Corrie quotes

Rosie and Sophie Webster

Rosie: "Do you actually know how many calories there are in a teaspoon of butter?"

Sophie: "Well, don't eat it with a teaspoon, then!"

~ Coronation Street, 15 November 2010

Corrie quotes

“You’ve got to hand it to the Barlows, they’re value for money at a wedding!”

~ Norris Cole, 14/2/2011

Firefly quotes

ZOE: "Sir, you think there's some information we might maybe be lacking as to why there's an entire fedsquad sitting on this train?"

MAL: "Doesn't concern us."

ZOE: "It kinda concerns me."
MAL: "I mean they're not protecting the goods. If they were, they wouldn't be letting people past 'em."
ZOE: "You don't think that changes the situation a bit?"
MAL: "I surely do. Makes it more fun."
ZOE: "Sir? I think you have a problem with your brain being missing."
MAL: "Come on. We stick to the plan. We get the goods, we're back on Serenity before the train even reaches Paradiso, only now we do it under the noses of twenty trained Alliance Feds. And that makes 'em look all manner of stupid. Hell, this job I would pull for free."
ZOE : " Can I have your share?"
MAL: "No."
ZOE: "If you die, can I have your share?"
MAL: "Yes."


~ Firefly 1.01: The Train Job

Gilmore Girls quotes

Rory has just been accepted into the Chilton private school, pilot episode.

LORELAI: "This is it. She can finally go to Harvard like she's always wanted and get the education that I never got and get to do all the things that I never got to do and then I can resent her for it and we can finally have a normal mother-daughter relationship"

Drom Quotes

"I can spot planets. They're large. I have good eyes."

~ Tyr Anasazi, Andromeda

Corrie quotes

“Aadi says that his dad says that you’re a bigamist. But you’re not big at all.”

—	Coronation Street, 1 December 2010, Simon Barlow to his dad, Peter

Corrie Quotes

Young cousins Amy and Simon, aged six and seven, try to work out what the grown-ups are talking about – with a bit of help from Amy’s mum Tracy.
Amy: “What’s a bender?”
Simon: “It’s an exercise to make your legs strong.”
Tracy: “And your arms.”

~ Corrie, 4/2/2011

"So he's on the fiddle?"
"He's the whole damn string section!"

~DCI John Barnaby and witness

"It's turning into a really good day for idiots. Sometimes you can go for weeks without seeing one."

Corrie's Parent Wars

Let the competitive mothering commence! Monday’s episodes saw the opening salvos in what could turn out to be quite the feud between sometime mates Leanne and Cheryl over the fates and fortunes of their respective offspring. The new ‘super-head’ at Bessie Street reckons Simon is a disruptive influence in class, whereas Russ has been labelled gifted and is set to receive special coaching. Whatever the rights or wrongs of those assessments, for now at least, Cheryl is cock-a-hoop, Leanne’s nose is well and truly out of joint, and their friendship has taken on a frosty feel. So will this escalate into all-out war, or simply fizzle out like a damp squib? I daresay we’ll find out soon enough.

This is the kind of low-key, background storyline where everyone’s mileage is going to vary. Some viewers will love it. Others will hate it. More still will be completely indifferent. Me, I reckon there’s a fair amount of potential in the concept, although it’s very early days yet to see where the show intends to take it and a lot will depend on the tone and execution. It is, at the very least, the kind of mundane, everyday storyline that should always outnumber the high-octane dramas soaps are so fond of. After all, trams don’t derail every day, but parents bickering over the exploits of their little darlings? That’s something most folk can relate to, and it’s not as if Cheryl and Leanne don’t have form in this area – they’ve fallen out over the boys before, and there has always been a slight edge to their friendship, so this latest development is definitely in character for them both.

We don’t really know Cheryl that well yet, even after almost a year on the show, so maybe this will be our chance to get to know her a bit better, since it looks as if she is going to be sticking around as a regular character. We have already seen hints that she has more than a touch of the Sally Webster about her: a woman with ambitions and aspirations she has rarely had the opportunity to indulge. This storyline definitely looks set to tap into that aspect of her personality, her desire to better herself, as well as her fierce devotion to her son. Depending on how things go, it might also cast some light on her fairly whirlwind relationship with Lloyd, which seems to have developed mostly in the background of other peoples’ stories. After all, they are looking to buy a house together, which is a pretty huge commitment to be rushing into, yet I can’t see Cheryl allowing Lloyd to interfere too much where Russ is concerned, so watching them negotiate those boundaries should, in theory, be interesting…especially if Chris starts sticking his oar in as well.

As for the Junior Barlows, a low-key storyline like this is definitely what the doctor ordered after all their recent dramas. For Leanne, as a stepmother whose place in Simon’s life has so recently been threatened, it makes sense that she would overcompensate for her insecurities by throwing her full weight behind him in this way. Plus, since Peter is usually the volatile one with Leanne having to rein him in, it is good to have a bit of role reversal now and then to remind us that Leanne can fly off the handle, too, at times, and that Peter is also capable of being the voice of reason.

If nothing else, I am looking forward to the inevitable scenes of Peter and Lloyd rolling their eyes at one another in resigned exasperation while Leanne and Cheryl argue the toss!


Cross-posted to The Coronation Street Blog on 30 March 2011

Corrie's in-laws and outlaws

So, Liz McDonald is back in town – and boy has she made her presence felt. In the space of a mere week, the brassy barmaid has kicked the ever-escalating crisis that is Steve and Becky’s marriage into hyperdrive, after their storyline had been limping along at a snail’s pace for what seems like forever. As a fiercely devoted (and occasionally disappointed) mother to Steve and ever-mistrustful mother-in-law to Becky, with a very personal stake in their story, she is uniquely positioned to do so. The people who installed one another’s buttons, after all, simply cannot resist pushing them, especially when under stress.

Liz’s return, short-lived though it promises to be, coming in the same fortnight as the impending departure of Janice Battersby, has got me thinking about the role these two characters – and others like them – play in their respective families. Neither one is a favourite character of mine and neither one would be considered a central character on the show these days, yet they both add a lot of weight and depth to their extended (and inter-connected) family units. How different might Steve and Becky’s situation be now if Liz had stuck around for the duration instead of swanning off to Spain for months on end, leaving them alone to buy little Max and destroy the family they already had in the process? As much as Liz and Deirdre love having a mutual granddaughter to dote over, how much easier would their friendship be to maintain if not for Steve and Tracy's custody disputes? How differently might Leanne’s recent marital crisis have played out if she hadn’t had Janice’s unconditional support to lean on when she had nowhere else to go? Or if she hadn’t had Ken and Deirdre adding their two penn’orth to the mix from the opposite direction? Would Ken’s life really have been more peaceful and content if he hadn’t had a disapproving mother-in-law living in his front room for years? He certainly thought so at the time, yet now that Blanche is gone he’d be the first to admit how much he misses that interfering, sharp-tongued presence…as do we all. Just imagine what she’d have found to say about the goings on this past year or so! The tension involved in all those relationships is what puts the meat on the bones of ongoing storylines.

Extended family has an important role to play on Corrie, always has. Couples who exist in isolation often have a lot less going for them than those who have a whole gamut of family connections to bounce off. Alone, a couple only have their own conflicting opinions to reconcile. Add an in-law or two to the mix, whether approving or disapproving, and the mess of personalities and points of view in play becomes dynamite – just look at any family gathering at the Barlows as an example! Whoever would have dreamt that Ken Barlow and Janice Battersby would one day be tied together by the union of their children? Yet the fact that they are now connected, polar opposites as they are, enriches the dynamics of that extended family unit immensely, here united and there divided by the rollercoaster ride of recent months. When Janice leaves, Leanne will no longer have to worry about trying to balance her obligations to a stepmother and husband who don’t always get along, but she will also be left with no one in her corner when things go wrong, and her character, and indeed their family, will be poorer for it. As for the rapidly disintegrating McDonald clan…well, only time will tell whether any of the relationships involved survive the strain of current events, including and maybe especially that between mother and son.

Janice leaves the street this week. Liz won’t be far behind her. Neither one is a favourite character of mine and neither one is a central character on the show, yet both will leave big holes in the families they leave behind.


Cross-posted to The Coronation Street Blog on 23 March 2011

Kevin and Sally - reunited or divided?

Corrie has gone a bit quiet these last few weeks, has it not? There’ve been a number of minor plotlines pootling along still, but most of the current major storylines seem to have either reached their conclusion or slid into the backseat for a time, allowing the cast members involved some much needed time off while others take their place on centre stage. As this week plays out, however, it looks as if the divided Webster clan are going to be stepping back into the limelight once more, as warring couple Kevin and Sally are brought back into one another’s orbit and forced to reopen lines of communication following Sophie’s accident.

Reading about this has got me thinking about the effect Kevin and Sally’s split has had on them as individuals. I don’t know what long-term plans the showrunners have for them, but I’m very interested to find out, as their fortunes have differed so enormously since their separation…with Sally faring considerably better than her embattled husband. It’s all about connections, and Sally has them in spades whereas Kevin, quite simply, doesn’t. Sally lives on the street. She also works on the street – and, more importantly, works in a bustling factory, which gives her a lot of individuals to interact with. She connects to Eileen’s household via Rosie’s relationship with Jason. She has her friendship with Gail, finally resurrected now that the writers have remembered it. She also has surrogate mother-figure Rita in the background, although they’ve not had many scenes together lately. And on top of all that, she has a shiny new boyfriend in tow. All in all, Sally has blossomed since her separation from Kevin, as her character has so many alternative angles to play on and so many other characters to interact with.

Kevin, in stark contrast, has become an increasingly isolated figure since the breakdown of his marriage. He no longer lives on the street – and his childcare provision for Jack is elsewhere, as well. He doesn't seem to have much contact with his daughters now that he no longer lives with them, especially after Rosie’s disastrous attempt at babysitting. He works on the street, but in a very small, two-man business, just Kevin and Tyrone…once the best of friends but now sworn enemies who seem to work in pointed silence, for the most part. In fact, since doing the dirty on Tyrone, it has become increasingly obvious that Kevin really doesn’t have any friends at all, does he? He falls into the same age bracket as Dev, Peter and Lloyd, but has never formed part of their little circle of friends, which also includes Steve, Ciaran when he’s around and Ashley when he was alive – you can take almost any combination of that group of characters and think of scenes where they’ve been seen hanging out together as mates. But Kevin? Nope. Zip, zilch, nada – he really is Billy No Mates, and the aftermath of his affair with Molly has seen him universally vilified as a home-wrecker on two counts. Even his dad doesn’t seem to have much to do with him anymore. Only Rita, bless her, seems willing to give him so much as the time of day. And the problem of having no one to interact with is that it really doesn't leave the character all that much to do, other than scowl.

The point of all this musing? I’m not sure. I’m just very interested to see what long-term plans the show has for Kevin and Sally, because as things stand it seems that while Sally’s future without Kevin looks bright, Kevin’s future without Sally doesn’t look nearly so rosy.


Cross-posted to The Coronation Street Blog on 8 March 2011

"happiness is not in yearning for what might have been or wondering what will happen, you have to look at what you have"