DTC Resigns and New EP named

[kitkat1971]

DTC has announced he is standing down as EE' EP and Sean O'Conner, currently Editor of The Archers, is to replace him. Sean was a storyline in the slaters first couple of years, a strong time so that bodes well

In many ways I'll be sorry to see him go as i do think there has been much more good than bad during his tenure and the show was all but dead prior to his taking over in 2013. But, he has made some dreadful mistakes like the mess of Kathy's return and as a rule, i think 3 or 4 years is the most any Producer should stay at one soap as creatively they will run out of steam.

It seems unclear exactly when this change will happen but DTC seems to be suggesting that Peggy's last episodes will co-incide with his.

[Lotty27]

It was inevitable really as soap producers don't seem to stay all that long, I suppose it must be quite an exhausting job to keep coming up with ideas and maintaining quality and eventually you must be itching to get away and try your hand on another programme.  

I agree that I've enjoyed more than I haven't.  He's made some cracking episodes, the live week in particular was excellent.  Only negatives to me are the Bobby storyline STILL being unresolved (stretched out far too long) and Kathy's return lacking any sense of excitement, I'll never forget how dreadfully put together her and Ian's first scenes were when he was about to throw himself off that bridge.  Truly awful with no sense of urgency or real emotion.  He's also played fast and loose with EE's history but I suppose in his favour is the fact that he is at least interested and doesn't ignore it.

Interesting replacement. I like that he was part of EE under some of it's best storylines and not some rank outsider. I was dreading Stuart Blackburn ending there!      

[kitkat1971]

Stuart Blackburn or Oliver Kent. Both would have been dreadful. I just wish OK would leave Casualty/Holby City where he has been for nearly 3 years now. Different thread I know.

What I haven't liked is the interconnecting of everybody, including rewriting history to do it (Gavin, Gavin, Gavin and the Hubbards) and characters becoming so deeply unlikeable, mainly because of the Bobby coverup. But Sept 2013 to February 2015 and the beginning of this year have been really, really good - the strongest for the show since 99-2002 imo.

It must be ab incredibly hard job with a high burn out factor. Even the basic day to day role must be hardn when you then factor in the additional abuse they get online these days second guessing every decision - well frankly I'm surprised any of them last longer than a couple of years.

[Deleted]

I agree with you guys. I think the good outweighed the bad with DTC's tenure over all. I've really enjoyed som s/l's.

My main gripe has also been the far-fetched linking of people to each other, and some of the rewriting of facts.

[sw2963]

Thank goodness for that. I think he's been pushed.

[Teeks]

Thank god. The DTC hype machine is finally coming to an end. I've been pretty disappointed with his tenure to be honest. I mean he's not as frustrating as Kirkwood and Newman, but that doesn't make him any less of a disappointment in my eyes.

The overall quality of storylines under DTC has been fairly better than the rubbish we got under Kirkwood (let's not mention Newman). When you consider how bad it got under Kirkwood by the end, that's not saying much though. It's not been anywhere near 'great' or 'must see' television under DTC, not like it use to be. Live Week was the peak of DTC's tenure and I will freely admit I was compelled by those episodes. However, I found everything before and after Live Week to be simply drab.

Kirkwood and DTC both made mistakes. Kirkwood's mistakes were a lot more damaging though (killing off a legend like Pat for no reason was just an arrogant move and the influx of teenagers, Derek Branning's arrival, the Baby Swap also ruined Ronnie, Kat and Alfie etc)

DTC's mistakes haven't been too bad in general. Okay, Kathy's return hasn't worked out, but I'm just happy she's back on EE after all these years and you have to be a brave EP to bring back a popular character from the dead, so I'll give DTC credit here. You can forgive him for this mistake because most producers would've done it. And I'll be interested to see what the next producer does with Kathy.
I think the one stupid mistake DTC has made is with Kat and the whole secret twin storyline - it's so ludicrous and it risks damaging Kat. How does a woman not remember she gave birth to twins? Come on, seriously?   There is no excuse in the world that will plausibly explain this!

Dean and Shabnam's secret daughter storyline was also ridiculous and stupid. The two characters barely interacted in their last stint, but apparently they had this daughter together offscreen after a one-night stand and Shabnam sent the baby away for adoption. Where on earth did this storyline come from? Why pick these two random characters? It all felt so contrived and desperate from the writers. A blatant attempt to manufacture a joint storyline for the Masoods and Carters.

Also, what is DTC's obsession with babies anyway? He can't resist throwing in a pregnancy or a secret love child into the mix for added drama. Even Jordan Johnson has a freakin' child now!! I  mean where are all these secret sprogs springing from? And are we meant to find this revelation shocking? Why should we even care that Jordan has a son? He's a non-entity. I mean at this rate, Tiffany Butcher will be a mother soon.

Generally, DTC has a habit of inventing and rewriting history/backstory for characters. The newly invented backstories for the Mitchells/Hubbards and Shirley are further examples of this.
For years DTC has gone out of his way to make Shirley look like a sympathetic victim and it's laughable when you consider it. It was established long ago that Shirley was a selfish cow who abandoned her kids for no reason and did not know who their biological father was; now all of a sudden we're meant to sympathise with her because she had a bad upbringing with her parents (boo hoo) and nearly drowned her first son as a result of stress .
How is anyone suppose to sympathise with a woman like that? I hate it when writers cater to certain characters and this was an obvious case of DTC catering to Shirley.

As for the Mitchells, apparently we're meant to believe small-time playground thug, Phil, was part of some big crime network years ago that was never mentioned before. Oh, and the Hubbards apparently knew the Mitchells from way back when and Eric Mitchell apparently caused the death of Vincent's dad according to Claudette. When did this all take place then? And where does Johnny Allen fit into all of this? Since we know Johnny's backstory was heavily entwined with the Mitchells as well.

Putting aside the retcons, ultimately I think DTC has been a big letdown if you look at his entire tenure as a whole IMHO. He is so derivative and often he recycles elements of classic storylines and stitches them together hoping the viewers will not notice. I'm not saying it's always a bad thing to be derivative in a soap opera where original material is hard to come by, but in DTC's case it's not worked in his favour at all because he's borrowed too heavily from previous storylines and the show feels stagnated right now IMO.


Under his tenure:

- We saw Phil being shot for a SECOND bloody time
- We saw Stacey having ANOTHER mental breakdown and getting knocked up with another man's baby AGAIN
- We saw Phil in yet ANOTHER boring feud with Vincent the latest gangster clone
- We saw Shirley being revealed as Mick's mother in a blatant attempt to replicate the success of the Kat and Zoe storyline
- Kat's secret son storyline is also an attempt to feed off the success of the Kat and Zoe storyline.
- I'm sure there are other such examples as well.

The man simply has no original ideas. He just falls back on the same old rubbish of years gone by. What happened to DTC not wanting to 'repeat the show's greatest hits'?
People often use this as a stick to beat him with, but it's true! DTC should never have made this promise in the first place. He should've just been upfront about his plans to rip-off classic storylines.

There you go. My full review of DTC's time as EP.
Sorry for the essay. I get carried away sometimes. Just my opinion of course.

[CAEF]

I am quite pleased he is going. I have only seen a few good things under DTC. He was big on promise and short on delivery. He was branded as Jesus and was to save EE but I think he has ruined it. I disagree with anyone who says he was more good than bad, I think the opposite. Endless Carter and Stacey bias, rewriting of history and absurd storylines.

TK Mazin summed it up and I am behind his opinion 100%.

[Deleted]

For all his faults, he has revitalised the show. The Carters are the best family introduced in years, his fresh approach to soap storytelling was inspiring (Who Killed Lucy captured the public's attentions), you never quite knew what was coming next with all the surprises and shock twists. He has made a lot of successful recasts, introduced some brilliant characters and brought back some well known favourites both in front and behind the screen.

You can't deny his passion for the show and Peggy's death feels like his natural swansong. Thanks for making it must see again and good luck to the new boss and soap forum buzzword, SOC.

Crazy to think that this day last year, we didn't know Kathy was coming back or who killed Lucy? What a masterstroke #EELive week was.

[Holey]

Feb 18, 2016 9:01:26 GMT sw2963 said:

Thank goodness for that. I think he's been pushed.

On balance and all things considered I am also glad he is going, but I don't believe for one minute he has been pushed. He is well in with every one at EE, the cast adore him, everybody and his dog want to return or get a part in the show and the BBC seem to like him also.  The 30th Anniversary week will go down in history.  What annoys me most about DTC is, his tenure could have been bloody amazing if he had been reigned in a bit. I thought he was the best thing since sliced bread in his first year, then it went down hill.  He should have rejected many of Alex Lambs ideas. He made some decisions that really got my goat (don't like resurrections) and played about with the history of the show too much for my liking. At times I could have strangled him. Too many things happened off screen. At one point I was so p****d off, he made me stop watching the show for about a month.  I think younger fans in general thought DTC was the new messiah and older fans of the show who had watched from day one were pretty outraged by retcon after retcon.  EE became retcon city.

As for DTC's successor, Sean O'Connor is a good choice and speaking as an Archers fan, what I can tell you for sure is that Sean O'Connor has done wonders for this soap on Radio 4 and as any fan will tell you, storylines like that of Helen and Rob have made The Archers unmissable and the best soap in the UK by a country mile. EE are lucky to have the likes of him on their flag ship drama.

Now the big three will have new producers, it will be interesting to see what happens.  That's a duff duff in its own right.

[Teeks]

Feb 18, 2016 12:29:24 GMT CAEF said:

I am quite pleased he is going. I have only seen a few good things under DTC. He was big on promise and short on delivery. He was branded as Jesus and was to save EE but I think he has ruined it. I disagree with anyone who says he was more good than bad, I think the opposite. Endless Carter and Stacey bias, rewriting of history and absurd storylines.

TK Mazin summed it up and I am behind his opinion 100%.

Thanks.

I feel so much safer here expressing my criticisms of DTC . I thought about posting this on DS and then changed my mind.

The rewriting of history seems to be the biggest gripe that people have with DTC. If he carries on doing that, he will leave lasting damage on the show. More so than Kirkwood did. You could criticise Kirkwood about his storylining decisions such as the Baby Swap and his rubbish characters such as the Moon brothers and Derek Branning, but at least he didn't rewrite history willy-nilly at every opportunity.

DTC is out of control with his rewriting of history and it's starting to hurt the show. I still don't know what possessed DTC to think that giving Zoe Slater a secret twin was a great idea - it came across like fanfiction to me! Kat has enough children!

The repetitive Carter dramas following Linda's rape is what turned me off. I've mainly been reading spoilers and watching the odd episode to keep up with the show for the last few months. I was also tired of watching Stacey's antics, I get that not all characters have to be likeable but how many times do we have to see this woman betray people?

[wallis]

I agree with a lot that's already been said about DTC from both sides of the fence and I for one would never sit on it. If I had to choose a side it would be on the positive side that he has raised the soap up from the doldrums and injected some much needed life back into it. Nobody is perfect after all, we all make mistakes.

I wish him well in whatever he goes on to do and I also look forward to see what the new EP brings to EE.

[Teeks]

Fair play to you, wallis. Don't mind our criticism for DTC. You're entitled to like his work on the show. I just personally expected better from him.

I do agree there were positivies to DTC's tenure. A lot more positives than Kirkwood and Newman put together anyhow!

[J-B]

This is such great news. Just the other day I demanded an apology and his immediate resignation. There's no credible way he could do the things he's done and still have the gall to show his face around Elstree.

[mellowenchanted]

After a solid first year at the helm, everything just seemed to venture off into dangerous third-rate fanfiction territory that completely undermined the credibility of the show to an even greater extent. It is reasonable enough to expect soap viewers to suspend belief every now and then, but the majority of the storylines last year were so off the mark in terms of realism and were extremely to take seriously. The chopping and changing off the show's history in order to link several key families together made the quality of the show look very cartoonish.

I will give him credit for the good casting choices he made over the course of his time in charge. I particularly liked the recasts of Martin, Shabnam and Ben. The majority of the Carters and Cokers are great too. DTC was much better for that than his last three predecessors. 

[CAEF]

You have to wonder if he jumped before he was pushed.