Please Don't Go: Characters I Love

I knew the stress was getting to me today by the fact I was nearly moved to tears by Hollyoaks. I love Hollyoaks, and won't hear a thing against it, delightfully naff and wilfully histrionic as it is. I mean, I would hate to know most of them, but they're kind of entertaining to watch. But the fact is, now the lovely OB is going, I feel like I'm left in a room with a bunch of shouty idiots. OB, I beg of you, come back to me.

There a few characters on television which I am ashamed to say I actually truly love - or rather, I love them as you can only love a fictional being. Perhaps the closest comparision in real life is the unconditional adoration you can offer a pet. Personally, I have never been particularly moved by pets - given that my childhood ones were exclusively hamsters - but I absolutely believe my sister loves her dog more than she loves us, and my mother still gets misty-eyed over her dog, who died before any of us were born, and I think, before she was even married. A good thirty years ago, anyway.

So, yes, I love OB. I do. And the thought of him leaving actually grieves my heart, because to all intents and purposes, OB is now dead and this is terrible. I think it is even worse because the real nub of the matter is that the OB/Max/Tom dynamic was the best and possibly the only reason to watch Hollyoaks, as it leant the show a beating heart, true affection and I could gush about them all day, but I won't. Anyway, that little oasis of genuine emotion (not always positive emotion, given the recent Clare debacle and the Simon thing, but always genuine) is well and truly dried up now. The writers have tried to destroy it with every storyline going, but this is the final straw. Especially now Max is with the awful Steph, who, it turns out, was only amusing when paired with the equally awful Darren - together their downright malevolence was fantastic, but with the sweetness and light that is the Cunningham/O'Brien setup it just seems jaded and unpleasant. Oh, God, OB, don't go.

I feel a golden age has closed on Hollyoaks, taking with it all memories of the once-glorious nonsense and leaving behind a slough of despond. Perhaps this is because I grew up with along with OB, so naturally his youthful hijinks are inextricably tied up with memories of the halcyon, timeless days of my own youth...which I clearly spent watching TV. Well, anyway, times change I suppose. Max, for one, is still busking on a time long, long ago when I distinctly recollect I loved him, though I have no idea why that would be the case now. When Summer persuaded OB to leave Hollyoaks, she painted it as a dreary, desolate graveyard of hopes and dreams where everyone are underachievers and unhappy. And you know what? It's true. I remember when the show began, I wanted to move to Hollyoaks. Now, even watching it on TV is a little too close sometimes.

So, off OB trots into a future that likely includes oblivion or, alternatively, The Bill, taking with him the happy memories of the good old days of the feud with Jambo, the time Max, OB et al went potholing and half of them died, the time OB's girlfriend died, the time Max's girlfriend died, the time Max's dad died, the time Max's sister died, the time Max's niece died...adieu. You have been a good friend to Max, Tom and I. I'll miss you greatly. They'll probably forget you in two weeks, though. If OB is never mentioned again by either of them, consider yourself On Notice, Hollyoaks.

So who else do I feel such affinity for? Well, Gina and Smithy on The Bill, unquestionably. The cast of The Bill aren't quite the unremitting bores that the cast of Hollyoaks, in general, are, but they are all samey these days: young, attractive, inoffensive to eye, ear or sensibilities. Tony is looking more and more out of place, where once he was perfectly at home amongst the Junes and Jims of the world. With Reg now on the way out too, Roger is basically the only other old guard left: even though he's a recent addition he would have fitted in nicely in what I presume ITV would call The Old Bill, as though there's something wrong with that. When I was 12 and up I freaking loved The Old Bill.

I still watch The New Bill, but there's only so much of the Tiffanys and Ambers and Honeys and Kezias I can take. I know half of those have left, but I can't remember the new ones' names. (I really am not senile, by the way, I just don't care. I'm a bit like that with ER too. I know they'll be leaving in a couple of months, so what's the point in learning their names?) Well, anyway, Smithy and Gina, individually and together, are the best damn things in The Bill.

Smithy - not brilliant, not handsome, has a positively magnetic attraction to tragedy, but a sturdy, trustworthy character who you love simply because he's just being nice and normal in the un-nice and crazy world of Sun Hill. Gina - terrifying boss, in-control lady, soft at heart when it suits, cuts the not inconsiderable crap. Their chemistry together sizzles. I think it's because they're the only sane ones in the station. I know they try and pass the magnetism off as maternal, but lets face it: if the age difference was the other way around - if Gina was in her 30s and Smithy was in his 50s - they would have jumped into bed years ago. I spend most of their scenes together wishing they would, but then I remember that Smithy has had 3 girlfriends in the last four or five years killed, so perhaps Gina's better off leaving it at the sizzling.

No matter how much their mutual love-in warms the cockles (and it does), I'm more warmed by the glow of normality and reality that they give off. It's not often such warmth is real, and is allowed to make narrative sense. And without making either of them do stupid things or say stupid things or generally annoy me as most romance storylines do - they love each other as normal people would. Bottom line- if either of them leave, I'm going right with them. You hear that Thames TalkBack? GONE!

The others that spring to mind are: Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica. If any woman could turn me, I think Katee Sackhoff is she, mainly because she's so damn luminous it's incredible. But apart from the actress' physical appearance, Starbuck is so utterly batshit that she personally makes me feel a lot better in relation to my own at-times unpredictable behaviour. I actually spilt some tea shouting for joy when Starbuck turned up again. She's likely Cylonised, I expect, but frankly I think we should have an international day of jubilation if it turns out there's hundreds of Starbucks, because that'd be awesome. And I'm not talking coffee shops.

So yeah - the others I like because they're normal, Starbuck I like because she's totally mental, in fact, as crazy as surely we all are at heart but somehow manage to hide. Maybe it's the claustrophobia that's flicked her switch, but whatever's happened she's off the page. Still, you can totally see why everyone, even Tigh who doesn't like her, is completely under her spell. I don't know why she's under Apollo's, unless it's purely animal which with Starbuck, is more than possible. Fly on, Starbuck. You're fab.

And Giles from Buffy. I mean early Giles, before the character assasination and the abandonment. In fact, all Buffy for me is pre-nuts Willow (note: Willow is not fantastically nuts as Starbuck, she's annoyingly nuts as Britney Spears). Giles: the weirdly attractive father figure that gave every impressionable young girl a daddy issue whether she wanted one or not. I remember with such fondness him kicking the shit out of Angel by taking a fiery torch to him . I quite liked Cordelia too, but that was less about her character and more for her superb smackdowns.

Of course, there was a late, lamented time on Buffy when actually all the main characters were All Right, even Angel in his blockheaded way. I call those days Before Spike. But even amidst the cockeyed charm of Xander, the fragile brittleness of Cordelia, the adorable Oz, the hysterical-not-in-a-good-way Willow and the annoying-but-with-good-reason Buffy, Giles shone. He ran the whole thing by bringing out the best in the characters, especially in the early days when Buffy and Xander in particular had brattish tendencies. He and Buffy's relationship was adorably wholesome, given that poor old Buffy had a hell of a difficult life and her universe was increasingly dark and unpleasant (and boring to watch). So yeah - Giles is a hero to me.

But, as the Dixie Chicks would say, tonight the heartache's on me, because OB is still going, and that still suhhhhhks.