Last Friday, EastEnders celebrated its 25th birthday, and in some style too. The show’s first ever live episode went down in a grand manner, which a shock death and the revelation of Archie Mitchell’s killer, which kept everyone guessing until the final moment.
The scriptwriters and producers on the BBC show spent a load of time putting the effort into producing a gripping half an hour of drama for its millions of fans and so it proved out. All of Archie’s suspects were acting on edge, realising that their actions on Christmas Day were coming back to haunt them. Janine Butcher was planning to runaway, both Jack and Max Branning clearly had something to hide and Roxy Mitchell continuous questioning of Sister Ronnie’s motives may have been dogged, but certainly suggested to the normal viewer that the tension was bubbling.
Mixing in Ricky and Bianca’s wedding was a great idea, because it meant that although Archie’s killer was going to take the main plotline, there was something just as important going on in the background. Maybe Ricky and Bianca can break soapland’s traditional plotline of recent times and have a happy and successful marriage. The episode also had the two longest serving characters, Ian Beale and Dot Cotton watching a very old videotape, which had moments from some of Walford’s famous characters down the years, including Arthur Fowler and Sharon Watts.
The episode culminated with the police, swarming all over Albert Square to find Bradley Branning, who was being urged by both Jack and a reluctant Max to flee before they came. Bradley and his new wife, Stacey Slater made a break for it, as Max and Jack tried every trick in the book to stall the police. Unfortunately, Bradley forgot the passports and had to head back to get them. The police caught up with him and in a desperate attempt to escape their clutches, he fell off a rooftop, plunging to his untimely death. As the Vic onlookers rushed out to see the horror, across the Square, Stacey confessed to Max that she had been the one that had done away with Archie. The aftermath will be very intriguing to follow now. It was revealed after the episode that Lacey Turner, who plays Stacey, had been struggling for days with a losing voice, so her scenes on Friday were even better, considering that trouble.
Though there were a couple of line/continuity errors, it went really well for a live episode and with 14million tuning it, the BBC bosses certainly got the figures they were after, completing a brilliant week for the company, which had seen ITV’s two midweek picks, the BRIT Awards and the return of the UEFA Champions League stuffed in the ratings by medical drama, Holby City.
To conclude, credit where it’s due, well done to Dredrick Slater and his team, plus the actors/actresses for producing a captivating half an hour live drama on Friday night. What is in store next remains to be seen, but with former Hollyoaks producer Bryan Kirkwood, who turned the Channel 4 soap from 2006-2009, EastEnders could be set for a return to the glory days, after years in the doldrums of dodgy storylines and dismal characters.
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