They may adorn the front pages of the cheaper TV mags and still manage to fill many inches of the tabloids but the question I’m asking is: are our soaps in crisis?

Some people seem to think that the soaps are untouchable pieces of the schedule but history teaches us that this simply isn’t true. Brookside was a vital building block when Channel Four began broadcasting but two decades later was brutally dispensed with, having lost both its way and its audience. If we are to believe Michael Grade’s autobiography, it may have suffered its fate years earlier had it not pulled its socks up.

Soaps don't live forever
More now than ever, the television climate will not lend itself to keep shows running merely for the sake of tradition. Family Affairs disappears from our screens shortly, not because it’s a particularly bad show, but because the ratings it achieved can be gained with cheaper programming.

So even if the big guns of the soap world can still attract the biggest crowds each day, that may not be enough to keep them on our screens forever, particularly when other cheaper formats can pull nearly as many viewers, often at a fraction of the cost.

If these shows are to retain their place in the schedules they can’t afford to jettison viewers and recent barmy storylines may pull in a big audience at their denouement but can actually have the more damaging effect of turning off regular viewers.

It’s Coronation Street that is currently a cause for concern. One of the greatest creations in the history of ITV, it made its reputation by featuring strong northern characters, in particular strong women and getting the blend between the gritty, the mundane and the comedic just right. It also managed more or less to be true to its own history.

Not anymore.

I’ve been despairing of what I perceive as a drop in quality for some time. The whole Cilla-Les-Status Quo thing was symptomatic of the show’s descent into the sort of unbelievable pantomime that has besmirched Emmerdale for many years. Characterisation and plot development has been gradually replaced by cartoon-like performances and incredible plots. Pantomime style villains now carry out bad deeds for the sake of it. The heart of the show seems to have been lost.

Unbelievable
The emergence of Mike Baldwin’s hitherto unmentioned family in the last couple of years seems to have marked the beginning of the decline but the last straw for me is this completely unbelievable storyline concerning Dev Alahan and his hordes of secret kids.

This is completely at odds with everything we’ve seen from the character so far and is made even more unbelievable by the fact that there was never even a glimmer of a mention of them when Mad Maya was torching all his shops. Just how far do they expect us to suspend to belief?

I’ve spoken to many people who care about the show and they actually feel let down by this latest turn of events. If they needed a device to write out Shobna Gulati (one of the better members of the current cast incidentally) then why not just bring loopy Maya back to bump her off? Just as daft, you may say, but at least it would be a more believable continuity than this latest debacle.

I gave up all hope for Emmerdale long ago, though they do occasionally manage to throw up a good episode. The exit of Seth Armstrong was sensitively done and showed just how good the likes of Paula Tilbrook can be when given the opportunity.

EastEnders also seems to be suffering from the need to present us with a lack of believability in its storylines.

They spent weeks carefully crafting the downfall of the Mitchell empire yet within three weeks of Phil’s return, he’d got it all back with no mention of where he’s supposed to have got the cash from.

Full of plot holes
This was the Phil who was caught red-handed on an armed robbery but walked free with just a glib one-line explanation. We just don’t buy it. The whole Den’s murder storyline has more holes in it than a trawler net and smells just as fishy. How on earth are we supposed to believe that Stacey would get off scott free for providing a false alibi to a murderer?

As for Johnny Allen, he seemed a good character at first but his personality seems to be all over the place these days, depending on who is writing the script. Billy Murray was a great catch for this show and he has been completely wasted, much as Leslie Grantham was on his return.

Quite frankly we deserve better from our flagships and if we don’t get it, they may not be around in years to come.

OFI Evans

Chris Evans is back on the telly and seemingly stuck in the past.

I found some of his exchanges with Billie Piper mildly embarrassing to watch while the loose format provided few moments of quality television. The world has moved on since Toothbrush and TFI but Evans seems to have been unable to move with the times.

The annoying cheerfulness that didn’t seem entirely genuine was more of an irritant than anything else on a Sunday night.

The format is loose enough to be tweaked into something vaguely watchable, but like Girls and Boys before it, this seems way off target.

Didn’t Chris threaten to quit telly if Terry and Gaby wasn’t a success?

Shrew be do be do

If only are real politicians were as entertaining as Shirley Henderson’s marvellously vile Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.

Vile and venomous and almost chewing the furniture , Henderson was superb and Rufus Sewell was marvellously off the wall as the eccentric aristocrat tasked with doing the taming.

This was cracking tongue-in cheek adaptation and it was marvellous that Henderson’s Kate remain spiky to the last. Great telly.

and finally…

At one point on Lost the wonderful Hurley shouts out in frustration “Guess What – now I want some freaking answers???.

So do many of you but frankly I’m happy to wait. I’m enjoying the ride so much that any sort of resolution is bound to be an anti-climax.