Crossroads

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

The New Crossroads is a cracker of a soap to watch. It has inherited all the stigma of the original series but you don't need to have seen that to be able to follow this.

The media is none too happy with this production but then that's their job to pick faults. But if you like this production you'll ignore what they say anyway.

Plotwise is nothing we haven't seen before albeit the inclusion of a gay couple which was groundbreaking for a lunchtime soap. They have now split up and one has moved away, bit of a wasted opportunity really.

The only real trouble is that some storylines will just drag on for weeks and weeks going nowhere storyline wise. Some talent in certain actors/actresses is just totally wasted because they only have minor storylines.

However, brave attempt by Carlton to make the show like it is and it really works, it's good and fun to watch. Constantly hounded by rumours of an axing (mainly from non Crossroads fans it has to be said) which doesn't help.

A lot of the UK press are really criticising Crossroads at the moment but that's just because of the stigma it has from the old series. The new version really is a classy soap. Sure it's plots are totally unbelievable (like the current 2 Sarah-Jane's plot) but thats what makes it so good.

It's a world away from the likes of Eastenders and Coronation Street and all the better for it. Sure some of the younger actors leave a lot to be desired in terms of talent but characters like Billy, Kate Russell, Doris and Patrick Russell are brilliantly played.

All Crossroads needs is a few of the creases ironing out and it could easily go up against the likes of Brookside and Emmerdale.

Please Carlton, have some confidence. Don't axe Crossroads!!!

Dallas's shower scene showed us that we dream in colour, Crossroads' finale told us that Jane Asher dreams at lightspeed: she got through the whole 5 months of the Hotel saga down in a blink.

Using the tried and tested Dallas dream trick, Crossroads bowed out with Angela (Jane Asher) realising her life as vampish hotel owner Angel Samson was a dream. The reality was that she crimped her hair, spoke with a Brummie accent and worked on a supermarket checkout, with former nemesis and sometimes friend Kate Russell as her co-worker.

As gag endings go, St. Elsewhere's was classier and Sledge Hammer's much funnier, but neither could touch this for the number of accents attempted. I actually lost count of how many accents were represented in the supermarket.

Most of the regular characters made appearances in the supermarket. Battleaxe Hotel receptionist Virginia became a battleaxe checkout supervisor married to Security Guard Rocky Wesson. Betty Waddell became a (geographically non-specific) customer in love with Rocky (I ask you!?!?). Thrusting American Businessman Max Samson was transformed into a lager and crisp buying American scruff, while the Samson twins, Ryan and Jimmy, had their roles reversed, with 'sex god' Ryan turned into a total geek, and former geek Jimmy becoming a Cockney sex toy for the Wise sisters (Phil, Lola and Belle). Even camp gay chef Vince underwent a total transformation to a Brummie layabout married to a shell suit wearing Helen Raven.

Perhaps the clumsiest joke was Tracy Boothe, going from booze hound Bar Manager to the alcoholic star of a TV show called, yes, you guessed it..... 'Crossroads'

'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 *****