Day 16...

Good morning, all.

Before we get onto today's subject, there's an update on yesterday's, justifying his inclusion on the Dystopian Advent Calendar. Michael McIntyre has proven his light entertainment credentials by signing up as a judge on Britain's Got Talent. Good lord, shoot me now. Last year's advent calendar alumni Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell are still there (the later only cropping up later in the series, but still), Piers Morgan's fucked off to replace Larry King of all people (how?!  How are these ridiculous things happening in the world?!), and they're joined by David Hasselhoff (a man who does a decent enough job of parodying himself, but maybe he'll be here on next year's advent calendar... we'll see how much he annoys in 2011). Hasselhoff aside, the full set of bastards have been on the calendar now. I hope they all annoy you as much as they annoy me.

So, today's window, then. Earlier in the year, I sang the praises of EastEnders around its 25th anniversary. The storylines were more compelling than usual, the standard of acting (apart from a couple of dregs who have since departed) far surpassed that of your usual soap opera stereotypes, and it showed that it was capable of pulling the rug from under your expectations on occasion. It was in the best shape it had been in years. That was mainly down to departing Executive Producer Diedrick Santer, who had guided the show to the brilliance it was more than capable of.

But then he left. And things went rapidly downhill under his replacement. Ladies and gentlemen...

... Bryan Kirkwood.

When I first heard that the former producer of Hollyoaks was being drafted in, I was a little worried about the state of the show to come. Looks like my fears have come true. During his tenure, Phil Mitchell has developed an addiction to crack; it took a pesky fire (where nobody died, unusual for a soap) to cure him within a couple of weeks, Shirley has lost any morality she developed as a character since she joined, pretty much going back to square one, the excruciating Gold family have been brought in, where we were supposed to care about the failing marriage of orange woman Vanessa and her Dominic Littlewood-alike husband, and the paternity revelation of their moon-faced daughter, eldest Branning daughter Lauren has been recast as an animatronic drama school gonk with jazz hands and a whole new personality (which seems as though it was poorly written on a beermat and typed into the show bible verbatim), Ben Mitchell has resurfaced with a new face (specifically Jay's), utilising the first use of split screen in a soap opera when he appears in a scene with said character, with a generic Mitchell characterisation grafted on, entirely replacing the old character to the point of being unrecognisable, Billie Jackson's death was poorly handled and with no dramatic lead-up, a poor pay-off for the build up of his joining the army... In a nutshell, it's become embarrassing.

EastEnders can be good. It has been good. But the man in charge is overseeing a show that has all the believability and impact as... well, Hollyoaks. I hope his tenure is a short one. He certainly shouldn't be running something as high profile as EastEnders. Perhaps there's a Primark in need of a changing room attendant somewhere. In the meantime, the only "doof doof" moments I want to hear are Kirkwood getting beaten up in a car park.

Back tomorrow evening for the 17th window. Fuckity bye!