EastEnders caused widespread controversy last month when they killed off Lauren Crace's Danielle Jones just seconds after her birth mother Ronnie Mitchell (Samantha Janus) had come to terms with connection. However, the soap's exec Diederick Santer proudly stood by the plot. Here, Diederick chats about Danielle's death, Sam's return, the show's 25th anniversary and more in our first interview of Producer Season 2009.
Were you proud of Wedding Week?
"Completely proud of it. I was ecstatic with it. It's one of the best weeks of episodes that we've done in a long time. With the Whitney week that we did last year and the Max and Stacey reveal at Christmas 2007, it's one of the peaks of the last few years. Everyone had a view on it and everyone who watched it had an emotional response of some kind to it. I've said it before, but that's all you want as a producer - you want people to connect to the material. I know not all those connections were positive, but I don't mind."
Did you cry?
"Of course. When I watched it, I had my head in my hands in a good way! I knew it wasn't going to be easy and I knew that a lot of people would be wrapped up in the story and heartbroken at the outcome."
Just to quash all the rumours, can you confirm that Danielle's definitely not returning?
"No, she's dead! We've seen her body, we've seen her coffin and now she's six feet under. There's no clone, there's no twin, there's no second daughter - and there's no Bobby Ewing in the shower! Only once before has this show bent the laws and that was with Den. I know I've been harsh about that in the past, but it was actually fun what they did."
Where does this leave Ronnie? Drugs?
"We're not planning a substance abuse route for Ronnie. It's been an interesting journey for her. She's found the daughter she's been looking for all this time, but she's found her too late. It's devastating and she wants to move on. She's been heartbroken and it's tiring for her to be sad. She wants to find happiness in love, so perhaps Jack can persuade her to give it another go with him? I think that recent events have awakened her need to be a mother and thoughts turn in the next few months to motherhood and whether she'll get the chance to be a mother again. And more importantly, if she does, who with. It also sends her back into the past. I'm not going to say we'll be seeing Joel or not, but we'll definitely be talking about him. After all, Joel's the only remaining link to Danielle.
"Archie will also be back and it'll be interesting to see if there'll be a reconciliation with his daughter. It's harder than ever now for the pair of them. They were really getting somewhere just before the wedding, but Archie's got a long way to go."
There's been a lot of talk since the end of last year about October 2009. What do you have planned?
"What happened was, at that point, we had this really exciting story planned for October 2009. I imagine October will be very, very good - and don't worry, it's not that the whole Square is going to burn down - but the particular explosion I was talking about has crept into September. When I originally said explosive, I meant emotionally explosive. Anyone expecting a huge conflagration will be disappointed! You might see Dot lighting a fag, but that's as explosive as it's going to get. It's always dangerous to talk about storylines a year ahead!"
When and what can we expect to see in Tony's trial? Will Chris Coghill be returning?
"That should play out this year, but we've not quite plotted it yet. Chris said to me some months ago that, in principal, he'd be keen to come back. I'd love him to return, and in due course I'll be having that conversation with him. How it plays out on screen remains to be seen. We still need to do our research. What's worked so far for us with this story is that we've stuck to the research and turned it into a story. The key to getting the trial right is being forensic with the research and we're still doing that. But we absolutely intend to honour the long-term truth of the story. If we didn't, it would be crass and lazy."
Can you tease us as to what's in store for Sam's return?
"What makes Sam interesting for me is that she's Ricky's first love and first wife. As Bianca and Ricky spend more time together and have more shared experiences around Tiffany and Whitney, the inevitability of them at some point coming together increases. What's stopping them? Well, it's Sam. Sam and Ricky had a good thing going all those years ago. All Ricky ever gets off Bianca is indifference, whereas Sam - and who knows quite why - is less than indifferent towards him and it makes a nice change…
"And the other thing is, who's the original Mitchell sister? You have these two pretenders in there with Ronnie and Roxy, but Sam is Peggy's little girl, her princess. Sam's Grant and Phil's sister, not these two upstarts. Also, Minty was obsessed with Sam, don't forget. The biggest thing we've got to get over, though, is the fact she's on the run in Brazil. We'll definitely get around that one - we've got it all worked out…"
EastEnders' 25th anniversary is just around the corner. Have you already started planning for it?
"We have actually planned it. I know exactly what the week of the anniversary is. All I can say is that all the dramatic values of the last 25 years of the show, everything that has made EastEnders the phenomenon that it is, we're hoping to evoke in that week. It's a celebration of the show, not necessarily, but not excluding, a trip down memory lane. It's more the values of the show, what people love about it."
Albert Square seems to be lacking a young alpha male character since Sean's departure. Any plans to fill his shoes?
"To a degree. I think we've got a few people filling those shoes. Let's just say that by the summer, there's going to be a significant infusion of young men…"
There are a lot of people who say soaps are starting to rely too heavily on past characters. What are your thoughts?
"Over the years, there have been some absolutely brilliant characters played by brilliant actors who aren't in the show anymore. When there's a story for them and they're up for it, why not bring them back? The audience loves them. With Ricky and Bianca, people grew up with them and to see them 15 years on… It shouldn't be that the only thing we ever do are returns, but with a show with as rich a history and as strong a back catalogue as we have, there's an element of EastEnders Allstars about it. It's fantastic."
It appears that you're beginning to focus more on the younger cast…
"We've got a fantastic young cast at the moment. There's this group of kids going down in age from Darren and Libby, to Whitney, though Peter and Lucy, Lauren, Abi, Jay, Ben and Tiffany. I see them as our youth squad. Like a football manager, you develop a younger team and it's really exciting that people like Thomas Law and Melissa Suffield are doing so well. I love how Charlie Hawkins has really blossomed and made that difficult transition from child actor to adult actor. It bodes really well for the future. My era saw Ian, Sharon, Michelle, Kelvin and Wicksy coming in, Mark… I loved that group of kids. It's probably them that hooked me in as a 15-year-old."
Last time we spoke, you'd been doing some test filming in HD. Have there been any developments?
"What we've concluded is that everything is there for us in design terms for us to upgrade to HD apart from the exterior set, which is 24 going on 25 years old. And it shows, particularly in the brickwork on the Square and Bridge Street which doesn't pass muster on HD. Until we've either completely refurbed the exterior set or moved the programme somewhere else and built it from scratch, then we're not going to be going HD."
And what's the latest on the set move?
"I'd love to pretend that it was in any shape or form my decision, but it's tied up in lots of very big questions for the BBC regarding finance, property and how to best protect one of the corporation's greatest assets. It's a complicated question, but there's been no decision made either way."
EXCLUSIVE: 'Enders boss hints at character plots
I recently chatted to EastEnders boss Diederick Santer in our first interview of DS's Producer Season 2009, read on if you're interested in some intriguing teasers as to what's to come for your favourite Walford characters.
Nick / Dot / Dotty
"It's going to a very, very dark place! My question with Dotty - or Kirsty! - is: was she born bad, or has Nick made her bad? And if she wasn't born bad, has Nick created something which is more dangerous than him? I love that little girl because she's having to play all these layers. Normally, what kids have to do of that age is say lines and be cute. She, though, has to play layers of deception. She has to play a character who's acting."
Syed
"I'm really pleased with what I've seen of Marc Elliott. There's two sides to Syed - a thrusting, entrepreneurial gambler, but at the same time he's a good family boy who's been frozen out for the last few years. He loves his mum and wants his dad's approval. He loves taking risks, though. Someone who makes nine brilliant moves, but his tenth is a disaster and it all comes tumbling down around him."
Brenda - what's her secret?
"I can't tell you that! All will be revealed in the summer. But I can exclusively reveal that she's not a man."
What about Tracy? Will we start seeing more of her?
"You just have to watch out for any script that Christopher Reason writes. Chris is obsessed with Tracy and with Jane Slaughter, who plays her. He gives her loads to do, which is fantastic. When we give her more to do, she absolutely delivers. We think she's fab."
Bradley and Syd
"Yeah, lovely. Maybe Syd's got a secret. Who know what that is... One day, we might bring in a character who doesn't have a secret! Sydney does have a secret, but it's not shocking, it's not unpleasant. But maybe that's what's causing her to hold back a little with Bradley?"
Dawn and Garry
"Ahh yes. Well I've just been looking at some storylines for their exit. We've been plotting the next few months for them and for Garry, it's really straightforward - she's the love of his life. But Dawn's more complicated - can Garry make Dawn love him?"
Shirley / Phil
"It's a toxic few weeks for Shirley and Phil. Shirley gets her man, but their relationship is fatally compromised. There's a song by the Pet Shop Boys with the word 'love' in the title, which epitomises their relationship."
Christian
"He's got a busy summer in store. I can't say too much about it at this stage because there's a big storyline that we haven't really announced yet, but he's got some terrific stuff to do. We're going to see a whole new side of him."
Any plans to introduce any more of Mo Harris's family? The Harris Brothers, perhaps?
"We get asked this a lot, but there are no plans."
Heather - who's the daddy?
"We were discussing that just this morning! I can't possibly say. But it'll be interesting and dramatic when it all comes out."
Manda
"Well, Manda has a secret, you'll be surprised to learn! Again, it's not an unpleasant one, although it might be a bit of a shock for Minty. There is this Phil Mitchell love child rumour, but I'm not going to rule that out either way because it's an interesting one! Josie [Lawrence] is fab. We wrote quite a few scripts for the character of Manda before Josie was cast, so the first batch of material that she did with us, although though I thought it was good, we weren't writing for her. Now, the writers are writing for the actress. It's looking great."
Whitney's got a stalker, too, apparently…
"Yeah... I'm not saying too much about him. He's a character played by an actor... All I'll say at this point is that he seems to want to talk to Whitney..."
Where's Len Harker?
"He's out there somewhere and he's an interesting character. There are no current plans to bring him back in, but we might see him again at some point."
John Bardon
"I saw him last week and he's in good form. He's keen to come back and we just have to work around him to make sure that he's comfortable when he's here. All things being equal, we'll definitely be seeing him again in the show before too long."
Lynda Baron
"People loved her, didn't they? I thought she was fantastic. She did a great stint with us and maybe she should come back again, but there are no plans at the moment."
And also on the cards...
§ Shirley's portion control isn't up to much
§ Half an hour proves a very long time for Stacey Slater
§ Bradley learns a new language
§ Mo does a deal with Chinese Pedro
§ Ian has a Highland Fling
§ Whitney makes a new friend
§ Dot loses her keys
§ Zainab struggles with the idea that Syed could love another woman
§ Minty and Garry float their boat
§ Garry is shocked when he sees some unconventional photos of Dawn
§ Lucas fights for his girl
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