Coronation Street

Ridiculous. I long for the days of 3 episodes again. It's the best format for soaps as it follows the 3 act structure of start/middle/end. Will never happen, it'll only increase over time probably, and will most likely be the death of our soaps.

Ironic though that EastEnders, the soap that's on least, is the worst of the lot. Just think how much better Corrie and Emmer would be at 3 nights a week. Higher production values, improved writing and directing and obviously time for rehearsals resulting in a more polished finish.

*sighs*

I'm getting really bored and frustrated with Corrie at the moment

Craig Charles (he is only ever Craig Charles, I've no idea what his Character is called) is back...

Some creepy seedy looking old guy has appeared for no apparent reason...

Kelly's gone into over-acting over-drive...

Please will Social Services relieve us all of Holly and this dull storyline...

Tracey & David... come off it.

Please Chesney, just go back to Cilla's.

zzzzzzz

On a lighter note - in Monday's episode, was Cilla supposed to be painting the red part of the door that Les was struggling with? If so, it's amazing how the white paint on her brush came out red on the door!

You're not the only one. It's really not interesting me at all right now. Too many episodes, too many characters who I don't care about, and quite frankly boring storylines. Let's hope it improves because I happen to think it had a good year last year, but it's dipped in quality recently.

Out of interest, has anyone else noticed the amount of Deacon Blue playing in the background in the Rovers, Hairdressers, Garage, etc., recently?

Has someone in the sound department just got their Greatest Hits?

The one soap that should have a bit of Deacon Blue is River City, but it might confuse the viewers as the female singer is one of the cast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/tv/rivercity/images/cast/full/alice.jpg

Alice Henderson played by Lorraine McIntosh

Was watching some old episodes of Corrie from 1980 at my sister's house the other day. Two things struck me about them that don't feature in the episodes of today:

1. The use of "camera zooming" whenever they wanted to highlight something - there was often this rather dramatic random zoom-in to a character's face.
2. The extended bit of theme music immediately before the end theme as we know it now - you know the bit I mean, I had forgotten about that!

When did the above get phased out?

I've noticed the "camera zooming" in the 70s & 80s episodes too - it looks so dated now - and I think that is the answer, it's an "old fashioned" way of doing things, it looks pretty cheesy today but was probably the height of technology and camera direction in its day!?

With the extended theme tune over the end credits, I'm not sure of the exact date but my guess is late 80s/early 90s - they can now squeeze in another advert in the time it used to take to roll end credits!

I seem to remember last hearing the "extended" bit around 1992, and it had ended around '93. Of course, Jez will be able to give you the full answer!

Lol, one for Harry Hill there, how long has John McEnroe been running The Kabin?!

Cant agree there im afraid. Im enjoying it at the moment.

However saying that, all that with Norris, Reet and the Valentine's card was total crap. How obvious was it that Sally was going to write a cheque to pay for her paper bill so Norris would see it was her handwriting on the card - I said she would as soon as she appeared in the shop!

I watched a couple of episodes from 1970 at the weekend and noticed what you mention about camera's zooming in on stuff. I also noticed one actress fluffed her lines during the episode - at that time they recorded the show "as live" so stuff got left in unlike now when they do loads of takes until its perfect.

As for the longer credits I believe it was sometimes during 1993 they stopped them. Cant be any more specific than that im afraid as ive got hardly any 1990s episodes on video to check. But Granada Plus were definately showing the shorter version on their Corrie repeats before the channel was closed - and Granada Plus reached early 1994. I wish they would bring the longer credits back they were much better than what we have now.

Do we not still get a longer version of the closing theme on the ITV2 Sunday omnibus? Admittedly, probably still not as long as in the 70s and 80s.

Also, does anyone else remember during the first Gulf War in the early 90s, the programme would end with just the End Of Part One music and no credits, in order to squeeze in a news summary?

Having finally got the 80s box set for Christmas, I'd also noticed the use of lots of zooming. I remember when I did a TV directors course at uni (on which incidentally I worked with the actress who plays the Grimshaws' social worker), we were always told that zooming was bad practice, as it's very un-natural - ie. not something which we can do with our eyes.

One other thing I've noticed that's died out - no-one calls anyone "Chuck" anymore, which I think is rather sad. It was such a quintessentially Coronation Street thing.