Coronation Street

I notice the other night that they bothered to explain away Diggory's forthcoming absence from Mollys wedding due to his burst appendix.

Only in soapland do so many relatives miss out on such significant life changing events. Still at least they acknowledged his existance.

I find that funny to, doubt all the actors who have left are too busy to return for a one off episode, they managed to get Terry back for vera's funeral so they must contact them

guess if they've been sacked and writted out without ever having a decent storyline as was the case with Diggory, they're hardly likely to say yes to coming back

Over in Walford Michelle Fowler's missed the funerals of both parents and her brother

It's a shame about Kirk, because he only seems to crop up in those sorts of events these days. It's about time he had another good story line of his own-- I'm surpised he hasn't been paired up with Graham yet!

Well Kirk has his little storyline with that annoying woman - name gone out of my head - and often plays parts in the Fizz storylines. I don't think he needs a big story of his own yet. Characters like Eileen do.

Julie I believe it is? I don't think they've got a storyline as such, other than they've got together :S You do have point that he plays a part in Fiz's (and Maria's) storylines though; otherwise I feel he's underused.

I do agree about Eileen; although when John Tompson returns to Coro (after filiming Kingdom ), she'll have a storyline there.

Eileen needs a Rita/Alan Bradley type storyline - not in terms of what happened, but one with lots of impact to place Eileen at the centre of the show where she deserves to be, not kicking about around the edges.

The Platts, Conors, McDonalds & Websters dominate too much and good characters and actors such as Kirk, Rita, Audrey are all under-used.

Why does the Rovers now have 2 sitting rooms and 2 kitchens? Has there been a mention in the storyline about the upstairs flat being newley "created"? One day they eat breakfast in one place, the next day the other

Was the re-redecoration of stairs and bar ever explained (on or off air)?

I don't think the upstairs kitchen/living room was ever explained on screen, but the Corrie website said at the time of its appearance that it was a 'recently converted bedroom'. Since that means there must have been at least five bedrooms above the pub at one time, the others must be very small indeed

The redecorating, so soon after Vernon's effort, has never been explained on screen.

I thought they'd created the flat accommodation to get rid of the overlapping downstairs part which really aught to be just the back hallway and stairs (rather like the vic in Eastenders) but the back room is still there as well

the new decoration was never mentioned, it just appeared, bit like Rita's garage door suddenly becoming a window then just as suddenly becoming a roller shutter or Dev's office extention into the yard only existing inside

the world of soap occupies it's own time space continuum of which we will never truly understand

I agree that Eileen needs a decent storyline - not sure about Kirk tho.

An interesting interview with producer Kim Crowther in Soaplife

I imagine the big Autumn plot

I can live with the other changes such as the redesign of the Peacocks house or the factory because these are fairly secondary sets, plus the fact that the interior and exterior layouts don't match, as doing otherwise would mean the programme would look worse (squeezing everyone into a tiny Rovers bar to match the outside etc)

But creating a new upstairs living area in the Rovers when they've used the 'back room' for this purpose for decades is a bit too much. Not sure why they've done this either as all scenes in the new upstairs area could just as well take place in the back room

The only reason it would make sense would be if they were to revamp the Rovers, but we all know they're too scared to do that.