Echo Beach 107 review

Jason Donovan is a very harried man. He's rushing all over the place having awkward conversations and trying to make sure that his illegitimate son didn't sleep with Hannah Lederer's daughter and spawn a three-headed inbred. However they "just talked all night", as a coy and smirking girly-pink-shirt-clad Jimmy tells Charlie in the Jolly Roger pub:



Narinder is supposed to have had a tarty makeover this episode. She looks exactly the same but in hotpants. This is supposed to be a dramatic change. What would be a welcome change would be an adenoidectomy so we could hear her voice not coming out of her nose for a change.

Failed Lolita failed arsonist wannabe superbitch Grace has gone soft. Which is a shame, because she and Ian present one of the few glimpses of likely chemistry among the entire cast. And she can actually act, even if he can't. And it would be an enjoyably nostlagic echo of the coupling of Mike from Neighbours and Sophie from Home & Away.

Particularly if Ian also managed to die like Mike did. Crashing into the speeding orange campervan hotwired by a paralytic Fin and Mrs McCluskey. These two went on a date this week but kindly spared us from explicit geriatric passion. Fin manages to make his mouth turn down in exactly the same arc as the brim of his baseball hat.



Awful authoress Angela continues to be unspeakably awful. She also continues to look considerably older than Susan Penwarden.

Talking of the Penwardens, Mark Penwarden is wearing an unfortunate top that can only be described as "too tight across the bust". He's a fairly fit and fairly skinny man but the top in the suspicious-phone-call-scene with Susan gives him moobs.

Echo Beach 106 review

Sometimes you witness something so gruesome it makes you want to gouge your own eyes out with a rusty spork. The scene played out in this week's Echo Beach between Jason Donovan and Hannah Lederer's daughter - talking in an icklegirlyvoice about being ready to "ride a bike" or not - was so excruciating it was also necessary to hack out your eardrums with a rusty chainsaw.



So just to recap Episode 6: Jimmy gets mad with Susan for kissing Jason Donovan; Hannah Lederer's daughter gets a new bikini; Mark and Fin fight; Jimmy and Hannah Lederer's daughter flirt; Jason Donovan and Hannah Lederer's daughter have the unspeakable (but sadly all too spoken) abovementioned conversation; Susan and Awful Angela chat; Brae and Jackie flirt; Jimmy and Grace fight; Jason Donovan and Jimmy chat; Jason Donovan and Fin talk; Jackie and Ian talk; Narinder and Charlie flirt; Susan and Grace talk; Brae and Jackie flirt more; Jimmy and Hannah Lederer's daughter flirt and talk and snog; Brae and Jackie drink; etc etc.

Anyone else spotting the woefully dreary pattern here? There doesn't seem to be a single three-way conversation going on in the entire episode, apart from a bit of dreary multipart muttering in the bar with Ivy. Is the Echo Beach budget so limited they can only use one camera? Or haven't the writers progressed past "Screenwriting 101 - The Art of the Duologue"? It's just an endless stream of gruesome twosomes. And by god are some of them gruesome this week.

The other week it was suprising to find out that Charlie is apparently related to Fin. And now it is even more astonishing to disover that that Fin is apparently supposed to suffer from learning difficulties or dementia or such like. We know Fin is supposed to be "old" (since he's the only male character aged over 40 in the entire cast) but is he supposed to have reached his second childhood? Because suddenly he's playing a stunning fusion of the yokel village idiot and Rainman:



Anyway Hannah Lederer's daughter ending up riding Jimmy's bike, all the while managing to talk through her nose. Whether it was supposed to be figurative or not doesn't really matter. Seeing Jason Donovan rushing around doing "frantic angst" was treat enough.

Echo Beach 105 review

Well that was something of a shock - it turns out that geek-boy Charlie is Mike Baldwin's grandson. Did anyone else spot this in an earlier episode? What a revelation, that the two of the most least interesting characters are related.

Other that that, more glorious tears from failed-Lolita failed-manslaughteress Grace, racked with guilt after trying to flame-broil her idol. Father Mark suggests fleeing to Spain. The UK and Spain actually re-ratified their extradition treaty in 1985 and European arrest warrants came into force in 2004, but no matter. Perhaps Mark is planning to hide out on the set of Eldorado? The perfect camouflage, surely, for any ropey soap actor.



Adding to the Single White Female plotline theory, awful author Angela is trying to flirt with Jason Donovan. It comes across more as menacing than alluring. Bear in mind that Angela already knows that her newbestfriend Susan Penwarden still carries a torch for Jason: "the eyes... they never lie." So Angela is clearly up to something demonic. She has another good digging and stirring session later on with Susan over Susan's marriage.

There is a lot of dreary hospital bedside action going on in this episode. The starring role is taken by Susan Penwarden's hair. Why does she have so much hair, and why does it hang down over her entire body like outsize spaniel ears, or a glossier version of Cousin It's hair cloak? Could it not be pinned up into a nice neat frumpy bun or something, to at least help us with the illusion that she wasn't Cornwall's youngest ever pre-teen mum.

Some of the cringiest, dreariest dialogue ever between whiny-voiced Narinder and geek-boy Charlie. Why oh why couldn't these two have been gently blown up in last week's convenient caravan explosion?

Jimmy finally asks Helen Lederer's daughter out. Given that this is no longer 1991 and Echo Beach airs on ITV not the prudish Beeb, does that mean we will actually see this relationship develop? Unlike Glen and Lucy Robinson who ended up on the cutting room floor rather than beamed into UK homes.

Brae needs a haircut. He also needs to spend less time weeping in the arms of Jason Donovan. You can already hear the slash-fic writers sharpening their nibs.

And there's more hideous anti-chemistry between Susan Penwarden and Jason Donovan. Even some tawdrily sentimental music strumming up can't emulsify this coupling.

Echo Beach 104 review

Did anyone else sit through this episode with an increasing sense of terror about the prospect of Jason Donovan's pallid buttocks shining in the Polnarren moonlight?

Thanks to god and/or the scriptwriters, they stayed covered up. Anyone who ever did science GCSE and remembers the bitter disappointment when their friend manages a rainbow mushroom cloud, but their acids and things don't react properly and just sit limply in a test tube, will relate to the chemistry demonstrated here:




When it comes to contemporary drama, sitcoms and YouTube, the question often arises: "is this supposed to be funny?" This is an absolutely pointless question. Either something is funny or it isn't, it doesn't matter whether it was supposed to be. And this was an episode filled with rivers of tears and torrents of laughter. Tears of teen angst flood from the eyesockets of wannabe-Lolita Grace as she fails to seduce the male Hollyoaks caravan-dweller in a turquoise bra and transparent gold top. Laughter roars forth from us at her plight.

Grace: a clue. There's almost certainly a reason he looks like a gay Damon Albarn. We know he's not Damon Albarn, so add up your two plus two and make the thirteen-and-and-half that everyone else's SoapPlot caculator has managed to compute.

Because there don't currently appear to be any gay characters in Polnarren. We know Jason Donovan isn't gay. We definitely know that Jason Donovan isn't gay. Jason Donovan's son looks gay, but appears to be lusting after the female caravan-dweller. The dark-haired geek friend of Susan's son may as well be gay, but isn't (yet). Susie Amy looks the likeliest bet, in a Single White Female psycho-killer sort of a way.




Yay! Now that's a mushroom cloud.

Echo Beach 103 review

What is Susan Penwarden/Tiffany-from-Eastenders/Martine McCutcheon doing at the end of episode three? Is she uncovering a grave or digging for buried treasure? Or is she trying to face Mecca? Someone suggested her and Jason's dead baby is buried there, which would be gruesome but rather disappointing. After all, Jason is blond and Susan's son is blond and two plus two always makes about seventeen in soap terms.

Either way this was a woefully dull episode. There were far too many drawn out teen dating shenanigans. That's what drove Neighbours and Home & Away downhill, when the animals took over the farm and kitchen sink melodrama was cast aside in favour of teen-soap. We need adult action featuring Mike Baldwin and Mrs McCluskey. Only not actual adult action, if you get my drift. Hugo Speers and half (or all) of the Hollyoaks couple might be a likelier start for that.

Many critics have commented on Jason Donovan's woeful British accent ("the bizarre clipped upper-class tones of a Second World War pilot"). Here's a clip:




Competing for most excruciating moment this week are two choice performances. The first is Helen Lederer's daughter's laugh:


Truly this is gruesome. It's obviously supposed to be gruesome, but it's gruesome gruesome. It also doesn't help that her accent is even more painful than Gwyneth Paltrow's in Sliding Doors. And just how did Jason Donovan make enough cash to send her to Roedean? Maybe his conveniently dead wife was a Duchess.


Susie Amy's attempt at being Miss Marple is the second contender. Susie Amy already has a terrifying, stalker-like character with apparent designs on Susan Penwarden. She's also writing what sounds like the worst romance since Dame Sally Markham transcribed the Bible.



Since the very first hammy caveman invented the concept of drama, has a line ever been delivered in such a sinister tone? It makes Hannibal Lecter sound like the Care Bears.

Echo Beach 102 review

Those that remember the youth quartet of Ramsay Street:

Scott (blond)
Charlene (curly blonde)
Mike (dark)
Jane (straight blonde)

will be delighted by a similar foursome here:

Susan Penwarden's son (blond)
Helen Lederer's daughter (curly blonde)
Jason Donovan's son (dark)
Susan Penwarden's daughter (straight blonde)

And it doesn't really matter who goes after who, because there's always a Hard Hitting Incest Storyline if the family trees get mixed up.

There's also a spare and quite irritating dark haired bloke (Glenn Robinson? Henry Ramsay?) floating around, and a random Hollyoaks couple who are running the Summer Bay caravan park. And an Asian girl with a mildly irritating voice. But the scriptwriters don't hold back on dealing these drama school graduettes some gripping dialogue, allowing them to fully display their vastly impressive acting range:



Evil is Afoot at the caravan park, which from the wideshot looks little better than a prisoner of war camp comprised of white portacabins:



Bulldozing it would be an act of mercy.

Echo Beach 101 review

What a marvellous treat: a step back in time to the golden era of Neighbours in its proper children-were-children and adults-were-adults suburban melodrama days.

Only this is "Polnarren", a Cornish village that would very much like to be Summer Bay/Palm Beach but sadly lacks any inhabitants with even an E-grade GCSE in surfing. And let's face it, we all know what British summers are really like. No amount of upping the colour saturation on Polnarren beach to fluorescent yellow can disguise the grizzled skies.

Susan Penwarden, better known as Tiffany from Eastenders, appears to be on a fairground ride or something in the opening titles. This does nothing to dispel perceptions that she gave birth to two strapping teenagers aged about 12, sired by Hugo Speers. What also doesn't help is having Susie Amy hanging around, who looks a perfectly-preserved late-thirties despite her claims to a 1980s birthdate.

In the local pub, where Mrs McCluskey is now works behind the bar, things are even more confusing. There's nothing strange about a London schoolmistress choosing to spend her retirement in Cornwall, but she has also picked up a Cornish accent over the years. As has Mike Baldwin, who surely only departed the North West (and this earth) a few months ago? Adding to the accent mayhem is Jason Donovan's bizarre British twang - is he hoping to get his children into Eton? - which inspires distinctly Australian vowels from chirpy cockney "Old Cornwall" Susan Penwarden in the followingly exquisitely awful exchange:

Jason:		I went all around the world in my head, and in the end it was the kids who made me realise I belong hyah.
Susan:		Once maybe, but not naow.