Eastenders 2023: Interesting ideas

Soap Operas are a massive cornerstone of scheduled television these days and while there are currently several choices to pick from, I'm talking about what is in my opinion one of the best and that is Eastenders. Since 1985, we've been glued to our screens as we watch the lives of the residents of Albert Square going about their lives as they endure all kinds of issues, the show is also no stranger to sensitive storylines with the current story of Lola Pearce's Brain Tumour being a prominent topic this year but I'm actually here to discuss some of the current storylines happening in the square and why I'm really enjoying them.

So the first one I'm going to discuss follows Whitney Dean played by Shona McGarty who is the lead in a storyline about a disorder known as "Edward's Syndrome" which sadly has resulted in Whitney making the difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy, now while the subject of the storyline I'm sure is awful to see unfold especially for those who may have gone through something similar, I believe that the story so far has been executed perfectly not only because of the writing and Chris Clenshaw's excellent work as Executive Producer but also because of the performances on screen, Shona McGarty is fantastic in this storyline and I really hope she gets a best leading performer nomination at the Soap Awards this year because she absolutely deserves it.

Next up is a storyline that hasn't been tackled since the show's early days, in the current cast of characters is Zack Hudson (played by James Farrar) who is currently living with the diagnosis of HIV, now to do a bit of explaining we need to go back to the 1990s when the HIV/AIDS crisis was prominent, during this time a lot of people believed the virus to be transmitted among gay men but in the 90s era of Eastenders we meet Mark Fowler who at the time was played by Todd Carty, the second actor to take on the role.

The storyline was about Mark Fowler contracting HIV from his partner Jill, this storyline was during the 1990s and helped educate people that anybody could catch the virus and it wasn't just a "gay disease." Over 30 years later, a lot of people still believe myths about HIV but Zack's storyline is also partly to raise awareness and further educate the public on the disease, since Mark's storyline ended further research and advancement has been made in fighting HIV and AIDs with the development of medication that makes it impossible to pass on the disease, Zack in the show leads a rather promiscuous life with women much like a certain british secret agent who's name rhymes with Hames Gond, however Zack didn't actually contract HIV via unprotected sex but through shared needles, this is also another reason that the public needed to be educated on this, because HIV isn't just a gay disease but it shows that no matter what gender or orientation you are, you can still catch this disease. And that's something I really admire Eastenders for tackling and much like Shona McGarty, I really hope James gets a best leading performer nomination at the Soap Awards this year because he has earned it.

The next storyline I'm going to touch on has proven very controversial this year due to the nature of the story, in the first episodes to be transmitted this year we learn that Stacey Slater's daughter Lily is pregnant and the reason it's controversial is because Lily is 12 years old and is still in school, now don't get me wrong I understand why this story is controversial and even I have to admit I'm still sceptical about where this story will eventually lead, I thought the storyline initially would focus on Lily aborting the baby and focusing on the aftermath but I think the story is in safe hands right now and the actors involved are doing a great job.

Now the next storyline hasn't really started yet and was only recently announced, Stacey Slater (Lily's mother whom I mentioned earlier) will be involved in an upcoming storyline which sees her joining the subscription site OnlyFans to make ends meat for her kids. Now much like Lily's pregnancy storyline, this has also proven controversial I mean just look at the Eastenders Reddit page, but I'm surprisingly intrigued to see how and where this storyline goes, because this whole OnlyFans story hasn't been done before in any of the major soaps, although if Hollyoaks did it that would make them hypocrites because of what happened with Sarah Jayne Dunn and the disagreement that was had between her and the bosses at Channel 4 that led to her exit from the show.

Another storyline I'm also interested to see play out is the flashforward Whodunnit storyline, in mid to late February this year we got the reveal that we would see a Whodunnit playing out over the next few months but with a little bit of a twist, that being the inciting incident hasn't happened yet but it will happen. February 20th episode saw some of the show's prominent female characters in what I would call one my favourite episode so far this year.

Now there's a lot of speculation over who killed the victim and who that victim even is with some speculating it could be Ravi Gulati, Nish Panesar or even Jack Branning but we'll have to see how this all plays out because right now we don't know, Hollyoaks did something similar many years ago with their County Lines Drug story where on New Year's Eve 2019 we saw several timejumps to a year later where the characters are all involved in a major turning point. It seems to me that Eastenders might be taking what worked with that story and applying it to a new concept which is interesting.

I also wanted to take a moment to talk about another idea I'd love to see down the line on Eastenders, now I actually posted about this in the Eastenders Reddit which was met with some mixed opinions here and there but I still stand by it. So remember during the early to mid 2000s when Hollyoaks would transmit 5 or 6 episodes after the watershed? Well my idea is basically that but for Eastenders, the concept is you get a few characters together and put them into a 5 or six episode miniseries that plays out once every week or so and I think this would be an interesting changeup to the schedule because Eastenders right now transmits 4 episodes a week and