Eastenders is so unlike the actual East End that it may as well be set in Narnia. The real East End has got Hawksmoor churches and fashionable nightclubs and a thriving Bangladeshi community; Wolford's just got Keith Miller swabbing windows with a rag on a stick.
EastEnders is a popular
Soap Opera on
The BBC, created as a competitor to
ITV's
Coronation Street. Since 1985, it has followed the lives of the inhabitants of Walford, a fictional district in the East End of London. Renowned for the absolute misery it inflicts on the characters, especially during the
Christmas season; this reputation prompted comedian/musican Bill Bailey to redub the instrumental theme tune as "Everyone Is Going To Die".
Famous plotlines:
- Who's Michelle's baby's father?
- Del & Angie's divorce
- "Sharongate"
- Who shot Phil Mitchell?
- The return of Dirty Den
- Dirty Den gets killed off again
- The Secret Mitchell
Tropes featured include:
- Bottle Episode (the famous two-hander episodes, and their variants - including four-handers and even a one-hander; these are also usually Locked In A Room)
- Brother Chuck (Sasha)
- Bus Crash (Mark)
- Crapsack World
- Death Is Cheap (Den)
- Downer Ending (The Ronnie/Danielle storyline, Dennis Rickman's death)
- Your Mileage May Vary on the Danielle part, since the ending simply turned a good story into...
- Shaggy Dog Story: The recent storyline of Ronnie and Danielle. Danielle is Ronnie's daughter, who Ronnie believed she had gotten rid of, and the show has spent the better part of 2008 and part of this year attempting to wrap it up, culminating in a scene at Peggy and Archie's wedding, wherein Danielle reveals to everyone that she was Ronnie's daughter. Ronnie angrily throws her out, believing her to be insane...until she sees a locket Danielle left there, and realises the truth. She immediately goes out to make amends with Danielle...only for Danielle to get run over by a drunken Janine. This troper and thousands of viewers found that they had totally utterly wasted the entire storyline with this move, and whats more, she may have been totally forgotten already.
- They also went out of their way to turn Archie into a Complete Monster, since he at first seems to want to keep Ronnie happy, but then eventually does it for his own reasons, and even goes as far as to try to kill Danielle. He gets his comeuppance though. Peggy angrily declares the wedding off and not only destroys all momentos of the occasion, she also orders Phil to kill Archie.
- I'll Flaming Well Kill You!
- Internal Reveal: The show uses this technique for almost all of its major episodes.
- Killed Off For Real (Oh, so many...including Den, this time permanently, and recently Danielle)
- It was permanent the last few times too.
- Kray Winstone ("The Firm")
- Long Bus Trip (Yolande)
- Mc Leaned (Martine McCutcheon who played Tiffany)
- The Other Darrin (Mark, Martin, Sam, Peggy, Steven, Peter, Lucy, Janine)
- Put On A Bus (Or more commonly, a black cab or a train)
- Real Life Writes The Plot (Spencer was hastily written out after actor Chris Parker attempted suicide. Similarly, the actor playing Gavin Sharp was abruptly axed so Gavin's storyline was wrapped up with a throwaway line of dialogue)
- The Scrappy (Ferreira family)
- Soapland Christmas (oh yeah)
- Tear Jerker (Ronnie Mitchell finally finding out Danielle was her daughter and the climax of it. Dear God.)
- And many others. If the East Enders writers, actors and crew want to bring a tear to the audience's eye, they usually succeed.
- Trailers Always Spoil: Subverted at times, when they insert fake spoilers into their trailers to throw fans off the scent
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Dundundundun!
