TV on, poor typing skills

So, having done the briefest of intros and farted around with the profile, time to do a proper post. So, what Earth-shattering topic is going to be under my scrutiny? Climate change? Global terrorism? The Blair-Bush axis of twattishness? Nope, Eastenders.

For those not lucky enough to be in the know, Eastenders is a soap opera made by the BBC (for further enlightenment, click here, why don't you?). But why is this of interest to you? Well, in all likelihood it's probably not but it matters to me - at least it used to.

So that's the issue, I used to love Eastenders - fair enough, even at my most addicted I rarely made a great deal of time for it in my weekday evening schedule, but collapsing hungover in front of the omnibus on Sunday afternoons was a ritual event in my student days. And does anyone remember the story with Phil getting shot and no-one knowing who did it? God, I was out on the night that finished so I videoed it, no really.

But the point, the point. I was getting to the point. Eastenders. These days: Rubbish. And I mean that; utter, utter claptrap. Unfortunately, Mrs Squidstew is still quite the fan, otherwise it wouldn't get TV time in the house. But it was due to her continuing allegiance to the show that I was recently exposed to an episode that made me realise that the affair was finally over and it really was time to cut the chord and move on.

The episode was aired on Monday the 2nd and involved some of the shoddiest, poorly thought-out and irrelevant writing I've ever been subjected to having blasted out of my television.

To give a rapid review, Paul (a rough-diamond character with a history of criminal activity)'s father and his wife are trying to be allowed to foster children. They are going through the process of interviews and checking, and Paul (because he lives with them in their B&B) has to take part. He is unwilling but doesn't want to shatter his doting father's dreams. At the same time he has also, apropos of absolutely nothing (do you see where I'm going here?) been teaching da local yoot basketball at the community centre, depsite having never shown the slightest interest (let alone enough skill that people would want him to share it with them), in his entire time in the programme.

So he's in the interview, smoking like a train, and it's not going swimmingly due to the evidence of air-bourne carcinogens, his rough diamond-ness and the whole criminal activity thing. Just as it looks as if he's completely blown the whole kaboodle, with his dad fuming outside the door, a whole bunch of the afore-mentioned yoofs barge in and demand to know where Paul's been and why he hasn't turned up to practice. One of them might even go so far as to say 'We can't do it without you' or some such nonsense. This, of course, swings the whole thing and the fostering deal is back on.

And this is just the problem: lazy, lazy writing. Shortcuts all over the place. Appaling character development. Spare a thought for poor old Gary Beadle (who plays Paul) - he has had some great storylines: His Mum clearly not caring two jots about him (culminating in him yelling 'what about me??!!?' at her as she died), his daughter being robbed from him by the mother, the big reveal of how he saved his doctor brother Anthony from jail. But these have been interspersed with moments where the script-writers clearly haven't had the first clue what to do with him, resulting in him being forced to portray every possible personality type from kicked puppy to Rude-bwoy Gangsta. To give him his due as one of the better actors on the show he's often risen to the challenge, but this isn't character development or depth, it's just inconsistant scripting.

Anyhoo, so there you go. Dear Auntie Beeb, please pull the plug on Eastenders, the great big weeping sore that it is. Thank you and good night.

Blimey, that was all a bit Televisionwithoutpity, wasn't it? Or did I even stray into TVgohome territory? Yeah, right, I wish. On a side note, Charlie Brooker's column Screenburn in this week's Guardian Guide was worth the price of the newspaper by itself, as is often the case...