Solving ‘The Six’: EastEnders,convergence culture,and ‘forensic fandom’

Introduction

The soap opera genre was the focus of many early studies of media fandom (Baym, 2000; Harrington and Bielby, 1995; Press, 1990; Scodari, 1998) which examined how soap fan communities offered meaningful connections with the text, creators, and fellow fans. This article builds on this early work and draws on more recent studies of how contemporary soap fans utilise digital media and social media platforms (Atay, 2019; Ford et al., 2010; Williams, 2010). It does so by focusing on fans of the BBC soap opera EastEnders (1985), drawing on the limited prior work on the show’s audiences (Bell and Deller, 2018; Buckingham, 1987; Madill and Goldmeier, 2003; Middleham and Wober, 1997), to examine the promotion and reception of one high-profile storyline known as ‘The Six’.

This story began with a flash-forward in an episode aired in February 2023 and involves six female characters faced with a dead body in the local pub, The Queen Vic. With the resolution to this teaser promised in the Christmas episodes of 2023, fans began to speculate as to the identity of the body and those responsible for the potential murder, sleuthing for clues to solve the mystery. ‘The Six’ storyline can also be read as a form of ‘event television’ which is typically seen in soap opera at periods of commemoration or anniversary, as in the EastEnders 30^th anniversary Who Killed Lucy Beale? Storyline (Bell and Deller, 2018) or at key moments in the televisual calendar. Such special episodes and storylines counteract the often-held view that soap opera functions ‘as part of a daily routine by free-to-air viewers rather than as specialist, event or big- budget television storytelling’ (Giuffre and Attfield, 2022: 200). Indeed, the revelations around ‘The Six’ storyline in the festive Christmas 2023 episodes speak to the importance of EastEnders at specific temporal and seasonal points. Equally, the flash-forward employed almost 12 months in advance highlights the show’s attempts to innovate within the soap opera genre, and to set up a core narrative enigma which fans could attempt to ‘work out’ whilst also maintaining their existing attachments to the series’ characters. The article thus argues that these online discussions offered a form of ‘forensic fandom’ (Mittell, 2009) that brought reading modes such as looking for evidence in the episodes themselves and in the ‘paratextual’ material surrounding the show (e.g. interviews; cast appearances) together with the readings of characters and relationships more commonly associated with the genre of soap opera. It argues that such forms of narrative and aesthetic innovation, and invitations to fans to engage in evaluation of evidence, discussion, and speculation, demonstrate how soap opera has responded to the demands of contemporary convergence culture.

Studying soap opera fandom

The study of media fandom enables scholars to ‘explore some of the key mechanisms through which we interact with the mediated world at the heart of our social, political, and cultural realities and identities’ (Gray et al., 2007:10). Whilst much early work focused on fans of science-fiction and fantasy series such as Star Trek (1966-present) and Doctor Who (1964-present), research on soap operas and their viewers was also a core part of the first wave of fan studies. Soap opera is often culturally coded as ‘feminised’ due to its open-ended storytelling and its ‘serial narrative form, its presumed lack of closure, its focus on the feminine subject, and its multiple, concurrent plots’ (Scodari, 1998: xviii). Early studies of soap opera often emphasised the oppositional nature of women’s viewing of such programmes, characterising their interest in these shows as a means of resisting patriarchal ideologies surrounding family, friendship, and femininity (Ang, 1985; Brown, 1994; Brunsdon, 1995; Geraghty, 1991; Harrington and Bielby, 1995).

Such work had strong feminist agendas and highlighted how female viewers formed supportive communities, reflecting soap’s emphasis upon the private sphere. Soaps emphasise ‘personal relationships and emotional dilemmas’ (Geraghty, 1991: 122–123) and audience discussions move easily between on-screen events and their own lives (Baym, 2000; Harrington and Bielby, 1995; Seiter, 1989). These connections and meaningful relationships are engendered by the programme’s regular scheduling, often airing several times in one week, and longevity, with soaps such as EastEnders running for 40 years. As a result, viewers often feel ‘close’ to soap characters, ‘referr[ing] to them as friends with whom they talked, laughed, cried and suffered’ (Seiter, 1989: 235). They work to ‘make the shows personally meaningful. They do this by putting themselves in the drama and identifying with its situations and characters. They also bring the drama into their own lives, making sense of the story in terms of the norms by which they make sense of their own experiences’ (Baym, 2000: 71). More recent studies have continued this work by focusing upon online message boards and social media platforms, informed by a broadly feminist perspective but further emphasising community, fan relationships, and creativity (Baym, 2000; Ford, 2008; Ford et al., 2010; Meyers, 2015; Ng, 2008; Scodari, 1998; Williams, 2010). Other scholars have turned to archival work to suggest that pre-Internet fandoms use of letter-writing and other modes of correspondence provide ‘evidence of fan activities that we traditionally assign to fans of much more recent media, particularly those in online fandoms’ (Steuer, 2019: para. 8.3).

Despite this, soap opera’s long association with women has meant that it has often been disparaged and its audiences culturally maligned. Thus, even as soap fans engage in common fan activities such as writing fanfiction (Franco, 2013), making fanvids (Dhaenens, 2012; Ng, 2008), and engaging in detailed discussion, their connections and investments are devalued. However, as this article argues, the concept of ‘forensic fandom’ (Mittell, 2009) suggests that responses to ‘The Six’ storyline in EastEnders shares many overlaps with fan practices linked to other forms of serial drama.

Forensic fandom

‘Forensic fandom’ is the result of an emphasis on ‘seriality, hyperconscious narrative techniques like voice-over narration and playful chronology, and deliberate ambiguity and confusion’ (Mittell, 2012: n.p.) in contemporary television series. It requires a ‘hyperattentive mode of spectatorship’ that forces viewers ‘to embrace a detective mentality, seeking out clues, charting patterns, and assembling evidence into narrative hypotheses and theories’ (Mittell, 2009: 128). In response, fans turn to ‘creating, maintaining, and participating within paratextual spaces like message boards, blogs, or wikis’ (Harriss, 2017: 371). This is most common in fictional media which constructs universes, mysteries, and storyworlds such as Lost (2004-2010) or Game of Thrones (2011-2019). However, individuals are also increasingly engaging in forensic fandom in relation to non-fictional genres and phenomena such as true crime (Jones, 2023), sport (Hagen and Stauff, 2022), or conspiracy theories (Petersen et al., 2024).

Soap opera fans have not routinely been viewed as engaging in forms of forensic fandom in academic work, likely because of the differences in formal style between soap opera and the type of ‘quality drama’ that is often associated with this type of fan practice. Elana Levine notes how ‘industrial, popular, and critical discourse, both journalistic and scholarly, . . . tend to refuse any similarity between daytime’s daily instalments and the kinds of series that have accrued to fictional television such labels as “peak” and “golden age” TV’ (2017: 105). Levine attributes this to ‘classist and masculinist denials of an association between aesthetically legitimated content and the feminized world of daytime drama’ (104-105). It is accurate to say that soap opera does not typically utilise the ambiguity, nor the imaginative chronology, that other forms of television often do. Moreover, their very seriality and longevity means that their ‘drillability’ – what Mittell calls ‘a mode of forensic fandom that invites viewers to dig deeper, probing beneath the surface to understand the complexity of a story and its telling’ (2012: para. 2) – can be contested. For example, Sam Ford argues that soap operas are ‘accretion texts’ which do not require great levels of fan creativity or narrative mastery because of the volume of content that is produced and because they ‘never-end’ (2014: 64). Furthermore, soap opera’s history is never entirely stable. This is because, for example, characters are subject to recasting and backstories can be rewritten. ‘The Six’, however, is one moment when this type of storytelling, and a deliberate invitation to ‘dig deeper’, was possible and viewers were encouraged to try to solve the mystery and to share their theories and ideas. As this paper will demonstrate, this invitation was picked up across a rate of online platforms where fans debated the outcome of the storyline and their responses to the ongoing narrative. Such fan practices speak to the complex ways that soap opera has responded, and adapted, to the changes in contemporary digital and ‘convergence culture’ (Jenkins, 2006) that have emerged.

Methods

As noted, this article examines ‘The Six’ storyline as a source of ‘forensic fandom’ that brought fannish reading modes such as looking for evidence in episodes and the paratextual material surrounding the show (e.g. interviews; digital-only content on YouTube and iPlayer) together with the analysis of characters and relationships more commonly associated with the genre of soap opera. To undertake this analysis, the research uses netnography, ‘a form of qualitative research that seeks to understand the cultural experiences that encompass and are reflected within the traces, practices, networks and systems of social media’ (Kozinets, 2019: 14). A key element is participant observation which enables ‘the opportunity to experience embedded cultural understanding’ (Reid and Duffy, 2018: 6) in an online community. Such methods are common within research on fandom and online communities since it enables data collection across relevant sites, ‘primarily using online sources from websites, social networks, and other digital platforms’ (Kozinets, 2015: 66).

The data collected for analysis comes from the author’s own immersion in the online discussions surrounding EastEnders and their netnographic use of participant observation on sites such as X (formerly Twitter), online forums, and the EastEnders subreddit for several years before the beginning of ‘The Six’ storyline. The researcher is thus familiar with many of the platforms where discussion of the series takes place and has established knowledge of the types of fan practice that take place there. As such, this research employs the methods of online netnography and analysis of anonymous online postings, combining ‘mixed-method cyberethnography […] and textual analysis to create a hybrid method to make sense of [the data]’ (Atay, 2019: 81).

Ethical approval was obtained from the author’s institution, and the research followed the established precedent for observational research into online content. This argues that informed consent is unnecessary since there is no contact with the human participants, no identifying information will be gathered, and the context of the online sites themselves discourages identification (Whiteman, 2009: 398–9). Moreover, the public nature of the sites being examined means that they can be accessed without a password or payment, making their use for research without consent an acceptable aspect of netnographic work (Kozinets, 2015: 131–32). This is also supported by the terms and conditions of each site which permits documentation of content and fair use of this. The topic area is also uncontroversial, concerned with reactions to a fictional text which is widely aired on UK television, and which is frequently discussed in publicity in the press and on other television shows. As such, the likelihood of harm to any participant whose online posts might be included in the sample is very small given the topic of the research, the lack of identifiability online, and the sampling and analysis methods used.

Data for detailed analysis was collected from one main source, the EastEnders subreddit r/EastEnders. Reddit is a social media platform that hosts over one million subreddits with around 138,000 currently active; subreddits are smaller communities that are focused on specific topics or interests. Although the site has been criticised for its relaxed moderation policies, its tolerance of anonymous accounts, and its linkage to controversial incidents (Proferes et al., 2021), it has become a venue for fan discussion to flourish. Data was gathered from r/EastEnders on 18 June 2024 via use of the online data collection tool Communalytic (Gruzd and Mai, 2024). This tool was used to collect posts which included the term ‘The Six’; this generated 3011 records with the first post being from 9 April 2024 and the final post being from 18 June 2024. Using the Communalytic software, the data set was used to generate word clouds which indicated the most used terms within the discussion on r/EastEnders and a chart which demonstrated the number of posts made over time. The 100 most common terms used in the discussions on r/EastEnders were identified via the creation of the word cloud, and then this was used to identify the posts that included these terms for analysis. The key themes discussed in r/EastEnders are summarised alongside the use of direct anonymised quotes. This approach enables central topics and themes of conversation and analysis to be discussed, allowing me to anonymise ‘information while providing accounts that present rich descriptions and important details about the context or people’ (Markham, 2012: 336).

Mapping ‘The Six’ storyline

‘The Six’ storyline was developed to showcase several of EastEnders' lead female characters (Bennett, 2023): Linda Carter (Kellie Bright), Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner), Sharon Watts (Leticia Dean), Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal), Denise Fox (Diane Parish), and Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth). The story was heavily promoted before and after a flash-forward episode that introduces the ‘whodunnit’ narrative, with the storyline teased in trailers with the tagline ‘In a flash, everything changes’. The episode was also notable for lacking an early release on the BBC iPlayer in the usual 6 a.m. digital release slot, meaning that all viewers watched it at the same time in its usual broadcast slot of 7:30 p.m. on BBC1.

The flash-forward episode aired on 20 February 2023 and focused on the six women drinking in the Queen Victoria pub and bemoaning their issues with a range of different men including Suki’s husband Nish Panesar (Navin Chowdhry), Kathy’s fiancée Rocky Cotton (Brian Connolly), and Denise’s husband Jack Branning (Scott Maslen) and her affair partner Ravi Gulati (Aaron Thiara). The episode ends with a scene of the women offering a toast:

Sharon: To the men in our lives … to the ones that give us false hope and security.

This moment of female solidarity abruptly cuts to a flash-forward which is captioned as ‘Christmas 2023’. The final moments of the episode show the women in the pub, which is decorated for Christmas but also clearly set as the scene of a wedding reception. Sharon, dressed in a wedding dress, leans over an unidentified man lying on the floor, lifts his wrist to check his pulse, and declares ‘he’s dead’. This, first use in EastEnders of the flash-forward to an upcoming storyline, immediately posed questions for viewers. Beyond the mystery of the identity of the dead body and his killer, fans also queried the identity of Sharon’s groom since she was not involved in a relationship. Eagle-eyed viewers also questioned the presence of a full-size suit-of-arms in the pub, and, most crucially for the forensic fandom that followed, the fact that the body was wearing a distinctive pair of cufflinks on his shirt cuffs.

Between the February episode and the Christmas 2023 culmination of the first part of ‘The Six’ storyline, each of the women characters dealt with difficulties with the men in their lives, contributing to speculation over the victim’s identity. Sharon became engaged to her on-off partner Keanu Taylor (Danny Wallace) who, then, pretended to kidnap their son to extort her for money. Stacey was assaulted by her stalker Theo Hawthorne (William Ellis), whilst Denise had ongoing problems with her former lover Ravi. Meanwhile, Suki had left her abusive husband Nish for her secret girlfriend Eve Unwin (Heather Pearce) and Linda had endured the return of her rapist (and brother-in-law) Dean Wicks (Matt Di’Angelo) to Albert Square. The promotional activity around the show continued to foreground the story with the BBC releasing six short teasers, each based around one of the characters; for example, Sharon’s teaser shows her in her wedding dress, throwing her bouquet over her shoulders, whilst Linda’s depicts her scrubbing the floor of the Queen Victoria pub. This ongoing promotion, which was significantly increased in the immediate lead-up to Christmas, provided fans with extra ‘evidence’ to draw on to support their theories about the identity of the dead body, and the events that led to it.

The Christmas Day episode revealed that the victim from the flash-forward was Nish Panesar, who had been hit over the head by Denise as he tried to attack his former wife, Suki. However, Nish did not die. Instead, the final victim was Keanu, who was stabbed with a meat thermometer by Linda as he tried to strangle Sharon after learning that their child belonged to her ex-husband Phil Mitchell (Steve MacFadden). This led the women to hide Keanu’s body under the floorboards of the local Café, and repercussions that saw Denise sectioned after a mental health breakdown, Kathy’s husband Rocky sent to prison, and Linda’s rapist Dean framed for the murder. In subsequent episodes, Nish confessed to the killing to prevent Suki from marrying her girlfriend, Eve. At the conclusion of the story, during the New Year’s Eve/Day episodes of 2024/2025 Nish, having heard that the couple intend to marry, escapes from prison and attempts to kill them. The storyline concludes when Nish falls to his death from the wedding venue and, given his earlier confession, is presumed to have been Keanu’s killer.

The storyline was ground-breaking for EastEnders which had previously aired live episodes, special episodes focusing on issues such as knife crime, and featured ‘whodunnit’ storylines including ‘Who shot Phil Mitchell?’ in 2001, and ‘Who Killed Lucy Beale?’ which marked the series’ 30^th anniversary (Bell and Deller, 2018). However, the use of the flash-forward to set up a ‘whodunnit’ mystery to solve was new, although this conceit had been employed in British soap opera Hollyoaks (1995-present) in 2011. The show heavily promoted the storyline, with videos for each of the six women featured on the iPlayer and YouTube channels under the titles of ‘Stacey’s Story’, ‘Suki’s Story’, and so on. Each of these offered overviews of the character’s key storylines, allowing casual viewers to catch up and more devoted fans to pore over these clips for ‘evidence’ to support their theories. Such speculation was encouraged by Executive Producer Chris Clenshaw, who commented, ‘I’m not going to give anything away that the episode hasn’t already given, but what I will say is there were clues in there. Did you look closely? I urge everyone to re-watch the scene and look at every detail’ (Bennett, 2023).

Furthermore, the grand reveal was promoted in two paratextual episodes of EastEnders The Six: Whodunnit (2023) and EastEnders The Six: Revealed (2023) which were released on the BBC streaming platform iPlayer. The first episode, released on 11 December 2023, featured host Joe Swash interviewing all six actresses, outlining their connection to potential victims and, finally, asking the killer to stand up and reveal themselves. This moment, which the audience did not get to see, was accompanied by gasps of shock from the other actresses. The second episode, Revealed, was available on 25 December 2023 after the main EastEnders episode had aired. This edition focused on the series’ Executive Producer Chris Clenshaw telling actress Kellie Bright that her character Linda was the killer, and her responses. The episode also continued Joe Swash’s conversations with all six actresses and their reactions. These two additional episodes formed a paratextual framing for the story, highlighting its uniqueness and importance, and contributing towards the anticipation as the storyline built towards the Christmas Day revelations. It also functioned as a source of paratextual play, providing an additional source of evidence for fans to review and analyse as they attempted to work out the identities of the victim and the killer, further encouraging them to undertake forms of forensic fandom.

Discussing ‘The Six’

The online fan talk around ‘The Six’ storyline demonstrates how discussion of the series can ‘insert . . . itself into the ‘digital flows’ of social media’ (Hills, 2017: 237), especially at key moments such as narrative revelations, storyline conclusions, or anniversaries. The official social media channels linked to the show often posted relevant material on sites such as X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram which fans reposted or responded to with comments. The more detailed discussion, however, that took place in the EastEnders subreddit indicates that some social media platforms are not suited for ongoing conversations and the type of fan speculation and theorisation that forms of forensic fandom demand.

Much of the discussion in the lead-up to the Christmas Day episode focused on fans’ guessing the identity of the killer and their victim, as well as positing possibilities for the events that led to that point in the narrative. This speculation was actively encouraged by the EastEnders’ social media channels and in interviews with the cast. Fans eagerly picked up the mantle of trying to solve the puzzle. Many predicted a surprise in the episode, including the possibility that there was more than one death, or that the person viewers were led to believe was dead was a red herring. They also returned to stills, trailers and other promotional materials, paying specific attention to the colour palettes associated with specific characters, prompting one online poster to joke that, ‘It’s like a Cluedo game: it was Miss (color) in the pub with the vase’. This reflects the findings of early studies of soap opera which emphasised the ‘talk’ that fans engaged in since this ‘fan gossip reflect[ed] soap’s central questions: What will happen next and who will it affect?’ (Harrington and Bielby, 2018: 82). Talk about specific characters was common; as the generated word cloud indicates, these were most likely to be the six women characters or their potential victims.

The most common candidates for the dead body on the floor of the Queen Victoria were Keanu, Nish, and Dean. These options make sense considering the plotlines that they had been involved with in the lead-up to the Christmas Day episode, allowing fans to draw on their knowledge of ongoing storylines to put forward their arguments. For example, a poster commented:

I have an idea for the future of the six. The promos for the storyline was ‘Men, may they get what they deserve’ now I might just [be] thick with this but what if each of the seven men get what they deserve. Like Keanu is dead and Rocky is in prison so what up to the 50th anniversary each of the men get what they deserve. An example is Dean finally going down for what he did to Linda and Roxy.

Another engaged in detailed study of the flash-forward scene, arguing that,

One thing that’s bothering me is that the cake has not been cut and there is no food missing from the platters so ether this is pre wedding (something I just don’t see happening) or the wedding is called of for some reason my guess is Sharron finds out about the kidnapping and says something in a argument like ‘he’s not even yours anyway’ and Sharon kills keanu or possibly even at a stretch phil kills him.

Whilst some argued that killing Dean or Nish would be a disappointment, others suggested that a sudden surprise would undermine the set-up for the storyline:

There’s a lot of people saying those two characters are too obvious because of how evil they are, but I think it’s just paying off a storyline. At this point, any of the six men would be considered ‘obvious’, but does that mean the writers should throw in a random character last minute as a cheap twist? People say Phil or Martin and I’m like…how does that help the story at all?? What would even make the Six cover that up? And would anyone really want the death we’ve been looking forward to for the whole year to be accidental?

Fans also discussed the possibility of Kathy’s husband, Rocky Cotton, since news of his abrupt departure from the series had been leaked in the tabloid press. Key to these discussions was the pair of cufflinks that were seen on the body in the flash-forward episode, since these were introduced as belonging to Nish Panesar, who lost them in a poker game to Rocky Cotton. Rocky then gave them to Jack Branning who passed them on to Phil Mitchell (Steve MacFadden). Eagle-eyed fans had followed the cufflinks as a potential clue to the identity of the Christmas victim, only to find this theorising undermined when the characters of Billy Mitchell (Perry Fenwick) and Alfie Moon (Shane Ritchie) ended up selling a box of the same cufflinks from their market-stall in the weeks leading up to the Christmas Day episode. As a result, almost every male character in the show owned a pair, leading fans to admit that this clue had been a red herring and was unlikely to help them deduce the victim’s identity.

Other less likely candidates were also discussed. These included Sharon’s ex-husband Phil and Denise’s husband, Jack Branning. Many fans argued that these two long-standing characters were too important to be killed off in this fashion, especially Phil who was viewed as a ‘legacy character’: ‘It’s not Phil: that wouldn’t happen. It’s not Rocky: we know he’s leaving, too underwhelming. It’s not Jack: what would they do with Amy? Mom and Dad both dead?’ However, others countered that their deaths would be surprising and have a clear impact on future storylines and each of the women involved in ‘The Six’ narrative. In these discussions, fans clearly believed the official publicity surrounding the storyline and its claims that the fallout from the events would be shocking; their knowledge of the history of these characters (especially Phil) was drawn on as evidence for their inclusion as potential victims. Across the discussions, posters drew on their extensive knowledge of the show’s history, demonstrating ‘the collective intelligence the fan community provides’ (Ford, 2008: para. 2.5).

Many fans posted about their satisfaction with the storyline, praising its twists and turns such as the involvement of Denise’s policeman husband Jack (who discovers characters attempting to retrieve incriminating evidence from Keanu’s body and agrees to cover up their involvement) and Linda Carter’s son Johnny (Charlie Suff), to whom she confesses after suffering a relapse into alcoholism. Many posters were pleased to see several of the soap’s female lead characters get involved in an ongoing storyline, continuing EastEnders’ female-oriented and often ‘matriarchal’ tradition. These comments focused on the performances of the different actors playing the roles, often highlighting specific moments in key episodes such as the framing of Dean Wicks for Keanu’s murder, and Diane Parrish’s performance as Denise during a storyline that saw her suffer a psychotic episode because of her guilt. One poster notes, ‘One word: Outstanding Performance from Diane tonight .… I had to say Diane played a blinder after that. She deserves a well earned break. I hope she wins an Award for this performance. Denise broke my heart watching her falling to pieces. Even Jack couldn’t do anything to help’. One specific element of this story saw her haunted by the imagined ‘ghost’ of Keanu (played again by Danny Walters) in uncanny moments where he appears reflected in mirrors, or where only the character of Denise can hear his voice. Such moments exemplify EastEnders’ use of melodrama to reflect a characters’ emotional state of mind since ‘Melodrama can function with, and in contrast to, the mundane everydayness of realism’ (Geraghty, 2012: 86). These fan discussions reflect the intended outcome of the storyline, which was to highlight female characters, and those who played them, in an innovative type of narrative (Bennett, 2023). In these moments, too, fans continue to analyse ‘evidence’ from episodes to continue their modes of forensic fandom and to predict the ongoing development of ‘The Six’ storyline.

However, not all fan reactions were positive. Many fans were disappointed with the plot’s resolution:

I’m getting tired of the guessing game for a plot line that will likely have more holes than a spaghetti strainer

Others disagreed with the choice of victim and killer, and the events leading up to Keanu’s murder, as well as the actions of the six characters in the aftermath. These discussions ranged from evaluating of the likelihood of them getting away with the crime to arguments over the moral implications of their actions, such as framing other characters for their wrongdoing. Much of the discussion also focused on gender with discussion around how the storyline represented the characters, with fans arguing that it framed them negatively (since they were now criminals) or that the narrative was focused on punishing ‘bad’ men by making female characters seem even worse.

Many comments noted that the behaviour of the six women, including allowing characters such as Dean Wicks and Rocky Cotton to go to prison, was immoral and that it undermined many of their previously established character traits or histories. Here, again, fans draw on their long-standing knowledge of the series to develop and defend their points of view. The longevity of a soap opera like EastEnders may mean that its ‘audiences tune in to watch their favourite stories, enjoy the everyday life of their characters, cry with them, laugh with them and share their lives’ (Atay and Gorton, 2022: 117) but it also means that they can be critical when people behave ‘out of character’. Of course, soap characters are not real and do not have agency of their own. However, disappointed fans can judge how the narrative portrays them and use these evaluations to argue against the decisions of those in positions of responsibility such as writers or Executive Producers. For many fans, the previous positive construction of characters such as Linda and Sharon had been damaged by their involvement in the storyline, forcing them to re-evaluate their opinions of those characters. Whilst character growth within a long-running serial such as EastEnders is necessary to ensure continued relevance, narrative surprise, and longevity, fans do expect this growth to be within established parameters. Consequently, ‘it is often the rewriting of the show’s history and key characters that fans most resent and which they read as a betrayal’ of their continued support (Williams, 2010: 284).

Accusations of anti-male sentiment were also common, with some discussions focusing on how the series had forced several of its male characters into negative behaviours to protect the enigma of the storyline. For example, whilst fans generally agreed that the characters of Dean (who had previously avoided justice for raping Linda Carter, and the attempted rape of the character Roxy Mitchell (Rita Simons)) and Nish (who had emotionally and physically abused his wife Suki) deserved punishment, there was dissent regarding the other potential victims. Fans argued that the series had betrayed Keanu’s character by having him involved in the fake kidnap of his son Albie to extort money from Sharon, and by the violent actions that led up to his death. Keanu had originally appeared in the soap between 2017 and 2020 before returning in December 2022. Fans offered evidence from his previous stint on the show to argue that his construction as a potential villain, and his behaviour towards Sharon, made little sense and accused the show’s writers of serving plot over character:

I thought it should have been Nish to be honest, they should have gone for audience satisfaction over shock value. But I can see why they chose Keanu, I suppose.. . . Keanu, aside from his last few months, was a good and decent person who genuinely loved and cared for his family, unlike Nish. . . . Personally I think Keanu was the more impactful choice for the audience, and even maybe for the Square. He was the one out of all of them that didn't 'deserve' it overall, even if he would very likely have killed Sharon in that moment.

These fans again demonstrate the importance of characters consistency, and how writing that is viewed as ‘out-of-character’ is often subject to critique. The discussions around gender and representation were especially heated, with opposing views often being expressed:

I think the toast and men ‘getting what they deserve’ just triggered the 'not all men' crowd who can't see a bigger picture and just lose it when any female-focused story is done, or issue is raised.

Furthermore, as the story continued, many fans argued that the framing of Dean Wicks for Keanu’s murder was a poor narrative choice. Although some countered that the character was finally receiving his deserved punishment for his rape of Linda, others suggested that this represented a skewed sense of right and wrong that undercut the severity of his actual crimes. One poster noted,

Is it just me? Like I’m not particularly invested in wanting them to get away with it especially if they try to frame an innocent person for it (innocent of that particular crime, not necessarily others). I don’t even want Dean to be framed for it - I’d rather he go to prison for something he actually did.

In these discussions, fans discussed the moral dilemma regarding whether the character finally ‘getting what he deserved’ justified the decision that the characters involved in ‘The Six’ had made. Here, and in other discussions surrounding the construction of the men in the storyline, fans engaged in complex ethical debates to make sense of the story and to understand EastEnders’ representations of ‘personal relationships and emotional dilemmas’ (Geraghty, 1991: 122–3).

Conclusion

‘The Six’ storyline is one example of a soap opera presenting fans with a specific mystery to follow, and try to solve, drawing on different modes of storytelling (e.g. flash-forwards) and forms of paratextual content more common in other kinds of serial television (such as quality drama) to encourage ‘forensic fandom’. This is not to argue that soap opera is the ‘standard binary against which other, more significant or engaging, programmes are measured’ (Geraghty, 2012: 83) or that the fan activity that surrounds soaps is somehow inferior to that which focuses on other types of television series. Rather it speaks to the pleasures that soap fans get from engaging in complex practices of interpretation, archiving, and deliberation in the same ways as fans of other television genres and media forms. As argued here, these pleasures can result from balancing their ongoing reactions to the everyday happenings and rhythms of the soap opera narrative with examples of event television such as ‘The Six’ storyline, or moments of commemoration such as the 40^th anniversary of the series. By engaging in speculation on potential storylines and character returns and watching and analysing paratexts such as documentaries or exclusive iPlayer only content, acts of forensic fandom can imbue fans with higher levels of textual knowledge and, in some cases, status within fan communities if their interpretations and predictions are proven to be correct. As this paper has argued, the long history of a series such as EastEnders and fans’ intimate knowledge of characters and their narratives, provides evidence for analysis, enabling fans to predict possible storylines, judge developments they deem to be ‘out of character’, and to evaluate their satisfaction with on-screen events. This engagement in forms of forensic fandom within the soap opera genre works to challenge existing arguments that primarily link this type of fan engagement with other, more culturally valued genres, and instead offers a way to explore how fans balance soap opera’s established modes of everydayness and routine with more exceptional moments of event storytelling.