CLASSIC EASTENDERS | Drama MON-FRI
The BIG stories from a week of timeless drama…
Den’s DEAD END!
SOAP’S SECOND COMING COMES TO ITS DRAMATIC CLIMAX…
EPISODES FROM FEB 2006
The end is nigh for Dirty Den this week. Despite returning in what might be the biggest blaze of publicity the show had ever seen, Den 2.0 never seemed to quite land.
The ‘Shannis’ affair (Den’s daughter Sharon and her sort-of brother Dennis) caught the public imagination, while Den’s wife – corkscrew-haired, catty, conniving Chrissie – was pure soap gold. Den, however, seemed a little past his best for the plots the show threw
at him – more old letch than old rogue; charmless rather than charming. Add to this some rather grubby off-screen scandal for Leslie Grantham (which we won’t go into here), and Den’s card became well and truly marked as the soap headed to its 20th anniversary, producers realising they could kill two birds with one stone. And the show definitely made a purse out of a sow’s ear on this one. The teaming up of Zoe, Sam and Chrissie against Den (like the modernday ‘Six’ buffering at 50%); a twist on who issued the fatal blow (which will also be echoed two decades later); and then a surprise return for Sharon brought us a storyline now considered one of the show’s classics.
You again realise how much the present day owes to this plot, as Den’s corpse is stashed in some convenient building work (the Vic barrel store, which is ironically the preferred venue for most of The Six’s corpsecovering conflabs these days). And with Zoe thinking she was the killer, when in fact it was Chrissie – who delivered the classic line: “I may not be the first woman in your life, but I’ll certainly be the last!” – there was promise of great drama still on the horizon.
Den’s comeback may not have lived up to the hype, but him heading six feet under sent him out on a high.
Sarah’s agony…
EPISODES FROM JUNE 2004
CLASSIC CORONATION STREET | ITV3 MON-FRI
It’s a sad time this week, as we see Sarah and Todd’s newborn baby Billy pass away. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that Todd’s relationship with another man has just been revealed to all, with shattered Sarah refusing to let Todd visit his premature son before the tragedy strikes.
The fallout from all of this spreads far and wide, with Martin realising that his schoolgirl girlfriend Katy isn’t perhaps emotionally intelligent enough to deal with what’s happening – though we’re not sure what he was expecting as a thirtysomething man when he began dating a 16-year-old.
Elsewhere, it’s the old cliche ‘lik
