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'

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....

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

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.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Only six months into the new re-vamped Crossroads,and rumor is already starting to spread of a potential axing.Well,to be honest,this is not really surprising.As high hopes as anyone might have had for this new edition , it's really just not up to scratch.The main problem being the acting:it is , whatever way you look at it, wooden.Everyone involved simply reads their lines out as blankly and dully as you can imagine,so that they sound almost like cyborgs.The stories are rather cliched and predictable,with love triangles,high stakes and adversity being mainly on the agenda.And it is so hard to believe that all this could be going on under the roof of a hotel.Worth watching,but certainly only as something to glance at while eating your snack.**