Those Damn Lesbian Libruls

Eastenders, BBC1, Friday

Lip Service, BBC3, Tuesday

‘Well,’ said the BBC continuity announcer after the Eastenders drum roll on Friday, ‘we didn’t see that coming did we?’

He was referring of course to the ‘Oh dearie me we’ve just stopped on a level crossing and now a train is coming and now the CAR WON’T START!’ tedium that finished the week off as mad Janine, dishy Ryan and em, baby Lily all sat there, still in the car, and goggled stupidly at each other.

Honestly. If I wrote something like that in a ‘Please hire me, I can actually write’ tester script for the Eastenders moguls, I’d be laughed out of Albert Square before I could holler Go on Ryan, show us your biceps. This was a ‘cliffhanger’ worthy of Neighbours. I’ve been more surprised when Bouncer did a shit.

What I particularly liked about the scene above was when Ryan was out of the car, about to swing his handbag and strop off back to Albert Square, and the sirens went, the gates came down, and he got back into the car. Now, I know parenthood presumably means you put your sprogs ahead of you in all cases of approaching train – this is why I will never have any – but for og’s sake even a crusty old child-catcher like myself would have the cop-on to lean in the window, grab the baby, and hottail it over the gate just in time to watch the train smash into the car in a squeal of torn metal, screams and flames. With Janine inside. That would wipe the smug self-satisfied smile off her bake all right. Although I would miss the madness that is Mrs Molloy. 

So disappointing fare from Easties, and all the more so when taking into account the excellent episode last week when Billy was discovered cold and face down in Pat’s living room in a puddle of his own puke and with one of his socks hanging off. Soldiers, eh? Brilliant, goosebumpy, acting from Lindsay Coulson as Carol and Patsy Palmer as Bianca, showing once again how good Eastenders can be when it doesn’t decide to patronise viewers, and how annoying it is when it does. (Fatboy and his ‘crew’, for example. Oh Jesus spare me.)

Elsewhere, I’ve been watching BBC 3’s new lesbianum drama Lip Service (geddit?), following the fortunes and tongues of a gaggle of glamorous Glasgow lesbians as they attempt to negotiate their way through work, ex and general life drama. This mainly revolves around a character called Frankie, who stomps about moodily with her hands jammed in her pockets picking up various Glasgow girlies whom she then roughly fingers up against a wall. Which is a bit of an achievement with your hands jammed in your pockets, I’d guess.

I’d guess too that a lot of straight men saw the listing as ‘lesbian drama’ and tuned in eagerly, pants around ankles and tissues to hand, to see the Hawt Girls Kissing, but when watching the first episode of Lip Service I was in fact struck by how disconcerted I’d feel as a guy watching it. This is women in their own world, getting from other women everything they need and not having to put up with shit from some useless lump for years simply because he has a dick. These women were smart, successful, confident, gorgeous and liked other women. It was like seeing some sort of Tea Party dystopia where those damned libruls and feminists had taken over at last, and as such was very interesting to watch. Although maybe I’m reading too much into watching Lip Service as a straight male. There were Hawt Girls Kissing, after all.

Lots to look ahead to for the coming week, according to the trailers – Coppers on Channel 4 (‘What the police really think’) looks promising, even if it will bring on my usual wondering if this means I’m old/middle class now as I silently cheer on the cops kicking seven shades of shit out of some spide. Elsewhere, Downton Abbey will no doubt continue to be a disappointment, and that long-haired medallion dude on The X Factor will doubtless continue to sexually assault the female dancers as his right and due. ‘He’s such a flirt!’ giggled one of the floor managers last week, going on to say how Medallion Man is always ‘touching the girls’ boobies’. Em, in most books that makes him not a 'flirt', but a pervy old criminal. I suspect we won’t see him getting seven shades of shit kicked out of him by the local fuzz for it though, or indeed even kicked off the show. That wouldn’t improve ratings. Heavens forbid.