[Redway]

Originally Posted by Livia

I detest Eastenders, although I come from the East End. I adore Corrie... do people from Manchester like it, I wonder?

I feel like it'll be on an individual, person-by-person basis with Corrie but I have definitely noticed that Liverpool and the South are a bit more skewed towards EastEnders than Corrie on average. Brookside was once the Scouse answer to the big 3 (to get territorial about it) so people who have at least lived in Liverpool during some of those times are used to the soap archetype being more cutting-edge and gritty. But in their prime all 3 were among the most-watched televised shows in the UK so it's often just a matter of order and preference. But before Corrie became gentrified and stuff, EastEnders was the characteristic cool soap that young people would watch. Not so much Corrie if they weren't from that side of the North and certainly not Emmerdale.

There's a part of me what detests Emmerdale but it fills a void on weeknights and is just another option for cosy entertainment on those Fridays so I do watch it. But it's only EastEnders, Corrie and (to an extent) Waterloo Road that I'm serious about as far as soap goes. Maybe Holby City but yeah. I like some elements of Emmerdale but it's a show that's tried to do EastEnders dirty so many times over the years and until the 2010s it lacked the grit that EastEnders and to an extent even Corrie had in at least some spades. I like cosy and comfy and I'm not totally adverse to the odd 'plane-crash (or whatever next stupid stunt Emerdale usually has planned) but it has to be based in a certain heaviness and grit. Nothing in Emmerdale really seems to follow from that as directly as EastEnders and Corrie do so it's not a show I take super-seriously. I just watch it, and not even regularly up-until the 50th anniversary (2 years ago).

Classic Emmerdale (they show repeats of that and Corrie on ITVX) is supposed to be in a good era for the show (2004-early 2005) at the moment but on the off-chance that I tune in I just don't see this quality people have spoken of. Farm politics just don't appeal to me. It's all very boring and dull.