Maybe it's me knocking on a bit, but I'm hankering after the old days of Coronation Street. The days when there was quality dialogue and interesting characters you could relate to and actually like.
I'm looking at the latest episodes and thinking: "Do I really want to watch this any more?" And the answer is: "No I don't - not if it continues like this."
I don't want to watch youngsters snogging up the ginnel and prancing about in towels drinking cans. Don't get me wrong - I like a lot of the younger characters, such as Rosie and Sophie Webster. But there needs to be some balance. Corrie really needs an Ena Sharples to counteract the younger element.
It surprises me when TV shows seem to gear themselves towards a younger demographic. After all, there are more old people in this country than there are young. And an awful lot of old people watch the telly!
I don't want to watch youngsters snogging up the ginnel and prancing about in towels drinking cans. Don't get me wrong - I like a lot of the younger characters, such as Rosie and Sophie Webster. But there needs to be some balance. Corrie really needs an Ena Sharples to counteract the younger element.
It surprises me when TV shows seem to gear themselves towards a younger demographic. After all, there are more old people in this country than there are young. And an awful lot of old people watch the telly!
I'm also not keen on the way Corrie looks now. I don't have any knowledge of how TV works, direction, camera angles or whatever. I've no insider Corrie knowledge either. I'm just an ordinary fan and I know what I like and don't like. And I don't like it when I watch Corrie and have the horrible feeling that I might as well be watching any other soap.
26 comments:
I wish they would drop an episode, if they did, we would see an improvement in the writing
I disagree about it being two young though, the Kylie storyline is just one storyline in the show, and it disappears into the background for a while next week, bringing some characters who've not been seen much lately back into focus - that's the new way they're doing things, we have three weeks of a storyline then it goes into the background, rather than them running weeks on end.
The new look of Corrie is great, it brings a fresh look into the show, you may think its all uneccesary, but the switch to HDTV calls for it, just like when things had to change when the show became colour.
The Roy and Hayley wedding was classic Corrie, appealing to older fan, some storylines are appealing to younger fans, it's what soaps have to do to secure a future audience and sometimes that means 'sexing up' a few storylines
I agree with you Seapenguin. I do find that Corrie has become rather like every other soap....mind you it is still better than the others. However I do sometimes feel nostalgic when thinking about Minnie Caldwell in the Snug, the antics of Dennis Tanner, the lovestruck Gerry Booth and his boss Len Fairclough. And then of ccourse there was the late great Annie Walker. Remember her Rover motor car and the time that Fred Gee drove it into the lake? Hilda and Stan were of course the best TV duo ever.
Do we have stories and characters like these any more, or is it that we do but we do not realize it?
I honestly don't think we do, anonymous. Chewy's got a point about the writing - it seems terribly rushed with out of character dialogue, and plotlines that seem tacked on rather than emerging from character. When I went along to that Wizards of Weatehrfield thingy recently, Keiran Roberts said that Corrie differed from other soaps in that its storylines were character rather than issue-driven - I think that of course that used to be so but now it's all in danger of going terribly, terribly pear-shaped.
I switched over to EastEnders the other night, it's nothing like Corrie, the episode is mostly filled with drug addicts or muderers
Whereas in Corrie, even in scenes that are serious, you can still have that one liner that makes you smile, and the show gets away with it.
I think bringing up characters from 50, 40, 30 and 20 years ago is a bit unfair on the show, it has had to change in many ways, the world is different from how it was then, and Corrie got competition in the 1980's, serious competition, and it still does.
Since then, the audiences have dropped 12m, not due to the show changing, but because there is more to watch, this again means Corrie has to do certain things to make sure people watch.
I think we have some great characters anyway - Roy, Hayley, Carla, Eddie, Anna, Peter, Simon, Eileen and Ken (I can think of a few more too)
After all, there are more old people in this country than there are young. And an awful lot of old people watch the telly!
This may be true but do they buy the stuff that's advertised at half time?
It's a shame ITV are the ones who control the amount of episodes that go out, as if it was under the control of ITV Studios or the Corrie team, we'd have a chance of having one less episode
Well, for me the jury's well out but I'm quite prepared to give it a chance and wait and see.
@sunny jim call me naive but why do they not just advertise more stuff for old people then?
because the younger people are more inclined to buy products (the reason why The Royal and Heartbeat got the axe) Corrie is a very sought after advertising slot and only comes second to X Factor or BGT (and thats for all channels) if a advert premiers, it premiers during Corrie
I think part of the reason to appeal to the younger viewer is to get the new watchers and hope they stay with it. You can't just pander to the people that have been watching 20 or 30 or 50 years because as they eventually die off, there's no new viewers to take their place.
I still think Corrie is miles better than the other UK soaps and the American ones too though i do watch some of those. Corrie dialogue is still fantastic most of the time. The one-liners, the little scenes about nothing in particular and there really is a good mix of characters, i find.
do we need an Ena Sharples? Well we did have Blanche and i do think the show does miss having that type of character around. After Ena and Minnie left, we had Phyllis Pearce, and later on we had Vera and Blanche to stir things up. We've still got Betty to harrumph but she's not in it much. Can't really complain, the woman is in her 90s! We have Rita and Emily but they're too nice! Maybe Sally will be the Blanche of the future? She's certainly cut from the same cloth of "speak your mind"!
I do agree that Corrie has been miles and miles better than anything else - for ages - I don't actually watch much else, really. It's just the recent episodes that I've found alarming and I just hope it's a blip not a "trend".
Sorry about that. As I have been watching for many years I guess i will soon be dying off. Sounds great, doesn't it. It will make room for the youngsters.
Do you mean the Kylie storyline? I do like that one, but I don't like it as much because a lot of other people don't like it (if you get me)
I can see why people don't like her as she brings Becky on screen (I think Becky was ruined a bit with the whole double wedding last year) and people have just had enough of her. That's my guess anyway :p I like that plots "fade out" for a while too, as last year they went on for weeks on end.
Some brilliant things I've noticed lately
Rosie is finally behaving how I think Rosie would behave, she's no longer annoying and she is very likeable
David is no longer 'evil' but he is quite sarcastic and has a short temper at times, BUT he can be nice.
Also we're seeing a lot more characters in scenes too.
It's a huge improvement in my eyes as Corrie was, well, crap, at the start of the year, we were forced through months and months of Joe's constipated face, and when Tyrone's mum was brought back...
Despite being an oldie, I really like Corrie for the absolutely great one-liners and character ineraction. No other soap comes close. However i still miss the old characters, but that doesn't mean that I do not appreciate many of the newer ones.
Ok... we have some good old characters.... we still have ken barlow, norris, rita, emily and we really need Blanche back ( if it was possiblle ) !!!!
And we have some great younger ones.... Carla, Sophie, Rosie, Simon, Peter, Becky, Anna and Michelle (she isn't all that bad) and quite a few others!
Now then... sorry but they really need to get rid of Maria... she is boring and is now a pointless character.
But don't forget that Corrie always has to change to keep it's viewers and to keep it up to date.... or it is no good!!! :)
I think in a push to stay 'modern' and 'relevant', Coronation Street has changed so it more closely resembles the other soaps. It's still the best but it so rarely seems to play to its strengths now. And yes, we do need another battleaxe.
@chewy - it's not really a specific storyline (although I cannot stand watching either Kylie or Becky). It's the whole feel of the programme. The Rover's the other night just didn't "feel" like the Rover's. Some of the dialogue did not feel right either. I always really liked Gary Windass, and I suppose it's realistic that he'd have a quick "shag" with Kylie, but I'm not remotely interested in it and I also think the stealing of motorhome was a yawn. But it's easy to criticise when I'm just sitting at home "in my bathchair" watching;))and I'm someone who relsihed every moment of the John Stape saga! I'm sure all concerned are doing their best & each to their own.
I agree with a lot of your post, seapenguin. I think there needs to be a fair balance of young and old characters for realism, but lately the focus just seems to be on the younger characters and I don't really like it - and this is coming from a 19-year old. I like a lot of the younger characters (the Sophie-Sian storyline is quite good) but at times, it does feel like the programme is trying to imitate Hollyoaks. That I don't like...!
I think Corrie's strength was having a stern but loveable busybody who kept everybody in check with her sharp tongue, gossiped to her heart's content, shouted down anybody who disagreed with her (including her closest friends), but also a person who showed compassion when one of her neighbours was hurt, offered help whenever it was needed and showed in various ways that she wasn't a bitter old woman, but a decent upstanding person with a heart of gold... and capable of shedding tears when the occasion arose. All these qualities were imbued within Ena Sharples, who was the original and the best battleaxe throughout her twenty years in the show. We don't really have this kind of character anymore. Blanche was the most recent example and she was one of the best characters of late, sort of a mixture of grumpy Albert Tatlock and formidable Ena. But it was Vi Carson's character who really endears herself to the viewer when you sit down and watch the '60s episodes.
As for how the show looks these days, I am really not a fan of the current dim lighting. It's just too dark and the Rovers in particular has had its original dingy but friendly atmosphere taken away. The writing is also quite shabby at times. Those early episodes from the '60s are so well written... I can't even pick out a single line... watch and you'll see what I mean.
(I'm now aware that my 'comment' is waaaay too long... apologies!)
I am watching Corrie in Canada which is ten months behind, and am mystified by the reference to the switch to HDTV. It already looks already high definition to me.
Are we getting something different in Canada?
@seapenguin, Ah you're right with the Rovers, nowadays it seems a lot of the action is backstage at the bar, instead of in the bar, I suggest they move Becky and Steve out and it can be Liz's pub
@keith It's not HD in Canada yet, it changes when the titles change :)
Keith what we see in Canada is an uprez of the original PALplus which is also 16:9. Same aspect ratio as HD but not the same resolution. You'll notice the difference when it comes here.
As for the topic at hand, I have to agree with lots of these posts. A few weeks back I found a VHS tape from the late 80s or early 90s which had 4 hours of CS. I started watching and couldn't stop. The storylines and some of the characters were so much better than now.
Percy was standing at the bar with blue haired Phylis. Alf and Audrey were sitting at a table and Steve McDonald looks about 15.
I also agree that there are few characters that I like as a person. Steve, Graeme, Ted, Eilene and a few others are great but they have ruined others. Fiz was a great strong person but they made her stupid (that might be a little harsh).
Get back to 3 episodes a week and character based writing.
I think the fact that audience figures have now fallen to 8 or 9 million is down to the fact that there are now more TV channels and more competition from other things like the internet.
The fact that it's now on 5 & sometimes even 6 times a week is due to the fact that because of the declining audience size they now have to show 5 episodes just to pull in the same level of advertsing revenue that was being generated previously when it was just a bi weekly programme.
It's also true that advertisers prefer a younger demographic simply because they have more spending power and that they probably wouldn't be willing to advertise on Corrie if the audience was made up exclusively of pensioners. That's the problem Crossroads faced and is what ultimately led to its demise.
It's also true that Corrie needs to attract younger viewers to the programme if it is to survive otherwise its existing audience will just end up dying off.
I guess it's inevitable that when they're churning out 5 episodes a week the quality will sometimes suffer and you'll end up with the occasional threadbare storyline and I can't stand Kylie or Becky myself!
As for the production values, it's now filmed in videotape whereas in the 70s and for most of the 80s the exteriors used to be recorded on film which gave it a wonderful gritty, grainy look. The exterior set is much more extensively used now than it was in the 70s and 80s. This is because they need to maximise the use of both the external set and the studio sets in order to permit concurrent filming of scenes otherwise they wouldn't be able to get 5 eps a week out on time.
The show is also no longer rehearsed whereas it was in the 70s and 80s although I personally don't think this change has led to a noticeable decline in the quality of the show myself.
Clearly someone who knows their way round Weatherfield - interesting, thank you!
I would add further to my comment about Corrie looking like it was already high definition in Canada.
The TV in Britain always had more lines to the screen than Canada, therefore it was already sharper in analogue mode.
There are fewer lines to the screen after being converted to be shown in Canada on analogue TV, but when viewed on over the air digital TV, the resolution is as seen in Britain, thus looking like higher definition.
It would be better described as Enhanced Definition.
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