EastEnders gripped the nation back in February with its impressive live week. Executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins was praised for turning the flagging BBC One soap into unmissable drama. Several weeks on, the buzz of Live Week is long gone and the strain of not having a number of strong storylines is showing.
You could almost be forgiven for thinking that Bryan Kirkwood and Lorraine Newman were back as the decision makers. One thing we can say for certain now is that for the past 12 months, EastEnders has sold itself as a detective series, as fans pieced together clues as to who killed Lucy Beale.
I myself was gripped by the storyline. Now that it is over, we are seeing the fallout from having Who Killed Lucy as EastEnders' unique selling point for the past year. You'd have thought the powers that be would have a stronger unit of stories to keep fans glued.
Thursday's edition of EastEnders was watched by under 5 million viewers. It faced an hour-long Emmerdale, but that shouldn't be an excuse. EastEnders should be streets ahead on the back of the Live Week. What's turning the viewers away?
The storylines just haven't come close to Who Killed Lucy. At the moment we have Kat Slater dealing with her past coming back to haunt her, Stan Carter on his deathbed, Sonia's a lesbian again and Phil's turned nasty again.
Most of what we have had on screen, over the past several weeks, we've already 'been there and done that' years ago. I would say its about time we get in some new storyliners and try go down a different path.
With all soaps, every possible storyline has been covered and covered again. It is ok to repeat, but there has to be a new element, a new twist and a conviction that you are playing this story because it fits with the character rather than it being a ratings grabber.
