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This week was Coronation Street’s 60th anniversary with a showstopper of an episode for fans and a heart stopper of an episode for evil Geoff Metcalfe. Yes, he’s dead at long last. Yasmeen’s freed from prison and heads home a nervous wreck. And what does Alya do? Instead of looking after her gran when they spy Geoff stalking them on the Street outside of Alya’s flat, Alya leaves her gran on her own in the flat and heads out to the cop shop. Cue Geoff’s entry into the flat to terrorise Yasmeen all over again. But hey, it was Corrie’s 60th anniversary, I’m not going to let mere detail get in the way of a good plot. Oh, hang on. Geoff leaves Yasmeen the keys to her house and tells her to clear her stuff out as he’s selling the house and moving to Cyprus with his lover Christine.
Yasmeen heads to the house and locks herself indoors but Geoff comes through the back door and sets the house on fire. Run, Yasmeen, run! She runs upstairs to the attic and ends up on the roof to escape the flames and Geoff. Geoff follows, desperate to stop her from escaping. And while the flames burn downstairs, Alya somehow gets into the house and up on the roof with them. But hey, it was Corrie’s 60th anniversary, I’m not going to let mere detail get in the way of a good plot. And so it went on, until Geoff slipped off the roof and ended up splattered on the patio with Yasmeen’s chickens strutting by. I do think Corrie missed a trick though by not having Geoff fall off the roof into the Platt’s sinkhole. Now that would have been good. Best line of the week, for me, went to Cathy when she heard of Geoff’s demise: “Jiggle it Geoff? Well, he’s not jiggling now!”
Elsewhere this week, Ray’s campaign to demolish the cobbles comes to a temporary stop when Ken Barlow and his shopping bags defy the bulldozers. A symbolic scene about cobbles, community and kindness versus greed and randy Ray. The residents form a sit-in in front of the old brewery to stop the diggers doing their worst as Abi jumps in the bulldozer and manages to knock off the electricity to the whole street. There’s no power, no lights, nothing. The street is in darkness and it adds a wonderfully eerie setting to the storyline.
Speaking of eerie, Ray gets his hands on Faye again this week just as Gary walks into the Bistro. Gary hears Faye crying, telling Ray to leave her alone, to get his hands off her and when Ray knows Gary’s heard them in the back room of the Bistro, Ray comes out shamefaced, stuffing his shirt into his trousers while Faye runs out of the room with her blouse undone. Gary tears up the contract and refuses to sell the factory to Ray.
Debbie’s true purpose on the street is revealed this week when Kevin gets involved with the campaign to save the cobbles. He throws his sister out and she heads straight to Ray to talk strategy. It’s a real shame Debbie’s turned to the dark side as I love the character and Corrie needs more women of her calibre.
Meanwhile, Peter proposes to Carla and it’s all very jolly until the moment when Daniel arrives in the Rovers and blurts out that Carla and Adam have slept together. Carla and Peter argue and fight in the back room as Peter drinks himself to oblivion. “You’ll drink yourself to death!” Carla cries and all Peter does is take another swig. Adam also drowns his sorrows alone in the Bistro but someone comes in and attacks him. Who will it be? The suspects put forward by ITV are Sarah, Carla, Gary and Peter but my money’s on Simon, protecting his drunken dad.
And finally this week, young Sam tries to get into Leanne’s heart to help her cope in her grief. He’s a lovely little actor and I just hope ITV don’t overplay the sentimentality with him but for now, he’s a joy to watch.
And that’s just about that for this week.
Remember, you can sign up to get these Corrie weekly updates by email at http://www.corrie.net/updates/weekly/subscribe.htm
This week’s writers were Chris Fewtrell (Monday); Jan McVerry (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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12 comments:
My favourite part of anniversary week turned out to be the Peter/Carla/Adam storyline. I wasn’t expecting much from this storyline but the twist in Friday’s episode won me over and I’ve always been a sucker for a good old fashioned whodunnit. It helps that all the characters involved (bar Gary) are some of the show’s best so hopefully, we can expect some good, explosive drama to come!
Finger’s crossed this whodunnit doesn’t end up like the factory roof ‘whodunnit’ which lost steam after its first episode. My money’s on Simon or Gary. I think Peter will die. The show’s already killed a young mother and toddler, so not even legacy characters like Peter are safe anymore. Peter dying of liver failure would be sad but true to life – and we all know how much Corrie love a good hospital set!
Glad the Geoff and Yasmeen stuff is all done and dusted as it was dragging on and needed to come to an end. My favourite scenes were of Imran in court. Geoff falling to his death felt a little underwhelming, but like I said, glad this storyline is wrapped up.
The weakest part of anniversary week was the community storyline. We got some of the cringiest moments in the show’s history. Ken’s speech was like a parody, the fact there were only 8 people protesting was laughable, Dev beating that drum, all the chanting and singing, Brian acting like a buffoon, Abi jumping around like she was high on drugs – all of it was farcical to the point I couldn’t take any of it seriously. I also didn’t buy into the community spirit. And this is my biggest critique of the 60th week. All the storylines felt separate from each other, as if they were happening in separate worlds. Whereas in the 50th all the storylines were cleverly interlinked and you saw how each story impacted the wider community, whereas the three major stories at play (Geoff, Adam, and Ray) all felt very self-contained.
A quick sidenote - what was the point of the sinkhole? I was expecting Geoff or Ray to wind up in it but no... just seems bizarre and irrelevant. Why introduce something as outlandish and contrived as a sinkhole and have it serve no real purpose? Odd.
Overall a good week. Not a great week. Definitely pales in comparison to the 50th, but the show did a decent enough job given the restraints of Covid.
My only fault is that the show didn’t do a good enough job laying the groundwork for the three major storylines. Until last night, the Carla/peter/Adam stuff has been very much on the back burner: Geoff and Yasmeen’s story has been on pause for the best part of this year: and the community storyline with Ray buying up the street felt very rushed and poorly thought out so it was hard to take it seriously, especially when you know Ray was never going to succeed.
I hope that going into next year the writers give us more character-driven content because it’s been sorely lacking this past year, and the show’s suffered as a consequence. I’ve struggled to invest in a lot of the storylines simply because I don’t care about the characters involved (ahem, the Baileys, Gemma, Billy, Oliver, New Todd and Summer). I’d like to see more everyday, domestic scenes with families and couples. I’d like more warmth, heart and humour. This year has been misery piled upon misery with no light relief to get us through. A return to kitchen sink drama where characters were the focus, not social issues and medical dramas.
The one saving grace to anniversary week is that Gemma and Chesney didn’t feature – for that I am eternally grateful!
Why is Adam getting all the blame? Carla was the one who invited him into her hotel room she is equally as bad as Adam.
He could've said no!
And so could she!
I'm disappointed that despite the hype of them being the Street's first black family that the Baileys weren't part of the 60th anniversary episodes,it was again solely the Platts and the Barlows who seemed to be the focus of the episode.
I also agree that it's not right that Adam gets all the blame while Carla along with Sarah [who chose to lie for Gary over her marriage to Adam] are the 'victims'.
I also wish that Sam isn't constantly pushed down viewers throats'counselling' Leanne[what would he know about grief and loss] while other children on the Street cannot be featured in storylines.
I agree about Alya, couldn't she have called the police instead of sitting there all day?
No. Totally wrong there. I agree with anon 16.04. He's a Barlow, he know what he was getting himself into. He should've walked away. Women always get the blame, he's not innocent in all this. It takes two to tango
Jeanie (anon):
Love Sam too-he's an excellent actor, especially his facial expressions--but the way he is set up to be constantly talking at Leanne---I mean, the woman has just lost her son; she's not going to care a rat's a-- about this cute young child's oh-so adorable monologue. Give it a break, Corrie, and let her grieve, then perhaps get to know Sam. As for Sam himself, ridiculous to imagine a nine year-old being this intrusive and annoying. I've never been Team Leanne, don't like the character, but if she wants to give him a good slap, then I'm rooting for her!
Adam doesn't seem particularly bothered that he betrayed his uncle, does he? I never bought into his and Sarah's whirlwind relationship but Adam's always been loyal to Peter so it seems off that he's betrayed Peter in such a big way and doesn't really care.
In the usual Corrie way of introducing 'breath-of-fresh-air' characters, there's a good chance they'll overplay Sam's personality. No question that he's played by an excellent actor, the character is OTT. Becky was a nightmare by the time of her exit; Gloria was awful; to be fair, Gemma doesn't have the best of storylines. Evelyn could have become a stereotypical battle-axe but Maureen Lipman sorted that one out. Re: Peter, I've thought for a long time that Chris G has been underused and might take off for another theatre stint. At the moment, he might not have anywhere to take off to but I feel sure Peter will exit either permanently or temporarily. Likewise with Simon, he would have gone off to the navy in a year's time but they may give him another exit story. Peter could have had some great comedic scenes with Steve or Tim, but those opportunities have been wasted.
I'm with you, I think Peter's going to permanently leave the show next year (dies of chronic liver failure). A shame because Peter's one of my favourites.
I understand covid resrictions etc - but I think the Ten Thousandth episode would have been better played as the 60th Anniversary episode.
Sorry to say but slightly disappointed with it all especially the demolition/community part of the episodes.
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