User:Kelvin 101/Episode 1 (EastEnders)

"Episode 1", also known as "Poor Old Reg" is the first episode of the British television soap opera EastEnders, broadcast on BBC1 on 19 February 1985.

Plot
Reg is found dead in his flat by Den, Ali and Arthur. Lou is angry when she learns Pauline and Arthur are expecting another baby, especially since Arthur is unemployed. Ali has enough of Nick's racist remarks and they fight. Den throws them out of his pub, The Queen Victoria, and bars them. Nick smashes the window. <!-- More in depth plot would need a re-write.

Ali, Den and Arthur broke open the door to Reg Cox's dingy upstairs flat at Number 23 where they found old Reg slumped unconscious in a chair. They had been alerted that something might be wrong with Reg by Saeed after Naima noticed that Reg hadn't been by for his usual bottle of milk for the past three days.

Ali, wearing a dressing gown, shouted "he's dead!" as Arthur opened the window curtains and checked Reg's pulse. Den replied "dead drunk!". Finding that Reg was still alive, Arthur covered him with a blanket, sent Den to get the doctor and told Ali that the best thing he could do was to go get dressed. Arthur had tripped over a whisky bottle when they entered the darkened room and was sniffing at its contents as Den and Ali left the room.

Dr Legg was in his office with Pauline when Den burst in to tell him about Reg. Dr Legg told Den to phone for an ambulance as he hurried out the door. Pauline started to leave and Den asked her what she was there for. Laying a finger to the side of her nose, she told him it was confidential, adding that it was a good thing she wasn't undressed when he came in. He said "It wouldn't have bothered me, I'd have kept me eyes shut."

Dr Legg entered Reg's room to find Arthur taking a nip from Reg's whisky bottle. Dr Legg asked him to open the window, which was stuck shut. As the doctor tried to rouse Reg, Ali and Den returned to announce that the ambulance had arrived.

Lou and Ethel observed the commotion from across the square as the ambulance took Reg away and wondered what it was about. Saeed had stepped out of the foodshop to watch and told them that it was Reg going to hospital. Ethel wanted to go over to have a look. Saeed started to follow them, but Lou stopped him saying, "No! We take care of our own, thank you very much!" She then followed after Ethel, mumbling her displeasure with 'bloody parishioners' as Saeed returned to his shop.

After the ambulance left, Ethel went about her cleaning job at the pub and got into a heated discussion with Den about the good old days when 'everybody cared for each other'.

At the shop, Saeed and Naima lamented being new in the square with no experience running the shop. Naima told him that he should write his dad, who owned the shop, about Reg because his dad knew Reg and it would show him that Saeed knew what was going on. Saeed laughed at that, saying he didn't know what was going on!

Nick came into the café, called Ali "stupid Turk" and asked about old Reg. Then asked him if he'd like a game of darts that night. Ali grinned and said "if you don't mind playing with a stupid Turk".

Sharon got a locket for Angie in the market and gave it to her in the pub as she and Den were rushing to keep up with the dinnertime trade. Even though her daughter had picked an inopportune time, Angie took a moment to admire the locket and thank her. Sharon felt that she and her gift deserved more attention.

After a meeting with Dr Legg, Arthur and Pauline told Lou that Pauline was expecting a baby. Lou hit the roof. She was even madder when Michelle entered the room and she found out that Michelle knew about the pregnancy before she did. Then Mark entered looking for the toilet roll and when Lou asked him what he thought about having a little brother or sister, Mask replied that he hoped they'd have better luck finding the toilet roll.

That afternoon, Dr Legg received a phone call and learnt that Reg had suffered injuries which had not been noticed during his examination and that police had been notified.

That night at the pub, Ali and Nick got into a fight. Den jumped in to break it up and threw them out saying "you're barred!" With blood on his shirt, Den said "look at my bleadin' shirt" as Nick shouted from outside, "Barred? Stuff your poxy boozer" and smashed his fist through the door window. -->

Cast and characters

 * Anna Wing as Lou Beale
 * Wendy Richard Pauline Fowler
 * Bill Treacher as Arthur Fowler
 * Susan Tully as Michelle Fowler
 * David Scarboro as Mark Fowler
 * Peter Dean as Pete Beale
 * Gillian Taylforth as Kathy Beale
 * Adam Woodyatt as Ian Beale
 * Leslie Grantham as Den Watts
 * Anita Dobson as Angie Watts
 * Letitia Dean as Sharon Watts
 * Gretchen Franklin as Ethel Skinner
 * Leonard Fenton as Dr Legg
 * John Altman as Nick Cotton
 * Sandy Ratcliff as Sue Osman
 * Nejdet Salih as Ali Osman
 * Andrew Johnson as Saeed Jeffery
 * Shreela Ghosh as Naima Jeffery
 * Johnnie Clayton as Reg Cox
 * Michael Leader as Michael
 * Michael Evangelou as Hassan Osman

Adverts
In the lead up to the first episode the BBC launch a number of different adverts to promote and to introduce the show.

Broadcasts
This episode was originally shown on BBC1 on 19 February 1985 and as part of an omnibus edition on 24 February 1985. It has since been repeated for the show's 10th anniversary, on 20 February 1995, 15th anniversary on 17 February 2000, on BBC Three, and 30th anniversary, on 16 February 2015, on BBC Red Button. Prior to the episode be broadcast it was screened 12 february 1985, along with episode 2 at a press reception.

Home media
In May 2016, episode 1 was released through the BBC Store as part of the "EastEnders Iconic Exits" set but also available individually.

Reception
Official ratings from the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board showed that the episode was watched by 17.35million people, including those who watched the Sunday omnibus, achieving third place in the British Top 100 programmes for that week. Excluding the omnibus, it was watched by 13million people. After the first episode was broadcast, the BBC received a number of telephone calls complaining that the new soap contained too much bad language and was violent. A BBC spokeswoman said, "There have been some complaints about the violence and the language. There was a fight at the end but there was not blood or guts. I only counted one 'bloody' in the whole episode."

The morning after the first episode had broadcast members of the cast appeared on Breakfast Time. The breakfast television programme the night before had taken a camera to a real East End pub to ask viewers their opinions after the first episode had broadcast. The reviews were mixed with quotes such as "The East-end's not like that!, I wont be giving up Coronation Street" and "Not bad. I'll be switching on to episode two". <!-- More reviews https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ON82ks7j40IC&pg=PA229&lpg=PA229&dq=eastenders+first+episode+review&source=bl&ots=SHagsAdj_0&sig=NkBJFm18-exBtVpItIAxAOdjzX8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq8pnW3aLUAhUFJcAKHfcTB-E4HhDoAQg9MAQ#v=onepage&q=eastenders%20first%20episode%20review&f=false

Not episode 1 reception but could be used elsewhere: Edward Durham Taylor from The Stage said "The twice-weekly serial now has a unique place among drama programmes, in that it alone in drama seems able to respond quickly to whatever are the prevailing moods and issues in society. Through its characters it can immediately discuss matters that preoccupy the public at any given time. The skill in devising and structuring such serials is in being able to offer situations where such discussion can believably take place. Above all, the function of such serials is to entertain, and that is what the public rightly looks for. However, the producers also have to have a clear idea in mind of their audience. Since these serials are in peak time, they are intended to appeal to as wide a cross-section of the public as possible. In order to attract a wide audience, the characters have to appeal to people in various age groups. This also helps the scriptwriters create interesting varieties of plot and sub-plot. The writers additionally have to make the viewer want to watch from episode to episode. The difficulties of setting up and sustaining the twice-weekly serial are therefore considerable.

For some time the BBC has not been able to produce the strong popular drama it should have done. Now it has introduced a twice-weekly serial, EastEnders, which is trying to fulfill the roles that make this kind of drama a success. Whether this new BBC serial will become the national institution that Granada's Coronation Street, and to a lesser extent Central's Crossroads and Yorkshire's Emmerdale Farm have done remains to be seen. One of the hardest things for any new serial to do is attract the audience with its characters and setting. Channel Four's Brookside has discovered that if the initial pitch of a serial is misjudged, the audience quickly falls away. Drama has first and foremost to be about entertaining and not about preaching. The subsequent success of Brookside must have greatly encouraged the producers of EastEnders, showing that a twice-weekly serial can be introduced which is not only entertaining, but also well-written and realistic. Brookside has shown again that such serials have to have time to establish themselves. EastEnders introduced 20 characters in its first week, and it is to the programme's credit that at least five of them have quickly established them-selves as individuals. Its placing in the schedule is obviously crucial and helpful, since the public is in the mood for that style of entertainment at that time, but it remains to be seen how its plotting and characterisation will develop and what the audience loyalty will be. One of the most important attributes of such drama is that it can convey serious issues in a simple way and sometimes make points in a more telling way for more people than factual programmes can. It also provides a sense of national community, of shared experience, a function which is implicit in the nature of television. Audience loyalty is built up through familiarity with background and character. We hear that Crossroads is to be revamped, the new producer introducing a new title sequence and shedding some of the most established characters. By doing so, he must beware of the danger of destroying the audience's familiarity with the programme. Coronation Street has proved that a long-running serial can continue to surprise and refresh the audience, without elaborate revamps or jolting changes of style. The BBC has not succeeded in capturing the public's imagination with a twice-weekly serial since Compact in the sixties. Now, after a lapse of many years, it is trying again. EastEnders will be competing with three successful ITV serials and one from Channel Four. Whether it can establish a successful niche alongside the four other serials only its quality and time will prove."

Paul Fox from The Stage said "drama serials: well made, enormously attractive to the audience and always high in the ratings. Not surprisingly, the BBC are now moving into the same area and Emmerdale Farm and its honest Yorkshire story will come face to face with the EastEnders. But there is more to it than three drama serials from us and one from the BBC."

The East London Advertiser said "The BBC publicity handouts show the series was based loosely on life in the suburb of Dalston. Unfortunately, it seems that Dalston is not even considered to be in the East End." -->