EastEnders is all about miserable pikeys doing constantly depressing things, and that has stood the show in good stead for the past couple of decades – but now, thanks to a plot about a kidnapped baby, EastEnders might have out-depressed itself.
This summer, the main plot of EastEnders was going to deal with one shrieking pikey having her baby kidnapped, possibly by a posh woman who's a sort of proxy pikey. However, thanks to the ongoing disappearance of Madeleine McCann, EastEnders bosses have got cold feet and ditched the storyline because parallels with real life events would upset viewers. And, just to be absolutely sure that there aren't any similarities between EastEnders and the Madeleine McCann saga, plan B is to have the Dawn Swann character give birth to a fully-grown Ottoman Grand Vizier from the 15th century riding a lightning-eyed unicorn who quickly becomes employed at Ian Beale's chip shop with disastrous consequences. Unless that happens in real life too, in which case EastEnders will be pretty much shagged.
EastEnders has been hit with problems in the past – problems like the show creating real-life bullies and generally being about as entertaining as running a rusty shard of tin across your eye for 30 minutes – but the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has tossed EastEnders into so much turmoil that not even another extended Grant Mitchell cameo can rescue it.
It's clear that the mysterious vanishing of four-year-old Madeleine McCann in Portugal three weeks ago has destroyed her parents, but it's equally clear that the whole thing has spiralled into the sort of distasteful media frenzy that this country has done so well ever since Princess Diana died. Papers have shortened 'Madeleine' down to 'Maddie' in order to make her sound more innocent and childlike, commentators have criticised the Portuguese police investigation because We Are British and They Are Not and news reports are still maintaining that it's the most important story in the whole world, even though – at an estimate based on PACT statistics – around 5,765 more children have gone missing in the UK alone since the day that Madeleine disappeared.
While we still have the possibility of a Madeleine McCann charity single to look forward to, as well as constant nationwide two-minute silences every time a new lead is discovered, at least the story has been enough to freak out EastEnders, which was planning to run a storyline this summer that's sort of a bit like the Madeleine McCann story if you squint and tilt your head at it. But that's not going to happen any more, as BBC News reports:
A storyline about a missing baby in BBC soap EastEnders is being rewritten because of similarities with the Madeleine McCann case in Portugal. The plot was due to revolve around Kara Tointon's character Dawn Swann, who is currently pregnant in the programme. "It was felt any storyline that included child abduction would be inappropriate and could cause distress to our viewers," a spokeswoman said.
Never mind that the writers could have used EastEnders to mirror and explore the emotional impact on Madeleine's parents to help its viewers understand the situation better – it's probably for the best that the whole lot's been binned. Perhaps EastEnders is also worried that viewers will be distressed by the storyline about that boy secretly filming his Dad on the internet, because that may have possibly also happened once as well; or the plot about that bald ginger man having an affair with the pikey from the market because – ugh – bald and ginger?
OK, we'll admit it – we're just annoyed that, now the baby abduction story has been shelved, we're in for a summer where the main drive of EastEnders comes from Mickey being a hilarious man-whore. And that's probably worse, if anything.
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