So it seems like a couple of my fellow-bloggers don't like Tina and Graeme's fledgling relationship. I love it. I love it SO MUCH, and here's why. I love Tina. I've loved Tina ever since she arrived with her massive gold hoop earrings, looking far too glamorous for dreary old Weatherfield. I loved that t-shirt with the braces printed on it (they actually mentioned that the other day and I squeed!). I loved how she was with David and how, in the early days, Gail and Tina ganged up against him. I loved how real and emotional she was after her dad's death. I didn't really love her with David, but I can see how it was necessary, and I wish drippy Jason would feck off to London so that maybe we could have sexy Todd back instead? Tina's relationship with Jason was just a nothing to me. Do not care.
I love Graeme. I love his hoodies and his hats and his cheeky grin. I love that he's a bit weird looking. I love that he exists on a planet that is far away from Planet Earth. I love the little asides he has. I love that he has no family and a shady past but is now trying to make a decent living even though he has that not-so-hidden pyromaniac side. I would love for Graeme's family to arrive, all chaotic and rambling, a bit like the Mortons maybe? I love how Graeme talks to EVERYONE from Rita to Rosie. I would like a Graeme of my own, really. Corrie should rent him out.
This relationship doesn't work on paper. She's high maintenance and a glamorous teenager, he's laidback and a little bit off the rails. She should be with someone like Jason - pretty but dumb. Graeme is neither. But, that's WHY this works. It reminds me so much of Racquel and Curly - two other slightly odd individuals that didn't work on paper. And yet some of my earliest and best Corrie memories involve those two, the dizzy blonde barmaid and the weird supermarket assistant manager. They worked. Tina and Graeme work.
If I was writing Corrie, I would keep them together. I would have Graeme proposing somewhere really stupid, and then I'd have a gorgeous wedding where Graeme almost didn't make it for some reason but where everything turned out alright in the end. I'd love for them to settle down and fail at being parents, but together. They could have all the makings of a great Corrie couple and I for one can't wait to see!
Ye. Graeme fits in with everyone: calling Rita 'Reet' and Emily 'Mrs B' and Norris 'Nozza' and has interactions with Dev, Ashley and David. Your dream Rebecca really can come true, if the writers work at it!
ReplyDeleteBut the problem is, Raquel and Curly didn't actually work. She didn't love him. She was fond of him but he loved the bones of her and it was all one sided. She only married him on the rebound from Des. Tina's rebounding from Jason and her father's death. Maxine and Ashley didn't work (well for me at least) though they were a bit better in that she did love him but again, it was beauty and the beast.
ReplyDeleteI think it would have worked better if it had been daft clueless self centred Rosie with Graeme. Tina isn't daft and dim like Maxine or Raquel and she'll get tired of Graeme soon enough. Rosie wants to be adored and might just have come round eventually.
I love Graeme, but don't like Tina as much as I used to, which was a lot. I can't make up my mind about them together.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to see Graeme's family, because I like the fact he's a bit mysterious, and a bit of an eccentric loner. Maybe that's why seeing him in a relationship is taking some getting used to. I think it's also why I agree with you about the way Graeme talks to everybody, just pops up in the Kabin, the corner shop, wherever, and just interacts with whoever happens to be there as only he can. As a character he's worked brilliantly in that way up until now. I hope they can get him to work just as well in slightly more serious or emotional scenes, and story lines of his own, because he's a great, unique character, and Craig Gazey a cracking actor. I'd like to see more along the lines of him talking about his friend who had died the other night, for example. He and Tina seemed to click in that scene, in a way I don't think they had until then.
Todd sexier than Jason? No way! :)
I liked Tina when she first arrived on the street but she's increasingly become louder and more one-notey - unless they soften her a bit I probably won't enjoy watching her. Rita MIGHT do it. The depression/grieving storyline could have been good but they haven't developed it properly, to my mind. I loved Graeme totally UNTIL they put him with Tina. I'm concerned he's going to become sickly and forced/a bit toe-curling (comedy-wise) now now and lose his edge. I like his random interaction with people on the street, and love his friendship with David, but just can't see him with Tina, at all. I agree Rosie could have been a better match. I realy didn't like Raquel either!!
ReplyDeleteI dont think Grahame and Tina have one ounce of screen compatability or chemistry. They always seem like they have been 'thrown' together, a lot like Steve and Becky. I also think grahame is having a lot of his edge knocked off by being with Miss Shack up after 5 minutes Mactintyresome. The scene with the cystic fibrosis friend should have been touching but it was just mawkish and random IMO.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this piece, Rebecca. Great to know I'm not the only one who actually thinks this pairing works. I've been saying for some weeks now that this is the writers' chance to 'reset' Tina, get her back to the character she was when she first appeared. Associating her strongly with Graeme, Rita and Norris will anchor her firmly in a predominantly comic environment. And I totally disagree that she and Greame have no chemistry together. They were not 'thrown together', there were several weeks of slow-burn development, as he showed her a side of himself she had never seen before, calling in daily to make sure she was eating, and lending a shoulder to cry on. Nor do I thik she's rebounding from Jason - Jason WAS the rebound relationship, and that is why it dissolved like wet blotting paper. In Graeme she sees someone caring, quirky and poetic; many people fall, and fall heavily, for people who are not remotely 'their type'. That's how unperdictable love can be. And if you do really fall for someone, then, yes, you are prepared to do ridiculous things like ride around in a rickshaw. I predict this relationship will become a classic pairing - so long as the writers don;t blow it for the sake of a sensational storyline.
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