Crossroads

As a soap-a-holic, I was pleased to hear that "Crossroads" was making a comeback, as I was only three years old when the show was cancelled, and therefore never saw it.

Alas, I was rather dissapointed with what I found. Crossroads Motel had been demolished and replaced with a Crossroads four star hotel. Some of the acting from the new actors is terrible, the script is dier at times, and what seems like the beginning of an ongoing storyline is over by the commerical break.

But perhaps the biggest mistake of all was killing of Jane Rossington as Jill Harvey. Jane was the best of the three original cast members that had returned to the show. The writers killed her off because the ratings weren't high enough.

If that were the case, then surely the most sensible thing to do would have been to pull the plug on the whole show, and not the best character.

I'm not too surprised. Even at the age of 15, I have noticed a severe landslide in the quality of British TV. The overall quality of British soaps has plummetted, making most of British TV cheesy, boring and unrealistic.

Take the conversations held by some of the teens in Crossroads - nobody talks like that!!!!

5 out of 10.

This had potential. A soap opera set in a hotel could've been good if the producers and writers and cast actually made the effort.

I was disappointed. But I liked the plot line in the 2001-2002 version involving Jake Booth emotionally abusing Tracey Booth, his wife, and Tracey turning into an alcoholic. I loved this plot line and I felt very sorry for Tracey Booth and the way she was being abused by Jake.

I hated having to watch Miss goody-two shoes Nicola Russel get her top GCSE grades though. The plot line was dull, stupid, boring, irrelevant, and ultimately insulting to those who got bad examination results like me. I felt that this plot line took the biscuit out of those students who may've done badly in the year 2001, I did badly and felt like this plot was rubbing my nose in my failures, if that makes sense.

Most of the plot lines were dull, the ending was just pure stupid. I liked Cindy Marshall-Day's performance and Colin Wells was great. But they were the only decent two cast members.

The Samson's were horrible. They should've had more violence, lies, deceit, and betrayals, then the soap could've been much better.

If they try it again, it needs big reforms if it is to have a fighting chance of succeeding.

'Crossroads' disappeared from ITV1 in mid 2002, and we were assured that the show hadn't been axed..... sure enough on the 13th of January, 2003 it returned, sporting a mostly new cast and a new look.

Any attempt at realism has been thrown out the window, as the show's new Producer Yvon Grace has decided to go for glamour over realism. I have to say, it's so awful that it's actually unmissable - it's almost American in it's sheer awfulness. The new cast are uniformly hopeless, and it's only the old hands from the 2001 revival that seem to know what they're supposed to be doing. Jane Asher is simply terrible as Angel Samson, Emma Noble (the daughter in law of the former British PM John Major) is even worse. She had one line in the first episode of the new run, and couldn't even make 'Good morning' sound convincing.. Anne Charleson (Madge from 'Neighbours') has been thrown in for good measure, and she's actually quite good.

The story picks up a year after where we last left the show, so I assume that Phil Berry is in the slammer. Anyway, the hotel has changed hands yet again, and been given a horrendous new look more in keeping with Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas than any British hotel I've ever seen. The first episode had all the soap necessities - murder, an astonishing amount of adultery, some of which was mingled with the murder, a party and a twin shagging his twins wife in a train toilet (obviously he found out who she was at the end of the episode). All in all, I'd say that 'Crossroads' now has everything it needs to be a moderate teatime success for ITV1 - sex, glamour, pretty men, pretty women (and no Doris Luke!!!) and it's been moved from 5.30pm to 5.00pm and is no longer going to get hammered in the ratings by 'Neighbours' on BBC1.

I think I'll keep watching as it's simply so awful that it's completely unmissable.... it has the same 'train wreck' effect as American soaps like 'Sunset Beach', 'Days of Our Lives' and 'The Bold and The Beautiful', and is infinitely more interesting than the bland post millenial attempt that was foisted upon us in 2001.

*** out of *****

With the exception of DOCTOR WHO any television show that has its format changed is bound to fail . The original series of CROSSROADS worked because it was total garbage . On its return it's obvious the producers wanted it to be a big success by making it appeal to a teenage audience by sexing it up - Big mistake . Take for example the idea of a Scottish chef in the motel kitchen . In the original it was a Scottish chef who was - Depending on how the writers felt that day - either a wimp or a bitter sociopath . In the new version we're treated to a hunk from Scotland who's a real smoothie and in one episode saves a damsel in distress from a burning derelict church

Despite this spicing up the show I think the only attractive cast member was ( Non ) actress Cindy Marshall-Day who played drunken slapper Tracey Booth and naturally playing that sort of role she got all the best lines like this line she says to one of her Asian staff :

" Beena - Been a round more like "

Being a complete slut Mrs Booth was the catalyst for a domestic subplot where her husband has to explain to her son in a sensitive manner that Mummy and Daddy don't love one another any more :

"I'm thirteen y'know not three " moans the son who's played by a child actor so bad it's impossible to believe he's even had a walk on part in a school pantomime and gives the only performance that comes close to being so bad it's good

This new version of CROSSROADS was met by small viewing figures that just got worse and worse so in order to save it the producers went back to basics and included more and more outlandish plots in order to make it appeal to fans of schlock television . We saw Adam Chance return as a homicidal maniac but the writing was on the wall and the show was cancelled with the ending being on a par with someone waking up and discovering it had all been a bad dream . The reality was it was more of a bad idea than a bad dream

That didn't take long did it?? Crossroads returned in something considerably less than a blaze of publicity to ITV1 on 13th January 2003. I was initially quite optimistic about it's chances, hoping that the daily dose of high camp farce, glamour and terrible acting might appeal to the great unwashed that is the British public.

Unfortunately, despite moving at a pace which would blow most other soap scriptwriters out of the water, covering dozens of storylines in a matter of weeks, it seems the show has failed to strike a chord with the considerable UK daytime audience, it's viewing figures sliding to a paltry 1.3 million per day (the 1st revival's lowest point was 2.5 million), barely enough to sustain a show Carlton and ITV spent almost £15 million on bringing back. So, this morning, on March 10th, 2003 it was announced that Crossroads will disappear from the schedules when it's current batch of episodes ends in the summer.... as if that wasn't bad enough, to add insult to injury - the show is being moved out of the 5pm slot in a few weeks to a more 'suitable' early afternoon slot.

To be fair to ITV, the show hasn't been dogged with any rumours of an axing, but also, it barely has had enough time to even register in the public consciousness - so I feel that an axing might well be premature. I know one thing, I'll miss Jane Asher and Jane Gurnett's deliciously awful bitching and catfights (as Angel Samson and Kate Russell respectively). No disrespect to ITV, but they seem to be developing an almost American mentality towards show, if it doesn't perform brilliantly from the start, then they're not interested. If the BBC behaved in a similar fashion, Eastenders would have been cancelled less than 3 months after first airing, instead of running for 18 years....