“Big” things in soap which now feel like they never happened?
KornerKabin
Posts: 21,533 Forum Member
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This is very open and can relate to storylines, events and characters from any soap.
I stared thinking about this after a discussion in another thread about Coronation Street, and ingot to thinking about characters, storylines or events which seemed gargantuan and impactful at the time, but have become what feel like small blips in the wider sweeps of whichever soap they appeared in.
The example I will give is also from Corrie and it is the character of Stella Price. At the time, Coronation Street managing to cast Michelle Collins was a big enough coup to make a huge impact — but the writers went further and gave the character the most coveted role as Rovers landlady while also making her the long-lost mother of Leanne’s, one of the shows strongest characters. Stella was quickly integrated with other characters and stories. In fact, this was almost too quick and it seemed as though Stella was involved in everyone story, especially early on in her run.
Let’s also not forget that Stella was so over-used that it spawned the incomparable and never-forgotten STELLA WEEK thread on DS.
Yet, more than a decade since her first appearance, it’s as if the character never existed despite her daughters both being on the show.
Any other characters or storylines that were similar to this?
I stared thinking about this after a discussion in another thread about Coronation Street, and ingot to thinking about characters, storylines or events which seemed gargantuan and impactful at the time, but have become what feel like small blips in the wider sweeps of whichever soap they appeared in.
The example I will give is also from Corrie and it is the character of Stella Price. At the time, Coronation Street managing to cast Michelle Collins was a big enough coup to make a huge impact — but the writers went further and gave the character the most coveted role as Rovers landlady while also making her the long-lost mother of Leanne’s, one of the shows strongest characters. Stella was quickly integrated with other characters and stories. In fact, this was almost too quick and it seemed as though Stella was involved in everyone story, especially early on in her run.
Let’s also not forget that Stella was so over-used that it spawned the incomparable and never-forgotten STELLA WEEK thread on DS.
Yet, more than a decade since her first appearance, it’s as if the character never existed despite her daughters both being on the show.
Any other characters or storylines that were similar to this?
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Comments
I didn’t mind Stella on Corrie but she was too recognisable as Cindy from EastEnders
Only mistake writer’s made was her and Jason Grimshaw
What was? Stella Price?
Ahhh this is a GREAT example. Absolutely fantastic.
It’s also a shame that Amber has been forgotten about completely. She was a great character with lots of potential.
I was holding off mentioning this but this is the biggest single example in my mind … and it was also one of the final nails in the coffin of me as a regular Corrie viewer.
There were two issues with the tram crash and its impact on the show:
1. No big enough characters died so once the immediate aftermath had passed, there was nobody to remember who’d been lost.
2. The decision to rebuild everything identically was a very poor production choice … especially because they had destroyed the sets anyway.
It's one of my biggest bugbears in soap that everything that gets destroyed is rebuilt in the same way but it was particularly noticeable here. There should have at least been a memorial of some short for such a big event.
Now they're all friends again as if nothing happened.
He dominated the show for a whole decade but very shortly after he left it was like he had never existed.
I feel like when Clenshaw got Ian back he went out of his way to ensure this wasn't mentioned as it was barely brought up. As a producer he seemed to absolutely adore the show's history while simultaneously navigating around parts he perhaps disagreed with, even if it was incredibly recent stuff that should've had direct impact.
It is funny to me that during the Six, Sharon only makes a vague reference to Den's death - and not even his actual death, his fake death - when she tells the women not to throw Keanu's body in the canal, and now we've got Wadey bringing up Zoe's involvement in Den's death what feels like every other week.
I'm not saying either one is more correct than the other, just interesting to see difference in perspectives and what to bring up/when.
I agree with you that Ashley and Molly were big characters, but what I mean is that they weren’t big enough to create that legacy. In Ashley’s case especially, anyone who would remember him closely were either already dead (Fred, Maxine) or written out within a matter of months (Claire, Joshua, Freddie, Graeme).
Molly was a strange one because her death was too tangled up with “Molvin” that nobody actually had any sympathy for her. In fact, the only lasting outcome of her death was that Kevin and Sally split up for good … which was actually the only long-term impact of the tram crash overall. However, Molly as a character had few connections beyond Tyrone and the Websters. She wasn’t particularly connected with Sunita or Dev even though she worked in the corner shop and Auntie Pam vanished soon after Molly had died. So, again, there wasn’t really anyone to mourn her.
I listened to part of the Conversation Street podcast about the tram crash and was interested to hear that Bill Tarmey had asked for Jack Duckworth to be killed off in the tram crash but producers decided Jack needed a more poignant departure (which I agree with).
The event isn't even a year gone, and it really comes off like it never even happened.
I find it interesting that production teams actively avoid any lasting consequences from all of the various disasters and traumas characters experience — whether those consequences are physical or mental.
For example, Emmerdale made a huge commitment for Chris Tate to become permanently disabled in the plane crash. I cannot imagine a soap making that sort of call nowadays. Or if they do have some sort of permanent injury, they choose something that doesn’t have a particular impact on the character (for example Ryan’s burns in Corrie) or is made invisible … or even worse forgotten completely.
Todd’s ‘life changing scar’ in Corrie that he got approx 10 years ago in a attack that slowly started to disappear and then when the new actor took over the role, the scar was none existent
It was supposed to have a huge impact but they've just been forgotten (and healed up, by the looks of Kat's décolletage).
Tbf he didn’t exactly vanish for a month there was about a month of him mentioning being scared of leaving the house which is more aftermath than usually happens. He just got over that with no explanation (did he get counselling?)
Maybe this is just me but I'm far more interested in the aftermath and what does that to characters than the actual stunt itself. I hate it when a big stunt happens and everyone's moved on in a matter of episodes.
I suppose it would get tiring just watching characters deal with trauma for weeks or months on end but there must be some sort of middle ground.