Corrie, Emmerdale and EastEnders are known for their breaks-ups – but Fiz and Tyrone has proved a step too far. We need some constants in our soap lives.
Millions tune in to watch a heightened sense of reality where you can have a doomed love affair sit aside a dangerous drug dealer shooting the wrong victim with a gun found in a sewer bought to kill another killer by a grieving mum.
That’s just what soaps do.
You can have the humdrum, the real, the truth of living in a small community.
And then you can blow it up with thrilling explosions and death-defying stunts.
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It’s what makes the soap world turn – but sometimes bosses get a little bit carried away.
The danger in depicting real life is that real life is mostly just boring.
And while no-one wants to watch a show about several families doing the dinner and sitting down to watch the telly until bedtime.
Well – unless it’s on Gogglebox anyway.
But with all the excitement, you need stability – which is something offered by established legacy couples.
Sometimes breaking them up can revitalise them.
Emmerdale and Coronation Street need to STOP
Take Kevin and Sally Webster for example. They’ve never been better since they broke the nation’s hearts and split up.
But who can imagine Sally with anyone other than Tim Metcalfe now?
Or Kevin with Abi – and his sister Debbie snarking from the sidelines?
But the split worked because those characters had life in them – and stories to tell.
It loses its effect when two dull characters split for no reason other than The Drama.
Tyrone and Fiz in Corrie bumbled along for years without an affair coming near them.
Then Hurricane Alina hit and it’s all messed up.
They were the last stable couple standing.
And it’s the same on Emmerdale – the village where commitment only happens in terms of months, not years.
Paddy and Chas have been through rough patches – and they’re set to go through another with Al Chapman sniffing around.
But what is the point? Is the soap determined to kill off all hope?
It was bad enough when they split up Jimmy and Nicola King for no reason other than to fill time.
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But it’s just as unacceptable now.
There’s no point having all the drama, if you can’t show the upside to life as well.
Not everyone’s miserable – and the soaps would do well to remember that.
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