I suppose it's my fault then?

It's a hard life being an EastEnders fan. There are too many occasions on which one has to endure watching Charlie Brooks flick her tongue to the corner of her mouth, roll her eyes and attempt to look evil, or listening to Adam Woodyatt squeak his way through yet another completely implausible emotional switchback.

John Altman is another tongue-flicker; I daresay not many people have spotted the similarities between nasty Nick Cotton and former Education Secretary of State Kenneth Baker, but they both use exactly the same little snake-like flick of the tongue in and out, and to pretty much the same effect: "Do not trust a word I say!" I am wearily awaiting the return of yet another dastardly Nick plot to destroy Dot's faith in the powers of redemption: how much more interesting it would have been - for Altman as well as for us, I'd have thought - if Nick really had come back as a reformed character and had to struggle to convince us all.

The surest indicator of an EastEnders scriptwriter scraping the bottom of the barrel is when they resort to moving a scene on by having a character retort "I suppose it's my fault then?" - always guaranteed to generate shrieks of horror and disbelief in our house. However, I am happy to report that I haven't heard it for a while. In fact, since we finally got Danielle's risibly contrived death out of the way, the last two episodes have been on top form. What do I mean by this? Well, there are several strong but psychologically plausible stories on the go, interwoven and thematically related, but otherwise not dependent on each other and, crucially some of the best performers getting their teeth into cliche-free scripts: Tanya and Max circling warily around each other again; the Fox family and Lucas perplexed by Patrick's intransigence; Stacey sulking on the sofa; Rick and Tiffany edging towards a false revelation. None of these problems is simple or has an obvious outcome; in each case the behaviour is subtle and complex with many different possible motivations: it keeps us fascinated even when hardly anything is happening.

Monday's episode, directed by Clive Arnold, was a little gem, despite featuring the tediously gullible Dot Cotton and Charlie Slater. Instead of the grindingly obvious set-piece weddings, dinners and funerals that EastEnders seems to pride itself on, we had almost everyone slopping about aimlessly on a damp Bank Holiday Monday, wondering what to do, and it was riveting. It reminded me of Arsenal's recent apparent return to form: you remember that they really do have a lot of brilliant players after all - and we weren't even seeing Nitin Ganatra or Kara Tointon, two other endlessly watchable talents.

Of course it won't last. My nightmare EastEnders episode would feature Janine, Ian, Pat, Peggy, Billy and Mo all shrieking "I suppose it's my fault then?" at each other, interspersed with shots of Ronnie, Roxy and Jack glaring inscrutably from behind curtains at first floor windows or from behind half-open doors. There'd also be candles guttering to extinction on a guestless dinner table; a lavish bouquet, a revealing postcard and a fried breakfast all crammed into various rubbish bins, and at least one scene would take place at that ridiculous allotment. If I could just get that Diederick Santer on my sofa, we'd get it sorted out in no time, I know we would.