BBC: 'Enders burial scenes "not glorified"

The BBC has apologised to viewers who "did not enjoy" recent EastEnders episodes depicting one of the soap's main characters being buried alive.

The episodes, which aired on Friday 21 and Monday 24 March at 8pm, saw Tanya Branning (Jo Joyner) finally exact her revenge on her promiscuous husband Max (Jake Wood) by subjecting him to his childhood nightmare of being buried six feet under in a coffin. Her guilty conscience, however, forced her to return to the woodland scene and dig him up.

Friday's episode sparked 167 complaints.

A statement on the corporation's complaints website read: "Regular viewers will be aware that for some weeks now Tanya has been plotting her revenge against Max for his affair with Stacey, whilst at the same time lulling Max into a false sense of security, and convincing him that she has put the affair behind them.

"We believe the audience will have been expecting the culmination of these past few weeks to bring something particularly dramatic. Having been outsmarted by Max when she tried to deal with his adultery through the divorce courts, Tanya feels she has no option but to exact her own revenge."

It continued: "Given the story so far, Tanya's mode of revenge is entirely apposite; in an episode which transmitted last year, we saw Max confide in Tanya that when he was a child Jim had punished him for hanging around with some boys he disapproved of by shutting him alive in a coffin. It's an experience that clearly scarred him, and therefore - in Tanya's mind - an ideal way to wreak revenge on her husband.

"Whilst we appreciate that these episodes were dramatic, they were carefully filmed and edited in order that Max's ordeal was in the main implicit, rather than explicit, whilst still retaining their powerfulness.

"The burial is in no way glamorised or glorified, rather we see that when pushed to the edge, Tanya's behaviour becomes out of character, and indeed that it's Tanya herself who ultimately suffers because of her actions. Once again we are sorry that you did not enjoy these episodes."

It added: "We took great care to signal the nature of the content to the audience through pre-programme announcements, billings and programme publicity in order to prepare viewers for what to expect."

In January, the Walford soap received nearly 200 complaints over the stabbing of young teen Jay Brown (Jamie Borthwick), while in November, the BBC was forced to apologise for a reference in a script to the Hillsborough disaster of 1989. Back in June, meanwhile, 183 viewers lodged complaints at the climax of the soap's 'Mad May' storyline arc.