‘What a waste’: EastEnders fans continue to lash out over iconic star’s axing

‘It just didn’t work, did it?’ commented Steve Weaver on the post about Zoe Slater’s EastEnders axing on the Metro Facebook page.

And that seemed to be the prevailing thought among most Metro readers who took the time to read and comment on yesterday’s piece about Michelle Ryan breaking her silence following confirmation that she’ll be bowing out yet again, this time under potentially fatal circumstances.

It was absolutely enormous news when it was announced that Kat Moon’s (Jessie Wallace) long-estranged daughter would finally be making a return, 20 years after her initial exit.

Zoe had been an integral part of the original Slater line-up at the dawn of the millennium, and was beloved by fans, many of whom still shriek ‘you ain’t my muvvah’, Zoe’s most famous line of dialogue that came just prior to the revelation that Kat was, indeed, her ‘muvvah’.

It always felt like there was unfinished business with Zoe, whose initial tenure was incredibly short in comparison to the overall longevity of the Slater clan; she departed Walford not long after being involved in the second – and permanent – murder of Den Watts (Leslie Grantham).

But when she did finally come back, things got a little strange.

As a former soap writer myself, the golden rule is to focus on what’s happening on-screen and always look forward.

A well-plotted and nuanced back story is wonderful and can help inform a character’s decision, but it simply doesn’t work when you place the focus on the past, especially a past the audience won’t have seen.

This is what happened with Zoe when she returned – the birth of two children, one she believed was stillborn and another she left in the hospital, the potential murder of a private investigator and a fling with none other than Max Branning (Jake Wood) – the most interesting parts of the story had happened off-screen and in the past, leaving Zoe with little to do but endlessly search for her long-lost children.

There was Mini Mo, too.

‘I forgot about the cat; that was very odd!’ Jo NT said, angering all of us at Metro HQ who became huge fans of said cat.

Jo NT continued: ‘She just wandered around saying ‘I want my kids’ for a few weeks, found a cat, got the kids, went to jail and then pulled a pint or two. The whole thing made me think ‘eh?”.

Melissa Clayton wrote an incredibly impassioned response: ‘The whole Antony saga was a mistake and putting her with Max at the start, they just didn’t have the right chemistry. Also the long drawn out “searching in secret” for Zoe from her mum,’ she began.

‘I think it would’ve been more dramatic if Zoe had just turned up in a state out of the blue to her mum saying she needed help.

‘Also, there’s been so much opportunity for her to have real heart to hearts with both of her children. Lots more interactions between them not just the odd awkward chat.

‘I wanted to see more depth in those interactions given what she went through when she had them and the years of guilt and thinking her baby daughter had died.’

The inclusion of arch-villain Chrissie Watts (Tracy-Ann Oberman) in the ‘stalking’ plot that confirmed Jasmine Fisher (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness) as Zoe’s missing, and presumed dead, daughter, which divided viewers entirely, was also questioned by Melissa:

‘How Jasmine was introduced and exposed just wasn’t the best and could have been written so much better if Chrissie hadn’t even been a factor in it. It turned it into an unbelievable shambles rather than showing the raw heart of a child reuniting with their mum and working through that.’

With Jasmine wrapped up in a murder plot and her son Josh Goodwin (Joshua Vaughan) focussed on his links to the Trueman family and snatching time with Jasmine’s boyfriend Oscar Branning (Pierre Counihan-Moullier), Zoe’s become a bit of an after-thought following the arrival of her much-sought after children.

‘That’s a real shame,’ began Crystal Tips.

‘I think she’s a good actress who didn’t have good story lines. I really hope they don’t kill her off. The chemistry between her and the actor who plays Tommy [Moon] (Sonny Kendall) is great.’

Deborah Jane had an interesting take: ‘Many people didn’t watch it that long ago, and the storylines were not recent enough to have the same effect’.

Perhaps Zoe’s two-decade absence really was a little too long for viewers, especially younger audiences who won’t have any memory of who she was.

The over-arching feeling seems to be that Zoe’s much-hyped return has been somewhat of a letdown.

Well, that and the fate of Mini Mo, of course.

As Sharon Daly says: ‘Bring back the kitty cat!’