Would you say Emmerdale as a soap are in a complete mess and what do you think can be done to fix it — Digital Spy

Would you say Emmerdale as a soap are in a complete mess and what do you think can be done to fix it

owen10owen10 Posts: 136,945
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edited 16/10/24 - 22:53 in Soaps #1
It is really hard to watch Emmerdale these days when there are so many storylines that are pathetic and dont make any sense. The producers dont seem to care about the show anymore and it is going downhill pretty fast. The last straw would have to be the whole Belle coercive abuse storyline with it never ending because Moira cant remember anything about the tablet. But can remember everything else. The Kim and Will storyline where it is going around in circles. Why dont they just either split up or get back together. Why pro long the agony. Billy doing illegal fighting because he loves the buzz of it. The producers will do anything to give him and Dawn a storyline just to make them less boring. And just dont get me started with Amelia thinking Tom loves her when they have never kissed or slept together. Is she really that dumb to think he wants her. The show cant go on like this as there are so many things to fix. Maybe a huge clearout is needed and stop focusing on the Dingles all the time

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  • PopsiemiaPopsiemia Posts: 5,326
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    edited 16/10/24 - 22:59 #2
    owen10 wrote: »
    It is really hard to watch Emmerdale these days when there are so many storylines that are pathetic and dont make any sense. The producers dont seem to care about the show anymore and it is going downhill pretty fast. The last straw would have to be the whole Belle coercive abuse storyline with it never ending because Moira cant remember anything about the tablet. But can remember everything else. The Kim and Will storyline where it is going around in circles. Why dont they just either split up or get back together. Why pro long the agony. Billy doing illegal fighting because he loves the buzz of it. The producers will do anything to give him and Dawn a storyline just to make them less boring. And just dont get me started with Amelia thinking Tom loves her when they have never kissed or slept together. Is she really that dumb to think he wants her. The show cant go on like this as there are so many things to fix. Maybe a huge clearout is needed and stop focusing on the Dingles all the time

    I would agree with you, Owen.
    Though nothing any of us say seems to make a blind bit of difference.
    They just seem to retcon everything to fit in with their way of thinking.
  • owen10owen10 Posts: 136,945
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    edited 16/10/24 - 23:39 #3
    Too right. Oh and i forgot to add that Dawn and Billy moved into a property that was quite expensive. And paid three months rent with money that did not belong to them. Now they cant afford the rent because there is not enough money coming in despite Billy having a business which we hardly see. What i cant i get me head around is why did they think they could afford the rent just with Billys wages also with having bills to be pay. Babys clothes need to be bought. Taxis to and from the hospital. Also food shopping. It all adds up. If only they had a step mother that could bail them out once in a while. Oh wait
  • ianradioianianradioian Posts: 78,525
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    I'm no lover of Dingledale , at all. A far more balanced range of characters are needed with a ruthless culling of crap deadwood.
  • SteveHardy1985SteveHardy1985 Posts: 8,259
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    I've spoken about this countless times between the Emmerdale Currently thread and the thread on Evan's Leukemia, but the show is in a state.


    All ones has to do is look at the statements given by production and then compare to onscreen events to showcase what's wrong with the show.




    For example, here's what Shaw said when Eric was diagnosed with Parkinson's:



    The unique position of a show like Emmerdale means we can tell this story really authentically over a long period of time and we can really shine a light on what a diagnosis like this means and follow Pollard on his journey of learning to live with it. Working closely with Parkinson's UK, who have been guiding us through every step of the way, we hope seeing Pollard's story helps to raise awareness of Parkinson’s and show the day to day reality of those living with it, as well as the impact it can have on friends, family and the local community.




    What day to day reality have they shown?



    Has Eric even been seen at home with it? Have we seen Brenda helping him? Going through problems coping with it?



    When has the community ever had ANY input in this storyline or reacted to it? When Eric randomly turned into a prick earlier in the year?



    Where have any of Eric's appointments been? Have they even shown one?



    What was the point of this story?






    Here's what was said regarding Evan's diagnosis of leukaemia:



    What we really wanted to show with this story is what a stress and strain a long-term illness like this can put on a family.



    What we'll see is how the roles of Dawn and Billy are changed almost overnight and out of nowhere. We'll see how Lucas and Clemmie are affected and the stress that it puts on those sibling dynamics.



    We'll see how this affects Billy and Dawn's relationship, the wider family in Kim and Will, and all of their friends.



    There's also the financial pressure that looking after a child long-term like that can put on a whole family. That's going to be a big story for us going forward.






    What stress and strain did they actually show? It certainly wasn't from Evan because instead they decided to randomly have Dawn's mum show up, have her randomly start a scam plot with Ruby, and have spiking, cheating, and bribery ruin the family. When has Evan's illness been more than a problem in dialogue?



    What about the family dynamics have changed? What exactly is so different? When have Lucas and Clemmie ever had any impact in this storyline at all? Were their feelings ever important to the story?



    What mates of Dawn and Billy have been affect? What mates do they even have? Were Kim and Will affect? When? Before or after Rose ruining them?



    Where are the financial troubles? What, now? With the most contrived setup where production had Dawn and Billy move out of Home Farm, use all their money on renting the largest property possible and then complain about finances?




    Is it the underground boxing? Do most parents going through this turn to that?




    How is any of this a natural presentation of the topic?





    This isn't even going into the sensational drivel they've made of Belle's abuse with electrocutions, axings, flip flopping family, etc. or question why Heath was ever killed when Brenda disappeared, Cathy disappeared, and Bob had a few episodes of grief then came back as normal Bob.



    None of that even needs elaboration because the juxtaposition between what production claims is happening in the two aforementioned [medical] storylines and what occurred onscreen is enough proof that Emmerdale has fundamental, damaging issues at its core now.



    It's not about poor episode to episode writing. The vision from production genuinely isn't translating to screen at all.



    That's...really horrid. It's one thing to try, but produce flawed stories.


    However, to outright claim the show will do one thing and in many cases do the exact opposite; that's a complete and utter failure of one's job as producer.



    Either they truly believe they're delivering this content and they're not, or they know they aren't and will pat themselves on the back in interviews anyway.



    Whatever the case may be, it's a terrible way to run a soap.
  • TurbsTurbs Posts: 10,634
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    Not really anything to add to Steve's excellent savaging of modern Emmerdale.

    I think they probably count Clemmie and Lucas being homeschooled as one of their major impacts on the family. That made no sense though as the justification was to maintain a sterile environment for Evan whilst nobody else in the house gave a toss and they didn't even start locking the front door as a basic precaution. Moving out of Home Farm wasn't really about doing the best thing for Evan and was really driven by Dawn falling out with Kim and her father and flouncing off.

    Eric's situation has been a complete farce.
  • yohinnchildyohinnchild Posts: 53,062
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    Its Award Winning content!

    Expect nothing to change :)
  • Hound of LoveHound of Love Posts: 82,403
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    The fabulous Ross Barton is returning to ED

    So it's not all bad
  • Kenzie70Kenzie70 Posts: 1,760
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    None of the soaps are good at the moment.

    However, Emmerdale is far better than Eastenders and that gets praised non stop on here, despite constant nonsense stories.
  • SeagullNippleSeagullNipple Posts: 6,744
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    The only soap that's a complete mess would be Coronation Street. Emmerdale is suffering in terms of storylines and characters on screen, but it would be pretty easy to fix Emmerdale again.

    They need to populate the village again. Make Nicola and Laurel busy and show Bob grieving. Get Scott Windsor back for a stint - him and Kim would make an interesting dynamic.

    Bring in some good replacements for Edna, Betty, Steph Stokes, Alan Turner, Len and Pearl.
    Bring in a couple of new families, like the Marsdens, Kings, Daggarts, Reynolds who all got brought in within about 5 years of each other.

    Tempt Sadie King back. Would be absolutely delicious to see her sparring with Nicola and Kim. Perhaps a Claus in Tom's will meant Sadie has a claim to home farm. Jimmy helps Kim, Scott Windsor helps Sadie. She could also rile Chas and Charity too!
  • SteveHardy1985SteveHardy1985 Posts: 8,259
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    Turbs wrote: »
    Not really anything to add to Steve's excellent savaging of modern Emmerdale.

    I think they probably count Clemmie and Lucas being homeschooled as one of their major impacts on the family. That made no sense though as the justification was to maintain a sterile environment for Evan whilst nobody else in the house gave a toss and they didn't even start locking the front door as a basic precaution. Moving out of Home Farm wasn't really about doing the best thing for Evan and was really driven by Dawn falling out with Kim and her father and flouncing off.

    Eric's situation has been a complete farce.


    I think that's probably something they had in mind. That by showing them homeschooling the kids, it somehow amounted to depicting the problems the siblings are having when the homeschooling itself had no impact.


    You'd think one of the biggest issues that arose would be Lucas and Clemmie not being able to say, see their mates or something. Like they're invited to a birthday and can't go because they need to maintain The Bubble. Except nothing like that ever happened because Lucas and Clemmie weren't characters anyway. At this point, considering the two kids aren't ever shown, I'm struggling to know if they're even still being homeschooled or not...



    Kenzie70 wrote: »
    None of the soaps are good at the moment.

    However, Emmerdale is far better than Eastenders and that gets praised non stop on here, despite constant nonsense stories.

    I'm pretty sure its viewed generally more positively because even when EastEnders is bad, it still follows through on the intention of its storylines even if in a flawed way. Unlike Emmerdale, which often (not always, but frequently enough) fails to depict what the actual producers says the storylines are about. There's a difference between poor scripts/execution and outright failing to deliver on what an interview states the content of a storyline is.


    I'd actually argue that one of EastEnders smartest decisions in the past year is that Clenshaw and Oates rarely, if ever, state what a storyline will show. It's very rare for them to even set a standard or for them to say 'we're distinctly doing this.' As a result, its much harder to raise criticism of the fundamental storytelling because the producers aren't promising the viewer XYZ and failing to deliver. There might be storylines viewers hate, or that viewers dislike the writing/plotting on, but all the soaps have that. It's hard to find storylines in EastEnders where the provided information doesn't follow through with the content.


    Even in something huge, like the lead up to Christmas last year. I've seen many comments stating that the Six's toast back in February indicated the storyline was about men getting what they deserve. Except...Clenshaw never said this directly. It's entirely up to viewer interpretation what the theme and intention of the storyline is; some story beats from 2024 would suggest it wasn't strictly about that.


    I'm using that as a singular example and this is speaking generally (EastEnders hasn't done this 100% of the time), but overall EastEnders has followed this pattern.


    Much like with my comments on Corrie, I tend to raise criticism not [solely] when scripts are poor but when a producer comes on, claims the storyline is doing one thing, but the onscreen content is entirely contradictory to that. That's when I feel a soap is at its actual worst and numerous times now Emmerdale has fallen into that hole. If producer can't deliver on what they're saying a storyline is - as a viewer, what I'm meant to see in this story - then that's where I have a problem.


    I don't judge a soap, mainly, on my standard, I judge a soap on the standard/promise the producers themselves set and state.


    EastEnders has just been wise in not really doing that often, where both ITV soaps constantly claim they're doing something grand, yet the actual content doesn't mirror their own statements.


    Look, at the end of the day, I don't think it's right for a show to announce a Parkinson's diagnosis storyline and not depict a single element of that properly. That's just fundamentally bad especially when producers claim they're doing this to Raise Awareness and all that.


    The only soap that's a complete mess would be Coronation Street. Emmerdale is suffering in terms of storylines and characters on screen, but it would be pretty easy to fix Emmerdale again.

    They need to populate the village again. Make Nicola and Laurel busy and show Bob grieving. Get Scott Windsor back for a stint - him and Kim would make an interesting dynamic.

    Bring in some good replacements for Edna, Betty, Steph Stokes, Alan Turner, Len and Pearl.
    Bring in a couple of new families, like the Marsdens, Kings, Daggarts, Reynolds who all got brought in within about 5 years of each other.

    Tempt Sadie King back. Would be absolutely delicious to see her sparring with Nicola and Kim. Perhaps a Claus in Tom's will meant Sadie has a claim to home farm. Jimmy helps Kim, Scott Windsor helps Sadie. She could also rile Chas and Charity too!

    Emmerdale's benefit is that so many of its storylines are superficial and normally not changing characters, so - unlike years of EastEnders or Corrie - it's easier to shrug most of it off. A new production team could easily make out that almost none of the past several storylines even happened.

    It's not always the case though. I mean, look at what they did to Aaron. Making him an abusive bully, then giving him a cancer gene and acting like that's cured his problems makes the character impossible to buy into. I like Aaron, but he really should just go again because they're damaged his character earlier this year.
  • JennyukJennyuk Posts: 22,885
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    Emmerdal;e could be improved. It just needs to get rid of the characters I don't like.
  • ianradioianianradioian Posts: 78,525
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    The fabulous Ross Barton is returning to ED

    So it's not all bad

    Absolutely cannot wait. What a terrific boost 😃😎
  • SS_SummerSS_Summer Posts: 2,818
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    Emmerdale is still miles ahead of Coronation Street. I look forward to watching Emmerdale, whereas I watch Coronation Street while being on my phone or with other distractions because it doesn't hold my full attention. Yeah some stories lose me - like Billy and the fighting - cant stand that storyline and don't care one iota to see who that other woman was or any more of where that is going to lead. But apart from the odd thing like that, overall, it still keeps me interested.
  • Wench02Wench02 Posts: 2,853
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    Getting rid of mclot would help
  • lufcfan1998lufcfan1998 Posts: 22,901
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    @owen10 it's not just Emmerdale that's in a mess, I don't know if you've watched Hollyoaks since the time jump but that too is in a mess at the moment.
  • SteveHardy1985SteveHardy1985 Posts: 8,259
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    SS_Summer wrote: »
    Emmerdale is still miles ahead of Coronation Street. I look forward to watching Emmerdale, whereas I watch Coronation Street while being on my phone or with other distractions because it doesn't hold my full attention. Yeah some stories lose me - like Billy and the fighting - cant stand that storyline and don't care one iota to see who that other woman was or any more of where that is going to lead. But apart from the odd thing like that, overall, it still keeps me interested.

    Corrie definitely seems less authentic and in tune with itself.
  • SteveHardy1985SteveHardy1985 Posts: 8,259
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    @owen10 it's not just Emmerdale that's in a mess, I don't know if you've watched Hollyoaks since the time jump but that too is in a mess at the moment.

    @lufcfan1998 It held such promise earlier in the year!
  • SteveHardy1985SteveHardy1985 Posts: 8,259
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    Jennyuk wrote: »
    Emmerdal;e could be improved. It just needs to get rid of the characters I don't like.

    Axe everyone except for Piper.
  • soapnutsoapnut Posts: 7,428
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    edited 30/10/24 - 05:52 #20
    1. Put an end to Producer of the week spouting absolute pap about a particular storyline - lives will NOT change forever and the village WILL stay the same!
    2. Stop killing off characters via startled animals or random flying vehicles.
    3. Burn down the Dingle kidnap barn set.
    4. Cosmetic - but change the bloody title sequence and revert to the previous orchestral arrangement accompanied by sweeping shots of the Yorkshire countryside.
    5. Get a new team of writers in.
    6. Appoint a new producer, just the ONE will do - preferably somebody who hasn't already annihilated Coronation Street.
    7. Scrap the unnecessary hour-long Thursday episode.
    8. Axe Kerry, Caleb, Ruby, Will, Dawn, Billy, Jacob, the vicar & his mother.
    9. Introduce a new family with NO ties to the village.
    10. Reintroduce the sweet factory for Jai.
    11. NO MORE baby storylines - they'll only be killed off in their teens later anyway - if they get that far.
    12. NO MORE illness storylines for a few good years.
    13. NO MORE car crashes.
    14. Begin to slowly phase out the Dingles or just be done with it and rename the show again to Dingledale.
  • WhatYouGonnaDo?WhatYouGonnaDo? Posts: 6,259
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    edited 30/10/24 - 06:03 #21
    I'm enjoying Emmerdale and have been all year. Social media reaction is also very much on the positive side and the ratings are holding up well.

    So no it's not in mess no matter how much the DS echo chamber wants people to think it is.

  • Ianjones2023Ianjones2023 Posts: 5,553
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    I'm enjoying Emmerdale and have been all year. Social media reaction is also very much on the positive side and the ratings are holding up well.

    So no it's not in mess no matter how much the DS echo chamber wants people to think it is.

    Not sure where you are looking but not just negative comments on the digital spy echo chamber especially over fake tina and zaks naff funeral
  • dee123dee123 Posts: 46,911
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    Whoever decided around a decade ago to be an more expensive version of Hollyoaks should be jettisoned into the moon.
  • jlp95bwfcjlp95bwfc Posts: 21,034
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    It's not that bad at the moment imo. Corrie is in a far worse state becoming an unrecognisable cop drama set in toy town.
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