Until the summer, I'd spent a couple of years whizzing my way through Brookside. I was similarly of an age where I remember the Jordache story etc in the mid-90s so had a nostalgic view of that era in my mind and looked forward to getting to it - in reality, rewatching as an adult, it just isn't very good. There are undoubtedly some great moments and performances and I did find some of the Simpson incest period more engaging but it's not great TV.
My approach to rewatching things like soaps is to liberally use FF if I know there are characters or stories that I just can't muster an interest in. For Brookside, I barely touched it for the first 8 or 9 years worth and then around the Parade point, it was getting a lot of use. That 1980s era was all new to me me so perhaps engaged me in that way but I also thought it was just better. The characters are so different from one another that there was really something quite exciting about the way they observed each others' stories and occasionally even intersected. Heather's litany of trauma was the most obvious example, especially around her exit. She had very distinct relationships with all of the neighbours.
The shine started to come off around 1988/89 especially the way Sheila seemed to become a bit of loose end, wedged into the Corkhills after a stint in a bedsit. There were aspects of the story I loved, mainly the conflicts and discomfort in the family but it didn't feel quite as purposeful as years before. I enjoyed the new era of the Farnhams and Dixons and Johnsons coming in pre-Parade. They were characters I knew and did give a shot of energy after the show felt a bit rudderless and burned through some flop household units. Then if I think about it, it's probably Jimmy/Jackie taking greater roles that represented the nosedive. They weren't solely to blame but from that point, everything felt very forced and there was a great deal of pretty dreadful filler. The final few years I tried to keep an open mind with but some of it was genuinely unwatchable.
One thing I noted through the rewatch was how obsessed the show seemed to be in repeating stories about mothers walking out on their families or being perceived to do so. Doreen Corkhill, Chrissy Rogers, Josie Johnson, DD Dixon, Margi Shadwick, Jan Murray off the top of my head. All but one leaving a husband behind to "pick up the pieces" (and ironically in most examples, the wife was by far the more interesting character).
