EastEnders

My favorite tv show is EastEnders hands down. EastEnders is a British soap opera that's been on since the 80s. Ok, I know what you're thinking...soaps are stupid and a waste of time. I would agree with you if you were talking about American soaps. I can't stand to watch "Guiding Light" or "All My Children" or anything like that. (I briefly watched "Days of our Lives", but eventually gave it up.) Most Australian soaps are kind of bad, too, although I did watch an Australian soap called "Home and Away" for a brief period. It was full of bad acting and far-fetched plot lines, but I got sucked in anyway.

EastEnders has good acting and believable writing. It is set in an area of the East End in London called Walford. Walford doesn't really exist. I know, because when I lived in London there was nowhere called Walford on the tube map. (I also asked some co-workers and they verified that Walford wasn't real.) Walford has a town square called Albert Square and most of the characters live near the square.

I watch EastEnders on a local station called KBTC. It is a PBS station, so it's not like BBC America or something. Therefore, the shows are about three years old. My dad likes to send me clippings about what is happening on EastEnders currently, but there are characters that I haven't even heard of since I am so far behind.

The best thing about EastEnders is that the characters seem real. They are almost all scraping to get by, so you don't have a stinking rich family like the Courtlands on "All My Children". A lot of the characters have menial jobs, like working at the caf, working at Phil Mitchell's garage, The Arches, working at Peggy Mitchell's pub, the Queen Vic, or working on a stall at the market in the square. There are a couple characters that are businessmen, like Ian Beal (who everyone hates because he is an annoyng twit), Beppe DiMarco, who is co-owner of the E 20 nightclub with Steve Owen, who is also a little better off financially than a lot of the characters.

The other thing that makes EastEnders so believable is that they don't have plot lines that involve evil twins, amnesia, or people coming back from the dead. Most of the storylines have to do with relationships, double-crossing, breaking up, getting married, having kids and generally getting into each other's business. It sounds like a Lifetime movie, but the stories in EastEnders are better executed.

Every now and then, the show will have a blockbuster episode. This usually happens when a character is leaving the show, either by moving or dying. (That is one interesting thing that I find about EastEnders...when characters move, even just out of the square, you never see them again. I guess that is the nature of soaps.) One of the the most gripping episodes of EastEnders that I've seen was when Tiffany was killed. Grant, her husband, had a terrible temper and they got in a fight. Grant "accidentally" pushed her down the stairs at the Queen Vic. We thought that was the end of her, but she got up and ran out the door, only to be mowed down by Frank, who hit her with his car. We thought she was going to make it, but eventually died "in hospital". The actress, Martine McCutcheon, must have gotten a better acting offer, because I later saw in the romantic comedy, "Love, Actually".

If you ever get a chance to watch EastEnders, I would highly recommend it. They do have thick cockney accents that can be hard to understand, but I find that rather endearing. With all crap that is on tv now, like "American Idol" and "Survivor", EastEnders is one show that is actually worth watching, even if it is a sopa opera. I guess you could call it another one of my guilty pleasures...