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The sinkhole at the Platts back garden is still there as big and as deep as it was this time last week. Sleazy Ray of the Bistro offers to put the Platts up in his five star hotel and David soon twigs on that something’s not right with Ray. Just why is he being so generous? Well, it turns out that Ray was the one behind the sinkhole, is he after the Platt’s house to expand his Bistro empire? It doesn’t quite might sense as Kev’s garage stands between the Platts’ and the Bistro, unless Ray is set on world domination, one cobble at a time.
David recalls a memory to Ray of Barney his rabbit who he says was buried in the Platts’ garden. But this fan recalls another memory that David and the scriptwriters seem to have forgotten – he had Barney the rabbit stuffed.
Over in the Kate Oates memorial ward at Weatherfield hospital, it’s all going on. Well, I say that, but to be honest, I’ve been fast forwarding through every single one of these scene because I just don’t care about Oliver, a character we don’t even know. What we do know is there’s been lots of scenes with Leanne crying, Steve struggling and Nick looking into the middle distance wondering how he can give Leanne the news that Natasha has turned up in his life with his secret son. Leanne’s child is dying, Nick’s real child has arrived and Toyah gets the go-ahead from social services to foster a child of her own. It’s a bit messy, to say the least, a complicated story that weaves and threads around Oliver, a child we hardly saw but who will now be killed off, it appears, as his life support machine is going to be switched off. Leanne can’t bear to lose her son and grasps at hope that a doctor in Germany might be able to save him, but it’s going to cost half a million quid. “We’ll find the money,” Steve said, a line that’s repeated by Tracy. Half a million quid? It’s going to take more than Emma doing a sponsored dance in the Rovers to raise that amount of cash.
Meanwhile, a dead body is found in the canal and it’s Kel, Paul’s stepdad and the man who abused him as a child. When Paul and Billy are given confirmation from the cops that the body is Kel’s, Paul asks how he was murdered. Murdered? Does Paul know something the cops and Billy don’t? Billy jumps on this and Paul thinks Billy is accusing him of murdering Kel himself. PC Craig confirms that Kel’s death was an accident, it’s been caught on CCTV and Billy has some apologising to do to Paul. But is it too little, too late for Apollo of the Cobbles who is now on a slippery slope to depression.
Elsewhere this week there was a wonderful scene between Dev and daughter Asha. He wants her to drop sleazy boyfriend Corey (so do I) but she wants to defy her dad, as most teenagers do. Asha tells Dev she’s leaving home as soon as she turns 16 and moving in with Corey. So Dev does what he does best, he prepares a spreadsheet for Asha showing her how much the reality of her dreams will cost her. Just when it seems as if Dev has got the upper hand and is making Asha see sense, she delivers the killer line that Corey’s parents are minted and they’ll fund the flat.
More fabulous scenes with the amazing Sue Devaney this week, who plays Debbie Webster. A great actress and my favourite character by far this week. Kev takes Jack away overnight and while Kev’s away, Abi confides to Debbie that she’s craving morphine and tells her that Peter Barlow is helping her cope with her addictions. Debbie convinces Abi to reveal her demons to Kev when he returns. Abi’s unsure at first but follows Debbie’s advice. It seems as if Kev’s taken Abi’s addiction on board and can handle it and help her cope. That is, until Abi admits that her twins once found her drugs and nothing else mattered, not her kids, not Seb, nothing mattered but getting high. Kev’s face clouds over and he’s not sure about Abi any more. Can Debbie be the one to keep them together?
And finally this week, new character George Shuttleworth arrives. He’s the son of the late undertaker Archie “five feet two if I’m not mistaken” Shuttleworth and Mary comes over all of a tither over George’s manly charms.
And that’s just about that for this week.
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This week’s writers were Chris Fewtrell (Monday); Susan Oudot (Wednesday) and Debbie Oates (Friday). Find out all about the Coronation Street writing team at Coronation Street Blog: Exclusive: All Current Corrie writers online
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Glenda Young
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5 comments:
Well I thought the Oliver storyline was excellent this week with fantastic acting, especially from Jane Danson and Ben Price. You can always depend on Jane to deliver great performances and she did as a mother losing her boy. Ben is the dark horse in this storyline, wonderful acting by him, especially in the scenes with Natasha. I have never had much of an opinion on Ben as an actor, but he giving excellent performances as Nick recently.
I don't think it matters that we haven't seen much of Oliver because the story is about his parents anyway and there is enough material for the actors to give very strong performances.
I hope Mary finds true 'lerv' with George Shuttleworth. The character seems ideal for her, and Tony Maudsley is a great comic actor. My only worry is that he has done so many different things and may only be on a short contract.
A great weekly round-up, Glenda.
I get where you’re coming from with Oliver’s storyline. Of course a child with a terminal illness is just awful, but from a storytelling point of view I think Corrie missed a trick by not getting us emotionally invested in Oliver as a character. If we had gotten to see more of him with his family beforehand, then these scenes would have packed more of an emotional punch.
The story is more centred around the adults yet there are things I still take issue with. For starters never in a million years would Toyah and Imran be able to adopt a child given their history – they don’t even have their own home for goodness’ sake! The fostering process is so tough and the fact a fostering panel would consider them exemplary candidates just isn’t true to life.
Also not keen on Nick having a secret kid. The story’s already meaty enough without adding this overdone soap cliché into the mix. Leanne losing a child while everyone around her is gaining one – just feels like overkill if you ask me. Would’ve been nice to see Leanne and Nick united in their grief, but oh well…
I hope Corrie give medical storylines a rest after this one wraps up because to have this so soon after Sinead is too much. It’s too depressing and not what I tune in for.
I’m still not sure what Debbie’s doing back on the street and I have yet to form an opinion on her. I found her a bit over the top at first, but she toned it down this week and I was pleasantly surprised by how understanding and supportive she was of Abi.
Abi heading back down the slippery slope of drugs with Peter Barlow as her crutch surely spells for disaster. I won’t be happy if this causes trouble for Carla and Peter because they are a great couple when given the right material, but going back down this road of Peter lying to Carla and going behind her back feels like rehashing old ground. Plus I think the writers need to give Abi and Kevin a chance before pulling the plug on them like they did with Adam and Sarah.
Couples really aren’t Corrie’s strong point at the moment, are they?
Overall another ‘meh’ week on the cobbles. The highlight was Jane Danson’s powerful acting and the low light was without a doubt was the sinkhole. This might just take the biscuit for being Corrie’s most farfetched, nonsensical storyline ever and that says a lot about a show that had a woman give birth to quads in a cable cart on a Welsh hillside.
What's ruining Corrie for me is its block storytelling. What I mean by this is the way it focuses on a storyline one week and doesn’t follow it up the next week. It makes the drama feel disjointed and it’s really jarring as a viewer because I keep forgetting key plot points and things that have happened previously because it’s been that long since we revisited it.
Take the Geoff saga for example. We got some great stuff the other week with Tim and Geoff, and this week we’ve had nothing. Can also say the same for Johnny and Scott. That seemed like it was going somewhere and then it just disappeared without a single mention.
Corrie needs to stop introducing all these storylines if it can’t seamlessly juggle them. You shouldn’t be having long gaps in storylines and you shouldn’t be having key characters missing in action. This all started last year during the roof collapse storyline (which was awful) and it’s becoming more and more noticeable now. It's fair to say Corrie's in a bad place at the moment and it's making me nervous for the 60th anniversary. Really hope things improve soon and it goes back to being a more character-focused show.
Doesn’t Ray already own Kevin’s garage? Mind, my memory’s pretty blurry - it’s been such a long time since they had their run-in and I can’t recall exactly what the up-shot was. Also, there’s been no further mention of it and the garage continues to be operating like business-as-usual, so who knows?
I really hope that George doesn't have some dark secret that stands in the way of a true romance with Mary. It would be lovely to see some good humour between them and it's about time Mary had a happy storyline.
I think that the script writers have done quite well considering the restrictions, but I found Friday's episode very hard going. I'm certainly missing some of the characters we haven't seen for ages; Gail, Audrey, Roy, Eileen, even Beth!
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