EastEnders

Someone probably thinks it looks cool. They'll be letterboxing it next. I hope Ethel's little Willie doesn't get cut off.

God, don't give UKTV ideas!

*writes it down on a notepad*

UKTV Bright Ideas, surely?

I'd forgotten that channel even existed!

Two hour time shifted schedule at launch wasn’t it? Real “we need presence on Freeview so invent something” stuff.

Still - the birth of UKTV on FTA, something that has become quite a big issue lately.

Ahem, all of which means we are able to watch EastEnders from 1985 on Freeview (phew back on topic!).

Watching today's episodes, they were filmised again, but the film look went off for about 10 seconds during one scene (the scene with Pauline, Dot, Kathy and Ethel in the laundrette, if anyone wants to check their own recordings)- and the point where it stopped and came back co-incided with a camera cut, which seems strange. So I'm wondering what on earth's causing this, especially with the few seconds the picture went back to normal neatly co-inciding with a change in cameras?

Still going on at the episode where Dirty Den is revealed as the father of Michelle's baby, Vikki (who became a major character around the time of his 2003 return.)

Was there a big build up in the press back in 1985 to the reveal? It was done exceptionally well with the various phone calls at the start of the episode.

The identity of the baby’s father was definitely leaked in the press before the episode was shown, and I think this was one of the first times the moniker “Dirty Den” was used.

That's where it came from after it was made obvious he had slept with a schoolgirl.

One of the few location episodes as well - the second half effectively a two hander by what I assume is the will-be-famous-in-a-few-years canal?

In today's first episode we saw Pete with an 80s camcorder, which had a separate unit cabled to it which I presume had either the tape or the battery in it (or both), doesn't seem very convenient to carry round, or probably very light!

I thought the camcorder looked very small by 80s standards until I noticed said separate unit.

It would have been the tape deck. That was the standard until JVC's VideoMovie (which introduced Compact VHS tapes).



This was the first all in one camera and was introduced in 1984 (it was Marty McFly's choice of camera in Back To The Future)