The news that EastEnders and other BBC soaps (namely the hospital ones: Doctors, Casualty, Holby City) have paused filming may be little more than a footnote in the history books when we look back upon this pandemic. But we – the die-hard EastEnders fans who are nurtured by its philanderous plotlines and the ill-fitting knitwear of Ian Beale – will for ever remember.
If now more than ever you need the distraction of an unrealistically well-stocked Minute Mart and the only caff in east London that does not sell flat whites, we have got you covered. True, there is only one EastEnders, but with some careful curation, you can get your fix of soap-tropes elsewhere.
A dead character who isn’t really dead
Death is an integral part of EastEnders; an outlandish or surprising death has become central to many of its special episodes (nothing says Christmas like a beloved character dying). Accidental deaths, deaths where someone gets their comeuppance – deaths from illness, murder, manslaughter, falling off a cliff (Janine and Barry, 2003) – you name it, they have covered it. But its piece-de-resistance death is the false death, usually one intentionally faked.
If you’re looking for an elaborately faked death (and I don’t just mean the simple “are they dead or not?” plot device or cliffhanger) you have plenty of shows to choose from. There is Orphan Black (Netflix, BBC America), Homeland (Amazon Prime), Pretty Little Liars (Netflix) and, of course, Game of Thrones (Now TV), which, for a show that isn’t a soap, is dominated by feuding families and unwanted pregnancies.
For spoiler reasons I can’t tell you the details of these fake death, but they are abundant in many shows. Hint: you can even find them in comedies (see: Community, 4oD).
An awful man being a hit with the ladies
The recurring EastEnders character Max Branning is the perfect example of a guy who somehow gets credit for doing the bare minimum in family and friendship. We are primed as viewers to feel sympathy for him on the rare occasions he is not conning, sleazing or flogging dodgy cars – yet he continues to punch above his weight with the (often much younger) women of EastEnders.
What is it about this human baked bean that is so irresistible to women? It might be one of the soaps’ most unrealistic bits of writing (and they once had a vicar who murdered people), but it sure as hell makes for irresistible watching. If you get a thrill out of the love tangles of the truly awful, why not kick things off with a Woody Allen movie before binge watching Curb Your Enthusiasm (NowTV); Big Bang Theory (a classic in the “nerd gets hot girl” theme, Netflix) or Modern Family (includes older monosyllabic bore with beautiful young wife, Amazon Prime). Don’t worry, all of these shows poke fun at this awful trope.
Time in the clink
Recent watchers of EastEnders will notice that Whitney Dean has joined the long lineage of characters who have spent time in prison. Crime and policing features heavily on the show, delivering closure to storylines or opening up new ones focused on miscarriages of justice.
If you need your prison fix, you could do much worse than Orange is the New Black (Netflix), the ensemble prison show set in a women’s prison. For something more serious try Locked Up (Netflix), a much darker Spanish drama once more looking at women’s prison. And there are plenty of excellent documentaries to choose from: Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons (Netflix) is a series hosted by Raphael Rowe, who spent 12 years wrongfully locked up, and far surpasses similar offerings fronted by EastEnders hard man Ross Kemp.
And while no police officer could be quite as incompetent as DCI Marsden – the EastEnders detective who after 20 years still cannot catch Phil Mitchell and has yet to launch an investigation into why so many Albert Square dead people aren’t actually deceased – there are a number of bingeable series that deal with ongoing police grudges and incompetence. See Making a Murderer (Netflix) and Keeping Faith (BBC).
Idealised small business
Eastenders loves a mystery – mainly of the whodunnit variety, although parentage questions always thrill (see the now iconic “You aint’ my muvva” / “Yes I am!” moment between Kat and Zoe Slater in 2001). But there is one more recurring mystery: how do any of the market traders manage to afford London rent?
Idealised small businesses are a common theme of television shows (Fleabag riffed beautifully off this with its eye-watering pricing in the cafe) and EastEnders is one of the worst. It has tried in recent years to better reflect reality: it is now more than £6 for a bacon bap and a cup of tea in the caff; the Queen Vic has finally conceded it needs to sell food; Kim realised she would make more money selling the B&B as a property then she ever could running it.
Family Business (Netflix), a comedy-drama from France, follows a Parisian family attempting to transform its failing kosher butcher into a legal weed cafe; cult comedy Schitt’s Creek (Netflix) follows a wealthy family forced into financial ruin and exile to a backwater US town, where they run a motel. The drama Bloodline (Netflix) follows a Florida resort and, like EastEnders, is full of lies and festering family traumas. Then there is the animated series Bob’s Burgers (Amazon Prime), set in a burger joint, while for something altogether surreal there’s SpongeBob SquarePants. It features the Krusty Krab, a diner under the sea that inspired a real restaurant in Ramallah, on the West Bank.
Issues of identity and austerity
For all the stick that EastEnders gets, it continues to attract millions of viewers across the nation, cutting across demographics and breaking through cultural silos. Many storylines are fearless in tackling difficult or sensitive topics, introducing wholly new perspectives to groups who might otherwise not come across them. There has been a trans character, a convert to Islam, characters on zero-hour contracts and families dealing with knife crime, police harassment and the threat of homelessness. Other plotlines explore consent, mental health and euthanasia. Crucially, it is one of the few shows that has characters who are hard up for cash. If you are skint, you are often invisible in Britain, despite struggling for money being a reality for many, many peoplein the country.
If you are interested in shows that deal with the lives of marginal groups, there’s Pose (BBC), which looks at the New York ballroom scene and features the largest ever cast of trans actors; My Mad Fat Diary (4oD), which tackles body image and depression; Top Boy (Netflix), which looks at drug dealing and gang feuds; and Sex Education (Netflix), a joyful exploration of sexual identity well beyond heterosexuality.
But, if you want to see portrayals of how Britain’s working poor are living today, you will have to settle for the news.
