Eastenders

[gazzawazza]

Im very proud of the fact that I've never watched a single episode of Eastenders, but would like to know if anyone can confirm or deny what I heard on the radio the other week.  Two djs were saying that Eastenders had been about one day from being dropped completely by the BBC.

They said that the scriptwriters simply could not come up with any more ideas and the Beeb were ready to pull the plug as filming was necessary to continue the dat-to-day running.

As a last ditch effort, twelve more scriptwriters were drafted in, and in a few hours they'd thrashed out a fourteen week block of storylines to buy themselves time to come up with some real storylines. 

Has anyone else heard this, or is it a hoax fuelled by wishful thinking?

[RogK]

What marvellous story, gazza. I've never watched an episode, either, or at least FINISHED one. I really hope your tale is true - and I hope that EE is not the only soap to which it applies!

[andy hughes]

I would doubt that the notion of being 'within one day' of being axed - TV channe;s simply don;t work that way.

There is no doubt that the show has been loosing viewers at an alarming rate, due to a combination of  week scripts, dull storylines, and bad character  development. The solution may be to bring back some of the popular characters who have 'gone to get some skis out of the loft' or what ever soap people do when they are there one day, gone the next, and rarely if ever mentioned.

So look out for the return of kat Slater, and the fabulous Mitchell brothers - since one has had maternity leave, and the other two have singularly failed to find suitable work outside playing a potato head with a hoarse voice and a nasty case of piles - judging by their faces and tempers.

[trionam]

I did read the exact same storey but as andy says its quite unlikely and was most likely exaggerated. I

[coffers1]

I dont think it was going to be axed, just given a break for a weekor two so they could catch up...  good riddance i say!!!  A plane crash into the vic would probably total the lot of them!!

[libertie]

Story I read was that scriptwriters were almost at the point of going on strike because the latest line up of producers were constantly changing storylines in the hope of getting better ratings. This has led to scriptwriters being unable to maintain any sort of continuity and to develop any characters properly, and most of their regular writers are so fed up with the current standard of both scrip and actors that they are avoiding it like the plague!

[ursula62]

Well, the story, true or not, had the desired effect. People are now talking about EastEnders...

Marketeers say there's no good publicity or bad publicity, just publicity!

[londondave]

I do not know about that, but on teletext this morning it said that tourists were put of London by Eastenders, along with Only Fools And Horss and Grange Hill. I forget th actual statistics

[gazzawazza]

Thanks everyone for your answers, so it does appear that there might have been some truth in the story after all!

Andy, I do realise that programmes are made weeks in advance etc and didn't actually mean that "today it's Tuesday and they'll bin it from the screens tomorrow" but that they had had a deadline by which they needed plots yet with only one day left they still hadn't thought of any so bosses were made aware and drastic measures were considered. 

[bobk]

me too worst soap made by the bbc ..corrie rules