Scriptwriters have turned on the shows bosses, accusing them of devising plots that are 'melodramatic, banal and shallow.'
The depth of their anger has been revealed in the minutes of a crisis meeting between the two camps that took place in early December last year.
The scriptwirters have accused the producers (EE is producer led, not as many think writer led) of forcing them to write scripts for plots that gave 'profoundly depressing, wearying and disheartening results'.
The divisions drove the show into meltdown with writers coming as close as they have ever been to an all out strike. It is understood that in the past six months some of the 'core' 12 writers have found alternative work or chosen to take a break from Eastenders while the battle as to what to do raged. The contributing writers, of which there are about 30, now don't want to touch the show with 'a barge pole'.
Also present at the meeting was sacked producer Katherine Hutchinson who accepted that 'right at the moment this situation is in chaos and they are firefighting on several fronts, including the cast.'
The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss issues over storyline development. Two years ago the system developed stories a year in advance, in recent months stories have been planned just one month ahead. This was deemed unacceptable and a return to the old system made an urgent priority.
'A feature of EE's decline has been the surge in the number of rebriefs, or rewrites. Rebriefs tend to be called for by script editors and producers who are not satisfied with the storyline's translation into a script. This means the writer often has to start again. The producers regulary called for last minute rebriefs which often had to be written over a weekend without payment. This alienated the writers and meant that producers fell into sloppy planning, weak storylines and a dependance on sensationalism to keep the soap going.'
The writers felt they needed to be listened too more when they felt a storyline would not work. Problems are now said to have been ironed out with the arrival of John Yorke.
All writers that used to work for the show are now back on board.
No wonder EE is such a mess, let's hope they get back on track very soon.
