As the nation waits to see whether the serial killer of Weatherfield will be caught, TV Writer Steve Pratt explains why he thinks the Coronation Street storyline should have been buried long ago.

RICHARD KILLS AGAIN! scream the previews of tonight's Coronation Street. No one can complain Weatherfield residents haven't been given fair warning that soap's first - and, hopefully, last - serial killer is going to strike again.

Makers Granada first let the cat out of the bag last year in a piece of headline-seeking publicity listing Richard Hillman's potential victims. Now there's a shortlist of just three, Emily, Toyah and Maxine.

He's already tried to kill Emily, by suffocating her with a cushion in her armchair. The actresses playing the other two announced they were leaving before Richard's murderous plans were revealed.

Granada has begged the media not to give the game away before the episode is screened tonight. Some hope. At least one previewer has named the person in the body bag.

More to the point than the victim's identity, do we really care? Am I the only one who thinks the serial killer storyline has dragged on too long, becoming more and more ridiculous?.

Let's consider the evidence. Richard first struck when he fought with business partner Dougie, whom he left to die after falling over the banisters.

Then there was his ex-wife Patricia, who arrived on his doorstep, demanding money. Richard bashed her over the head with a shovel and buried the body in cement on his housing development.

Some may consider it punishment enough that Richard has married Gail. Taking on her and her two awful children, schoolgirl mum Sarah Louise and demonic David, would be enough to drive most men to murder.

Unfortunately, none are earmarked for a plot in Weatherfield Cemetery. Richard kills for money, last year setting fire to mother-in-law Audrey's house with her inside. She was rescued, depriving him of much-needed cash and fanning the flames of suspicion that he was trying to kill her.

Now scatty hairdresser Audrey and portly paramour Archie the undertaker think they're in an Agatha Christie whodunit. Archie, whom you'd think would welcome the extra trade coming his way through Richard's crimes, realised how idiotically they were behaving. He pointed out to Audrey that she was no Miss Marple. Miss Lost Her Marbles, more like.

With more of the Street's elderly residents being roped into Audrey's vigilante squad, the Street's beginning to resemble a bad episode of Murder She Wrote.

Murder is nothing new in soaps, but a serial killer is. Attempted murder is a surefire audience puller. Witness the success of the Who Shot Phil Mitchell? saga in EastEnders and, even more, the global interest aroused by Who Shot JR? in Dallas. Such plots can run for months as suspects are paraded and discarded until the ratings potential has been milked dry.

The problem with Richard Hillman is that the complex mechanics and motivations of a serial killer don't fit easily into a soap's heightened reality. Viewers who are happy to watch others suffer and be thankful it's not them, are less comfortable watching a cold-blooded murderer at work. Villains who kill in the heat of the moment, such as Steve Owen bashing his possessive ex-girlfriend with an ashtray in EastEnders, are more convincing.

Richard has turned from accidental to cold and calculating killer. Such chilling happenings don't sit easily with the traditional comedy scenes and jollity in the Rovers.

Only occasionally is violent death allowed to intrude in soaps, such as Ernie Bishop being blasted to kingdom come by shotgun raiders, an assassination ordered by Street producers after the actor demanded a pay rise (being injured or disabled are preferred to outright death by person or persons unknown).

The exception is Brookside, the murder capital of the soap world where people literally get away with murder a lot of the time. Poor Sue and her baby were pushed to their deaths from scaffolding. The perpetrator, Barry Grant, was never brought to book. Trevor the wife-batterer and child abuser was knifed to death by Mandy and buried under the patio, where the body lay undiscovered for months.

Producers tried to emulate the Who Shot Phil? saga when Susannah Farnham died after a fall down the stairs. Five suspects were named and the story strung out over a week of episodes. The guilty party was revealed to viewers, but never arrested.

More recently, after months of hiding the truth, schoolboy Anthony Murray finally admitted killing bullying youngster Imelda.

The Richard Hillman saga will continue for months to come, although his plot goes awry tonight. His intended victim lives, and someone else is done in. Tricky Dickie frames someone else for the crime. Why no one believes Audrey's claim that he's a murderer is a mystery. He looks devious and needs only a moustache to twirl to look like a refugee from a Victorian melodrama.

Actor Brian Capron, who won the best villain gong at the Inside Soap Awards, will be around for some time. He's contracted until the end of June. "I'm as interested as anyone else to know what the hell is going to happen to him," he says.

"Ultimately, he has to get his comeuppance. From a moral point of view, he needs to get justice. But I would quite like to see him go out as a flawed hero, perhaps do something to absolve himself, like save David from drowning. So you could say, 'Well, he had a very warped sense of morality, but something good came from the man'."

* Coronation Street: ITV1, tonight (Monday), 7.30pm and 8.30pm.