Coronation Street
In the latest episode we saw the aftermath of Becky Swain turning up drunk at No. 6. What follows is a messy house-showdown: Becky makes herself at home, lurching from self-pity into brazen entitlement - draped in someone else's bathrobe, rifling through personal space. Meanwhile, Carla Connor, who reluctantly agreed to let Becky stay under their roof "for now," finally realises she's had enough and issues an ultimatum. The tension erupts, leaving hurt feelings, fractured trust, and a love story (between Carla and Lisa Swain) hanging by a thread.
What annoys me
1. Soapy chaos over believability
The Becky-Carla-Lisa storyline had the potential for emotional nuance but it instead played like a caricature of "drama at all costs." Becky's behaviour crossed into melodrama (drunkenness, living-in without boundaries, confrontations), and Carla's reaction felt forced. It all smacked more of "shock value entertainment" than realistic community drama.
2. Too much gloom, too little heart.
The show seems saturated with broken families, addiction, betrayal, tragedy and mental-health crises. While serious themes can work, when everything is gloom and tension it drains away what once felt like the charm of everyday life. The kind of light-hearted moments, small community jokes, cafe-shop chatter and neighbourly interactions that used to define the show are vanishing.
3. Characters become plot-fodder rather than people.
Characters who could have been given breathing room for development are instead twisted into plot devices. Because the show is so intent on cranking up tension, people behave unlike real people: dwelling in extremes rather than complexity.
4. Frequent reversals and "fake drama."
Storylines are piled on top of each other - betrayals, breakdowns, arrests, blackmail, abuse, mental-health collapse. The net effect: instead of allowing emotional arcs to breathe and evolve, the show seems to jump from one disaster to another. It begins to feel less like a depiction of realistic lives, more like a checklist of dramatic tropes.
Why it no longer feels like the show I once loved
I used to watch Coronation Street because it felt like a window into a tight-knit community: flawed people, yes - but also warmth, humour, friendship, banter over a cuppa. Small kindnesses. Gradual growth. The occasional heartbreak, sure, but grounded and balanced by everyday life.
Now, it often seems like every character's default state is crisis. Everyone's overwhelmed, hurting, or on edge. Rarely do we get genuine breathing room or hope. There's no balance. Too much misery.
It feels like the showrunners are chasing impact and headlines rather than authenticity. Every plot is designed to shock or sadden. The result: instead of a comforting soap with heart, it's increasingly a relentless drama of tragedy after tragedy.
