Baby swap and infant death at christmas

[tammyy2j]

The BBC has now received nearly 6,000 complaints about EastEnders' controversial baby swap storyline, it has been confirmed.

A plot which is currently airing on the Walford show has seen Ronnie Branning lose her newborn son James to cot death, before secretly switching him with Kat Moon's (Jessie Wallace) child in a moment of despair.

BBC News reports that a total of 5,826 complaints have been received by the corporation since the storyline was first announced last November. The number has risen in the past two days as 3,400 complaints had been confirmed on Tuesday.

Although the media regulator Ofcom is known to have also received 374 complaints over the plot, it is understood that an official investigation is unlikely as the episodes in question are not thought to have breached the broadcasting code.

A statement released by the BBC has insisted that "EastEnders has a long history of exploring difficult issues, and the storyline regarding Ronnie and Kat follows in this tradition".

Show bosses have also promised that "viewers will see the situation resolve itself over the coming months".

Meanwhile, EastEnders has today confirmed that Samantha Womack - who plays Ronnie - will be leaving the soap later this year.

[Perdita]

WORRIED BBC bosses are axing the EastEnders baby-swap storyline earlier than planned in a bid to stop the backlash against the soap.
Show execs held an emergency meeting yesterday to discuss how to end the controversy after receiving 6,000 complaints since New Year.
Plans to continue the story until Christmas have been scrapped and Kat, played by Jessie Wallace, will be reunited with baby Tommy by the spring.
Samantha Womack, whose character Ronnie stole the tot after her own child’s cot death, has furiously denied she is quitting the soap because of the controversial plot.
The mum-of-two, who admits the scenes were the most “horrific four weeks of her life”, said she was already leaving the soap.
She told a pal: “It’s ridiculous to claim I quit because of the storyline. I told the producers I wanted to leave and the plot was created to help with my departure.
“I’ve had a wonderful time on the soap and made some brilliant friends. It was just time for me to move on. It was nothing to do with the storyline.”
EastEnders insiders confirmed that the plot was devised as a way for Ronnie to leave.
But since the complaints, they said several scenes have already been cut and they are now trying to write a happy ending. ??? How can this storyline have a happy ending?
A show source said: “We have listened to what people have said and taken on board the complaints and are now rescheduling things and working on the final scripts.
“It is important that we listen to viewers, because it is their soap after all.
“Filming will be done in the next few weeks and the storyline will end this spring, possibly by April.”


Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/...#ixzz1AKpN1Bpp

[parkerman]

If this was due to be Samantha Womack's exit storyline and they are bringing it forward from Christmas to April where does that leave Samantha? Will she be going early or will she be hanging around until Christmas? I can't see that happening.

[tammyy2j]

How can there be a happy ending? Unless it wasnt really Ronnie's baby that died maybe it was all a dream (like Dallas)

[parkerman]

Ronnie: Er...Kat...I have something to tell you. You know you thought your baby had died, well he hasn't. Here he is. [Ronnie hands the baby over to Kat]
Kat: Oh, I'm so happy to have Tommy back.
Ronnie: Yes, and me and Jack are happy too because I'm pregnant again and this time nothing will go wrong.
Kat: That's good.

So, there you are a happy ending, Eastenders style.

[tammyy2j]

BBCEastEnders star Samantha Womack has allegedly been abused by a fan over the soap's cot death storyline.

The 38-year-old actress, who yesterday revealed her intention to leave the BBC One show when her contract runs out later this year, was said to be called a "murdering ****" as she was walking her son Benjamin, 9, and daughter Lily-Rose, 5, in London.

The controversial plot, which saw Womack's character Ronnie Branning swap her dead baby with Kat Moon's (Jessie Wallace) newborn, has so far received almost 6,000 complaints.

A source told The Sun: "Samantha's received such vile abuse this week. She was shouted at with her kids. Having to act that storyline was bad enough, having it filter into her home life is even more awful."

According to reports, the Walford drama's writers are currently planning to conclude the storyline earlier than first proposed.

[Abigail]

A controversial EastEnders cot death storyline is to be brought to an early conclusion following almost 6,000 complaints to the BBC.

The story of Ronnie Branning swapping her dead child for another baby drew criticism from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Sids) awareness campaigners.

The story will now end in the spring.

The BBC had said there was "no inference that Ronnie's actions are in any way typical of a bereaved mother of a newborn baby".

It has now confirmed the storyline is "due to finish earlier than planned".

In new year episodes, Ronnie, played by actress Samantha Womack, was shown finding her baby, James, dead in his cot.

She was later shown in the living quarters above the soap's Queen Victoria pub where she swapped James with baby Tommy, the newborn son of characters Kat and Alfie Moon.

Parenting website Mumsnet was flooded with complaints, prompting it to write a letter to the BBC suggesting that "as is all too common, a bereaved mother has been portrayed as deranged and unhinged".

On Friday, the site published a letter of response from BBC Vision director Jana Bennett.

“Taking Kat's baby is the action of a character in great distress due to a series of events that have befallen her in the last 18 months”

In the letter, she acknowledged it was "without doubt a very challenging and emotional story and one that has had a deep impact on many of those who have been watching it".

She added: "Taking Kat's baby is the action of a character in great distress due to a series of events that have befallen her in the last 18 months.

"It is the culmination of these that has driven her to this one moment of madness rather than as a direct result of the loss of her baby."

She also invited Mumsnet staff to meet the programme's makers to discuss the storyline further.

On Thursday, actress Womack - who is leaving the soap - denied she had quit over the storyline, saying her exit had been agreed with producers for several months.

TV presenter and Sids awareness campaigner Anne Diamond, whose baby son died in 1991, told the BBC News website the baby swap storyline was a "crass twist to an otherwise credible storyline" that had not done "one iota of good in educating a young audience about cot death"

[parkerman]

TV presenter and Sids awareness campaigner Anne Diamond, whose baby son died in 1991, told the BBC News website the baby swap storyline was a "crass twist to an otherwise credible storyline" that had not done "one iota of good in educating a young audience about cot death"

I think this is a very good point. They could have dealt with the story as a cot death which would have been harrowing enough but at least it might have shown how people deal with this tragedy and come to terms with it, but the twist put on it adds nothing and is not helpful in the least.

[Dazzle]

Poor Samantha Womack is always going to be associated with this furore now.

[Chloe O'brien]

It's a shame she didn't refuse to do the storyline as I think this will have an adverse affect on her future jobs.