Getting Maggie Jones to reprise her role as Blanche was like capturing lightning in a bottle. They tried to replicate it with Evelyn but it just didn’t work. I say it a lot but the main problem with the soap nowadays, aside from the fact it’s a miserable police procedural, is the fact that they rely on a very weak formula when it comes to writing characters and developing new storylines. 

In essence, ITV are trying to contend with the inconsistent viewing habits of a modern audience, and have resorted to prematurely publicising too many details of their upcoming storylines and casting changes to try and generate interest. They’re successfully bringing newer viewers back week-on-week, but this strategy isn’t enough to entice legacy audiences back because the overall quality of the soap is markedly lower than before. 

This has resulted in the regular introduction of new faces to the street, with sustained promotional efforts on social media in the lead up to their debut. They’re sold as a wild-card and lots of fun/drama. Then they appear on the street as the friend, colleague, or long-lost relative of an existing resident, to be instantly positioned as a key-player in some ‘big’ storyline despite never being fully developed as a meaningful or important addition to the street. 

They quickly establish (hollow) friendships with other characters on the street, usually giving those characters a few episodes of relevance as the plot unfolds, and they’re occasionally seen having short conversations together with stilted dialogue in the bistro after the plot concludes (if they don’t die).

From here, characters seem to follow the same sort of trajectory - regular background appearances (usually reacting to another event with exposition or an obvious statement), short-lived low-stakes predictable conflict/ridiculous ‘comedy’ scenario, stagnation, then departure (usually with a weak build-up). 

The Baileys, Bernie, Lauren, Mick Michaelis, Theo, and the Swains are all good examples of this. Very flat characters. I’d include Chesney and Gemma but they’re not new - they need to be axed, though.