in education, along comes a pretty dire storyline from the team at Coronation Street.For some unknown reason, the powers that be are still flogging the terminally boring character of John Stape. A man who has returned to the screens more times than a cuckoo has to a clock, he is the only character that can have a saucy affair with a flighty, saucy young minx, find himself beaten up twice, spend months in jail, be at the centre of a wedding plot and stage a kidnap and still be less interesting than a debate with Ken Barlow over which colour is better between light grey and pale green.
The latest ploy to try and make John entertaining (rather than the more obvious idea of axing him) is to have him steal another teacher’s identification and begin working in a secondary school under a false name. This is a man who must have a bear-like tatooed lover back in the nick as he seems pretty damn desperate to go back there. He’s still boring mind you, but I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that.
What we’ve seen is John steal an old colleague’s ID, apply for a job Monday, be interviewed on Thursday and get the job and working there on Friday. I wish being appointed to a school was this quick! This is a procedure that normally takes weeks but this is by far the least troubling of the many plot-holes. Firstly, how is John going to get references? The staff who knew the man John pretends to be (Mr Fishwick) will be more than likely to ask him if it’s okay to write about him. It’s standard practice in education (and all other walks of employment for that matter) to contact your referee and give them the heads up that you need a reference in advance.
Secondly, a criminal police check can take up to and including 6 weeks to come through. And we are expected to believe that the school will let John come into the school and work unsupervised the day after he gets the job? I don’t know of many schools who would take that risk!
And how does he expect not to be caught? The other staff in the school are bound to have come across Weatherfield High before seeing as it’s not too far away. School staff visit other schools all the time for educational visits, sports competitions, meetings and other jobs. Just by word of mouth, the silly man is going to come undone at some point. He even forgot to answer to his fake name when called into interview for goodness sake!
I love Corrie but sometimes they treat the viewers like idiots. The plot scripting at the moment needs some serious tweaking. Even if this fake teacher plot were accurate, it would still be nauseatingly dull. And as for the Molly and Tyrone stuff, the sudden disappearance of Sally and the complete dropping of her cancer storyline and the ongoing saga of Sunita wanting to be closer to the shop, I won’t even go there as I will take up this blog’s entire bandwidth!
Phew! I understand that my post seems to be a bit of a messy rant. I should get an English teacher to check my work. Although Mr Stape-wick will be too busy dodging loopholes…
11 comments:
The writers have got themselves into a right hole with Stape - he'll never be "normal John" again, worse luck - and if they don't send him a a maximum security psychiatric unit for "therapy" - as I suggested before - they might as well go the whole hog and make him a murderer and/or turn the tables and get him a crazed stalker even weirder than he is. What about Rosie Mk2 - she looks a likely candidate.
This. Just.... this. I never could stand Stapid and he's totally ruined Fiz (or rather, the writers have).
I wonder if the actor that plays Stape has some dirt on Coronation Street? Maybe Dating an ITV board member?
I can for the life of me understand why they brought that character back after KIDNAPPING one of the regular characters.
I agree with Tvor; it's actually distressing how the much-loved character of Fiz was sacrificed for a character (with terrible plots) that is, if you believe all the negative comments on many Corrie fan sites, not only unbelievable but extremely annoying. Sometimes I feel grief for the loss of Fiz (yes, it's a soap...)
I absolutely despise the character of John Stape, even more so with this ridiculous storyline! I just find the whole thing absolutely absurd!
Never mind axing the Peacocks, Phil Collinson would make a lot of people happy if he axed the Stapes, and Chesney for that matter!
I think he should be murdered if only so characters like Fiz and Chesney can get back to leading semi normal lives.
Oh and axing Chesney would be a terrible mistake at the moment he is the only teenage boy on the show other than that annoying Ryan.
I agree with comments re Sally Webster. For ages she was "having a bath" and now she's off at "Aunty Gina's" - a character who hasn't been mentioned since she last appeared in the 1980s! Things seem to be a bit sloppy down Weatherfield way at the moment.
Apparently the actress who plays Sally has some sort of personal problem and they're running out of ideas as for why the character is absent.
Good article. My thoughts exactly, he's had all these exciting storylines, yet he's still so boring, IMHO. Completely agree with Craig, I would rather John (and Fiz and Chesney for that matter) be axed rather than the Peacocks.
I agree I can't stand John Stape since he was first introduced and for the life of me can't understand why they brought him back.
It saddens me how Fiz has totally changed her personality since hooking up with him.
I used to be a huge fan of hers not any longer.
I hope the new producer does a lot of chopping there are some characters that have just run their course and need to go.
Sally and Kevin Webster would be an excellent pair to move off the street. How many more affairs can they have?
hi I am sending a comment saying that
I know that David is right about Gail
is innocent and she should get out of
prison because if Tony is in the same
prison and they both meet and Tony
could start fighting and like the
episode when Tony and Liam and Tony
threw liam of the balcony on really
high view so good luck Gail plat lol
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