What's love got to do with it? (From The Northern Echo)

What's love got to do with it?

5:17pm Friday 10th February 2012 in TV By Steve Pratt

WHY is Tyrone on bended knee in Soapland’s busy cop shop? Is he too drunk to stand up?

Or is he scrabbling around to find the five pence piece he dropped? Actually he’s indulging in the age-old tradition of proposing in Coronation Street (ITV1).

The lucky lady on the receiving end of his invitation to be taken up the aisle is top of the cops Kirsty, a woman who has shown, shall we say, irrational behaviour of late.

The term “bunny boiler” has been prefixed to her name by some.

Anyway she’s expecting (a baby – what did you think?) and Tyrone upsets her by asking if the child is his. This doesn’t go down well with Kirsty who, unsurprisingly, is offended by his suggestion that she’s cheated on him and stomps out.

He’s lucky she doesn’t thwack him round the head with her truncheon.

To make amends, he rushes round to the police station and before you can say, “’ello, ’ello, ’ello, what’s going on here?”, he’s on his knee at the inquiry desk asking her to marry him.

The moment isn’t as romantic as she’d like. While Tyrone is proposing, she’s trying to deal with an alcoholically-challenged chap.

But she says yes anyway – to Tyrone, not the drunk.

Lurve is also in the air in EastEnders (BBC1) too. And why not, it’s Valentine’s Day.

But the path to true love is as pot-holed as the road leading to my house. Tyler Moon realises he can contain his feelings for Whitney no longer (get baggier trousers is my advice) and asks her to choose between him and her boyfriend, Fat Boy.

Fat Boy, gearing up to be DJ at R&R, has been making romantic gestures all day towards Whitney, culminating in declaring his love for her publicly over the microphone at the club.

Tyler’s at his Whit’s end after Lucy the minx tells him that Fat Boy is planning to propose to Whitney that very evening.

Tyler’s brain, not the most efficient of machines, goes into overdrive and he tells Whitney how he feels about her. But who will she choose?

Big Hev is another Walford resident having a romantic crisis. She’s set to wed Big Andrew, but what’s the dark secret from his past that he tells his mum Rose to keep quiet about?

He certainly has a temper, coming over all grumpy when Hev suggests she has a night out with best pal Surly Shirley.

That’s because he was planning a romantic evening with Hev and going to give her a diamond engagement ring.

John and Moira in Emmerdale (ITV1) are beyond all that. Their marriage is in tatters after she dillied and dallied with a Dingle (Cain, to be precise). Husband John walked out and now Moira says let’s make the split official.

Trouble is, John appears to have changed his mind and doesn’t want a divorce. Soon they’re talking about the good times they had and hitting the road for a romantic night out.

It ends badly when their car hits a patch of black ice (don’t they listen to the weather warnings on the telly?) and their vehicle zooms off the road and into a ravine. Not quite the way they expected to spend Valentine’s Day.