Coronation Street

Well at least that means less of his preposterous over-acting.




I’ve not noticed their branding next to the tills lately, so I’d assumed their deal had ended, but I did spot that shot and thought it was a bit weird.

Worth pointing out that, having been in charge of the corner shop since 1999, Dev is by some margin the longest running owner of the corner shop!

Yeah but that's only temporary moves, I reckon if they said right were moving Corrie for good to 8pm or 9pm going forward, there would be an outcry.

I would disagree with this. I know it's the same number of hours but it would completely change the feel of the show. You'll have half as many cliffhangers and you'll have a different rhythm to the episodes, after nearly sixty years of half hour shows. It would be the biggest change to the programme in its history.

Also, although it's clearly the same amount of time, I think hour-long episodes would seem a bit more of an imposition on the audience. I know quite often my mum will watch the first episode in the evening but record the second one and maybe watch it later in the evening or before she goes to work in the morning. It feels easier to handle than an hour. Also as well I think the later you get, the more it asks on the audience. I think people like to watch them in 7pm hour as part of their routine, like Pointless or the news, but after eight o'clock I think people want to watch something a bit more substantial.

I don't especially like two episodes in an evening, not least because I think that it becomes incredibly hard to illustrate to the casual audience when it's a big episode. In the nineties, if Corrie or Emmerdale were on for an hour, or on twice in one evening, you could tell from the schedules that something big was going on. I think that's still the case for 'stEnders. But how do you make a splash with the scheduling of Emmerdale and Corrie? It's so frequently on for an hour or on twice or in a different slot. Sadly with the number of hours they're producing now it's so hard to make special episodes stand out. But I'd still rather have two episodes in an evening or it on six days a week than making it an hour permanently.

I still think there should bring back the sunday episodes, and reduce it back to 5 per week, having six is just sloppy.

Is it a bad thing though when most the cliffhangers are there just to lead into the 8.30pm episode though. I just think a story written across an hour might be better paced than the current system of basically filling the 7.30 show to create a cliffhanger which then plays out in the second half.

I do completely agree though it worked better as 30 minute episodes, but at the moment in a way fans are being asked to give the show 90 minutes on the nights it's on.

Nice cameo from Lucy Meacock reading the Granada News on Corrie tonight

The trouble now is that almost every episode is a big episode with something major going on.

I can't remember the last time I saw an episode with no hospital, police station or emergency services featured. Events like Phelan murdering Luke are becoming so everyday that the programme is losing a lot of its power to surprise or shock.

Inevitably because of this, they'll have to start introducing even more outrageous storylines if they want to keep people talking about the programme. It happened to Brookside, and ultimately this approach killed the show as it lost all believability.

Kate Oates seems quite highly regarded as a producer from what I've read, but since she's taken over, I think the programme has changed markedly for the worse with an emphasis on non-stop action, tragedies and killings. It may be that she's simply following orders from ITV, but I can't help feeling that Corrie has lost a lot of its charm under her stewardship with its trademark moments of gentle humour fewer and further between these days. The only contribution she seems to have made to this element of the programme is bringing back the stupid Brian Packham.

For Monday and Friday, EastEnders is to blame. ITV avoids clashing with it as it would cannibalise both shows' ratings. No such excuse on Wednesday though.

Finally saw the brick fireplace in Number 5 again tonight, for what must be the first time since not long after they moved to MediaCity and started putting in 4th wall into the sets (then promptly all but stopped again). Shades of the ITV3 repeats where you see it all the time because the missing wall was on the other side of the house back then. Before its brief reappearance in 2014, I don't think that fireplace had been seen since Don Brennan lived there.

Warning, fake news doing the rounds on Facebook about Norris actor Malcolm Hebden's death. He's actually in hospital.

There's an online Norris out there somewhere spreading gossip.