15 Years of EastEnders

By Larry Jaffee

EastEnders fans who have watched the series from the very beginning will agree that it seems almost like yesterday that Den Watts & Co. kicked down the door of Reg Cox’s flat only to find him stiff.

Since then, numerous faces have come [and many gone], but the one constant is that we never cease to care about the ongoings around Albert Square.

Although first aired in the U.K. on Feb. 19, 1985, EastEnders actually didn’t make it across the Atlantic until late 1987 or early 1988 via public TV stations. Hence, North Americans without access to satellite/digital cable service BBC America are at least two years behind the current U.K. storyline. So for many of us stateside, EastEnders’ 15th anniversary is more a state of mind than an actual event.

'EastEnders has become a phenmenon on both sides of the Atlantic,' says Paul Lee, BBC America chief operating officer. 'Who would have thought that a British soap opera, where no one has money or plastic surgery would have captured the hearts of so many of our American viewers?'

BBC America rewarded EastEnders fans with a marathon of six back-to-back episodes and the ability to vote for their favourite episode.

For those of us whose only EE option are the 15 or so PBS affiliates (the number keeps on dwindling) still airing the show, the milestone has pretty much gone unnoticed.

Meanwhile, WNED-TV in Buffalo made good on its threat to cancel (see page 3), and at press time, WQLN-TV in Erie, PA was poised to do the same.

Some celebration. Let’s not become some sort of sad Village Green Preservation Society. Please support your public television stations financially, to proactively head off any other plans to drop our weekly Cockney lifelines. We at the Walford Gazette will try to manage a brave face, with the full awareness that EastEnders fans will perservere in their quest for excellent television no matter where they live.