Coronation Street

The tram crash was great, but I wouldn't put it up there with Ken/Deirdre/Mike, Hilda's farewell and Alan Bradley.

I'd say "Norman Bates with a briefcase" would have to be up there. And the reaction to Aiden's death should be considered a landmark episode too.

But you were talking about moments that are well remembered. Regardless of the quality of it compared to older storylines, I believe it is well remembered.

Im not saying that the tram crash isn't well remembered, but in my own personal opinion I don't think it was as iconic as the other moments I mentioned. Corrie didn't have to rely on disasters and sensational storylines back then, it all about the characters. Just my opinion of course.

To be fair: Its remembered for all the wrong reasons:

I don't remember that Thomas the Tank Engine cameo!

Today's first ITV3 episode, the episode directly following the tram crash, is the first episode that we see Jack Duckworth put a plaster round his glasses.

This is something that became a trademark of his for the next 21 years he was in Corrie for.

Was that story quite natural for Corrie at the time or might it have been in response to the launch of the grittier Brookside. Similarly did they do anything of note in 1985 to try and take attention away from the early days of EastEnders?

There can't be many soaps where you need to be more specific about that.

I think we've skipped 21 years!

When Bill Podmore got back on the hotseat, one of his first decisions was to transform Alan Bradley into a baddie. He wouldn't admit it, but Eastenders, doing well in the ratings at the time, had Dirty Den which almost gave them the upper hand. Corrie ebbed and flowed but there was no real bite about it.

By the summer of 1988, Alan Bradley was voted 'Britain's Biggest Rat' by the Sun newspaper, so the transformation was working.

Eden wrote in his autobiography he hoped the door was left open for Alan when he was sentenced to prison for attacking Rita. The powers that be used the break to decide whether to kill him off, or keep him. Podmore, after some misgivings, voted death. But interestingly he or Mervyn Watson never told him when or how he would die until shooting (to stop the press from leaking info). Had he known he would die, Eden wouldn't have returned to work!

Eastenders and Brookie were strong in the 80s, but Corrie held its own. The 90s you could argue was a testing time; you had Sharongate and the Patio burial, but Corrie in the mid-90s was a snoozefest. The gnomes! The storylines looked inferior to others for the first time. Liddlement cleverly made stylistic changes that benefited the soap in the long haul and added a third episode. In 1989 though it was doing fine in the ratings, especially once repeats were factored in.