Abi says that she and Kev are going to have the best wedding Weatherfield's ever had (I'm paraphrasing), so I think we know that it will be beset by disasters, but end up quite sweet 'n' socially distancedly heart-warming. Abi has replaced Debbie with Tyrone as her bete noir (Abi is someone who always has to have a feud and for that I salute her, along with her relaxed attitude to glamour and her general gobbiness. Donny lasses represent!). However, there are already some problems with the Kabi nuptials, namely:
Problem 1 No best man.
Problem 2 The wedding venue (Ray's hotel) has structural damage and unlike every other wedding ever on t'cobbles, can't be moved elsewhere.
Problem 3 Sally's poorly (not Covid) and can't do the celebrant role.
Alina solves problem 1 by saying Tyrone should go to the wedding without her (I'm sure Alina doesn't want to be hanging out with people older than her parents) and Debbie problem 2 by putting the hotel workmen on overtime. Sally of course solves her own problem by getting better. I wouldn't put money on a cold if Sally is battling it.
40-a-day-woman Sharon rings up one of Harvey's henchdudes to tell him to get to Kate Oates Memorial to try and find Simon again (it's a pity the other Sharon (Rotten Rick's henchwoman) hasn't switched allegiance and taken up with Harvey - she could beat Peter up without much bother). Carla spots the heavy in the hospital car park and Adam turns up to distract him as Carpet make their escape. Back at Victroia Court Airbnb, Leanne hears a knock at the door and gets ready to attack the person with a bottle of olive oil, but it turns out to be Carla. Leanne, understandably, loses her sh*t until Carla assures them that no-one knows their address. Sharon takes some flowers round to no.1, pretending that they're from Rita and proceeds to nick Carla's phone. She finds the address from Carla's google map search of the Airbnb and the NHS cleaner-cum-goon goes round there only to find out Nick 'n' Leanne have scarpered. Shazza pulls a Dick Dastardly face, having lost the elusive pigeon once again.
In the cafe, Nina tries to find a necklace for Abi's wedding day online and Seb makes a joke about an engagement ring. Roy gets the wrong end of the stick and urges Seb to take things slowly with his niece. Seb then suggests he move out, leaving lovely Nina confused. However, they have a heart to heart and make up. Don't be happy Nina, or at least don't read the previews!
Crappy Corey is rude to Asha when she makes him cheese on toast and then refuses to have a party, at which he sulks. This is très kitchen sink, although I don't think anyone in a Shelagh Delaney play ever had an Xbox. He slinks off to Speed Daal to flirt with Kelly, who, if it weren't for the two metre rule, would be draping herself over him. Toyah and Imran aren't doing a very good job of caring for their foster daughter, are they? Shouldn't they get some kind of support from social services whilst looking after a problem teen? She seems like the Ur mean girl to me.
As a side note, I think that Corey's story was originally Seb's. I don't know if anyone else remembers this but when young Master Franklin first started going out with Fay(e), he was seemingly from a privileged background (called Sebastian, liked spending money), he was controlling and negging towards Faye, as well as eyeing up other girls (Bethany) when they were together. Then TPTB decided to introduce Abi and the twins and Seb's personality and background were somewhat changed. But the story was obviously still hanging around the writers' room.
Rachel Stevenson - on twitter
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6 comments:
Rachel - love the way you’re treating all this soapy rubbish with witty disdain. The writing team deserve no better !
Ah, I hope it's not disdain! I do like some of the storylines at the moment, though they tend to be more on the realism side (wedding woes) than the dramatic (gangsters).
Absolutely bang on. Whats happened with sharons voice, seems to talk out of the side of her mouth. As for nick getting shopping, why not use deliveroo, would be less risky
Great review, Rachel! There might not be a lot to enjoy about the show at the moment, but there’s plenty to poke fun at!
A golden rule in writing is to write about what you know. For Corrie, that’s human relationships and good old Northern humour. Leave the drug lords and witness protection stuff to shows like Breaking Bad and Line of Duty who can do it justice. Attempting to do this storyline with a pre-watershed time slot and with social distancing measures, was always going to be a disaster.
In a show like Line of Duty, those under witness protection are given new identities and relocated hundreds of miles away. In Weatherfield, however, they’re relocated five minutes down the road, but it might be even closer than that, because the flat Leanne’s staying in looks suspiciously like Gary and Maria’s place at Victoria court without all the rose gold furnishings.
No one’s taking witness protection seriously; Simon’s making secret visits to his dad because he’s ‘bored’, Nick’s making secret calls to his son, and Carla’s popping round for check-ups. In real life, there'd be officers watching Leanne and co 24/7 and they’d be keeping tabs on their family too. But when Leanne hears a knock at the door, there’s no panic button for her to press, no officer at hand - she’s left to fend for herself with nothing but a bottle of olive oil.
Harvey’s a bit like the white witch in Narnia, he has spies everywhere. Luckily they’re not the brightest bunch, but fear not, because there’s Sharon (or Debbie 2.0 as I like to call her). Despite being a total stranger, Sharon’s made a habit of waltzing into people’s homes, asking them a bunch of questions, and accessing crucial information off their unprotected smartphones and tablets. You’ll also find Sharon lurking on street corners looking incredibly shifty, then cackling to herself at the end of each scene just to hammer home that she’s a baddie.
If I wanted to watch Hollyoaks, I would, but I don’t, so stop with all the angsty teenage drama! They’re neither compelling nor likeable characters and it irks me how they seem to dominate the show. Also sick of seeing Peter Barlow in a hospital bed or with that awful blanket over him. He used to be the street’s bad boy and now he’s morphed into Gandalf the grey. Poor Carla might as well have married Ken.
Whenever people bang on about there being too much doom and gloom on the show, I used to roll my eyes, but now I can see their point. In these last few months alone we’ve had a kid die, a family go into witness protection, a man’s dying of liver failure, a seriously ill man with MS is seeing ginger cats, and a girl’s been sent down for three years, and if the spoilers are anything to go by, things are only set to get darker…
So many bad things have happened in such a short period of time, how can any of the residents be shocked by anything that happens anymore? Where’s the realism gone?
Remember how well received that ten-minute conversation between ty and fizz was? It was nothing overblown, just two people in a room, talking about their feelings. I want more of that please, writers!
There’s a reason more and more people are tuning out of modern corrie and watching episodes of classic corrie, and the reason is that it’s better! It’s character-driven, it’s got heart, humour, and, for the most part, is realistic and doesn’t treat its viewers like idiots or try to educate them about the latest issue. It entertains, and that’s all we want as viewers, isn’t it, to be entertained?
Good one, Rachel! Very witty descriptions of people in this one. I had to go and look up Seb's first appearance when he babysat with Faye, as Sebastion. Clever how the show morphed him into a completely different character and few batted an eyelash. I recall that time, felt like yesterday. And his hair was really short! I think Harry Visinoni has definitely upped his skill-set since then.
Iain MacLeod said he wanted to develop the younger generation. Fair enough, back in the day when I first watched Corrie, the older cast members were Jack, Vera, Bet, Betty, Fred, Mike, Deirdre, Audrey, Alf, Ken, Emily, Rita etc, and out of these cast, only three remains.
And now the 'middle age' cast is slowly creeping to the 60s or is already over 60 are now, Gail, Kevin, Sally, Tim, Debbie, Jenny, Sharon, Dev, Tracey, Peter etc.
But the youngest cast were brought in and developed when I started watching(they are our middle age cast now) Sarah, Nick, David, Fiz, Tyrone, Maria, Kirk, Todd, Leanne, Toyah etc. There were so many teen angst - Sarah's pregnancy, 2nd pregnancy, Todd's coming out, Sarah's kidnapping, Nicky forcing Leanne to abort, Nicky forcing Leanne to talk with Darren, the man who killed his father. David threw olives at Gail etc. These characters are now one of our most loved characters.
So, Iain is right, we need to start developing the teens so they will have a stronger root for 20 years to come. Alex Bain, Tanisha Gorey, Elle Mulvaney are amongst the few who has been around for almost or more than a decade... time to give them more stories. And I would imagine that it is safer to use them in the middle of the pandemic. We do not want to see any more of 'Audrey would have been here to clip David's ears' - 'Where is Ken? Why is he not in attendance of his son's funeral?'
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