Critics square up over EastEnders

Phil confronted Lisa at the start of the episode

The nation's TV critics have been quick to air their professional thoughts on Thursday's episode of EastEnders - but disagree over how good it was.

Forty minutes of the some the best television drama you will ever see

Jaci Stephens, Daily Express

As the power surged on the national grid during the programme, so it did too in the veins of Jaci Stephens of the Daily Express.

Stephens was positively jumping and down at what she described as "40 minutes of the some the best television drama you will ever see".

She lavished praise on the episode's central actors Steve McFadden, as Phil, and Lisa Benjamin, as Lisa.

Their performances should, she said, "be right up there collecting awards when the Baftas and Royal Television Society Awards are handed out".

Stephens said the script was "brilliant".

"All human life was there - love, rage, anger contempt, laughter, passion - and the tender moment at the end when Phil and Lisa apologised was as poignant as it was surprising."

'Dual'

In The Guardian, Nancy Banks-Smith seemed to agree that the programme was 40 minutes well spent.

But she took a measured approach to the drama, choosing to examine the craft of the EastEnders script.

This was an extraordinarily direct exchange for Albert Square

Nancy Banks-Smith

Focusing on the discussion between Phil and Lisa, Banks-Smith said: "This was an extraordinarily direct exchange for Albert Square where a question is always answered with another question."

She likened the intensity and intimacy of the scene to "something between a duet and a duel".

'Misery'

But Tony Purnell of The Mirror was not impressed.

With an almost audible yawn, he mocks the Lisa-Phil exchange so praised by Banks-Smith and Stephens.

"Bruce Forsyth could have written the script," he says.

"Lisa had kept it (the gun) in a Monopoly box. If it had been Cluedo, it would have been the last straw.

"He (Phil) should have shot her there and then and put us all out of our misery."