It's soap land. I think most of the stuff that happens in soaps is implausible. Like the fact that everyone seems to have each others mobile

phone numbers even though they don't like each other or on the surface only have tenuous social connections.

Oh and how many people have "slept" with virtually every other character in the shows?

If I were you Carnelian I would not over think soaps, they are not Shakespeare and on the whole pretty dire - which is why I no longer watch them (was never an avid follower, just dipped in front time to time).

I also find it strange that they would give the baby to Phil nd if they don't end this Kat's secret lover storyline soon my TV will be in danger and I agree about the mobile phone, why would they all have each others numbers

I've given up on Eastenders, it's the same boring, steaming pile of crap over and over and over again

and Bianca has no money for christmas AGAIN you'd think she'd have learn't to save through the year by now

or buy a cheapie fake tree? Why was she buying a real one?!

EE is the most vacuous thing on TV.

I think the Lola storyline does have a point though.  Social services have shown that they DO take kids off parents for a mistake or two instead of working with parents to get help.  (Then they don't try hard enough to take kids off abusive parents but that's a whole other thread).

Giving Lexi to Phil though is strange??  Surely Billy would be more suited....even if he is a bit skint, him and Lola would be a much better pair to raish Lexi.

And Bianca   She doesn't get any benefts?  No child tax/working tax credits? Child benefit?  I dunno what she'd be entitled to but SURELY with 3 kids she'd be  entitled to something to stop them from going hungry!

Not quite, your forgetting TOWIE, That Chelsea thing, Coronation Street, Emmerdale Farm, anything with a z-lister like Jordan or Peter Andre...

Au contraire! The Street is rather good IMO.

I'll second that .....................although it'll be 100% better when/if Carla Connor slings her hook. I find it very hard to watch that self obsessed, selfish, scheming character.

EE depresses the fcUK out of me, and the acting at times is diabolical..There are a handful of brilliant actors/actresses but the scripts are poor and very badly written..So they never get to shine..

Derek/Max/Jean/Lola/Dot/Kat/Shirley/Denise/Kim/Patrick-Are all carrying the rest of the cast..

Give me Corrie/Emmerdale any day..

I'll third this and agree about Carla.

I was saying the same thing the other day what annoys me is they wheel the same story out every christmas

If it wasn't for Kim, I'd not bother watching - she is sheer genius and comic gold 

Yes, the Lola/Lexi story is unrealistic, and Eastenders have already been in trouble for it. Social Workers complained when it started because they considered the behaviour of Lola's Social Worker (which is central to how the whole storyline started) totally unrealistic and inappropriate - to the extent that she'd have been disciplined long before now if it was real life.

I saw an interview where they dragged out a Soap writer (not an Eastenders writer - they were running scared of any criticism) to answer questions, and she came out with the old "the audience are intelligent enough to know it's fiction" line, but for me this just doesn't cut it. Soap writers are continually trying to have their cake and eat it: they want to prove themselves as imaginitive writers, but they have to deal with the fact that most people watch soaps (as opposed to other drama) because it's supposed to be anchored in real life. For me, the Lola storyline is comparable to - for example - an episode of Casualty where the writers invented a new disease or treatment.

What's I think is becoming increasingly clear is that the storyline so far is just a means to an end: I can't be certain, of course, but it looks to me like they're setting-up a "Mitchell's divided" storyline, with Phil trying to cut Lola out completely and adopt Lexi himself...

I think you're right with this - especially as tonight Phil referred to Lexi as his baby 

and I agree with everything you've said 

Couldn't agree more about Bianca.  Has her character ever signed on?  I've never heard it mentioned.  Do all EastEnders businesses operate on the cash in hand black market?  Does she ever look for work in the conventional sense, as experienced by 99% of the unemployed?  Her career options seem to revolve around jobs around the square just falling into her lap and just as quickly disappearing. 

In EastEnders the best way to find work is going around the square begging for work, getting stroppy when refused and then on the fourth or fifth attempt at this, a job falls into your lap.

It seems almost certain to end in a variation of these tried and trusted scenarios - absconding from the law with the baby set up, Lola suicide attempt, Lola going off the rails and attempting murder. How many characters in EE have absconded abroad over the years in what's supposed to be a working class community?

I'm surprised they don't give Phil's character a cape and a moustache to twirl, he's such a pantomime villain.