Torple

I'm sure nobody is really watching this, but it has to be said. Much HILARITY at the judges casually tossing their PRIZED ASSET away in the very first show in favour of CHEGGERS. There will be meltdown at ITV HQ tomorrow.

I.e. REMOVE THE SHIT? An obese comedienne (who really wasn't particularly funny) as a sporting judge? A half-hearted professional display which we couldn't actually see because the cameras kept cutting to audience close-ups? Stilted banter by the hosts who are desperately fumbling around for anything to help them stretch 5 people jumping into a pool into a 90 minute show? The commentator making snarky comments about the shite quality of the diving, only for the hosts to contradict him 5 seconds later and fall over themselves as they assure Helen Lederer that her falling into the pool face first was "wonderful"? Leon Taylor trying and failing to be even a second-rate Jason Gardiner? Jade THE PERSONALITY Ewen? Vernon bloody Kay? You're right. Perhaps then it would appeal to the public.

Oh come on gays, I know you'll all fall for any dolly bird who passes your way, but a near enough unbroken run of 10s and 9s for Maxine, who has made all of a dozen appearances in the show so far is a trifle RIDICULOUS.

Sounds very believable. There seemed to have been a focus in the past week of slowly cutting

08 Tony Hutchinson 09 Cindy Hutchinson 00 Holly Cunningham - what a RIDICULOUS recast. She is now older than her own mother. 02 Tom Cunningham 07 Myra McQueen - she's provided many a genius comedic moment, even if the woman can't act for toffee 03 John Paul McQueen - never understood the fuss. Has always been a rather selfish character 10 Jacqui McQueen 01 Bart Mcqueen -1 Theresa McQueen - how the fcuk has this waste of space lasted for FIVE YEARS?! 06 Nana Mcqueen - OK for a laugh even if she is just a replica of Madge from Benidorm. The calender was a HOOT 05 Jack Osborne - if it wasn't for the fact that Hollyoaks struggles as it is to keep anybody for longer than 3 years, I'd say it's time for this one to have another heart attack 07 Frankie Osborne - inconsistent. Veers a little too wildly from caring Earth Mother to trashy dolly bird to poisonous witch all to suit whatever the Plot of the Day is. I think I prefer the second alter-ego. 10 Darren Osborne - along with Nancy they are pretty much the only couple you can actually root for on the show. Both actors played a blinder with the miscarriage story last year. Vastly underrated. 10 Nancy Osborne 09 Cheryl Brady - loses a point for being perhaps the most STUPIDLY blind character in the whole of Tellyland 07 Seamus Brady - very sinister but Silas he AIN'T 00 Declan Brady 11 Brendan Brady 09 Callum Kane 06 Lacey Kane 09 Martha Kane 08 Ash Kane 07 Mitzeee Minniver 00 Maxine Minniver 03 Sienna Blake 02 Patrick Blake 01 Sinead O Connor - sympathy point because despite the HIDEOUS character, Stephanie Davis is by far the most competent of the teen cast 08 Diane O Connor - in truth not that deserving, but I am nostalgic for Brookie and in my head she's still Jacqui Dixon 01 Jen Gilmore 00 Liam Gilmore 03 Dirk Savage - ridiculously hammy Del Boy caricature 00 Liberty Savage - utterly appalling in every single way. I cannot believe the poor girl has been employed as an actress for two years now. It's really quite cruel to lead someone on so. 08 Dodger Savage - but will only be watchable once more when he's free of Texas and has murdered Will 02 Will Savage - WOULD be a 00 but I suspect he's going to become the next resident PSYCHO 08 Dennis Savage 08 Walker 01 Joel Dexter - competent actor, completely unsympathetic character. Time for him to be beaten up by Callum again. 00 Ste Hay - I can't decide what's Hollyoaks biggest flaw right now - the continued presence of Liberty and Theresa, or the downright BIZARRE notion that the scriptwriters have that this scrat is some sort of romantic hero. Utterly ridiculous and it's beyond stretching imagination that every gay who steps foot in the village appears to fall in love with him. I'm waiting in dread for inevitable Ste/John Paul affair. 09 Phoebe 05 Leanne Holiday 01 Doug Carter - needs some BALLS although right now I'd prefer HIM with Brendan 04 Ruby Button 07 Esther Bloom - lovely girl but good LORD you just have to cringe because however distateful her treatment has been recently, she doesn't half bring it all upon herself. Blunders from mishap to foot-in-mouth or downright disaster in the space of an ad break. Fleeing car crashes you've partly caused and throwing a hissy fit at a funeral is NOT the way to win popularity love. 08 Mercedes Fisher - MUCH better as a nutter than a $l*t 08 Carmel Valentine 02 Texas Longford 06 Tilly Evans 07 George Smith 09 Barney Mcbride 08 Annalise Appelton 05 Rob Edwards

I think Hollyoaks could easily cope with a smaller cast, and I can't imagine it's easy for a relatively small soap to maintain a cast that size. If a cull is going to happen, I'd be hoping for Jen, Liam, Joel, Liberty, Will, Dirk and Theresa. The latter has been reduced to an utterly irredeemable and hateful wannabe gangster moll, who has STILL to be brought to justice or even show any remorse for cold-blooded murder of her cousin's husband. It's impossible to root for her as a character, and she'd only be viable if the writers cut their losses and made an all-out villain. But when we've got the likes of Browning and Mercedes (and I suspect Sienna before too long) doing all that so well right now, do we really need another? In terms of casting, the most pressing problem Hollyoaks has is that right now it's so heavily reliant on one character, which leaves them in quite a precarious position should they ever leave.

Frankly all the older characters should be in there. The likes of Myra, Jack and Frankie contribute/have contributed far more to the show than most of those shown there. The lack of Lacey and Joel (and also Jen and Liam) is strange - Bryan Kirkwood had given an interview not long after the bus crash which suggested there were going to be more cast departures to come , so either those missing are indeed out, or they're being held back to replace others in the sequence in the near future? I'd be surprised if Lacey in particular is gone, given Hollyoaks has been making much talk over the past year of building families back up, and the Kanes were at the forefront of that.

Torn is the really obvious glaring omission. I'd also speculate that Chasing Pavements isn't really there on it's own merit, and simply because of where Adele is today.

Hollyoaks always excel when it comes to stunts and deaths, and although they don't try to play it as "real" as the other soaps, that in itself means they can put a show on and be a lot more arty as Jark says. This week has just been another example of how when it gets it right, Hollyoaks can easily outshine the Big Three soaps. Their only problem has only ever been consistency; they have these big episodes and huge storyline climaxes, but then often seem to take months to recover from the comedown. I'm hoping that won't happen this time.

Somebody out there has wasted NO time. AMAZING http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdiugfpybo1ra5hfno3_250.gif What an utterly hilarious week. Between Doug's over-acting, Maddie's instant KARMA, Neil being completely forgotten about by all within 5 seconds of snuffing it, and the revelation that Cindy apparently has a daughter who is older than she herself is (BRILLIANT casting there), this week was a HOOT. As far as the axings went, they were all pretty much the right ones and a sign that Kirkwood knows what he's doing. I guess the writing for Maddie could be seen as inconsistent, given only months before we saw her willingly run back into a burning building to save Tilly, but as it provided such great TV I'm sure people will forgive Kirkwood for that. Claire Cooper was definitely the powerhouse this week, genuinely brilliant, but kudos also to Andrew Moss and Stephanie Waring who were at the top of their game. And although it's not the done thing to praise the teens, I also thought Stephanie Davies was pretty convincing in the immediate aftermath, horrid as Sinead usually is as a character.

SPOILERS FOR ANYONE WHO DIDN'T WATCH E4 TONIGHT

YES I KNOW IT'S DREADFUL THAT ALL I TALK ABOUT IS HOLLYOAKS BUT IT'S SHIT HOT THESE DAYS The episodes today (and I include the E4 preview in that) were marvellous, great build-up so far. Much as I like Brendan,

It was truly hysterical, I loved that little twist. Tony playing blind for the next few days is going to be a joy I think. I hope he's allowed to exact his revenge before everything else gets in the way. In other news spoilers show

That one is certainly pretty good if you pretend the original never existed.

I've only been watching on-and-off in recent years, but from what I have seen it's much more balanced than it was during the Susan Bower era when you could go whole episodes without seeing an adult character. For the most part they've got a decent, likeable cast at the moment. Toadie and Sonya seem well placed to become the new Karl/Susan core supercouple, Vanessa is quite beautiful and breathing life back into Lucas, and it'll be a shame to see

So LORD KNOWS if anybody out there is still watching this sh*t, but Neighbours have just announced FOUR returnees, all seemingly unconnected, which is genuinely quite terrific. It sounds like Not clear on whether the other three are permanent stays or temporary visits though.

I think it's difficult to tell

I'm going with Have we seen the new trailer? The one area where Hollyoaks really does genuinely excel over the other soaps is their promos, and this is no exception. XO3VlauXYLA

I'm with you on the two Inbetweeners; Simon Bird, despite being billed as the main draw in the first series, is very much the weak link of the Friday Night Dinner cast. Not that he's bad as such, but simply that if you've watched the Inbetweeners, you know EXACTLY what you're going to get. Joe Thomas in Fresh Meat is likeable enough, but again cast in the luckless-in-love role, and it's getting to the point where I'm no longer rooting for he and Josie to sort themselves out (for it is far too obvious, and Josie is becoming an evil little mare).

Is nobody watching the second series of this? Between this and the return of Friday Night Dinner, C4 comedy is the TITS right now. This has really grown into a wonderful show, utterly ridiculous one minute, and really quite warming the next. Despite their wildly different personas, the core six really have gelled and bounce off each other brilliantly, and Josie aside (Sabine was right on point with her "I think you are not a nice person" takedown), you can actually root for them all despite the questionable things they may do. Vod unleasing her own BP-style oil spill genuinely had me howling.

This sounds AMAZING. Also DEPARTEE NEWS (this may be unrelated to the other spoiler):

My money is on

I'd pretty much go with that list, with the exception of Tilly who I think does still have potential provided she stops stalking Jen, and returns to being the sage old lesbian she was when she first appeared. And yes, Phoebe is marvellous. She, unlike Maddie, isn't a straight-up bitch in the sense that she aims her vitriol for those who deserve it, whilst defending to the death those she considers to be in need (George, Esther). Very much following in Jacqui's footsteps. The Diane/Liam/Ash/Ally thing was completely random and felt very disjointed. I suspect there's still some last minute editing going on and we've been missing some scenes, because I got the impression we're supposed to believe there's something romantic building up between Liam/Diane, despite the lack of onscreen airtime for the pair actually showing this.

The problem with the teens is that very few of them show any growth whatsoever. Characters can only get away with being the greatest girl band in the world if they are either meant to be a deeply psychotic villain, or if they are shown to learn from the mistakes and try and "reform". Few of the teens are showing any signs of that. You would think either one of having his aunt go to prison to cover for him, or almost drowning in the bath, would have convinced Bart it's perhaps time to change his ways, but there's no remorse, guilt or willingness to grow up whatsoever, so why on earth are viewers expected to care about him or his "great romance" with the increasingly nasty bully Sinead? And let's not get started on Maddie, or the hideously two-faced Ruby who seems more concerned with ruining her supposed best friend's life than her surrogate family's dying-baby-crisis. The sole "HELL YEAH" moment last week was George calling Sinead out for being a vile bitch.

Rubbish gais rejoice! Can't say I'm particularly fussed, but I'm sure this will create waves with the DS loons.