Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts

Friday, 25 November 2016

Coronation Street plot hole hell

Reposted from State of the Street with permission

I initially thought this storyline with Caz and Maria was good. It kept my interest as Caz became more obsessed with Maria, manipulating and lying. But in the past few weeks it's getting rather bizarre. Now Maria is being suspected of Murder with no body (because we know Caz isn't dead) and plenty of evidence that isn't even strong enough to be considered circumstantial. I can usually suspend disbelief for the most part but this storyline is starting to get out of control. I hope when Caz is discovered alive, Maria gets an apology from the police and from that self righteous Kate but I doubt it will happen.

Caz was only gone a few hours and everyone was hopping up and down saying she'd disappeared mysteriously. Then, after the bloody handprint and blood on the wall (surely a blood splatter expert could tell something from that), Fiz finds a bloody rug in their wheely bin. I don't understand it, though. If it was Maria that had really killed Caz, she wouldn't hide the bloody rug in Tyrone and Fiz's bin. I guess where it's a set up by Caz, I can see her doing it to bring more attention to doubt Maria's state of mind. It's not as if that bin was near either end of the ginnel, it's in the middle! Wouldn't any old bin do?


Caz must have an Invisibility Cloak. She's been hanging out and lurking in the ginnel.

She must have slipped into Maria's just after she left for work. Nobody saw her. Maria was at work, left again, went to the pub, left again so she wasn't gone all that long and there was Caz about to make her escape from the flat in broad daylight. Yet, Maria got pulled away for a cuppa by Eva so Caz didn't leave after all, she went back upstairs. Why?


She ended up using Maria's scissors to open up a cut that was already on her hand and then replaced the scissors in Maria's case with a half-hazard swipe at the handle of the scissors and later, another swipe at the top of the case, presumably to wipe fingerprints off.

In this day and age of technology and DNA, it would be pretty obvious that wouldn't get rid of any evidence that Caz had touched the case. You just know that the police will not find a thing, though, right?

And another thing. How long was Caz in that flat? Must have been hours, yet we saw her put the scissors in the case and later, much later it must have been, after we saw Maria finish her police interview, Caz was only folding up the case just then. I do wonder why Maria never had the locks changed in the flat once she got home and all this started up.

Oh yes, the case. It's a bit odd that someone that has a permanent job in a salon would carry their work gear back and forth each day, especially when she only lives over the shop anyway. We've never seen Audrey carry hers in of a morning nor David nor anyone else in the history of the salon.

We also found out that Caz has installed a remote webcam and is monitoring it on a tablet from a room somewhere. At the very least it might be a shelter or hostel though it looks much nicer than that. Caz is broke, no job, no mates. The stolen credit card explains the tablet and webcam but Maria was in London a few weeks ago now, was she planning on video spying on her even then? Caz doesn't seem like a planner, more of an off the cuff kind of woman. And did it take Maria that long to cancel the credit card? If Caz's paying any sort of rent, I'd like to know how. Was she on benefits? I doubt the army would have given her a severance if they dishonourably discharged her. Perhaps she had pension money due.

She was buying things in London using Maria's credit card, where's the CCTV footage? London's full of it!

The police turned up to search the flat and the salon. They claimed it was a tip off. Doesn't that raise alarm bells? And Aidan managed to get the bloody scissors out the door and into the nearest bin, the one outside the factory. Yet the police didn't find the scissors case which still had blood in it, in the flat where it wasn't really well hidden.

It's all confusing and though I did like the storyline, it's getting more and more difficult to ignore the plot holes, as deep as the Mariana trench.

Tvor - twitter @tvordlj



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Wednesday, 31 August 2016

Current frustrations about Coronation Street

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog August 2016, reposted to this blog with permission.)

There's a lot I'm loving about Coronation Street at the moment.

But there are a few loose ends that need tying up...

Last night on Coronation Street in the Rovers Return, Maria and Kate talked about Manchester Pride. Maria reminded everyone that she had a gay ex-boyfriend in Marcus Dent.  She seems to have forgotten that she's still married to a gay man called Pablo.

Since Izzy returned from jail she's not mentioned her chronic pain once, not once. This is the chronic pain that got her into jail in the first place when she chose the medicinal cannabis route to ease her pain.

Since Carla left, Nick's rages and brain injury symptoms have disappeared completely.

And as for Emily... is she ever coming back?  The official line is, we've been told here at the Coronation Street Blog by ITV, that the actress is on "extended leave for family reasons".  As fans, we've invested decades worth of believe-ability into Emily Nugent/Bishop. Will we not get closure, a chance to say a proper goodbye?

But it's not all doom and gloom - have a look at what I'm loving about Corrie right now.



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Wednesday, 16 July 2014

Come on Corrie, get a grip!

(This post was originally posted by Graeme N on the Coronation Street Blog in July 2014.)

I've been commenting *moaning* on Twitter a lot over the past few days about the current state of Coronation Street. I've been watching Corrie since the early 1990s and mostly I've watched religiously. I'm worried though that I'm now starting to slip away from my favourite telly programme.

I started watching Corrie really just because it was on. My mum always watched it, as did my gran. It was part of life. At the tail end of the pre-digital age it still commanded massive viewing figures without having to resort to desperate measures to encourage people to tune in. Corrie had just gone to three episodes a week but we were yet to experience Sunday episodes, double episodes on a Monday and Friday or entire week long "specials". 

Corrie wasn't repeated on other ITV channels immediately after it was shown, there was no catch-up service and hardly any special documentaries. It was shown at 7.30pm three times a week and that was that. And for us, then, it was enough. Corrie was a treat to watch. It was a viewing highlight. 

Competing in a multi-channel media age is harming my favourite soap opera. Ratings are the most important factor. This means the schedules are saturated with Corrie, still an ITV cash cow. Everything is explosive. There are so many twists and turns I'm left exhausted, but I just don't really care like I did. Opportunities are missed for classic characters like Deirdre, Audrey and Emily while the likes of Tina, Peter and Rob dominate continuously without a let up.

Not every character needs to bed hop. We don't need to be subjected to an explosive exit every time a Weatherfield regular leaves. Every character must experience an extreme, there's no middle ground any more.

Whatever happened to small things happening to normal characters that affected them in a big way? These days massive events happen to characters at such regular intervals that all believability is lost. It was always the simple, quiet, tender moments that made me watch The Street. We, the viewer, tuned in to see things happen to our favourite characters that could or indeed had happened to us. There was empathy, a shared history and truth. The dialogue was sharp, funny and warm. We still get snatches of these wonderful qualities but more often than not we get characters behaving badly, the dialogue spiteful and cruel at times. 

I recently watched two classic Corrie episodes from 1992 on Youtube. Not that long ago really, but the difference in quality, storytelling and all round performances was striking. In the first episode Alma Sedgwick married Mike Baldwin while Don Brennan went off the rails. In the second, Lisa Duckworth gave birth to Tommy while Rita's husband Ted passed away. Both episodes featured big life events - marriage, infidelity, the arrival of new life and the ending of another. Big events for any of us but portrayed realistically and with feeling. 

The other striking aspect of both episodes was that they displayed a quality Coronation Street used to portray so so well. Switching from comedy to tragedy, light to shade, with such ease. Showing one marriage begin while another reaches the end of the road and the creation of new life while another is snuffed out may seem predictable but the combination really does prove effective. 

These days such qualities are far less in evidence as far as I can see. There has been far too much doom and gloom of late and very little humour. The Powers that Be need to enlist the help of the Corrie archivist to demonstrate how cracking working class storytelling used to be done. 

I know times change and many aspects of the old Coronation Street wouldn't pass muster in this more sophisticated modern age but I really strongly believe that the original qualities of Corrie, dating all the way back to December 1960, can still be relevant today. 

I saw something online earlier this week quoting Russell T Davies, creator of Queer As Folk, saying that the future of soap operas was now looking rather shaky and wondering whether they would all survive another ten years. 


I sincerely hope Corrie does survive and goes on to flourish for many more years to come. I do however, think it needs to look back so it can move forward. 


Follow me on Twitter @GraemeN82




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Tuesday, 29 January 2013

Oh for goodness sake, Coronation Street!

(This post was originally posted by Graeme N on the Coronation Street Blog in January 2013.)

I'm in whingey, whiney mode again, and I make no apologies for this. I feel like I'm performing a public service! What is going on with Coronation Street? It's beginning to drive me bonkers.


Is there something in the water in Weatherfield? Less that two weeks ago Fiz-Bomb Stape was nearly gassed to death in her very own front parlour and what now? Back, full of life, slopping out cold beans and limp toast to Jason "I've got my hands on Stella's pumps" Grimshaw. Not in the real world.


And as for Jason and St Ella, the Cougar of the parish. What are the Coronation Street production team trying to do to me? Do they really not like me at all? Do they know I need to diet after Christmas so they've produced this coupling to put me off my Scotch pies and Tunnocks Teacakes? Perhaps Jason will be the dumper this time instead of the dumped and surprise us all?

The Roy and Mary thing? Not again! Now, I really like Roy and Mary is ok in small doses, but I feel this has been done to death already. Now we know Hayley is leaving I get nervous every time I see Mary circling Roy like a barmy piranha. Please do not put them together. I worry a future plot line will see Roy taped up and held prisoner in that motorhome.

Leanne and Nick. Leanne and Peter. Carla and Peter. Leanne and Nick again. How many more permutations of this can we cope with? I am waiting for the writers to have them all go gay. We are getting to the point where this story is not only scraping the bottom of the barrel, it's underneath it. I'm surprised we've not had Leanne having an affair with Carla and Peter shacking up with Nick. Give it time...

How many times have we seen the classic plot device of a one night stand leading to a pregnancy? Here we go again, this time with David and Kylie. And how many times have we had a desperate dash to an abortion clinic to stop it taking place? Such issues are not to be taken lightly but it feels like it's storylining by numbers to add to the "explosive" drama. 



And three special requests: No more boring faktry stories with Apprentice rejects Michelle and Rob. Before much longer please let Norris be nice, not this nasty, cantankerous old sourpuss he's become. And  finally...enough with all the shouting! Corrie never used to be this way! Aggression all over the place! It's unnecessary, adds nothing and reminds me of a lesser soap opera on the other side...




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Friday, 27 January 2012

Norris in the loo

Most of the time, I can suspend disbelief. I know that you have to do that for television fiction, they do take liberties. But I just can't imagine that Norris would have been locked in the lavvy all weekend. It was a Friday episode when he was locked in but a Monday episode (originally aired in the UK) when he was let out.

Doesn't Roy open the cafe on weekends? Saturdays at least? It always seems to be open. And wouldn't they hear Norris hollering from down below them or hear the lavvy flush over the weekend?

Even if the cafe is closed, Roy and Hayley still use the staircase right next to the lavvy to go up and down and out of the flat through the cafe all the time. As far as I know, there is no other external door to the flat other than through the business premises. Surely Norris would hear someone coming and make noise.

I might believe an overnight in the loo, but not a whole weekend. Sorry. Can't buy this one.

edited to add: I think they seemed to make out it was only overnight and I think Roy did make some comment about hearing a vague thumping overnight. But what I said still goes. The building wouldn't be *that* soundproof that either Roy or Hayley wouldn't have heard something and investigate.

Friday, 28 October 2011

Inequities in Love and War

As you know, Peter nearly put a pasting on Nick in revenge for the affair with Leanne. I ask you, is that fair?

Well, in a soap world, yes it is. But it also makes me wonder, what about Leanne's part in all this? She was a willing participant, after all. I'm not suggesting Peter should rough her up, because that's not morally or politically correct, is it? But I've just had to have a bit of a rant here about the inequity of it all.

Thursday, 20 October 2011

Slick Nick: A Rant

(This post was originally posted on The State of the Street

Nick Tilsley is making a habit of ticking me off. Oh, I think Ben Price is doing a fine job but the character is getting slimier and more of a lowlife every day. This is nothing new for Nick, mind you, he's got a long history of it. Selfish, arrogant and persistent, that's RNicky. I've blogged a longer rant about it over here.

Friday, 19 August 2011

Tina's getting on my last nerve

Ok, is Tina getting on anyone else's nerves or is it just me?

When she started on the show a couple of years ago, a gobby, smart alecky teen paired up with David, I really liked her. She had spark and sparkle and she brought out the best in David until she brought out the worst in him. But she's starting to turn into a screechy, mouthy, trashy gobshite. It started when her father died and she was convinced that Gail killed him. She then turned her attitude on Jason and lobbed him off her radar.She's also pretty flippant to Norris, who employs her but then, you can't really blame her for that.

She is now involved with gentle Graham who's just grateful that such a beautiful woman would look twice at him. And, by the way, it also looks like they're turning her into someone that jumps from bed to bed, albeit serial monogomy, but she's not long out of one set of sheets before she's into another. But I digress.

At the moment she's convinced that David tried to kill Graeme in spite of the fact that David actually loves Graeme as a best friend and really has no motive. He finally managed to get over the rage that his best friend was with the woman he still loved (or was obsessed with, at any rate) and was really very sorry that he came over all aggressive with Tina a few weeks ago. She geared up the gob then and it's shifted into overdrive.

I'll grant you that David has done very little to endear Tina to him in the past and it's easy to see why she'd jump to the wrong conclusion in some ways but Graeme was furious with David for trying it on with her and scaring her and he's got far more reason to run David down than the other way around. But Tina hasn't stopped accusing, loudly, and being rude and ignorant and really looking like a lowlife. She's shouting at him in the courthouse after he collapsed, she's hollering at him across the street, she's accusing and branding him non-stop and I'm ready to smack her one.

Not that I condone violence. But it's a soap and it's tv and it's not real life so why can't I be at the head of the bitch slap line if I want to if it's just a virtual one? Join me?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Thursday, 5 May 2011

Tram? What Tram?


(This post was originally posted by me on the Coronation Street Blog in July, 2010, reposted with permission.)

So a tram is going to crash off the viaduct and wreak carnage on the far end of Coronation Street? Isn't it odd that we see the tram going by in the opening credits (is it still there in the new HD credits? I must remember to look.) but we never *ever* see or hear the tram go by in the outdoor scenes of the show. (Or, we never used to but now, if you listen closely, you will actually hear the swoosh of it going by. Coincidence?) If they use CGI to add it to the opening credits, surely they could do the same once in awhile in the outdoor scenes or at least use some added sound effects like they do with the Underground in Eastenders.

Further to that point, how come nobody working in the temporary knicker factory complains about the noise of the tram going by overhead? Surely there must be some noise or vibration involved even if the viaduct surrounding the factory is brick. It can't be that well sound proofed!

Friday, 29 April 2011

Corrie in Canada: There are several words that rhyme with Nick...

(This post was originally posted by me on the Coronation Street Blog in July, 2010, reposted with permission.)

One of those words starts with P and one starts with D. Neither are flattering. It's not as if the character of Nick Tilsley wasn't already sinking lower and lower in my eyes before now. He's a jumped up Mike Baldwin Wannabe with a poker up his backside and a nasty temperment, at least with his workers. He's using Natasha, clearly not that into her but letting her go on and on planning their future together when he has no intentions of sticking with her for the long run. But last night, he was sucking up to Leanne and then complaining because Carla gave him a taste of his own medicine and then asked her if she ever wondered if she ever pictured them together with a baby of their own...HOW FLAMIN' DARE HE!!??

If that isn't the epitome of bad taste, and quite a few other bad words that I can't use on a family blog.... You cannot imagine how much ranting I did last night watching this. I was absolutely gobsmacked that Nick would stoop so low and ask Leanne so thoughtless a question after *he* was the one that insisted she abort their baby when they were married and *still* scarpered off to Canada leaving her to deal with the breakup and her emotions on her own. What an Arse! And that's a polite way of putting it. He is officially my most hated character now! He might be a Baldwin pretender but he most certainly doesn't have the charm that Mike had to go along with it. He's just a lowlife. A selfish, whining, slimy sleezeball!!

I rest my case.
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