Gays Of Our Lives: Meet Noah, Ste’s New Man on "Hollyoaks"

In this month’s Gays Of Our Lives…

The new year brings heartbreak for Iolo on People of the Valley, Lucas on Good Times, Bad Times and Brendan and Ste on Hollyoaks. What happens? Find out in GOOL THEATER.

In GOOL SCOOPS AND SPOILERS, Simon from Doctors comes to a shocking decision about his future, and Aaron and Jackson’s intimate moment leads has major implications on Emmerdale.

And in GOOL NEWSBEAT, RAW's hot chef Geoff dishes the new season, Thom Beirdz returns to The Young and The Restless and behind the scenes dish on Forbidden Love.

All this – and more!

GOOL THEATER

Forbidden Love

I haven’t covered this show recently, but that’s because nothing has been really happening with our guys Christian and Olli. They were married rather quickly and barely returned from their honeymoon before they became obsessed with being parents. The pair wound up fostering an African girl named Lily and quickly fell in love with the child, but it wasn’t long before the girl’s father showed up following a stint in prison. The father had lined up a job in Africa and planned on taking Lily with him.

Late last year when Christian and Olli were married – rather suddenly and out of nowhere in my opinion – I expressed concerns that once the show had shoved them into this quickie marriage they wouldn’t know what to do with them. Either they would be stuck in dull, tiresome storylines – or not be seen at all. And in this case it’s both, because not only does the foster child plot get minimal airtime, it is amazingly and utterly boring.

First and foremost, I don’t buy any of this. It's hard to believe that Christian and Olli would suddenly become obsessed with parenting. I think it might be different if we learned that one of the boys had fathered a child they hadn’t known about and were thrust into parenthood unexpectedly. With that setup we'd get to see how they struggle to adapt and the changes that parenthood would force upon their relationship. That would make more sense and explore more issues than this.

And that leads to another problem: It's really not much of a storyline. As it gets minimal airtime, it often seems like it's just something to play here and there when other meaty, more interesting story-lines need a break. And much like many of last year’s plot arcs, all problems and situations are resolved in an episode or two. Or in some cases, a scene or two.

Frankly, many of Christian and Olli’s recent scenes aren't even really about them, but about other characters and their story-lines. So even when Christian and Olli are there, they’re not really there.

The real problem here is that the show doesn’t really know what to do with Christian and Olli. The result is the writers don't have them doing much of anything. They can’t split them up because the many Chrolli fans would go into a frenzy, which means the characters are cut off from much of the misery, betrayal and other woes that make for meaty soap opera drama.

In other words, their popularity is their own worst enemy.

But how can this be resolved? I think the show should simply treat them like any other soap couple, even if it means they might break up. The Chrolli fans need to loosen the stranglehold they have on the show's writers, because what we have now is not good drama. And on a soap, that’s why we watch.