Of the main British soaps I have only really followed 'Enders with any regularity; this involves dipping in every now and then and seeing whether there are any decent storylines that take my fancy. Recently I did begin to lose interest, but I was gripped by the story of Danielle, Ronnie Mitchell and Archie Mitchell, which culminated this week, in true soap style, at a wedding reception.

For those of you not acquainted a brief synopsis of the story is required here. When Ronnie Mitchell was 14 she got pregnant and was coerced into the giving up her baby by her father (Archie). She was later told by Archie that her baby had died. Of course, she had not in fact died and the baby girl, some 19 years later, comes to London to find her mother as the shy Danielle. Of course this is Eastenders so this has to be strung out over months, so Danielle spend several months trying to build up the courage to tell her mother, getting pregnant from a one night stand in the process, and having her mother accompany her to the abortion clinic still not knowing this was her daughter and the foetus about to be aborted was her grandchild.

Even before this weeks climax then there had been an emotional rollercoaster. Recently, Danielle had told Archie, a sinister control freak of a guy, who she really was, and he trying his utmost to keep the truth from coming out, knowing if it did, his lie abouth the baby dying would be revealed and he would Ronnie would be back to hating him (they has just started to get on again).

Danielle was a true underdog character; shy, timid, emotionally needy and at times rather annoying, but one could not help liking her and wanting her innocence to triumph over the control freakery of Archie.

This week then it all came out in explosive fashion, initial Ronnie is persuaded by he Dad that this girl is a nutcase, but later realises that she had been telling the truth and that Danielle was indeed her daughter. She goes running after seeing her walking away down the street; they stare at one another and a moment passes between them where Danielle knows Ronnie has finally realised this is he daughter, the one she has never forgotten about, or forgiven herself for giving up. Then, just when you think it is all going to be OK, as Danielle steps out to go and embrace her mother - BAM! - fucking Janine Butcher comes careering around the corner and runs her down. Danielle crumples and dies in her Mum's arms, choking out a hoarse 'Mommy' before expiring.

It was very well done I have to say, but did they have to make it so crushing there at the end. Couldn't she have made it to hospital and been touch and go on life support before pulling through? Is it to much to ask that with all this doom and gloom around us with the economic situation, that a soap could just provide an optimistic chink of light, a smidgen of hopeful escapism? No, no, this is Eastenders and they make a point of being depressing bastards. Tragedy is their modus operandi. The only other programme to be so systematically cruel to well-loved characters is The Wire, which is even more callous in the way life is snatched so easily from characters you have several seasons of love for.

This is of course not the first time that we have had people bouncing off bonnets outside of the Vic. Looking at the stretch of road where Danielle was run down, I was almost minded to ask BBC to explain how someone could have built up the necessary speed to run someone down, as it looked like a cul-de-sac, but given the previous accidents, I might have to settle for launching a petition to get some speed bumps installed.