Ender the line for a plot like this

CHANNEL HOPPING: COT death was never going to be a crowd pleaser even by EastEnders standards.

So when the BBC’s Les scriptwriting Miserables dreamed a dream of pushing the boundaries of soapland drudgery that one step too far, it soon became abundantly clear that only another nightmare on the hellish streets of E20 would take centre stage.

Complaints hit the Beeb’s mailbox quicker than you could say “exit stage left” as alley rats scarpered the good ship Walford.

Quite right. There’s a line and EastEnders crossed it with the tot-swap plot. There’s no room in soaps for that — the fact that Coronation Street’s baby battler is named Hope is surely no coincidence.

However, if Samantha Womack was so horrified by the storyline she had to quit, heaven only knows how three whole series of Game On and Hollywood flop-buster Up ‘N’ Under — now doing the rounds in the £3.49 DVD bargain bucket — ever made it past the cutting room floor.


STARGAZING Live promised Earth-shattering far-off galaxies, fascinating distant worlds and mind-boggling science facts. It gave us... thick cloud.
A great effort by Oldham’s very own blue-sky thinker Professor Brian Cox, but ultimately not being able to beat grey matter on three consecutive nights only went to emphasise how us Earthlings remain but a mere third rock from the sun . . . and why the only fuzzy blob we actually got to see was Dara O’Briain.


LET’S hope England’s cricketers do a better job of keeping the Ashes away from the Dyson than Joe from next-door in The Royle Family. Alright, I know the Christmas glow has long been doomed to the loft for another year, but that festive special was a real treat. Late nights, cool tinnies . . . that’s what it was all about — plus talk of Holly Willoughby’s wallabies coming at you in 3D. It was all going so well, until ITV served up a tired looking Benidorm special which had all the gusto of a dud Christmas cracker. At least that would explain where the jokes came from.
Soap roar: “I thought Owen was Osama Bin Laden.” — A glimpse into the mind of Corrie’s Gary Windass after being locked in the back of a van for all of five minutes.

Soap bore: “We stayed up for Big Ben, had a celebratory cup of hot chocolate and went to bed.” — Hayley lifts the lid on New Year’s Eve with Roy on Coronation Street.