It's been a pretty grim week on Corrie what with the pre-marital rape and all. I was interested to see how it was going to be handled and I do think it's been done well. Realistic and sensitive with lots of advancement in the storyline as it unfolds. I've had a think about how all the involved characters are being affected and blogged it here. How will Carla move forward into the future? Will Peter and Leanne's relationship every be the same? How does Peter feel about Carla really? How long will it be until Frank gets what's coming to him? (Because he will, you know. He's raped Carla and cannot get away with it. Soap Law says so)
I agree that it's been written sensitively (better than the similar storyline with Toyah when it turned into a whodunnit). It helps that Alison King & Andrew Lancell are brilliant actors - if they did the storyline with Tracy or Michelle, it would have been awful.
ReplyDeleteCorrie has been nothing short of brilliant this week. While I feared that such a dark storyline would come across as sensationalist, it has been scripted in a sensitive and moving way. The performances have been great- Alison King and Andrew Lancel have been particularly good. It's also nice to see the storyline mean more screen time for the Barlows and less for the likes of Becky and Tracyluv.
ReplyDeleteThe rape story has brought Corrie to a new low. I am rapidly losing any affection for it.
ReplyDeleteAgain, highly paid media folk have depicted Police Officers as totally inept. Their failure to secure Carla's flat and let both Frank and Peter barge in made it more like Piccadilly Circus than a crime scene. The Police told Carla that they would not interview a suspect at that time of night and 2 minutes later were shown interviewing Frank. They then arrived in what must have been well into the wee small hours to wake up Maria's entire household and tell Carla that Frank had been released. This bears no relation to what would happen in reality.
Yesterday's episode was even worse. The aggressive police questioning of Peter Barlow was out of order. I like Leanne, but her visit to Carla was thoroughly selfish and mean spirited. Is that really how a supposed friend would react? Carla helpfully informed us that she had no injuries and there were no signs of a struggle so she couldn’t have been raped. At the end Maria helpfully summed up what the episode intended to make us think: "He's going to get away with it, isn't he?"
Of course Frank won't get away with it. He's committed three serious crimes and the law of soap means he is going down. But not before anyone watching has been given the idea that if you are raped, the police won't prevent you coming face to face with your attacker minutes after the crime, will release him as soon as they can and won't believe you if you don't fight back, (which is against police advice). I could go on and on, but this drivel is not worth it.
I really would like to know how this has been sensitively handled, because I cannot see it.
Corrie has been very good this week; I stop short of saying brilliant because Frank still seems like a cardboard cutout to me. I'm not so sure about soap karma since, as it's been pointed out in these posts many times, Tracy is still walking around scot free.
ReplyDeleteIs Peter Barlow morphing into Terry Duckworth? Chris Gascoyne has lost his lean and hungry look and is starting to look a bit like Nigel Pavaro.
It's interesting trying to work out Peter's fixation with Carla. He was a bigamist so maybe it's normal to him to have two women in love with him.
Frank is the best character in the show. Rumor has it he is actually Tony Gordon is disguise.
ReplyDeleteIs it me, or does Carla have big lips?
Adam Rekitt, this is a Soap. Not a reality show. I thought it was really well handled, the suspense, drama and all. There's the news if you want to watch real stuff.
ReplyDeleteAlison King and Andrew Lancel have said that they did research for this story. It's a shame their efforts were undermined by writers who could not be bothered to research basic police procedure.
ReplyDeleteCoronation Street used to pride itself on its realistic portrayal of situations. I did not realise that Drama no longer had to bear any semblance to reality. I look forward to the Germans winning the 1st World War in Downton Abbey and Rita giving birth to Dennis' baby at Christmas 2012.
It's a soap opera. There can't be anything close to reality. Really..over and over again with Carla and Peter. She tells him to get lost..he goes around time and again and then he tells her to get lost and she follows him around? Come on...either they hit the sheets or end the stupidity.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't surprised that it was handled really well and had enough twists and turns to keep the actors on their toes too. I don't think the police were portrayed as idiots. Frank, who at first appeared bland & cardboard-y, showed his true psychopathic self in that first interview - fooling them brilliantly. I almost believed it myself that Carla could have connived to not marry him and keep her business by lying that he raped her, he was that good.
ReplyDeleteHis switching from lying to whispering in Peter's ear that he really did do it was really frightening. Frank knew his taunting would incite violence and get Peter arrested, especially since he lied to the police that Peter & Carla slept together, thus the hard questions Peter got.
And he keeps the duplicity up. One minute he's threatening Carla that he'll reveal that she drove into Stella while drunk, the next he's babbling like a crazy innocent when Sean and Maria run into the factory to protect Carla. I just wonder how much of this was pre-planned on Frank's part. He's certainly making much of it up as events unfold. But he always knew he had one over on Carla regarding the car crash lie. And so did she. Which makes this whole storyline more than one only about the rape, and pretty riveting.