EastEnders

Exactly and I'm sure there were some 5 episode weeks too. Have always felt though with the soaps they'd benefit from ditching episodes when there is another event is scheduled rather than moving them as they'd all benefit from a slight reduction in the number of episodes.

For a number of years though the BBC have only seemed to care about EastEnders at Christmas and for it's anniversary. The rest of the year it seems to be all filler.

Usually when there's been a 3 episode week, there's been a 5 episode week or a week with an hour long episode to make up for it, so there's not really been any dropped episodes.

The BBC should really try and get Kate Oakes over from ITV. She's been successful in turning around Emmerdale and now Corrie which had an awful blip a couple of years back.

No I think she has made Corrie a terrible program, with the awful storyline she has created as welll as awful characters Daniel Osbourne for instance.

But that's just my opinion.

I think EastEnders though is quite a different beast to the ITV soaps - switching from Emmerdale to Corrie isn't that big a step (and indeed it's a step many have taken) but I think the expectations of the EastEnders audience is actually quite different - more storyline focused than character focused.

The new character additions on EE are actually quite promising and there's still exciting twists, I can see why they got rid of Ronnie & Roxy as their characters were tired and overused, but the way they was killed off was quite poor, and it's also a shame he axed some promising characters such as Aunt Babe, Claudette & Les.

People actually liked Claudette? She had as many accents as she had faces. I couldn't stand her!

But... each to his own of course!

It makes you think that maybe just one person shouldn't have so much control over the direction of a soap, and maybe there should be a team.

Another issue surely has to be the inane and pointless recasting of Michelle Fowler? Nicknamed 'Fake Michelle' by fans, which Jenna Russell can't stand, she has really gone down badly with the ridiculous teacher/pupil relationship and now the stalker nonsense.

I don't have an issue with Jenna Russell personally, but this was one casting too far.

I should clarify. The production output was reduced to 3 episodes due to production not being up to scratch at least according to BBC management. That was why the accident story line was brought forward.

The last four month's schedules tell a different story. Hardly any missing, and when they are there was a legit pre-emption.

I understood that the problems started in December. Episodes were junked by management. I'm not revealing anything that wasn't in the public domain at the time. The bus accident was filmed only a fortnight before it went to air.